In the northern reaches of Jinchuan Province, cradled by mountains and dense jungle, lay an aged ruin.
Its name was Jinhe City, located some seven or eight hundred kilometers from Qingquan City—roughly the distance between Jiangcheng and Shancheng in the real world.
On the outskirts of Jinhe City, situated on a gentle slope at the forest's edge, sat a small settlement known as Dust Town.
Two to three hundred households resided here. A one-meter-high low wall encircled the settlement's perimeter, while a watchtower built of stacked granite rose within the town.
Settlements structured like this were quite common throughout Jinchuan Province.
After all, unlike Sunset Province, it lacked natural barriers like deserts and river embankments to restrict the migration and predatory range of mutated creatures.
Instead, because of its subtropical climate—humid, warm, and rainy—immense numbers of mutated creatures had migrated here from neighboring provinces.
Here, mutant slime mold was far from the greatest hazard; the most dangerous threats were the mutants migrating from the East Coast, alongside the radioactive waste scattered across the land.
Roughly a month ago, while the Alliance army had been clashing fiercely with the Legion in Sunset Province, the secluded Dust Town had still been quietly raking in a fortune. The mayor had earned a handsome stash of silver coins by trading with the Alliance.
With those silver coins, he had purchased a sizable batch of LD-47s and Maxims phased out from the front lines, replacing their original iron-pipe rifles and rusted daggers. He had also hired a crew of ruthless thugs as bodyguards, both to better squeeze the old farmers toiling in the fields and to protect the silver coins hoarded in his granite watchtower.
Yet the good times did not last.
The mayor was an ambitious man, but by sheer coincidence, the thugs he had hired were just as ambitious.
Seeing that the place possessed mountains, water, and arable fields, and that doing business with the wealthy factory owners to the north yielded easy money, this crew of seasoned criminals clicked instantly. Decisively returning to their old profession, they turned the mayor's own guns on him and slaughtered his entire family.
Dust Town changed hands for the first time.
For a time, the thugs lived high on the hog, bullying men and dominating women. Most traveling merchants turned a blind eye to it. In all likelihood, after a few more years, once the able-bodied workers had mostly been worked to death or killed, someone would snap, and the place would devolve into a new marauder camp.
Unfortunately for them, a talking lizard, a talking rat, and a human who could barely speak the wasteland tongue misread their map and ended up here by complete chance.
Originally, they had only intended to ask for directions to the coast, sending their most human-looking member to make inquiries.
Yet when the thugs heard the clueless newbie's bumbling questions, they burst out laughing and fixed their greedy eyes on the silver coins in his pocket, hatching a scheme to rob and murder him.
Rob and murder?
That meant they were marauders.
What followed went entirely by the book.
How could twenty-odd marauders possibly match such hardened veterans? Setting aside the human rookie, Scavenger and Qiangren Suonan were Alpha-version veteran players. With one acquiring targets and the other dishing out damage, they cleared out every marauder in town like red-named mobs without even firing a single gun.
At first, the townsfolk had been scared out of their wits. But once they discovered the Deathclaw could speak, their fear dissipated.
After all, the wasteland harbored far too many oddities.
A minor detail like a Deathclaw speaking human tongue was hardly anything to marvel at. And if a talking Deathclaw wasn't worth being shocked over, a talking rat was even less remarkable.
In fact, the survivors in the town grew quite fond of the pair.
Compared to the extortionate mayor and the bandits who had tramped and abused them, the lizard who called himself Scavenger and the rat named Qiangren Suonan were merely a bit ugly; they weren't terrifying at all.
To thank the three righteous "individuals" who had drawn their blades in aid, the villagers erected statues for them and even constructed an ancestral shrine to worship them.
Initially, the three players declined. But the feeling of being worshipped was simply too intoxicating, so with sheepish chuckles and faint protests, they accepted.
After that, the massive lizard promised to ensure the villagers' safety. The rat went even further, declaring that with him around, no other rat would dare steal grain from the granaries.
In return, the townsfolk promised to offer twenty percent of their harvest as tribute... which was incomparably lighter than the old mayor's seventy percent and the thugs' ninety percent!
The players, on the other hand, felt rather overwhelmed.
Twenty percent of the yield of a settlement of two to three hundred households was far more than even Scavenger could eat, no matter how vast his appetite.
