Chapter 73: City of Order 7 (Minor Revision)

Chapter 73

A loud ding-dong sounded from behind.

Everyone present turned in unison to look.

They saw everyone up ahead staring anxiously at that huge wheel. The wheel flashed over and over, finally freezing on someone's face.

That person's face was stuck on the wheel, just a head — it looked pretty strange, like a severed head hanging there, and a grimy one at that.

Everyone's hope instantly soured into disappointment. The despair of thousands infected the whole crowd, some even crouching on the ground wailing, as if not being chosen by the wheel was the most tragic thing in the world.

Shen Wang looked at Zhou Qing, who'd clearly gotten here earlier. "What's going on?"

"They're picking a 'king'," Zhou Qing answered, holding the little girl.

"King?"

Zhou Qing casually stuffed the child into Zhou Xiangzhe's arms. He didn't answer Zhou Xiangzhe's question, just set up a stall on the spot. Just when Shen Wang and the others thought it'd be useless, the people about to leave suddenly swarmed the little stall, every one of them with a mournful face begging Zhou Qing to do a reading.

So he did readings for an hour. Shen Wang could tell from the side he was just making stuff up, but the fortune seekers kept nodding along, their eyes eventually brightening as they left.

That hour netted Zhou Qing a nice haul.

After he contentedly stood up with his crappy signboard, some behind him still tried to get Zhou Qing to keep reading, until Zhou Qing said today's fortune-telling time was up, and if they forced him, heavenly secrets would leak and divine punishment would strike — then they'd never be able to win again.

So the crowd got spooked. They left, looking back again and again.

Only then did Zhou Qing merrily count his money, even giving the child's cheek a little pinch.

"Uncle's gonna treat you to something good!

On the way, Zhou Qing finally explained what this 'king selection' was all about.

Turns out this layer's different from the Layer of Greed. In the Power Lust Layer, there's one temptation and one only — the 'king game.'

The King's Wheel picks a king every week. The chosen king can change the world. In other words: for whoever's picked as king, the world reshapes itself around them for a week, and during that week, they're a god with every privilege.

Everyone in this world can clearly feel the world changing, for better or worse, and it's all decided by the one who was drawn.

Zhou Qing even once ran into a day that was spring in the morning and winter by evening — almost everyone caught a cold that day, just because the chosen one capriciously wanted to experience all four seasons in a single day.

That's why everyone wants to be chosen king, everyone longs for the world to exist just for them.

In a way, this layer's sickness is no less than the Layer of Gluttony's.

Zhou Xiangzhe thought for a moment, then asked a very crucial question. "Is it really all random?"

"It is random." Zhou Qing led them into a small shop where other people were eating, all of them talking about today's draw.

"But the probability can be influenced."

Zhou Qing said, "Did you go through the Layer of Gluttony? Do you know there's a Pawnhouse inside, where you can pawn things with emotional value?"

"Yeah, give that sort of emotionally valuable item to the wheel, and your chance of being picked goes up."

Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe exchanged a glance.

In the layer before, only people who never entered the Layer of Gluttony, or entered but never consumed anything, could get a Resident Card. So that means: aside from the ones who were brought up, every official resident is still carrying unspent items with emotional value.

I never expected that once you're in the second layer, those items would still be coveted.

"A lot of people hand their stuff over to the wheel?"

"Exactly. The probability accumulates — it doesn't reset even if you get picked," Zhou Qing said.

Shen Wang clicked his tongue, looking disgusted and not the least bit hopeful about this.

"Everyone's shoving their stuff in to raise their probability, but if you do the math, you're just splitting 100% further and further. In the end, nobody gets that much of a share."

"Isn't it still the same number?"

"You're right." Zhou Qing gave Shen Wang a thumbs-up. "But if one person does it, everyone else has to follow. If you don't, your probability drops below the original baseline. So even if it's sunk cost, you have to keep up."

Zhou Xiangzhe sighed. "A really low-rent scam."

"Hang a 'king' carrot in front of them, and they actually buy it." Shen Wang didn't hold back. "Sure enough, all the ones the Layer of Gluttony picks are good people. Good people may be good, but sometimes they're fools. Fools who've been polluted already have muddled heads, so it's no wonder they get scammed."

Zhou Qing chuckled as he listened to Shen Wang cuss people out, then suddenly realized the kid probably shouldn't hear this, and quickly coughed.

"How odd, how odd. This poor monk has never seen a place like this." Zhou Qing chanted a Buddhist phrase. "Buddha is merciful. This poor monk can only console them with fortune-telling when they're not absolutely heartbroken from not being drawn."

