Fortress

A misunderstanding?

Wang Jixuan, who had just been threatened at gunpoint and had decisively fought back, looked slightly uncertain.

At manager Thomas's boisterous laughter, several waiters lowered the guns aimed at Wang Jixuan.

Wang Jixuan slowly released the baby-faced Bunny Girl he had dragged in front of himself to block bullets. She clutched her neck and kept coughing, tears filling her eyes.

Holding the fake revolver, Wang Jixuan pulled the trigger toward an empty spot nearby.

Pop!

Streamers sprayed from the muzzle.

"Ha ha ha!"

Thomas, the 'Old Goat,' laughed so hard he could barely stand.

"Cough, cough! Ugh!"

The baby-faced Bunny Girl clutched her bruised neck and complained through teary eyes:

"I just wanted to celebrate for you... Why did you have to be so rough... It hurts so much!"

Wang Jixuan shrugged. "Stress response."

"Not bad!"

Thomas enthusiastically called to him. His seductive makeup and stubble created a uniquely jarring visual impression:

"Come with me. She was supposed to take you to get settled in and hand out some benefits, but I'll take you instead. Ha ha ha! I told you, surprises like this can go wrong."

The Bunny Girl sniffled, her face full of grievance.

"This way."

Thomas walked ahead in high heels, his body still swaying from side to side.

Wang Jixuan gave the Bunny Girl an apologetic smile and calmly followed.

After they left through the back door, they found a handmade car parked in the alley, looking somewhat bloated due to its reinforced plating. Daoist Wang copied the others and took a seat in the back.

A self-moving carriage frame. It seems to use some Art of Ingenuity to continuously borrow force from the ground.

That was Daoist Wang's assessment.

Mu Liang's memories contained no experience of riding in a car. He had only seen cars in textbooks and video materials.

The little cars that once filled the streets had been regarded as an important symbol of the Human Golden Age.

Once inside the car, Thomas seemed like a different person. He skillfully applied a facial mask and reclined his seat.

The driver asked, "Where are we going today?"

"I haven't had a chance to ask. There was a little unpleasantness inside."

Thomas spoke in his deep natural male voice:

"Where do you want to go, Brother Zhou?

"The supplies your uncle paid are enough for you to pick any junior leadership position among the seven major gangs. I'll personally take you there and arrange everything.

"I wouldn't recommend the Black Fire Gang. They've gotten themselves into some trouble lately—very big trouble. They're about to undergo Shedding Skin.

"When gangs shed their skin, lots and lots of mid-level and lower-level members die. Many illegal workers from their territory get dragged off as scapegoats too."

Wang Jixuan asked, "Do you have any recommendations?"

"Recommendations?"

Thomas thought for a moment.

"The Black Fire Gang has the most money and the most opportunities. They deal in organs and blood, the most profitable business in the Lower City.

"You don't need to consider Floors Forty-Seven and Forty-Eight. Those places supply labor to the fortress's outer expansion zones. They're extremely dangerous and there's barely any money in them. You just got to the Lower City, so you don't understand these things yet."

Wang Jixuan said, "My uncle told me some of this, but I don't really understand."

"Which part don't you understand?"

"My uncle said the Lower City had to exist."

"Ha ha ha! Fuck, my face mask! This garbage is ridiculously expensive!"

Thomas lightly patted his broad face and spoke quickly:

"Is that really hard to understand?

"The Upper City serves the soldiers. Technology, social infrastructure, abundant food—all of it serves those soldiers, whose mortality rate is as high as sixty percent. They protect the fortress.

"Those noble lords get to enjoy those benefits as well.

"The Middle City is an integrated factory. Like the Upper City, it enjoys the protection of the fortress's laws and regulations, following ancient legal principles.

"Every Middle City resident receives a reasonable amount of supplies—food, electricity, clothes, shoes, hats, belts, underwear, and so on... They also have regular light entertainment and sufficient medical resources. Children enter collective care institutions after birth and are raised by the fortress for free for six years. And of course, there's that damned, envy-inducing Genetic Matching marriage.