So the three held a conference and decided to sell the surplus grain to passing merchants, using a portion of the earned silver coins to buy Alliance tractors and fertilizers for these poor folks to boost field yields. Along the way, they bought tools for digging wells and repairing houses, which would eventually increase their own tribute as well.
To streamline administration, they had the survivors hold a vote to elect a new mayor from among themselves, followed by selecting several respected elders to oversee the militia, armaments, finances, and grain respectively.
Thus, Dust Town changed hands for the second time.
Though barely a month had passed, everything seemed to be improving.
Until a peculiar patient appeared in town.
Sores broke out across his hands and feet, oozing pus; his body ran hot with fever, and his nose dripped incessantly, making him appear terminally ill. Curiously, however, these symptoms did not leave him bedridden and wailing in weakness. Instead, contrary to all expectations, his strength multiplied, and his appetite grew astonishingly ravenous.
Nothing so bizarre had ever occurred in this region.
Fear gripped the survivors of the town. They locked up this vigorous patient and promptly reported the matter to the three deities sheltering them.
Upon interrogation, the man confessed that he had caught a mild cold some days prior. Heeding the words of a hunter from an outside village, he had consumed a green fruit said to cure all ailments, and his condition had indeed improved.
Yet the relief was short-lived.
After some time, the cold showed no signs of truly clearing up, even threatening to intensify. To suppress the agonizing torment of the illness and avoid disrupting his daily labor, he had no choice but to continuously eat the green fruit, even secretly planting it in his own courtyard.
Ultimately, his body seemed to reach a strange truce with the virus: as long as he kept eating the green fruit, he remained free from the torment of the disease, growing stronger amidst boundless euphoria... even while his body turned into a breeding ground for the pathogen.
However, if he stopped consuming the fruit, the truce between body and virus would shatter, his health would plummet, and he would steadily rot away like a piece of dead wood.
After learning what had transpired, the three players immediately took the matter seriously. Without much effort, they tracked down the hunter mentioned by the patient and swiftly pinpointed the source of the green fruit.
It was a place called Hope Town...
***
Dust Town.
The ancestral shrine dedicated to the "deities."
"Say... do you still remember that we originally planned to go south to see the sea?" Wo Xiang Jingjing sighed suddenly, sitting on a wooden chair.
Scavenger Lv99 yawned.
"Yeah, I remember."
"Then when are we hitting the road?"
"Ummm..."
"Damn! You haven't gotten addicted to playing savior, have you?"
Watching Wo Xiang Jingjing make a fuss, Scavenger Lv99 rolled his eyes.
"Tch, aren't you having plenty of fun yourself!"
Wo Xiang Jingjing gave a wry, helpless laugh.
"I... well, there was nothing I could do on my own! And besides, we haven't saved our progress in over a month. Is that really okay?"
Before entering the game, he had bragged daily on the forums about exploring to the very edge of the map. Only after actually entering the game did he realize it was harder than ascending to the heavens.
First and foremost was the language barrier.
Even among the Alpha-version veteran players, those who could speak fluent "human tongue" were a minority. The VM's translation function in offline mode carried far too many traces of crude machine translation; some terms were incomprehensible even after being translated, and others weren't translated at all.
To this day, he only knew a few phrases for basic daily communication.
Relying on that half-baked human speech to roam the wasteland was practically holding the man-eating horrors of the wasteland in contempt.
Scavenger, however, was thoroughly indifferent to his concerns.
Save progress?
What did he need that for?
Human builds were just weak!
"Pfft, what's a lack of saves matter? Play this game long enough and you'll realize that levels are only a tiny, tiny fraction of everything in it—just like dragons in *Skyrim*, the Witcher in *Gwent 3*, and rainbows in *Rainbow Six*."
"Pfft, what the hell does *Rainbow Six* have to do with rainbows!"
Scavenger Lv99 declared proudly, "Same difference! What the hell are sequence levels in *Wasteland Online* anyway? Are they that important? Does my low level stop me from flexing? Are the NPCs here not realistic enough? Or is living a second life under a different identity not thrilling enough for you?"
"Sigh... I really envy you mutant beast players," Wo Xiang Jingjing said, his face full of longing.
If he were a mutant beast player, he could probably wander freely across the wasteland.
After all, most mutated beasts gave Deathclaws a wide berth, and ordinary survivors rarely dared provoke them.
