Chu Guang stayed in Weifu City for three full days.
Aside from listening to Li Jinrong's work report on the first day, he spent the remaining two days wandering through the settlement, following the "guides" posted on the forum by players.
Unlike the cookie-cutter Singularity City, every district and street of this settlement was filled with stories.
Take Kun Town, for instance.
What had begun as a spur-of-the-moment stunt by players had now turned into the most bustling district in Weifu City.
Especially after the lads of the Enterprise's 100th Mountain Division carried the Kun cards created by Mosquito back to Ideal City, the street became swarmed with "players" visiting from Ideal City.
No one had anticipated things would come this far, including Mosquito himself.
Though his original goal was merely to fool around while making a quick buck, he never imagined that the intricate game rules and narrative-rich cards would unexpectedly take Ideal City by storm—or at least captivate a significant share of its otaku.
Examining the underlying reasons, this trend was likely inseparable from Ideal City's vast yet barren digital wasteland.
The dizzying speed of information exchange caused every fragmented byte of data to lose its original meaning, rich yet hollow like a vibrantly colored kaleidoscope.
Precisely because of this, once detached from the information services provided by the Endpoint Cloud and forced to slow their communication down, they experienced the pure joy of returning to simplicity.
In short, Kun Town in Weifu City, like neighboring Singularity City, had become the spiritual haven for another segment of Ideal City's population.
Backpackers who had flown in from the East Coast on a "pilgrimage" wandered the streets.
And with the influx of these visitors, the wasteland town began showing the first sprouts of an unexpected "postmodern renaissance," giving birth to numerous wildly imaginative creative works.
There were spin-offs based on Kun cards, as well as indie creations blending the bizarre brainstorming of players.
The residents of Ideal City brought not only the wild concepts from the Endpoint Cloud, but also the accompanying technologies.
Examples included holographic projection technology capable of fooling the naked eye, and virtual reality that enabled complete immersion into dreamscapes.
While these art forms were a bit too advanced for ordinary wastelanders, they resonated surprisingly well with the players from another world.
And that was not all.
Chu Guang heard that local lifestyle-class players had teamed up with engineers from Ideal City to develop a unique system called "Braindance."
This system interfaced with the retinal nerves, storing captured visual signals in a chip and reproducing them through specialized playback devices.
It drastically lowered the production costs of immersive VR films and games while enhancing visual fidelity, holding significance on par with old-world humans installing cameras on mobile phones.
Previously, creating VR games and cinematic works was the exclusive privilege of professional directors. Now, anyone could be a director—all it took was installing a set of cybernetics and plugging in a chip to produce their own work.
Influenced by this invention, *Wasteland Online* had further upgraded its "Death Replay" and "Real-Time Screen Recording" features.
Prior to this, both functions relied primarily on head-mounted cameras attached to action recorders, an operation far less convenient than the Braindance system.
As for the relevant legal and regulatory oversight, the Representative Assembly would naturally deliberate based on practical needs.
Before then, the players who developed the apparatus had already implemented several restrictions per the provisions of the *Player Handbook*, such as restricting the distribution of explicit content and instituting rating standards.
Beyond their advances in culture, art, and technology, the survivors of Weifu City had achieved impressive progress in the economic and industrial spheres.
Clean, orderly buildings sprang up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, lining straight, paved streets. Just two years prior, this place had been an uninhabited, barren wasteland.
According to Li Jinrong's report, 170,000 wastelanders had already settled here.
Among them were pioneers from Boulder City and Dawn City, wanderers from Jinchuan Province and Yuema Province, Wilantes from as far as Yunjian Province and the West Coast, and settlers from the Wandering Marsh.
The marshland dwellers in particular brought resource prospecting and extraction techniques inherited from the Science Committee, along with scrap recycling methods learned from scavenger bands in northern River Valley Province.
Armed with these techniques, they secured loans from the Alliance's bank to establish resource extraction companies, drawing upon nutrients buried beneath the pre-war ruins for two centuries and transforming them into the lifeblood of industry, hauled by rail to every industrial zone across the Alliance.
Beyond resource exploitation, the local survivors adapted to local conditions by harnessing the wind energy of Ten Peaks Mountain, erecting cylindrical wind turbines atop the towering peaks.
Notably, this was the handiwork of North Island Heavy Industries from the South Sea Alliance. Survivors there excelled at utilizing renewable energy, having refined that capability to its peak over more than a century.