Shen Wang / Zhou Xiangzhe: ...

Spinning his fleecing into something so elegant — that's classic him.

"And how'd you get up here?" Shen Wang asked him.

"Naturally, through this poor monk's great wisdom, I won a benefactor's trust. When that benefactor got a Resident Card, they willingly brought this poor monk up." Zhou Qing answered like it was only natural.

That matched the situation.

Given how harsh the City of Order is on the Anti-Contamination Center, no one who signed the agreement normally would let him up to the second layer. Only this place had a loophole.

It felt like the City of Order absolutely loathed the Anti-Contamination Center, but didn't quite want to wipe it out entirely.

"Anti-Contamination Center staff have fought Contamination so much, they notice abnormalities better than ordinary people." Zhou Xiangzhe's voice was gentle. "The guard unit stays Inside the High Wall, but dispatch teams go outside the wall, so they're mostly Mutants, mostly Grade C or above. They're hard for simple Mental Contamination to fully control."

That's why that dispatch squad in the last layer stubbornly refused to enter the Layer of Gluttony, and wound up dying outside it.

In other words: in some ways, Anti-Contamination Center members fit the City of Order's selection criteria even better than normal people.

Zhou Qing nodded, then asked Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe how they got in. When he found out it was Jingchun Jun who opened the City of Order, he sighed endlessly, saying over and over he really didn't want to cut people's feelings away, but Jingchun Jun kept begging him, so he had no choice.

As he kept talking, Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe exchanged a glance, a trace of doubt in Shen Wang's eyes.

Zhou Xiangzhe gave a very slight nod.

Zhou Qing's mental abnormality, on the surface, was that he suddenly left home to become a monk, donning a kasaya and shaving his head, looking ready to pass on at any moment. But that was only the surface. His real mental abnormality ran deeper.

He was profoundly guilt-ridden.

His talent could sever others' feelings, but those severed feelings were extremely hard to restore, and feelings are so vital to humans.

The victims might be saved, but they never had feelings again. To everyone else, that was an amazing deal. Not to Zhou Qing.

He sank into uncontrollable, unshakable guilt. Tormented to the brink of losing rational thought, he chose to shave his head and become a monk, donning robes and calling himself a renunciate, using this unconventional way to prop up his crumbling mental state.

/

Just then, the shop owner came to serve the food.

"Your food's ready."

The owner was right next to Shen Wang, so Shen Wang instinctively looked up. Seeing the owner's appearance, Shen Wang froze for a second.

The owner wore normal clothes and carried plates of food, but had a pair of dog ears on his head, an elongated face, a protruding nose, and a tail wagging behind him. He didn't look like a normal person at all — more like some sort of dog spirit.

Zhou Qing grabbed Shen Wang's hand from the side, stopping him from reflexively attacking.

"Amitabha." Zhou Qing looked at the owner. "Isn't this world a little weird this time?"

"It's very weird, woof!" The owner set the plates on their table and even barked once. "Feels like pretty soon my hands are gonna turn into dog paws too, woof!"

"Master, you're still the same as before, woof."

At that, someone spoke up: "Can't help it. The king chosen this time is that lunatic, and that's the only move that lunatic knows, woof."

"Yeah, he's said more than once that if he ever got picked as king, he'd turn the whole world into dogs, and he'd turn into a dog too, woof."

The speakers were customers eating not far away.

"Now he's probably turned everyone in the world into dogs, woof."

"Nah, my wife's still the same," the owner said. "Looks like it's all the men who turned into dogs, woof."

So they all grumbled, barking intermingled with their complaints, but Shen Wang could plainly see the naked jealousy in their eyes.

They were insanely jealous of the chosen one, not griping about how they'd turned into dogs.

"His probability wasn't even high. How'd he get picked? Woof."

"I clearly gave the wheel so many pawned items. How come it's him and not me? Woof."

"Woof woof, this just goes to show the wheel is fair, truly random as it claims."

"Next time, woof, it's definitely gonna pick me!"

After the jealous words died down, the increasingly dog-like customers and even the owner all looked at this table, at the three who clearly hadn't changed.

The eagerness in their eyes deepened.

"The Master really is a master, utterly unchanged. I thought they were lying to me, woof."

"The Master must be an emissary of the City of Order, here to guide us through our confusion!"

"Look, even the people around the Master haven't changed with the world, woof! People of great ability!"

"Woof woof, Master, look at me! Tell me when I'll be picked!"