"Stay calm. It's like having a repeating-digit QQ number—only the ultra-lucky get that treatment." Looking at the newbie's envious expression, Scavenger chuckled, though inwardly he was weeping bitter tears.
He was strong.
Indisputably strong.
Unfortunately, no matter how strong he was, he lacked a dick.
Qiangren Suonan at least had a harem of spiritual waifus, but in front of other Deathclaws, all Scavenger ever earned was a mocking snort.
Indeed.
Other Deathclaws looked down from the bottom of their hearts on an "underdeveloped" runt like him, whereas even White Bear could win the favor of ordinary local bears simply by being a white-furred beast.
Every time he recalled Neko's disdainful glare, he would bare his fangs in fury, yet he remained utterly powerless to do anything about it.
Dammit...
Curse this damn game setting!
It was precisely because of this that when Dust Town's new mayor had timidly asked whether they should prepare a shrine maiden to serve the gods in the ancestral temple, Scavenger had flatly refused without a second thought.
What a joke.
He was the one doing the fighting; why should this little rookie get all the perks?!
This tail of feudalism had to be chopped off!
At this moment, Jingjing was entirely unaware of what splendid entertainment he had missed out on. His attention was completely captivated by the rat scampering in through the doorway.
A plump, massive rat was directing several smaller rodent minions, dragging a burlap sack inside and thumping it onto the floor.
Jingjing stepped forward, untied the mouth of the sack, and peered inside, only to snap it shut immediately as a foul stench assaulted his nostrils.
"Holy crap! What the hell is this? It stinks so bad!"
"Emerald fruit! That's what the locals call it. Grows on a kind of tree. They claim eating it cures all illnesses," Qiangren Suonan said, raising a slender arm to wipe away sweat, his long whiskers quivering. "Cures all illnesses my ass... bringing this stuff back cost me several of my boys."
Slacking off was second nature to rats. Those small rodents subdued by his brute force didn't follow his orders unconditionally, especially beyond his sight.
Sneaking bites was a frequent occurrence. In fact, never mind sneaking food—his "harem" often ended up mysteriously pregnant out of nowhere.
In the end, his most obedient subordinate wasn't a pure rat at all, but a marmot that had stuck by him for a long time.
Ever since he commissioned a set of steel claws from Mosquito and fitted them onto the rascal, it had torn apart plenty of traitors within the pack on his behalf.
Enduring the stench, Wo Xiang Jingjing reopened the sack to examine the emerald fruit inside. He discovered that the stench did not emanate from the fruit itself, but from a layer of dark green mucus clinging to its surface, as well as the soil saturated with the same green liquid.
Scavenger also stared curiously at the contents of the sack for a moment before turning his eyes toward the fat rat resting on the stool.
"Don't you have Iron Stomach? Take a bite."
"Screw off! Having Iron Stomach doesn't mean I have high poison resistance!" Qiangren Suonan rolled his eyes. "You've got high constitution—why don't you take a bite!"
Scavenger grinned, scratching his head with a thick, massive claw.
"Having high constitution doesn't mean I like eating shit... To be blunt, this thing looks fishy as hell to me!"
It was so glaringly green.
As a pure-love warrior, it made him feel physically sick.
Qiangren Suonan gave a light cough.
"Anyway... the intel is solid. Just as that patient confessed, this stuff suddenly cropped up in Hope Town. At first, only a few people grew it. Later, the soil where the fruit trees grew could support nothing else. Coupled with the local landlords' greed to sell it for cash, more and more people took up planting it."
Wo Xiang Jingjing asked curiously, "Is it very expensive?"
Qiangren Suonan continued, "Definitely more expensive than grain. Though not many merchants buy it, the local survivors say that while they initially planted it for money, as time went on, making money ceased to matter... Eating it keeps sickness away; you don't need clothes, you don't feel the cold, and you see paradise. In front of it, money is like dirt."
Hearing this, Jingjing's expression grew solemn.
"Consuming this thing strips away all desire... It's unquestionably a drug."
"No shit, did that need saying?" Smacking the rookie across the back of his head, Scavenger looked at Qiangren Suonan and asked, "So this stuff originated from Hope Town?"
To his surprise, Qiangren Suonan shook his head.
"No, they got the saplings from someone else. Supposedly... the original sapling came from a mutant tribe called 'Qi,' in an abandoned urban area about twenty kilometers from here."
Wo Xiang Jingjing's eyes widened instantly.
