Chapter 525: Demand
The undercurrents beneath had no impact whatsoever on Hanluo City's development; everything continued to progress in an orderly fashion, as if following a pre-written script, leading towards a perhaps long-destined conclusion.
...
"Excuse me, sir, may I ask you some questions?" Lu Yuesheng suddenly shifted roles, beginning to interview the residents projected from the Land of White, walking through the streets and alleys.
Before this, she had even entertained the idea of using her transmigrator's aura to implement scientific farming methods, empowering ordinary people to resist and slowly change this land that had been stagnant for thousands of years.
However, after witnessing the sky dyed in a kaleidoscope of colors by the power of the two confronting figures, Lu Yuesheng decisively chose to abandon that notion, for she now clearly understood that her efforts would be futile.
Such phenomena-level, almost mythical power, would render even modern scientific and technological advancements utterly useless.
...
The grand collision between the new civilization, the Land of White from Earth, and the indigenous civilization of the Manghuang Realm had long since spiraled beyond her control.
Rather than entering the game as a pawn, it was better to change professions early, setting aside her queenly ambitions and temporarily switching to being a reporter.
But saying she "changed professions" wasn't quite right; Lu Yuesheng had actually been a wordsmith back on Earth, accustomed to traveling everywhere to conduct special interviews.
Unlike the others in the Flame Alliance, she hadn't experienced the humiliation of being "forcibly evicted" and then "expelled from Earth's citizenry," so her curiosity about the Land of White far outweighed any hatred.
All the descriptions of this land she had ever received from the members of the Flame Alliance were almost entirely negative, heavily tinged with their strong emotions.
But as a media professional, Lu Yuesheng clearly understood what kind of propaganda was being spread, and she herself had even written quite a lot under various pseudonyms.
She could comprehend the inner thoughts of these hate-filled individuals, but that didn't mean she was willing to simply accept a one-sided evaluation as the truth.
Unfortunately, the instigator had no intention of elaborating, so Lu Yuesheng could only resort to interviewing the residents of the Land of White, hoping to gain another perspective from their accounts.
"It's merely this body I'm inhabiting that is aging." A middle-aged man's voice echoed in her mind.
Lu Yuesheng looked at the old man before her with a puzzled expression, for his manner of speaking was uncannily similar to Bai Mo's—words suddenly appearing directly in one's mind.
"Apologies, I've grown accustomed to communicating this way." This time, a heavy male voice spoke, as the old man opened his mouth.
"Accustomed?" She asked, a look of confusion on her face.
Generally speaking, only those at the Third Tier or higher could communicate directly using mental waves; this was what she had found in the Flame Alliance's internal database.
Yet, though the old man before her didn't seem like a flickering candle in the wind, his physical strength was at most that of an ordinary person; by all accounts, he shouldn't be able to use such a physically demanding method of communication.
"I'd like to ask, how do you view this nation?" Having recently grown used to speaking frankly with Bai Mo, she posed the question she most wanted answered without any further pleasantries.
"..." The old man remained silent.
"Is someone monitoring your every move?" Lu Yuesheng whispered, asking again.
"..."
"Don't worry, I'll use a pseudonym for you in the report," she said, falling back into her journalistic habits, her eyes radiating the confident assurance that 'Big Brother isn't watching you.'
From the moment Bai Mo hadn't stopped her actions, Lu Yuesheng had guessed that he tacitly approved of this interview, naturally emboldening her to venture everywhere for material.
"Including the ten years I lived in the virtual world, I'm probably almost fifty this year," the old man said, seemingly only beginning his story after receiving some sort of permission.
"After graduating middle school in the countryside, I ran off to the provincial capital to be a waiter. Back then, I always thought, 'We're all human, so why does one meal and a bottle of wine in those private rooms cost the bosses as much as my entire month's salary?'
When serving dishes, I was less than fifty centimeters from them, yet it felt like I was living in a completely different world."
"But at the time, I just felt envious, hoping that one day I could step into that world. I didn't have many other thoughts. Compared to the income from farming back home, my waiter's salary was actually quite good.
Later, after seeing more and more of the high life, I sometimes wondered if distributing all the money from those big bosses to the poor in my village might count as achieving 'common prosperity'?
..."
The middle-aged man, who appeared to be an old man, seemed to have strayed far off-topic, speaking at length, yet Lu Yuesheng showed no signs of impatience, listening quite attentively all the while.
"Then came the spirit tide outbreak, and suddenly there were all these powerful figures who could fly through the sky and burrow into the earth. Every time they came to the restaurant to eat, I'd feel a bit terrified walking near them. How do I put it? It was like feeding lions at the zoo, but without the cage separating us."
The middle-aged man spoke from the perspective of an ordinary person, recounting his feelings over the past decade since the spirit tide outbreak.
He was not among the fortunate five percent, but rather one of the ninety-five percent of helpless ordinary people, like duckweed adrift. Living in a world where all political and economic power was concentrated in the hands of superhumans, his life had always been quite suppressed.
These words strongly resonated with Lu Yuesheng. She had transmigrated into this ancient world, where the extraordinary power of the Bloodline Houses suppressed everything, yet she herself was just a mortal... and without any cheats, she could only struggle to survive.
"You said... you lived in a virtual world for ten years?" Lu Yuesheng expertly concealed her emotions, swiftly guiding the conversation away.
"According to the system, it should be called simulated living, I suppose. Everything on Earth, including my useless body, is actually still undergoing transformation.
Then our consciousnesses were transferred to a virtual world, where we lived each day according to the system's arrangements. I never imagined that a high school dropout like me would one day have to grapple with something like linear algebra."
"Ten years! I picked up elementary school math again, then middle school math, and climbed my way up, little by little, to where I am now."
The middle-aged man wore a look of deep resentment, as if the learning process had left him with an unforgettable, painful memory.
"I shouldn't have been so careless back then, writing down 'to be a builder' as my dream. I thought it meant being a rich contractor, but it turned out to be a miserable engineer..."
Although he spoke of regret, Lu Yuesheng could still discern a hint of irrepressible joy in the middle-aged man's eyes.
"This must be a self-actualization need?" she mused, recalling the hierarchy of needs theory she had learned many years ago. "To jump directly to the highest level..."
PS: I hope everyone cherishes life and stays away from gambling ORZ.
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