While the electricity generated from wind was neither as massive nor as cheap as that from controlled fusion reactors, it was more than sufficient for Weifu City's population of 170,000.
They could even export surplus electricity to Singularity City in exchange for agricultural produce and light industrial consumer goods.
Compared to running a power line all the way from Daybreak City, this was a far more economical solution.
Though controlled fusion was efficient, helium-3 was a non-renewable reserve. Until Earth-Moon flights were restored, the Alliance's energy reserves were not plentiful enough to squander at will.
In addition, the expanding farmland along the Wei River and the outlying districts sprawling outward along roads and railways were equally worthy of note.
Many soldiers from the Brahma Province expeditionary force chose to remain here, and their extraordinary passion for land accelerated Weifu City's expansion to a degree.
By contrast, pioneers from Boulder City preferred living in crowded urban centers—save for those from mercenary backgrounds.
All in all, the locals had found a development path suited to themselves, balancing internal and external growth while merging the unique strengths of various peoples.
In Chu Guang's eyes, this was what was truly commendable.
If time permitted, he would have liked to stay longer to inspect everything that caught his interest.
However, ten more settlements were awaiting his visit. The places he lacked the time to tour would have to be left to the players to observe on his behalf.
***
At the Weifu City train station.
Having bid farewell to Li Jinrong and his entourage, Chu Guang sat in the waiting room beside the platform.
Watching the bustling crowds outside the window and the thriving settlement behind them, a satisfied smile appeared on Chu Guang's face.
"Weifu City will serve as a fine demonstration."
Lyu Bei looked puzzled. "A demonstration?"
"That's right." Chu Guang smiled and nodded, continuing in an easy tone. "I told you long ago that barbarism cannot be wiped out by force alone. Like weeds swept by a spring breeze, they sprout anew after the fire has burned through. Yet just like backward modes of production, they will ultimately be supplanted by more advanced ones. Our civilization was born through this very process.
"What we can take pride in is that we have already nurtured the spark of civilization. The only challenge lies in allowing it to spread spontaneously to distant lands.
"Weifu City offers a wonderful demonstration of this. Wastelanders from all directions come here, witness our order and prosperity, become drawn to it, and then carry it back to every corner... Along the way, our ideals will follow the roads and railways they travel, continuously extending outward, injecting fresh blood into this desolate earth and waking the civilization slumbering beneath the soil."
Lyu Bei scratched the back of his head.
Chu Guang knew the young man had not fully grasped it, but he did not mind. With an amiable smile, he wrapped up the subject.
"The next stop is Settlement No. 1... By the way, will we be passing the Eastern Legion's encampment?"
Finally reaching a subject where he could contribute, Lyu Bei promptly replied with solemn focus, "I have already made all security preparations."
Seeing the earnest look on the young man's face, Chu Guang chuckled. "I'm not worried about security. I was just wondering if there would be an opportunity to go have a look."
He had frequently heard players on the official forum claim that the 'big noses' over there had been corrupted into the shape of the Alliance, and he had always been curious about what that shape actually looked like.
Lyu Bei blinked, his expression hesitant. "You mean the area controlled by the 37th Myriad? But... after all, that isn't our territory."
"Hmm... true enough," Chu Guang agreed thoughtfully, nodding. "It would indeed be better to have Cheng Yan dispatch a formal diplomatic note to Myriad Commander Bannote first."
As the two were conversing, the station's public address system suddenly crackled to life.
"Attention, passengers. We regret to inform you that due to an unexpected emergency on the Haiya Province railway section, Train D97 has executed an emergency stop near the ruins of Haibei City. The rail line is temporarily closed, and departures bound for Settlement No. 1 are suspended until further notice...
"Personnel from a nearby outpost have been dispatched to investigate the incident area. Please wait patiently. We will notify you as soon as the issue is resolved..."
The moment the announcement finished, an uproar broke out among the passengers on the platform.
Those bound for Settlement No. 1 turned from stunned disbelief to incandescent rage.
People surged toward the duty booth, mobbing the modest service window and shouting over one another in a frantic press.
"What the hell are you people doing?!"
"What happened out there? You tell me to stay calm—at least tell me when the trains will be running again!"