"Mutants?!"
Qiangren Suonan chuckled.
"Surprising, right? But if you look at the observations and descriptions of mutants on the official website, it's actually not hard to understand."
"Mutants are a peculiar group. In the first stage, they live in tribal packs, acquiring food and reproducing through 'hunting.' In the second stage, a certain degree of 'civilization' begins to emerge from violence. The concrete manifestation is the birth of concepts like 'farming' and 'domestication'—such as cultivating mutant fruit for food, penning a certain number of human females and a few males, allowing livestock to reproduce autonomously, and then systematically 'using' and slaughtering them. I hear there's a third stage, though right now that's still just a hypothesis."
"The 'Black Stone' tribe that other players discovered in the Great Desert was probably somewhere between the first and second stages. But this 'Qi' tribe is likely in the late second stage, perhaps even transitioning into the third..."
Scavenger stroked his chin.
"What's the evidence?"
"Evidence? Isn't it obvious? Word has it that the mutants there number over ten thousand, maybe even tens of thousands! Maintaining a population of ten thousand through violence alone is impossible. Something 'else' must have emerged among them... like Gul'dan to the orcs." As he spoke, an excited glint flashed in Qiangren Suonan's eyes.
Perhaps he could borrow some sociological insights from them to figure out how to build a vast rat empire.
Wo Xiang Jingjing's expression turned grave.
"...That's no small matter. A mutant tribe of over ten thousand, separated from us by only twenty kilometers, yet we've been here so long without hearing a peep about it."
Scavenger nodded as well, speaking seriously.
"Yeah. That these mutants have no interest in raiding the surrounding small villages is far too abnormal..."
Regardless of whether anyone cared, they needed to sync this noteworthy intelligence to the official *Wasteland Online* website.
Both the story concerning "Qi"...
And that bizarre "emerald fruit"...
***
While the "pioneers" in the south fretted over how to handle the village patient and how to send samples of the "emerald fruit" back to the Alliance for chemical analysis, preparations for the triumphal celebration had entered the final countdown.
Lanterns and banners adorned every street and alley, and the roads bustled with pedestrians. The holiday had begun yesterday, and shops across the city had rolled out discount promotions, more than doubling the usual number of stalls in the bazaar.
The vendors hawking their wares here were not merely Dawn City locals, but also traveling merchants hailing from Daybreak City, Falling Leaves City, and even Garbage City, the Red River Alliance, and various other survivor settlements.
The dazzling array of goods and ubiquitous commercial opportunities not only turned Dawn City into a living expo center, but also made silver coins an absolute treasure in the eyes of countless visiting traders.
Only those who intended to return again and again would keep silver coins in their pockets as actual currency. Looking at the warehouses and shelves packed to the brim with supplies, nobody doubted that the purchasing power of silver coins would remain as rock-solid as ever.
In particular, with the return of the shelter residents from the front lines, those people had brought back not only rare treasures from Sunset Province, but also the bustling vitality they had carried away months earlier.
Ever since the main force had marched to Sunset Province, Dawn City had not seen such vibrant festivity in a very long time.
Such grandeur could truly be described as "all nations coming to pay homage"!
"It's so lively here!"
Watching the thronging crowds around her, Alisa was as excited as a bird released from its cage, her cheeks—usually pale from lack of sunlight—flushed red with exhilaration.
Seeing his daughter in such high spirits, Melvin could not help letting out a relaxed smile.
"So you have to hold Daddy's hand tight, okay?"
"Mm!"
Alisa nodded vigorously, squeezing her father's hand.
This was her first visit to Dawn City.
Although it was only twenty-some kilometers from their home, at least ten of those kilometers were treacherous.
For the sake of those ten kilometers, her father had brought along at least fifty bodyguards, among whom the silent uncle appeared to be a bionic synthetic produced by Boulder Military Industry.
From the moment she stepped into this settlement, she had been glancing around in relentless curiosity.
Everything here was utterly novel to her.
The men and women browsing the streets and the smiling shop assistants were actually not much older than her, mostly seventeen or eighteen, with barely any elderly faces to be seen.
Passing by a stall, she stopped involuntarily, her gaze landing on a beautiful head of hair.
More precisely, on the fishbone-shaped hairpin clipped into that hair.
The tiny fishbone looked as though a cat had nibbled a notch out of it, making it delightfully endearing. In the shops of Boulder City, she had never seen such a cute accessory.
