Regarding Blue Sea’s history, there was one phrase that held true from ancient times to the present: waging war without restraint.
The reason the Blue Sea civilization—despite having Cheng Qisheng’s support—had only grown to a population of 360 million was precisely because they had taken those four words to the absolute extreme.
Fortunately, the president of this generation was quite capable and realized early on that they couldn’t simply keep charging recklessly forward.
Faced with the two choices of “pause and focus on development” and “keep fighting and fighting,”
President Qin Zhi chose… both!
***
When Song Xi led the Explorer Squad into the city, she could already hear explosions booming from every direction in the distance, mixed with the rumbling clatter of road-breaking machinery.
It was so noisy that it sounded as though a million houses were being demolished at the same time.
Who would have thought? They had already left the boundaries of Qianli City, yet on the rooftop of the neighboring city, they had unexpectedly run into the Blue Sea civilization’s forward exploration team.
After asking around, they learned that the Temple had actually moved directly to Qianli City.
They had set out from home and traveled thousands of miles, passing through multiple cities over more than half a month—only to look up and discover that “home” had followed them all the way here.
Naturally, Song Xi happily brought her team members back.
This was perfect. They could replenish the weapons and ammunition they had used up, and Wang Moning would also get a chance to learn more about Blue Sea.
“What are they demolishing to make such a huge racket? Let’s go ask at the information desk.”
She led the team in a detour from Gate Passage 44 to Gate Passage 45, heading toward the inquiry office there.
Wang Moning followed closely behind her. It was her first time entering an alien city, and she was extremely nervous, afraid she might get separated if she wasn’t careful.
Seeing Song Xi deliberately take such a detour just to visit the inquiry office at Gate 45, she asked curiously,
“Captain, Gate 44 has an inquiry office too.”
Song Xi laughed. “I know. But the receptionist at Gate 45 is my classmate.”
“Oh!”
So that was why.
Wang Moning thought to herself: so even aliens relied on connections and familiar faces to get things done.
Song Xi arrived at the inquiry desk at Gate 45. Instead of asking first about the explosions echoing throughout the city, she deliberately placed her tactical watch on the counter.
With a loud thud, her wrist struck the platform, the points display on the watch turned directly toward the staff member.
The young man sitting behind the desk glanced over casually at first. But when he saw the number of points displayed, his expression immediately changed to shock.
“So many? Did you wipe out a zombie nest outside?”
The corner of Song Xi’s mouth lifted slightly. “By the grace of our God, these are all rewards granted by Her.”
The young man’s expression instantly shifted from surprise to intense envy.
“You actually received a reward from God?!”
He immediately straightened up, even patting his chest in a gesture of admiration toward Song Xi.
Song Xi’s smirk became even more pronounced, her entire demeanor radiating unconcealed satisfaction and smugness.
Wang Moning, standing behind her, was speechless: “……”
So the reason she had taken a detour wasn’t to make use of a familiar connection—it was to show off to someone she knew.
After finishing her little display, Song Xi finally remembered to ask about the booming explosions in the distance.
The young man replied, “The Temple absorbed that defeated city, along with all the buildings on it. But those buildings aren’t really suitable for living. Some are so luxurious they’re blinding, yet have far too few rooms; others are so run-down they’re completely uninhabitable.”
“So the President issued an order: demolish every building from the defeated city, flatten the whole place, and rebuild everything from scratch.”
“I see.” Song Xi asked curiously, “Then if those places were too run-down to live in… why were there houses there at all? Who lived in them?”
“The sl*ves of the defeated city. I’ve been there before. Those so-called ‘houses’ were only this tall and this narrow.” He gestured with his hands. “They weren’t really houses at all. Just a few wooden boards nailed together. They couldn’t even keep out the wind and rain. People slept directly on the dirt floor.”
The young man demonstrated their size with his hands: about waist-high and barely two meters wide.
“Those blue-skinned people really are cruel. It’s not as though they lacked manpower or space to build decent housing. If they hated the sl*ves so much, they could have just killed them outright. Why go out of their way to torture them?”
Song Xi nodded repeatedly in agreement as she listened.
“Exactly. Those blue-skinned people really are hateful. So what’s happening to those sl*ves now? I saw them outside, and it looked like they were building houses too.”
The young man replied, “A divine oracle has been issued. Our God is merciful and is willing to shelter them temporarily. At the same time, some among them who also believe in our God will be selected and brought into Blue Sea.”
Song Xi’s eyes immediately lit up. She pulled Wang Moning forward.
“This is a local friend of mine. She has already received God’s blessing, so can I apply for a resident card for her now?”
