Chapter 149
Chapter 149: Leaving the 17th Platform, People Setting Off Again
Luck is intangible; a tiny difference can lead to worlds apart.
Leaving the Tower of Babel, Ye Qiyan did not feel it quite real until he returned to the station behind the church at No. 44 Nakolo Street and looked at the Order Card in his hand.
Just returned like this?
Without any obstruction, without any accidents, everything felt so logical.
Back in Solomon City, Zhu Xingtu had also obtained an Order Card, but the result was nothing like this.
“Brother Qiyan, you’re back?”
“Mhm…”
His expression when looking at Zhao Lin was somewhat complex, and just as he was about to speak, he suddenly noticed that a layer of bandage had somehow been wrapped around Zhao Lin’s ankle.
“Injured?”
Zhao Lin chuckled.
“I accidentally bumped into a stone on the way back. It’s fine, not badly hurt.”
What Ye Qiyan cared about was not this.
You must know that Zhao Lin was currently in a state of absolute good luck. Since it was good luck, how could she get hurt because of a stone?
Unless, her luck wasn’t infinite?
Unable to figure it out, he would just have to see what happened at Zhao Lin’s next Platform.
Time: 9:00 PM.
The moment it obtained Sloth.
That sense of lazy comfort permeating the city had vanished completely.
As time went on,
things just like what happened in Solomon City were taking place.
Even at night, the Train Exchange was packed with people.
Mokugo Yujin, that ronin, pulled out a black-and-white photograph from his bosom. On the photo was the owner of that roadside stall from back then.
He bit down on a cigarette and turned to look at the group of people behind him.
“Brothers, please, remember to take care of his family’s children. Once I make a name for myself in the wilderness…”
They were all Train Captains from the same batch as Mokugo Yujin.
And they were all losers.
Yet now, they successively took out the Train Coins they had saved for many years. Twenty or thirty people pooled together and barely managed to gather one hundred coins.
Mokugo Yujin took the bag containing the Train Coins, entered the exchange, purchased a Train engine, and re-entered the wilderness.
And similar things were constantly happening.
As Sloth dissipated, the desire called adventure was reborn in the hearts of some people.
However, more people still chose to stay.
Even without Sloth, they lacked the guts to enter the wilderness again.
————
City of a Thousand Stars.
Tower of Babel, highest floor.
Above the clouds, inside the conference room.
A golden man sat coldly at the very front of a group of people, and a thick murderous intent echoed throughout the room.
Among these people, the leader was a young man who looked to be only in his early twenties.
Embedded in the center of his brow was a light blue, eye-like gemstone.
The young man sighed, walked up to the man, and said:
“Mr. Order, I’m sorry. We haven’t found the thief who stole your treasure. That person most likely possesses some kind of item or Module that can hide their whereabouts and information, or even render prophecies invalid, so…”
“Trash.”
The man’s words did not cause any change in the young man’s expression. Instead, behind him, a tall, red-skinned brute angrily slammed the table.
Bang——!
“Say that again!? Do you really think we’re afraid of you!?”
“Shut up, Bartos!”
“But, City Lord!”
The young man addressed as the City Lord glanced coldly at the brute.
“It is our responsibility that the Inspection Headquarters couldn’t find that person. Mr. Order is right; we indeed did wrong.”
The man, or rather, Mr. Order, stood up, his tall physique looking down at the young man, and called out the other’s name.
“Lu Jiayun, when you people borrowed Order Cards from me to build these cities back then, you guaranteed that my Order Cards wouldn’t be lost. And now? Solomon City lost one once and I had to snatch it back myself, and as for the City of a Thousand Stars, you can’t even find out who stole it. I won’t trust you anymore.”
With that, Mr. Order’s body disappeared from the conference room wrapped in a patch of diamond-shaped golden radiance.
Inside the conference room, the remaining few people did not speak, casting their gazes one after another toward Lu Jiayun at the very front, the City Lord of this City of a Thousand Stars.
“How many people went to the Train Exchange?”
Bartos hurriedly replied:
“Dozens, not many.”
“Not many?”
Lu Jiayun rubbed the center of his brow.
“In past years, apart from those aborigines, fewer than ten people throughout the entire year would break away from order and choose to return to the wilderness. How long has it been, and there are already dozens! Announce it down: seal off the Train Exchange and do not allow Train engines to be sold anymore.”
“Yes!”
“Right, how many people died in the Lower District?”
“Uh, about three to four thousand?”
“I see… Go do your work.”
Lu Jiayun sat in his chair, gazing out at the external sky, not knowing what he was thinking. In the conference room, the others gradually left.
Bartos’s subordinates waiting outside hurried to follow, and only when there was no one else around did they speak up with a question.
“Boss, I didn’t quite understand before: why must Lord City Lord and the other City Lords use various means to make Train Captains lose their drive and stay in the city, and then constantly raise the value of Train Captains? What on earth are they plotting? Clearly this is a thankless task…”
Bartos likewise glanced around.
Hesitating for a moment, he gave an evasive answer.
“Lord City Lord said that this is reducing the system’s weight. As for the reason, I don’t know either.”
————
The next day.
Unlike the riots that occurred in Solomon City back then,
the City of a Thousand Stars was relatively much more peaceful.
This night, Ye Qiyan sorted out all his gains from this station.
Two card sequences: Fate Card – Unequal Gift and Order Card – Sloth.
A piece of armor that transforms races.
And some Train Coins.
Because he sold those two pieces of equipment, after deducting his consumption during this period, the number of Train Coins he had reached 92.
That race-transforming armor had also been thrown by him onto the black market.
The value of this thing was even higher than imagined.
The black market did not directly consign it, but instead notified him that it could be put into a black market auction two days later.
At a minimum, it could fetch 80 Train Coins.
Able to make more money, Ye Qiyan naturally wouldn’t refuse.
Having settled all this and replenished plenty of basic resources in the city with Zhao Lin, after spending all the Thousand Star Coins on hand, it was time to leave this place.
He summoned the Train onto the track from the storage Matrix.
Zhao Lin looked at this scene with some envy.
“Brother Qiyan, just how many Modules do you have?”
“Not many. You’ll have them when you have money in the future. Right, take this.”
He took out the special material needed to upgrade the Train to Level 5—the calculation unit—from the storage unit and tossed it to Zhao Lin.
“Ouch, such a big thing! I really don’t get why upgrading a Train has to require such messy things. Even after using them, the Train doesn’t change much anyway.”
“Who knows? Why think so much about it? Let’s go.”
Returning inside the Train and starting it, nothingness appeared before him.
City of a Thousand Stars, leaving the Platform.