The older sister wearing the hairpin was very pretty too.
Her skin was slightly dark, like wheat kissed by autumn sunlight, possessing a wild charm. Yet the smile on her face held a softness that formed a striking contrast with her complexion.
Noticing Alisa's stare, Qiu Cao immediately realized she was looking at the hairpin in her hair. Smiling faintly at the young customer, she said, "Do you like it?"
Alisa nodded.
"Mm, I like it..."
Qiu Cao blinked, looking at the adorable girl.
"Because you're so cute, customer, it's only one silver coin."
*So cheap!*
And...
This sister spoke so pleasantly.
Blushes rose on Alisa's cheeks. Feeling it would be terribly rude not to buy it, she looked pleadingly at her father and tugged his sleeve.
Seeing how much his daughter liked it, Melvin—who originally felt the hairpin was rather beneath their station—said nothing. With a smile, he waved toward his bodyguard.
The latter gave a taciturn nod, pulled a silver coin from his coat, and placed it on the stall, completing the transaction.
Melvin turned to his overjoyed daughter and cautioned, "Don't wear it in front of your mother, okay?"
"Mm!"
Alisa nodded obediently.
Melvin smiled and ruffled her hair, took the hairpin from her hands, and personally clipped it into the side of her hair.
The delicate little fishbone looked exceptionally cute against her golden locks.
Of course, he knew full well that this was not because the hairpin was particularly precious or the northern suburban bumpkins possessed remarkable craftsmanship, but because noble blood flowed through his daughter's veins.
Their destination was Dawn City's most magnificent Embassy Street. He had already booked a VIP suite at the Ideal Hotel located along that avenue.
That was the most famous hotel in the surrounding area, funded and constructed by the Ideal Group. It accepted payment exclusively in Cr, catering primarily to visiting residents from Ideal City, though others could book rooms as well if they could afford the Cr.
The entire hotel rose a full twenty stories, towering head and shoulders above the rest of Dawn City. All the furniture and even the cement used to build the walls had been shipped from Ideal City, while the service staff comprised one hundred bionic maid synthetics produced by the Kangmao Group.
Whether for lodging or conducting business, it was the premier choice.
The Alliance's surveillance drones buzzed everywhere in the skies, but they would never dare poke their noses into an Ideal City hotel; he was well aware of that.
On the way to the hotel, Alisa looked around inquisitively before suddenly blurting out, "Why do they all look so happy?"
Melvin chuckled.
"Because the celebration is starting soon."
"What about us?" Alisa tilted her head, looking at her father. "Why don't we hold celebrations too? Lots of fun things would show up, wouldn't they?"
"Us?" Melvin paused for a moment before his smile returned. Looking at his daughter, he said gently, "We don't need things like that for interesting items to appear. Remember the shops I took you to?"
"The ones in the inner city?"
"Exactly. All the finest goods in the entire settlement are there. We can even buy bionic prosthetics imported from Ideal City; there's no need to jostle with those people in the bazaar."
Noticing the faint disappointment in his daughter's expression, Melvin stroked her head with paternal affection.
"My child, why would you envy those people... It's just a hairpin. If you like them, I can commission craftsmen to make any kind of hairpin you want, in completely unique designs. You should know your life is far better than theirs."
Alisa muttered dejectedly, "But in Boulder City, people always lower their heads when they look at us."
Melvin sighed, explaining patiently, "That is because they respect us."
Alisa looked at her father in confusion.
"But... you can't even see their eyes. How do you know whether there is respect or hatred in their gaze?"
Hatred?
Melvin's brows furrowed.
"Who taught you such things?"
This time, he was genuinely somewhat angry.
He had always taken great care to preserve the fairytale world inside his daughter's heart. He never expected to live in that pure world himself, but he hoped his most cherished youngest daughter would never have to touch the things he dealt with daily for the rest of her life.
Yet, somehow, nasty influences always managed to sneak into his house, blowing open the curtains he had painstakingly hung time and time again.
Hatred?
How could such a word exist in his daughter's vocabulary!
Seeing her father's displeased expression, Alisa closed her mouth. A trace of fear surfaced on her face; she dared not make a sound, nor did she answer.
Realizing his expression had frightened his daughter, Melvin quickly softened his demeanor into a warm smile and dotingly caressed her beautiful hair.