"Dammit! I booked a passenger ferry to North Island tonight! Now you're telling me the train won't move and the resumption time is pending?! Who's going to compensate my losses?!"
"Refund our tickets!"
Besieged by the barrage of questions, the staff member inside the booth was completely overwhelmed.
Evidently, the young woman behind the counter had no idea what had occurred down the line, having received the notice no earlier than the passengers themselves.
In truth, let alone her, even Lyu Bei in the waiting room was thoroughly bewildered—until a soldier of the Guards Corps jogged inside, saluted with a tense expression, and halted beside him and Chu Guang.
"Report! A train-pedestrian collision occurred 110 kilometers north of Settlement No. 1... According to reports from the nearby outpost, approximately 120 survivors from Settlement No. 1 attempted to intercept a passenger train. Although the engineer triggered emergency braking, the distance was too short, and the train plowed into the crowd... resulting in two dead and one seriously injured."
Lyu Bei glared at him. "What is the local branch doing over there?! An incident this massive, and they only find out now?!"
The soldier hung his head, explaining anxiously, "...It happened out in the wasteland, and it occurred too suddenly."
Frustrated by their incompetence, Lyu Bei snapped, "At the very least, those people came out of the settlement, didn't they?! Did our people there catch no wind of it at all?!"
As the soldier stammered, struggling to explain, Chu Guang raised a hand to cut short their exchange.
"All right, don't give him a hard time. Even I cannot possibly know every single thing that happens in a settlement."
The Guards Corps branch at Settlement No. 1 had been established less than six months ago; it was understandable that their intelligence gathering was still unrefined.
Moreover, in a settlement populated entirely by immigrants, population mobility was extremely high, and the boundary between the settlement and the wilderness was blurred. Completely preventing every contingency was next to impossible, particularly when the incident took place out in the wasteland.
That they were able to ascertain the situation so quickly was already commendable; there was no need for excessive blame.
Looking at the soldier with his head bowed, Chu Guang continued in a gentle tone, "Raise your head, straighten your back, and tell me what happened out there. Has the situation been brought under control? Why were they trying to intercept the train? And what was their purpose—or rather, their demand?"
Moved by Chu Guang's words, the soldier straightened his posture and resumed his report.
"The accident took place within the territory controlled by the Eastern Legion's 37th Myriad. A centurion named Anthony brought the situation under control and handed the detained instigators over to the outpost guards who arrived on the scene...
"According to the guards' investigation, those people are all survivors from Brahma Province. Most have already obtained Alliance citizenship, while the remainder hold supervised status. Upon encountering the guards, they made a demand, stating... stating that they wish to see you."
Chu Guang was taken aback. "...See me?"
The Guards soldier nodded with a subtle expression. "Yes... They keep shouting that they want to see the Alliance's Administrator."
***
At an outpost near the ruins of Haibei City, Anthony leaned against his open-top off-road vehicle, having just finished a boxed meal brought over by his Alliance brothers. He washed it down with a swig of beer and let out a boozy belch.
The decurion sitting on the hood looked over at him, asking with a helpless look, "Are we really going to keep hanging around here?"
After turning the "perpetrators" over to the Alliance guards, this matter had theoretically ceased to be their concern.
Yet his commanding officer seemed to have developed an addiction to watching the drama unfold, stubbornly refusing to leave and even brazenly mooching a free meal.
Hearing his subordinate's voice, Anthony grinned nonchalantly. "What's the rush to head back? We might as well wait around and see. Who knows, we might just catch a glimpse of the Alliance's Administrator."
Word had it that the man had crushed a Church of the Torch Harbinger clad in biological power armor with a single blow from a hammer.
And that was under siege from a swarm of bat-winged mutants.
Anthony had always wondered what the man looked like, and how many arms and heads he had.
Of course, what intrigued him even more was how the man intended to handle this affair.
These people were Alliance citizens, after all.
And his most "loyal" supporters to boot.
Just as his curiosity peaked, two faint blue arcs flashed across the distant twilight sky.
Anthony tossed his beer bottle aside, snatched the binoculars hanging inside the car door, and peered toward the suspected plasma plumes.
A few moments later, an excited grin broke across his face.
"He's here!"
Shortly after the words left his mouth, a Viper transport flew in from the direction of Ten Peaks Mountain and descended gently onto the weed-choked wasteland.