Suddenly dragged to the front, Wang Moning became extremely nervous.
She had been trying to piece together their conversation the whole time, understanding most of it only by guessing, but she did understand Song Xi’s final sentence.
She wanted to say that she might not necessarily join Blue Sea. But then she thought of her family, who had already been confirmed dead, and of the survivors who had been tortured by those blue-skinned aliens—and suddenly it seemed she really had no other choice besides Blue Sea.
At the very least, the members of the Explorer Squad had already become her friends. The so-called Creator God had also “noticed” her, had given her a very good impression… and had even paid her a salary.
But… did she really have to join an alien civilization?
Completely cut herself off from the language and culture she was familiar with, and integrate into another civilization?
Could she really fit in? Would these aliens truly accept her?
In her world, even different human races discriminated against one another—let alone beings from different planets.
The young man looked Wang Moning over, his gaze lingering in particular on her arms, which were far thinner than those of Blue Sea people.
Wang Moning was already anxious, and that look—as if he were thinking, “This weak little thing can receive divine blessing too?”—made her especially sensitive.
Fortunately, the man only glanced at her briefly before carefully taking a crystal ball out of a drawer.
“Please place your hand on it.”
Wang Moning had no idea what it was for, but she obediently placed her hand on the crystal ball anyway.
The crystal ball emitted a faint, shimmering white glow—weak, but unmistakably present.
Wang Moning froze.
So this was what a world with gods looked like?!
It was unbelievably strange—and amazing!
The young man’s expression immediately became warm and enthusiastic. He gave her a broad smile.
“You’ve received divine blessing, so you’re eligible for a resident ID. I’ll process it for you right now. Come on, face the camera—smile.”
Wang Moning could clearly feel the change in his attitude.
Only moments ago, he had still been looking at her with the unmistakable awareness that “this is an alien.” But now his tone was already as familiar and natural as when he spoke to Song Xi and the others.
After the photo was taken, snap—the young man pulled out a resident ID registration form.
“Now just fill this out. If you can’t read, you can have Song Xi help you. Once it’s completed, I’ll enter it into the system, and your ID will be ready.”
That fast?
Wasn’t she supposed to pass some kind of test first, then be told to go to a government office, submit her information, be questioned, verified, checked—and only after several working days finally receive approval?
How could a resident ID be processed right here at a gate inquiry desk?!
Three minutes later, Wang Moning was holding her own resident ID.
It was extremely crude and simple. Only her name, gender, and address were written on it.
She looked at it and asked, “What does this address mean?”
When Song Xi had filled out the form earlier, she had asked whether Wang Moning wanted to spend 100 points a month to rent subsidized housing. There was no guarantee they would be neighbors, but they could at least be assigned to the same building.
Wang Moning had almost instinctively wanted to cling to her like a chick following its mother hen. The moment she heard they might be placed in the same building, she naturally nodded eagerly.
She still couldn’t read Blue Sea script, but even judging from the length alone, she could tell something was wrong.
Wasn’t this address a little… far, far, far too long?
Song Xi took the resident ID and read it aloud:
“District 9, Sector 309, Street 184, D79 Residential Area, Building 176, Floor 81, Unit 56 from the left.”
She smiled brightly.
“Arthur really is reliable. I’m on the 82nd floor—we’re neighbors!”
Wang Moning’s head was already spinning just from hearing all those “district, sector, street” designations.
When she heard “81st floor,” she looked even more shocked.
“So high up?”
As expected of aliens. Their technology was so advanced that they lived in buildings that tall.
Wait… if she remembered correctly, the captain had once mentioned in casual conversation that Blue Sea was also carrying out large-scale construction and was currently in a period of resource shortages. A building more than eighty floors tall… surely it had elevators, right?
Song Xi looked surprised.
“Elevators? Why would we need elevators?”
Wang Moning was even more shocked than she was.
“No elevators? You climb all the way up on foot?”
How long would that take?!
Song Xi patted her shoulder.
“Don’t worry. It doesn’t take long. Two minutes to get up. Very fast.”
Wang Moning: “……”
More than eighty floors… in two minutes?
She had a feeling that the “climbing” Song Xi was talking about and the “climbing” she herself was imagining were probably not the same thing.
Just as she was silently mourning her legs, Wang Moning suddenly snapped her head up and looked toward the sky.
Song Xi and the other team members all followed her gaze in unison.
“What’s wrong?”
“What are you looking at?”
Wang Moning scratched the back of her head.
“Nothing… I just felt like something was watching me. Maybe I imagined it.”
***
Cheng Qisheng watched the scene and remarked, “She’s quite sensitive.”