"My precious girl... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to raise my voice. Please forgive Daddy for occasionally bringing negative emotions from work back home, and please believe Daddy—Daddy would never harm you."
Pausing, he continued patiently, "Your shoes, your dresses, and your pretty dolls didn't just appear out of thin air. The world was destroyed a long time ago. Those lowly folk toil tirelessly to present all these wonderful things before you not because they love you like Daddy does, but because of the collective efforts of your father, Uncle Dulong, and the shareholders who support us... all of us working together. You don't need to pity those losers living gloomy lives. If you truly understood them, you would know they don't deserve pity at all... Starting tomorrow, you are not to read the *Survivor Daily* anymore."
Perhaps he should have a word with Dulong upon returning.
He supported those newspapers, broadcasts, and other entertainments. For instance, Mr. House's radio channel was quite good; besides poking fun at ugly wastelanders for amusement, it taught surrounding survivor settlements how to grow cash crops... but the prerequisite was that these things had to remain purely lighthearted pastimes.
Yet judging by current trends, the *Survivor Daily* was clearly no longer that kind of publication.
Although the sub-publication *Playboy* was packed with boundary-pushing content meant to tantalize fantasies, those harmless jokes always left him feeling that the butt of the humor was himself. Were inner-city nobles truly that lecherous? What kind of beauties hadn't they seen? How could they possibly lose their tempers just because they couldn't tear a pair of stockings made from devil silk!
Even more abominable was the *Worker's Daily*. Why did all those serialized novels feature penniless commoners rising to power? Did those fools whose brains were soaked in beer not realize how utterly illogical that was? No matter how formidable a mercenary became, at most he remained a lapdog. What did being an Awakened even matter? Could flesh and blood trade punches with power armor?
Thinking of how every single worker seemed to carry a copy of the same paper, Melvin felt a faint chill seep into his heart.
Perhaps his daughter was right.
How could he know whether love or hate was hidden behind those lowered gazes? Human beings were vastly more complicated than mutants.
However, this matter could wait.
The urgent priority was resolving the circulation issue of the chips.
They had accumulated far too much "local currency."
This would not do!
The essence of trade lay in mutual benefit, but right now it seemed the Alliance was drinking all the beer while Boulder City got stuck with a belly full of foam.
There had to be a stable channel to convert the surplus chips into silver coins, or ideally bypass the trashy silver coins altogether and exchange them directly for Cr!
If he could solve this problem, every noble in the inner city would thank him, even those who weren't his core clients!
No matter how comfortable life in the inner city was, it could never match Ideal City.
If massive quantities of chips could be converted into Cr, they could take that Cr to Ideal City and enjoy a divine lifestyle they had never dared dream of before. Boulder City's factories would churn endlessly, while the surplus chips would pour into a bottomless reservoir.
Thank heavens, the Alliance had accomplished the very thing he had longed to do his entire life but never had the chance to: resolving the Cr exchange problem.
And not through the bulletin-board consignment exchange seen at trading posts.
The scraps spilled when those merchants shook their bottles and cans were nowhere near enough to divide among them; he even had to manipulate the market with extreme caution just to scrape together tuition for his son.
Yet the Enterprise was remarkably generous toward the Alliance.
Word was that to prop up the Alliance, those East Coast profiteers had granted them a preferential exchange rate of 1:3! Three silver coins could fetch 1 Cr!
Currently, the exchange cap remained unknown, but even if it were only a hundred million, that would be enough to make the inner-city nobles dance for joy.
Boulder City was a victor nation too; he had to help the residents of Boulder City scoop a share from this genuine honeypot!
The Alliance would serve as the bridge!
Just then, at the entrance to Embassy Street, he spotted an unexpected figure.
From that iconic azure power armor, he could guess who it was without even asking!
Signaling his bodyguards to remain in place, Melvin immediately led his daughter forward, greeting him in high spirits.
"Respected Administrator, what a pleasure to run into you here!"
Hearing someone call out, Chu Guang turned his head to see an ostentatious man leading a young girl, greeting him with a smile.
"And you are?"
"I am Melvin, president of the Boulder City Bank! I have long admired your renowned name!" Performing an elegant aristocratic bow, Melvin looked at Chu Guang with a warm smile, introducing the little girl beside him along the way. "This is my daughter, Alisa... Alisa, quickly greet this gentleman."