Anthony was not the only one who noticed the two arcs of light; the Alliance guards at the outpost spotted the approaching transport from afar, as did the Polos detained at the outpost gate.
Seeing the Guards Corps soldiers disembarking from the transport, Jeremy, crouching on the ground, recognized the exoskeletons they wore. The sullen droop of his face instantly flushed with an excited glow.
It was the Administrator's personal guard!
That lord truly did care about them!
Ignoring the guards' reprimands, Jeremy leaped from the dirt like a rabbit bursting from a thicket, sprinted toward the guards, and threw himself to his knees with a heavy thud.
"Lord Administrator... You've finally come... We... We have been wronged!"
The air turned eerily still.
The armored Guards stared down at him coldly.
Behind their pitch-black visors, Jeremy could not see their expressions, yet he could feel the chill in their gaze.
He swallowed involuntarily, searching for the azure power armor, only to see a man dressed in civilian clothes.
A distinct aura radiated from the man.
Yet unlike what he had imagined, it was not the terrifying majesty of his fantasies, but an assuring, persuasive strength that inspired conviction.
"Tell me, what is this injustice you speak of?"
Jeremy pressed his forehead firmly against the dirt, his voice trembling with a sob. "We only wished to see you, yet those Wilantes... and these uncouth guards dragged us here like common criminals!"
As he spoke, he threw a resentful glare toward the open-top vehicle parked not far behind, fixing his gaze venomously on the man standing beside it.
Standing motionless, Chu Guang looked at the old man prostrating before him, yet unlike his usual reprimands, he did not command him to rise.
He understood.
Others bowed their heads out of fear of power and authority, but this man did so out of a heartfelt yearning.
Lifting him to his feet would achieve nothing; it would only indulge his servile desire.
In the past, Chu Guang had never fully understood this sentiment. Even back in Singularity City, he had wondered more than once why certain people preferred to live like animals.
Now, watching someone demonstrate it in the flesh, comprehension struck him in an instant.
These people genuinely craved a sacred emperor who could step forward and resolve every real-world contradiction for them, even if that reality-defying omnipotence was entirely a creature of their own imagination.
Their notion of equality was the equal license to do whatever they pleased; the moment the person promising them equality failed to fulfill their desires, they blamed their real-world suffering on equality itself, believing that unless equality was absolute, it was absolute inequality.
Yet they were not entirely to blame.
Part of the fault lay with those who had brought them here under well-intentioned lies, leaving them under the impression that the Alliance was a wishing machine and that he was Santa Claus riding a reindeer to hand out gifts.
Perhaps what they lacked was not equality, but having not suffered enough under the heel of inequality.
Chu Guang fell silent for a moment before looking down at him and speaking again.
"Now that you have met me, what is it you wish to say?"
Jeremy held his breath in excitement, tears of gratitude streaming down his face as his forehead rubbed against the earth until it nearly bled.
Not only him, but all the other Polos squatting by the outpost gate felt the same.
They were like true pilgrims!
After a journey fraught with hardship, they had finally beheld the true god in their hearts!
The revered Lord Administrator!
"The survivors of Settlement No. 1 have been deceived by the Representative Assembly! For personal gain, those representatives have colluded with beasts in human skin... Driven by selfish desires and glib sophistry, they disregard the Alliance's interests entirely!
"Yet all is not lost! So long as you raise the call, we will rally around you—every Polo you have saved will! I swear upon my family name that I shall remain eternally loyal to you, as will my children, my grandchildren... all our generations to come!
"Only by disbanding those vermin! Only by throwing them into prison and sentencing them to death can we bring an end to the Wasteland Era and achieve true equality! This is for all our compatriots in the Alliance, before it is too late—"
The old man wept bitterly as he spoke, his forehead planted firmly on the ground like a loyal minister offering his life for his sovereign.
The other Polos beside him were no different.
None who followed this man to this point could be considered ordinary or sensible.
"To see me, you intercepted a train that could not possibly stop in time, killing two people who should not have died and leaving another without a leg... You claim this is for the compatriots of the Alliance? I will not even ask how much of that is sincere—have you ever shed a single tear for your own compatriots?
"There is no need to lecture me about people thousands of kilometers away whose names you cannot even utter. Just look at the railway behind you, at the people who were alive only hours ago, right before your eyes."
Hearing the measured voice drifting down,
Jeremy froze. He lifted his head, meeting a pair of eyes filled with pity.