Was it because she was a new believer, making her somewhat special? Or was this girl named Wang Moning simply born with sharper senses?
She had originally been observing the progress of the vanguard team when she suddenly sensed a reaction from one tiny fragment of her distributed attention, so she shifted her perspective over.
The crystal ball used at the inquiry desk to test faith was a new invention she had developed herself.
Since she was already capable of distributing her attention across multiple regions of Dark Star, could she divide it even further?
After many attempts, Cheng Qisheng successfully split off an even finer, almost microscopic thread of attention and placed it inside those crystal balls.
Whenever a believer touched one of them, that thread of attention would trigger a switch inside the crystal ball, causing it to light up.
Naturally, this little invention had been created specifically for those alien believers.
Cheng Qisheng had already made a decision regarding these other civilizations.
When the time came to leave this world, she might take some members of other civilizations with her—but official resident IDs would only be granted to believers.
Everything else could be faked, but faith could not.
As long as someone believed in her, she could sense their existence. If she focused closely enough, she could even vaguely perceive their emotions.
She could tell loyalty from betrayal at a glance.
That did not mean all of Cheng Qisheng’s believers were necessarily good people. Human nature was far too complicated for that.
She could not guarantee that every new believer joining Blue Sea would be righteous, but as long as they were believers, they would fall within her “monitoring range,” and any major disturbance would not escape her notice.
There were still bad people in Blue Sea. Even while committing evil deeds, they still believed in the great Creator God.
Cheng Qisheng had no intention of building some perfectly harmonious, crime-free society. A world where law enforcement consistently held the upper hand over criminals was already good enough.
To her, this power of faith was like a game she had created, with every believer acting as a player within it.
Players could live normally and do all kinds of things. There would be righteous players, and there would also be destructive troublemakers—but no matter what they did, ultimate authority over the game world would always remain in the hands of its server administrator: her.
And now, Wang Moning was the first “external player” to join after the game had launched.
Cheng Qisheng couldn’t help paying a little more attention to her.
Oh, right—the spokesperson for Cosmic.
She had already asked Qin Zhi to investigate and locate that person.
It turned out to be a researcher named Ruo Buyan.
She still had not obtained the qualifications to enter the Safe City, but Blue Sea had always followed the principle of rewarding merit. Ruo Buyan had made a considerable contribution during the recent battle for the Safe City. Without her tricking Cosmic into spending more core crystals, Blue Sea would not have won nearly so easily.
So although Ruo Buyan was still living outside the city walls, the benefits and treatment she received were first-class. She had even successfully secured a position at a research institute—which was still under construction. The house assigned to her was among the first batch to be completed, and 10,000 points had already been credited to her temporary account.
Ruo Buyan was very satisfied with her current life—but she had no intention of stopping there.
Through a Blue Sea staff member responsible for coordinating with her, Cheng Qisheng had once seen that ever since Ruo Buyan learned that only believers in the Creator God could obtain official Safe City residency, she had become the most diligent visitor to the temporary temples outside the Safe City.
Every day, she memorized the stories of how the great Creator God had created and saved Blue Sea, rapidly studied Blue Sea’s language and writing, and spent day and night poring over a scripture compiled by the Blue Sea Temple called Genesis.
She had even seriously asked temple personnel whether Blue Sea possessed any kind of “physical brainwashing technology.”
Something like removing part of the brain to create a temporary blank in one’s memory, then implanting new memories that would make her believe she had always been a follower of the great Creator God.
At the time, she had rushed up to a preacher and asked,
“If there is, please use it on me! I’m willing! As long as it doesn’t affect my knowledge, even if memory loss is a side effect, I can accept that too!”
The young preacher had been badly frightened.
“Manipulating the human brain is an evil act! Please calm down!”
After being rejected—and nearly being labeled a heretic—Ruo Buyan had no choice but to give up reluctantly. As a compromise, she began constantly reciting the greatness of the Creator God every day, trying to “brainwash” herself psychologically through sheer repetition.
Even Cheng Qisheng couldn’t help admiring her.
With that kind of determination, Ruo Buyan would probably succeed at anything she set her mind to.
She planned to wait until these other civilizations had settled down a little, then create a “miracle” and see whether she could attract more people into believing in her.
Cheng Qisheng had already made up her mind: even if Ruo Buyan witnessed the miracle and still failed to become her believer, she would bring her along when Safe City left this world.
Although she could not allow Ruo Buyan into Blue Sea’s core circle because she had no way to fully control her, every bit of value she created would still be rewarded accordingly.
Of course, it would be best if Ruo Buyan truly managed to become her believer through this self-imposed “brainwashing.”