Zhou Qing very calmly stood up and spouted a heap of lofty principles, not only shutting everyone up but also subtly hinting he needed to eat, and that anyone who stopped him from eating would never be chosen.

And finally, no one bothered them anymore.

After the fuss died down, Zhou Qing gave them a rough overview of the person chosen today.

That person was somewhat infamous in the City of Order. He'd been living here for years, but he was dull and dazed, seemed a bit simple.

Some said he'd arrived with a dog, his only family. But one day he was tricked into going out, and the dog got stolen. Since that dog was an item with huge emotional value to him, just that dog could boost his probability by 0.5%.

After losing the dog he went crazy, wandering the streets every day looking for it, always saying that if he got chosen, he'd make the whole world his dog.

Now he'd finally been chosen, and the world had become a world of dogs.

And Zhou Qing, as a Grade S Mutant, though his talent had been restricted, still had S-level resistance and hadn't changed with the world. That made him an anomaly in the City of Order, and Zhou Qing used that to imply he was someone sent by the City of Order, gathering intel through fortune-telling.

Most of the intel here was gathered by Zhou Qing via fortune-telling.

"But then, how do we keep moving upward?" Zhou Xiangzhe murmured quietly.

"The Layer of Gluttony selects the good to become residents and enter the Power Lust Layer; the Power Lust Layer can use the King's Wheel to pick someone to change the world. So what's the next condition?"

Shen Wang looked at Zhou Qing. "Master, have you picked up any clues on that?"

"No." Zhou Qing shook his head. "Nobody knows about a third layer in the City of Order. I only heard about it from you. But as far as I know, no one's ever reached the next layer. This is just where the residents of the City of Order live."

"Some have even been here for over a decade."

Shen Wang thought for a moment. "That doesn't add up. [Order] isn't here."

"This poor monk also finds it strange. Never mind [Order]'s purpose in creating this City of Order — none of the people here show much Contamination reaction. It's like they're being selected layer by layer. But where do the dead go?" Zhou Qing frowned. "I do not think [Order] is a good little Contaminant that never expands."

Compared to Zero Contamination Zone, Contamination Site No. 3 could practically be called a riot — Contaminants everywhere bursting out due to disturbances, towns dependent on The High Wall vanishing one after another, everyone inside swallowed up.

Zhou Qing, who'd entered the Layer of Gluttony, had found the missing ordinary people in there.

In other words: the City of Order was devouring ordinary people while simultaneously picking its own residents. That's even more disgusting than normal Contamination expansion.

Not only was it spreading Contamination to ordinary people, it was also sorting them into ranks.

Just as they were pondering [Order]'s intent, a group of people suddenly appeared in the little restaurant. They had fully turned into dogs — long faces, pointy muzzles, slit pupils that looked intensely threatening, erect ears impossible to ignore.

The man in the lead, wearing a white coat, walked right over and sat down at their table.

He had a fierce look, yet wore glasses and white, making him look totally out of place.

The moment they saw these people, the nearby customers tensed up, and most left without finishing their meals.

"Mr. Zhou." The dog spoke. "Could you do a reading for me?"

It seemed Zhou Qing only recognized who this was after he spoke. In an instant, Zhou Qing's expression soured, looking like he'd been pestered by this person for a long time.

Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe opted to just watch the show.

Zhou Qing wasn't expecting Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe to speak up for him anyway. After the man spoke, he pressed his palms together and said, "This poor monk has told the benefactor, this poor monk does not get involved in such matters."

"Mr. Zhou, just look at this world now." The dog stood up, somewhat indignant. "Everyone's turned into dogs because the world changed. Are we even still human? We're nothing but pawns toyed with by the 'King Game.' This can't go on!"

Zhou Qing looked at him coldly. "So Mr. Zuo's solution is: get chosen yourself, and then change this world?"

"Of course!" the dog said. "This world is so bizarre because the Rules aren't fixed. In such a twisted world, even dying has become normal. If the Rules were just stabilized, this would definitely become a good world. Mr. Zhou, you're a Grade S Mutant — with your help, we could quickly change this world!"

Shen Wang raised an eyebrow slightly. What? This guy knows Zhou Qing is a Grade S Mutant?

Shen Wang coughed, cutting into their conversation. Zhou Qing looked at him.

"No introduction?" Shen Wang pointed to the dog in front of them. "Who is he?"

The dog finally seemed to notice the people before him. He looked at Shen Wang and Zhou Xiangzhe oddly, stared a moment, decided they weren't important, and turned back to Zhou Qing.

Zhou Qing shot Shen Wang a glance, then spoke. "His name is Zuo Chensheng. You probably don't know him."