"Hello, respected Administrator," Alisa said, mimicking her father's movements with an elegant curtsy, blinking as she looked at Chu Guang. "You look much younger than in the legends. I thought you would be of my father's generation."
Chu Guang burst into laughter, replying to the little girl in a teasing tone, "It seems I'm still not mature enough; I have much to learn from your father."
"You flatter me!" Deftly picking up the conversation from his daughter, Melvin said respectfully, "Among all the settlement leaders I have ever met, you have left the deepest impression on me. Please forgive my daughter's impudence."
"How could that be impudence? Youth is the morning sun, the hope shining upon the vault door—it is the highest praise," Chu Guang said with a gentle smile, looking down at the flushed girl. "I have a premonition that with such intelligent eyes, you will grow up to be an extraordinary person."
Alisa's eyes lit up, overwhelmed by the compliment. "Really?"
"Of course," Chu Guang nodded, glancing at her hairpin with a smile. "Your hairpin is very lovely."
"I, on the other hand, only hope my daughter can live a peaceful and safe life," Melvin said with a chuckle before turning back to Chu Guang. "My visit this time is to convey congratulations on behalf of all the shareholders of Boulder City Bank! Congratulations on defeating that savage Legion and bringing the light of order to River Valley Province! Our future is brighter than ever—our shared future!"
Chu Guang offered a courteous smile in return.
"Thank you. On behalf of the Alliance's residents, I accept your well-wishes, and I welcome you as guests in Dawn City. Fine wine and delicious food await our friends here. All who come are guests, and all are friends!"
This was Chu Guang's first time meeting Melvin; previously, Luka had handled all communications, and Chu Guang had not participated.
In fact, this encounter was purely coincidental. He had merely dropped by Embassy Street to console Yi Chuan, who was still grieving his brother, and to discuss recent infrastructure projects with Li Changkong, the representative from the Ideal Group.
He currently held a billion Cr in subsidies, and the five major conglomerates were all keenly interested in the funds allocated to him by the council.
While Chu Guang curiously appraised this richest man of Boulder City, Melvin was also scrutinizing the man before him with sharp attention.
Young, tall, overflowing with vitality—this man possessed everything Melvin envied... especially those piercing, torch-like eyes.
He had no idea what thoughts churned inside the man's mind, but whenever their eyes met, Melvin felt an irresistible urge to avert his gaze.
At times, he couldn't help wishing his eldest and second daughters hadn't married yet.
Hedging bets on both sides was always a sound choice.
Given how much the inner-city nobles "appreciated" this political strongman who could help them strike it rich, even if Melvin showed some wavering allegiance, they would only assume he was playing along for the collective good. After all, marrying noble blood into a barbarian land required a fair bit of courage.
"Well then... I must escort my daughter to check into the hotel shortly. Would it be convenient to speak with you privately later?" Melvin knew his time was precious and felt awkward detaining him too long.
According to protocol, he was supposed to speak with Luka first before scheduling an appointment with this leader. That was procedure, as well as etiquette.
Chu Guang nodded with a smile.
"Certainly, though it might be difficult before the celebration... Could it wait until after?"
He was already itching to stuff the bonds straight into the portly man's pockets, but prior to that, he needed to make some necessary preparations.
Preparations that would help him sell those bonds at a far better price.
After all, bringing it up right now might give the impression that he was desperate for cash... and that was something he could never afford to reveal.
Melvin froze slightly.
Chu Guang's reaction genuinely caught him off guard.
He had assumed Chu Guang would arrange a time immediately, yet the man showed no urgency at all, appearing completely confident regarding the ten million chips in principal and interest due soon.
That was ten million chips.
Spread across every Alliance resident, that amounted to at least fifty chips per person.
*Could this guy be planning to default?*
Doubts stirred in Melvin's mind. Though his instincts told him that was unlikely—an ambitious leader wouldn't commit such short-sighted folly—he couldn't help wondering where the man intended to conjure such a sum.
Chips couldn't simply be printed at will.
They were, after all, manufactured by pre-war casinos.
"Very well, we shall follow your schedule!" Melvin gently patted his daughter's back and smiled. "It works out nicely anyway; I can take little Alisa around to sightsee... With meetings running non-stop lately, it's been far too long since I spent time with my precious daughter."
Looking at the father and daughter, Chu Guang gave a nod and smiled.
"Mm. I wish you both a wonderful time at the celebration."
Chapter 524