This should have thrilled him.
Yet for reasons he could not fathom, that pity carried an unsettling chill.
It was not pity directed at him, but pity for something he carried.
It felt like watching something of value tumble into a mud pit.
As if, aside from that single thing, the rest of his life was utterly devoid of worth.
He tried to argue, parting his lips, but not a single word came out.
Chu Guang's patience wore thin as he waited, having no interest in listening to improvised excuses.
"It seems you have successfully moved yourself, while I understand less and less of what you are saying.
"Under Alliance law, the organizers bear primary responsibility, and the participants bear secondary responsibility. It should not be my place to repeat this, but today I make an exception for you.
"Even if you likely care nothing for the two dead compatriots or the safety of everyone aboard that train, and have never cared for the law, so long as you stand on Alliance soil, you must abide by the rules here and pay for your own stupidity.
"Save your words for the judge. If you wish to kneel, then by all means, keep kneeling."
The moment his words fell, Chu Guang's outline blurred, dissolving into scattered motes of light that dispersed on the wind.
It was a holographic projection.
To the very end, that lord had not answered their prayers, refusing even to deign to meet them in person.
Despair engulfed Jeremy's eyes, his face turning ashen as though his soul had been sucked out, leaving him as good as dead.
The guards standing nearby exchanged glances, unsure of what to do for a moment.
This farce was presumably over, but the fallout was likely far from finished.
Having concluded their business, the Guards Corps boarded the aircraft.
With two bursts of plasma plumes, the Viper transport turned around and set off along its return route.
"Get up. You've seen the Administrator. Even if what he said wasn't pleasant to hear, I'd say he still keeps you people in his heart... Had it been those big noses, they wouldn't have been nearly so polite."
Walking up to Jeremy, the outpost commander nudged him with a shin.
Jolted by the touch, Jeremy finally regained his senses. The fierce arrogance on his wrinkled old face gave way to panic, like a defeated rooster.
The Administrator had no need for his loyalty.
He had thought he was acting for everyone's good, never expecting that in that gentleman's eyes, he was merely a lunatic disrupting order and an irredeemable burden.
He had backed the wrong side.
And his convictions had turned into a joke.
He seemed to recognize the problem, yet at the same time seemed entirely blind to it.
Still, he was genuinely afraid now.
A few minutes earlier, he had treated the law as scrap paper; now, he took the initiative to inquire about the Alliance's penal code.
"...What will happen to us?"
Looking down at the trembling old man, whose shoulders seemed to have shriveled until he appeared half his size, the outpost commander sighed.
"Who knows? Nothing this absurd has ever happened before..."
Marauders who intercepted trains were typically sentenced to reform through labor; if lives were lost, they faced execution or life imprisonment depending on the circumstances... Yet "lives" usually referred to casualties among the train's crew or passengers.
Killing their own people...
He had never seen the like, and it likely set a historic precedent since the Alliance first laid its railways.
Pausing briefly, the outpost commander added, "Still, lives were lost and economic damage was done. A prison sentence is guaranteed—perhaps a dozen years behind bars, perhaps deportation... In the end, the judge has the final say."
And if the judge could not make up his mind, the matter would probably be passed to the legislature for debate; the affair was simply that bizarre.
Come to think of it, demanding the dissolution of Settlement No. 1's representatives...
What had this fellow been thinking?
Those people had spoken up for them, and quite frequently at that.
***
Leaning against the off-road vehicle, Anthony lowered his binoculars and muttered under his breath, "So that's what that guy looks like..."
Aside from looking quite handsome, there did not seem to be anything particularly extraordinary about him.
Still, for the leader of a crowd, appearance was irrelevant.
What mattered was that the Administrator's manner of speech had surprisingly resonated with him.
Perhaps as a Wilante, what he despised was not the smell of mud clinging to those people, but those who claimed to act for their compatriots while their hands were soaked in their compatriots' blood.
Then again, such people were hardly exclusive to the Polos; the Wilantes had plenty among their own ranks... Those blue moles truly did possess a measure of foresight.
At the thought, Anthony felt a sudden pang of envy toward the blue moles.
Their Administrator was alive and kicking, occasionally stepping out to speak a few words and make his presence felt.
Whereas his most, most, most revered Grand Marshal had not been active like that for a very, very long time...
Chapter 909