Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Elder Ancestor Bai exited into the wide streets of the Morality City from the office.
He immediately noticed the difference between the Morality City and the others.
There were three layers of the roads stacked upon each other.
The first layer was for pedestrians, the second layer was for civilian cars, and the third layer was mostly empty with an occasional ambulance speeding through.
It looked wasteful.
‘What a waste…’ Elder Ancestor Bai shook his head. Recalling his own underground city, he could never achieve this.
The underground city had three layers, and the streets were relatively narrow.
After all, they had to take into account the budget for digging tunnels on which roads can be built, it was not the same as above ground.
If it were not for demon rats working restlessly, no organization on Earth would even think to build a city of that size underground.
He was proud of that fact, but he could not help but sigh as he saw the building of the Morality City.
Differences exist between different beings.
Differences would surely exist between different nations.
It was like China and the USA. The latter was truly large with plenty of resources. While the former had only several decades of out of famine, the latter had been able to feast on their meats from eons prior.
Not only was it the largest developed country, but it was also the largest food exporter.
Too bad, when the Era of Vitality arrived, the USA seemed to have been stalled. However, those fundamentally racist white people would not tolerate the supremacy of races other than theirs to reign for long periods of time.
He continued walking slowly on the road.
Rare arboreal plants were planted on the sides of the road. They gave our wafts of fragrance that invokes a reminiscence to grassy greens. Coupled with a nice weather, anyone who experienced the scenery was calmed.
It was early February when spring officially starts. Most of China was still cold and chilly, and woods were still in their withered yellow state.
The shadows of the green arbors were projected to the road, segmented by the three-layered viaduct into sections.
‘Where is the sunlight from?’
He looked up with a slight hint of curiosity.
‘There is no sun in the sky…
‘But sunlight is coming from above.
‘Oh, this is the wonders of an arcane realm. They all look as if they’re independent of the outside world, but they’re actually closely anchored to outside.
‘If the main world is like a tree, this arcane realm would be like the branches extended from it.
‘Sunlight and rain from the outside world could enter this realm, what a brilliant design, just like trees could supply their branches with nutrition.
‘I’m so jealous of that Bodhisattva. He could easily obtain an entire arcane realm just by being on Vigilante A’s nice list, instead of spending twenty years underground toiling away for a tiny reward.
‘Differences of treatment does exist among people.’
As he was thinking, Elder Ancestor Bai wandered forward.
A varied number of shops began to appear on the roadside. They were very exquisitely decorated, well-stocked, and merchandise-versatile.
All those who entered or exited the shop front had been having a smile.
That was the normal part, outside was almost the same.
However, as soon as he walked into one of the shops, he realized an irregularity.
There was no one working in the shop. Everything was self-service, and people would choose the things that they want before going to the counter where they pay for their items automatically.
‘How could this be? Aren’t they worried that people might steal?
‘Can it be that everyone in this Morality City are people of moral, like my child had told me, so it was impossible to have thieves?’
He was in deep thoughts when a voice rang.
“Xiaozhi, how could you take things from the shop at your whim? This isn’t right.”
A boy in a red T-shirt had taken a red Transformers toy and had hidden it under his T-shirt. He followed his mother and was about to leave the store.
Elder Ancestor Bai nodded slightly, ‘That’s right. With no one around, there would be people who would take things that they want. Adults may be able to control themselves, but kids won’t.’
“Mommy, I want that toy.”
“You have enough toys at home, you shouldn’t get any more.” The mother took the Transformers toy out of his hands and set it back on the shelf.
“I want it I want it I want it I want it…” The kid began to cry and whine loudly.
All the bystanders looked curiously but did not interrupt, choosing to continue their grocery-shopping instead.
The mother smiled. She did not help her son up. Turning to the other people, she said, “Don’t worry, let him cry for a bit.”
Following that, she turned to the boy kindly and said, “Xiaozhi, don’t make it hard for uncles and aunties in the store, go to that corner and cry on your own…”
The boy stood up obediently and ran to a corner, sobbing. It looked like he had already formed a habit of that.
The mother stood aside, watching quietly.
Elder Ancestor Bai frowned slightly at the sight of that.
From a tiny incident like this, he could see the difference between the people here and his Greater Rat Clan.
If a rat was disobedient, would it not be okay to just beat it up? Who would have the patience to educate children that way?
He wandered in the store for a bit and noticed the supplies were abundant.
All those that exist in the outside world, exist here. Even payment methods were similar in the sense that they all used e-wallet apps on their mobile phones to pay.
He was familiar with the payment system, as the ones in his own underground city were even more advanced than the humans’ here.
Greater Rats were demons with Demonic Energy, and every demon would have a different energy signature. There was a tool that could determine whose that signature belonged to, and in turn, find out the demons’ real identities and their bank account.
Occasionally, some bugs may happen. For example, some stronger demons could imitate other demon’s energy signature to pay for them with their victims’ accounts…
However, that was not a huge issue. Even humans’ bank cards could be cloned and stolen, so there was no such thing as perfect security.
At least, they had been able to set up an account for each rat. All the income and expenditure were managed through it, so it was easy to check if there were an abnormal flow of money.
It might be time to release the Greater Rat Clan’s currency.
There was a saying, “Using another country’s currency is equivalent to paying tax to said country.”
Elder Ancestor Bai was listening to the kid crying when a white hamster toy caught his attention.
He gave it a thought and took the toy.
He only realized that he did not bring his mobile phone when he arrived at the self-service counter.
If there were any workers around, he could have paid with a gold piece.
‘What now?’
He looked around. Somehow, all the other customers had left except for the woman with the child.
The woman was sharp. As soon as she felt a gaze upon her, she looked up and noticed the short, old man standing hesitantly in front of the counter.
She glanced at her kid before walking over and asked, “Mister, did you forget to bring your phone?”
“Oh, that’s right. When you’re as old as I am, your memory deteriorates,” said Elder Ancestor Bai, nodding, “can you help? I have a tiny gold nugget as my thanks.”
As he finished, he retrieved a piece of gold.
“No, no need for that. Anyone could forget anything when going out. When I used to take public transport, I always forget to bring change. Plenty of kind-hearted people helped me back then.” The woman saw the hamster toy in his hand and immediately scanned the barcode on it with her own phone.
Following that, she scanned the payment barcode on the counter and completed the transaction quickly.
“Thank you, I guess plenty of good people still exist,” Elder Ancestor Bai exhaled.
“Sir, don’t you mean, ‘I guess good people still exist?’ ” The mother corrected.
“That’s right, that’s right. I guess good people still exist.” Elder Ancestor Bai smiled and kept his gold piece instead of insisting the mother to keep it, and left the store.
“What an interesting old man… Xiaozhi, stop crying, follow me home, now! If you don’t stop crying, I’ll break your dog legs!” The kind mother watched as the old man exited and did a quick glance to make sure no one else was around before barking at the kid who was still sobbing in the corner.
“I… I don’t want my legs broken…” The little boy stood up and followed behind his mother compliantly.
“That’s more like it. Do you think it’s easy to raise you? That heartless one holed himself at the construction site day-to-day, he didn’t even want to come home…” The appearance of a kind mother was gone, replaced by a moaning, disgruntled lady.
Elder Ancestor Bai who was right outside naturally heard everything.
‘That’s right. How would kids be so obedient? It’s not like I’ve never looked after children, I’ve looked after a dozen and more at once… hmph.’
He looked at the hamster toy slightly and threw it into his interspatial ring before moving on to look at the rest of the city.
