tkworld Chapter 701 The Strange City of Immortality
Chapter 701 The Strange City of Immortality
Chapter 701 The Strange City of Immortality
Lin Xiaohe set up her stall on Yongsheng City East Street for five days, and her sales were only 4 bowls of steamed egg custard, all thanks to the support of her colleagues.
Hao Jiejie's gaze towards her changed from hopeful and encouraging to doubting life, and then to being unable to bear looking at her.
On one occasion, Lin Xiaohe even overheard her muttering to herself behind the stall.
"What's going on? They're good enough to make the soup of oblivion, how come they can't learn from New Oriental?!"
Wang Tianhai, the bald monk, and the mute boy all shuddered.
This is because they don't even want to pretend anymore!
However, they just wanted to keep pretending.
I won't listen, I won't listen, you're just spouting nonsense.
Lin Xiaohe sighed deeply, and had to admit that there were things she couldn't do!
The only difference between her dishes and Hao Jiejie's dishes is one thing, which is also the most crucial thing: that mysterious energy that surges up from the stomach after you eat it!
That gentle, lingering sensation could penetrate along the meridians to the extremities.
Lin Xiaohe never found out where they came from.
On the tenth day, the job assignment notice from the Yong Sheng City Government Affairs Department came down.
"We've all been assigned to the street patrol team." Lin Xiaohe was putting rice into the pot, preparing to make the last batch of fried rice for the day, without looking up. "What's that for?"
The bald monk's expression changed unusually: "Urban management officers plus the police station."
The spatula paused for a moment.
Police station?
Lin Xiaohe's impression of the police station was that everything from trivial matters to major crimes like murder and arson was under its jurisdiction.
For example, helping students find their lost schoolbags, or resolving disputes over someone defecating in front of a shop.
She rolled up her sleeves to her elbows and continued making the fried rice.
Regardless of your job position, no one has stipulated that you can't have a side job after get off work!
Lin Xiaohe gritted her teeth; she refused to believe it, she couldn't understand where that power came from!
Compared to her indifference, Wang Tianhai was much more serious.
Despite his complaints about civil servants, once he was appointed, he asked Hao Jiejie for help and got himself a new outfit.
He wore a gray short jacket with dark blue trim on the cuffs and collar, and the character "巡" (patrol) was embroidered on the chest. He had a token at his waist with his name and number engraved on the front and a black pot on the back.
The bald monk refused to wear the clothes, saying, "It has a bad connotation."
If there's a black pot on the back, isn't that just taking the blame?
In the end, Wang Tianhai was the only new civil servant who diligently went to work and patrolled.
He didn't have any objections; on the contrary, he was very enthusiastic and eager to get to work.
However, a month later, he became listless and, for the first time ever, ordered a bowl of fried rice with eggs from Lin Xiaohe's stall.
Lin Xiaohe: "What's wrong? Were you bullied?"
Wang Tianhai swallowed hard, his shifty eyes scanning his surroundings. Finding the stall as deserted as ever, he breathed a sigh of relief, then said with a heavy heart, "I feel like Eternal City is strange."
Lin Xiaohe: "What's strange about it?"
Wang Tianhai picked at his fried rice, feeling lost and afraid.
"Grandma Dongtou's braised pork offal stall only sells two pots of braised pork offal a day. Once they're sold out, she closes up shop, but her pots are never empty. There's always a line of people, and new customers always arrive just as the last bowl is sold out."
Lin Xiaohe: "Perhaps it's because she has a strong ability to manage risks?"
Wang Tianhai protested, "That's not how it is! Oh my god, how am I supposed to explain this to you?!"
Lin Xiaohe handed him a bowl of soup: "Take your time, don't rush."
Wang Tianhai took a deep breath: "Some things are actually very small, but they make me feel uneasy. When so many things feel off together, there's definitely a problem!"
“For example, at the intersection of West Street and South Street in Yong Sheng City, there is a young ghost cultivator who sells roasted chestnuts. He looks about sixteen or seventeen years old, but the household register shows that he has been in the city for more than three hundred years. I observed him for four shifts and found that he only sells one hundred servings of roasted chestnuts a day, and he closes up shop when he sells them all.”
"Don't speak! Of course I know, this is normal behavior. But what's abnormal is that every day when he sells his thirty-seventh serving, a little girl in red will always come to buy a serving of chestnuts. The little girl hands him two spirit stones, the boy takes the spirit stones, wraps up the chestnuts, and hands them back. The little girl takes the chestnuts and says thank you, brother. It's always like this! Every single time!"
Lin Xiaohe: "That doesn't prove anything. At most, it just means that both of them are very punctual and polite."
Wang Tianhai was so anxious he kept pacing around in circles.
“I encountered an unexpected incident once while I was patrolling the streets. A ghost cultivator was squatting in the middle of the road crying, as if he had been separated from his parents. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“At that time, I stopped to observe the reactions of the surrounding stall owners. The one-eyed old man stopped shoveling, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. The one-armed old woman stood there, holding her bowl, and the soup in the bowl spilled onto her hands, but she did not react at all. The kebab stall owner's hand was hanging over the charcoal fire, and he did not flinch even when his fingers were licked by the flames.”
"Alright, I know you're going to say that these are normal reactions for ghost cultivators. But I swear on my life, they're different."
Wang Tianhai's eyes held a deep sense of apprehension: "They weren't indifferent, but rather seemed to have briefly crashed. At that moment, they collectively froze when faced with an event that couldn't trigger any templates or find any preset paths. They hadn't been programmed with a dialogue tree to handle 'missing children' scenarios."
Lin Xiaohe: "So? What are your thoughts?"
Wang Tianhai lowered his voice, almost inaudibly: "Is there a possibility... I mean, perhaps, maybe, possibly, that Eternal City is actually a huge game?"
"Many citizens, like NPCs, take on tasks and strive to survive. Their actions are derived from a database, matching scenarios and extracting appropriate responses. When a situation arises that is not recorded in the database, they are unsure of what to do."
The bald monk who overheard said, "A very interesting idea. But I'm certain I don't have any database; everything comes from my heart. Besides, if it's really as you say, that the City of Immortality is a huge game, then what about us? Who are we? Why are we different?"
Wang Tianhai's eyes shone like light bulbs: "We are the chosen ones! From my observation, the city's citizens are becoming increasingly mechanized. In order to save Eternal City, the city lord sent Hao Jiejie to join us and guide us."
The bald monk patted him on the shoulder: "I admire your imagination. Listen to less of the stories about the City of the Dead in the future. The City of Immortality is a small underworld. Perhaps your speculations are more accurate for the old City of the Dead."
Wang Tianhai stomped his feet angrily, shouting, "You have to trust my intuition!"
His intuition had never been wrong; the moment he first met Hao Jiejie, his intuition was frantically alerting him.
He was attracted to beautiful women, so he ignored his instincts and insisted on staying in the team!
Among his team members, only Lin Xiaohe stood firmly by his side: "What you said makes a lot of sense, I support you. You said that the mechanized movements of the city residents are getting worse and worse. Is that true?"
"More real than real gold!"
(End of this chapter)