A talent like this—ruthless toward both herself and others, highly intelligent, exceptionally capable, and deeply knowledgeable—was exactly what Blue Sea needed.
Cheng Qisheng’s gaze passed through one of Blue Sea’s believers and briefly landed on Ruo Buyan, who was frantically memorizing Genesis, before shifting once again to her first alien believer: Wang Moning.
Meanwhile, Song Xi had already taken Wang Moning through several transfers and routes before finally arriving at Building 176 in D79 Residential Area.
“So lucky—we only spent two hours getting here. Development really is fast. When I left, every route had resident quotas. Just getting out of the city could take five hours.”
But Wang Moning’s face was pale.
“Captain… isn’t the bus going too fast?”
The vehicle they were riding looked similar to the buses from her memory, only longer and wider.
Before getting on, she had even thought alien transportation didn’t look all that different after all. But the moment it started moving, she immediately realized how wrong she had been.
It wasn’t driving.
It was flying.
At that speed, if anything went wrong, everyone inside would die instantly, crushed beyond recognition.
Song Xi laughed.
“It is a little fast. But don’t worry. My classmate said all the city routes are now controlled and assigned by the AI. The AI makes sure no people or objects ever appear along a bus’s route.”
“And if there’s an obstacle ahead—say, a broken-down bus blocking the road—the AI will immediately notify the driver and reroute the traffic, so accidents are absolutely impossible!”
AI?
That sounded incredibly advanced.
Once again, Wang Moning found herself thinking, “Alien technology really is unbelievable,” while secretly worrying that she might look like some ignorant country bumpkin.
Next time she encountered something like this, she told herself, she had to stay calmer—at the very least, she needed to keep her expression under control.
She raised her head and looked at the towering building before her.
It stretched straight into the clouds. Its exterior was exceptionally crude, nothing more than bare concrete shaped into a massive cylindrical structure.
It was enormous.
The building alone had as many as ten entrances.
So this was where the people of Blue Sea lived?
Compared with it, she wasn’t even an ant—she was barely a speck at the entrance.
Song Xi failed to notice her local friend’s silent amazement. She stretched lazily.
“Alright, let’s go in. We’ll put down our luggage first, then go buy you some basic necessities.”
She raised her resident card.
Beep.
The gate responded.
The barrier opened.
Song Xi walked in first and gestured for Wang Moning to follow.
Wang Moning nervously took out her own resident card as well.
Another beep.
She stepped inside.
—And then froze, her mouth slowly falling open.
The outside of the building had already looked rough and massive, but the inside was even rougher.
There wasn’t even paint on the walls—only bare, exposed concrete.
There were no stairs, nor were there any visible floors stacked one above another.
This was clearly a women-only residence. Tall, strong Blue Sea women like Song Xi could be seen moving back and forth everywhere.
At the center was a circular hall. Above it, row after row of what had to be hundreds of water taps had been installed along the ceiling.
Some people were doing laundry there, some were washing themselves, and there were even several small rooms whose purpose Wang Moning couldn’t quite figure out.
Those small rooms were the only things in the entire building that resembled the kind of “proper housing” Wang Moning was familiar with.
She looked upward.
The walls were densely packed with openings, like a beehive—except unlike an actual hive, these openings rose layer after layer without taking up any of the central space.
Some openings had clothes or fabric hanging across them as makeshift curtains. Others were completely exposed, allowing Wang Moning to see inside: beds, bags hanging from the walls, and storage cabinets farther in.
The highest openings seemed to extend at least a hundred floors upward.
There were no elevators.
No stairs.
Only long iron chains hanging down from above.
There were many of them. People were constantly grabbing hold of the chains to move up and down, while others used them to transport belongings. If someone was already using a chain lower down, those above would simply twist aside and switch naturally to another chain nearby, their movements practiced and efficient.
She even saw a child who lived dozens of levels up grab a chain and swing directly across to a friend’s room, then catch another chain, climb a few steps, and enter another opening where yet another child was already waiting.
Wang Moning: “……”
Her mind went completely blank.
And she wasn’t the only one who was stunned.
Cheng Qisheng, who had been happily drinking milk tea, was also dumbfounded.
“Aether, this is the residential district you all built?”
She knew that the Blue Sea civilization and Aether had been developing infrastructure at an aggressive pace, but before this she had only seen the towering buildings from a bird’s-eye view. She had been busy with work—and dealing with Cosmic—so this was the first time she had actually seen what the inside looked like.
Blue Sea citizens could practically cosplay Tarzan in here.
This residential structure was basically a gigantic beehive.
Which genius came up with this?