Shen Wang had only just joined the Anti-Contamination Center and had been Grade S for just a few days. Without access to much data, of course he didn't know this person.

But Zhou Xiangzhe did.

"Zuo Chensheng?" Zhou Xiangzhe spoke up. "The Science Academy genius who went missing five years ago? I think he might have been missing even longer. At the Academy, he was out on a field experiment, and when he didn't come back on schedule and they investigated, they discovered he was already gone."

The dog looked at Zhou Xiangzhe with some surprise. "You actually know me? You're also from the Anti-Contamination Center?"

"That's great, we should be teammates!" Zuo Chensheng said. "Join us. As long as we change this world's Rules, we'll definitely find a way out of here!"

"On nothing but the conditions shown on the surface? You're thinking too shallow." Zhou Qing was losing patience too. "If the City of Order were that easy to clear, how is it that to this day not a single person has left it to send word to the Anti-Contamination Center?"

Zuo Chensheng said, "But we haven't tried, so how can we say it won't work?"

The moment he heard the name Science Academy, Shen Wang started getting annoyed.

Especially because this man kept spouting things he didn't like.

Shen Wang rapped the table, and everyone present instinctively looked at him in unison.

"From what you said just now, you value life?" Shen Wang looked at Zuo Chensheng. "You don't want so many people dying because of weird rules? You don't want people to stop being people?"

Zuo Chensheng's glasses went crooked on his nose. He looked at Shen Wang oddly, then finally nodded. "Of course."

"Who are you? A newbie from the Anti-Contamination Center?"

"Don't worry about whether I'm a newbie from the Anti-Contamination Center. Just take me for an ordinary person." Shen Wang's black eyes were full of malice, and he stared at Zuo Chensheng with that blatant disgust.

Zuo Chensheng froze, even stepping back involuntarily, totally at a loss as to why a stranger he'd just met hated him.

"You..."

But Shen Wang didn't let him speak, directly cutting him off.

"The whole world knows the Science Academy treats human life like dirt, forcibly conducting human experiments just to get Grade S Mutants, and has been boycotted hard for it."

Shen Wang said, "You went missing five years ago. That means: you were part of the human experimentation process back then."

"As a former Science Academy member who never treated human lives as human lives, now you're saying you value life and want to change the world to save lives. How exactly do you plan to change the world? Build some giant Science Academy research institute?"

Zuo Chensheng's face instantly turned ugly. Even all that dark fur couldn't hide how awful he looked.

"Our Science Academy..."

"Didn't your Science Academy do exactly that?" Shen Wang cut him off again. "Are you about to say you've changed and absolutely condemn the Academy's actions?"

"Then curse the Science Academy for me right here and now. That way I might believe you a little."

Zuo Chensheng's mouth opened and closed, his eyes red with frustration, but he couldn't get a word out.

Finally, he glared at Shen Wang fiercely. "The Science Academy is right!"

He said, "The Science Academy has always conducted research for the sake of all people. Even short-term sacrifice is fine. The world needs immediate change. Your Anti-Contamination Center's slow-and-steady approach is no longer relevant! It'll only cause more deaths!"

"Seems we're fundamentally incompatible!"

With that, Zuo Chensheng stormed off angrily, and the people with him followed.

Once they were gone, Zhou Qing burst out laughing.

"I've fucking wanted to curse him out like that for ages! But a monk is merciful and compassionate — can't go around cussing people."

"You don't swear a lot?" Zhou Xiangzhe looked at him skeptically. "You managing to hold back actually surprises me."

Zhou Qing: ...

"Ah, well, it just wasn't worth it. This isn't the outside, and as the guy with the highest wheel probability, I didn't want to get targeted if he got chosen."

Zhou Qing told them Zuo Chensheng had been here for years. He was an extremely headstrong guy. After realizing he alone couldn't change the wheel's probability, he started a plan: multiple people would pool their probability into one person, so when that person got chosen, they'd reshape the world into what everyone wanted.

As the first initiator, he had tons of supporters, even forming a group. His own wheel probability had reached 5%.

Bear in mind this Power Lust Layer has tens of thousands of people, and he alone had a 5% shot.

"Hmph." Shen Wang snorted coldly. "He just jabbed the nerve I hate most."

"Your talent's been restricted, but mine hasn't."

Zhou Xiangzhe looked at Shen Wang. "What are you planning to do?"

"Make trouble for him." Shen Wang stood up. "I'm petty and vengeful. People I hate have to get a beating from me."

Some Science Academy genius — they're all Lan's enemies.

And Lan's enemies are his.