"The Upper City and Middle City already form a perfect ecosystem for the fortress.

"But if the fortress wants more resources, what should it do?"

Wang Jixuan pondered carefully, then slowly shook his head. "I don't understand these things."

"Exploit people. People who can be exploited however you want, whose Human Rights don't need protection, whose lives don't need to follow the laws of the civilized world in the Upper City and Middle City."

Thomas's low voice carried a hint of sharpness:

"That is how the Lower City came to be. It was originally called the Additional Layer, the section expanded downward after the fortress had operated for decades.

"The Lower City exists to be exploited.

"Old Huang, drive a little farther ahead. Pick any street. Let our major client see what the real lower residential districts look like, not this garbage City of Joy pretending to be prosperous."

"Sure thing, boss."

The elderly driver agreed with a smile, started the car, and drove out of the alley along the narrow street.

Armed men were everywhere along the way, but they all recognized Old Goat's vehicle and no one came forward to cause trouble.

About two minutes later.

A dimly lit area appeared outside the window.

Hundreds of sheet-metal homes were stacked like pigeonholes, surrounded by foul drainage ditches. Of the dozens of streetlights here, only a third functioned properly, casting a murky yellow glow.

As his cultivation deepened, Wang Jixuan's eyesight kept improving. At that moment, he could see many things that neither the driver nor Thomas could see, including those... lifeless eyes.

"Come, look at them. Helping you understand this place is also part of an intermediary's job."

Thomas introduced it calmly:

"Look at them. They survive on the bare minimum intake. There's no way to ask where what they consume comes from. As long as they stay alive, that's enough.

"Despair surrounds them. If you gave them a job that let them feed themselves and their families, even if it only let them eat half full, wouldn't they work themselves to death? Wouldn't they voluntarily ask to work unpaid overtime?

"And if they were casually beaten to death or died of illness, who would care? The rulers of the Lower City are gangs to begin with. Gangs aren't responsible for them.

"Even having children is difficult for them. They have to rely on people who know a bit of physiology, and those people are deliberately trained by the gangs.

"This is only the most basic form of exploitation.

"In truth, the entire Lower City system was designed by the fortress's upper-level will. Each of the seven major gangs has its own business.

"The major gangs on Floor Forty-Six are City of Joy and the Silver Party. City of Joy is where Upper City and Middle City officials come for entertainment. It makes it easier for them to form small groups, consolidate their circles, and satisfy desires stronger than those of ordinary people.

"The Silver Party is City of Joy's partner. Besides providing City of Joy with thugs, they turn people into merchandise. The waiters in my establishment are handsome, cute, and obedient. Most of them were bought from Silver Party territory. Their obedience is excellent, and they're especially clever.

"Floors Forty-Seven and Forty-Eight are each occupied by a single gang, not because they are powerful, but because they handle heavy labor industries with pitifully little profit.

"Our fortress currently has four major outer expansion zones that supply minerals and other resources. The main role of the gangs on Floors Forty-Seven and Forty-Eight is to send unpaid miners to those zones, just like slaves.

"There are three major gangs on Floor Forty-Nine. It's the most crowded level. Do you know why?"

Thomas eagerly posed the question.

Wang Jixuan answered, "Because the lowest level is farthest from the Upper City?"

"That's part of it. The other reason is that they can keep expanding their territory downward by digging."

Thomas winked smugly.

"The three major gangs on Floor Forty-Nine control different businesses as well. Wanlijin controls brewing, the Black Fire Gang controls organs and blood, and Hellfire controls additives that can be mixed into tobacco."

Wang Jixuan was somewhat confused. "Brewing?"

"Have you ever had alcohol?"

"No."

Wang Jixuan meant that Mu Liang had never drunk alcohol.

Cultivators did not merely enjoy drinking; they also liked adding all kinds of Spirit Roots, Spirit Herbs, and certain body parts from certain demon beasts to their alcohol.

Daoist Wang did not like that sort of thing.

Thomas looked at the streets outside and spoke in his rough, low voice:

"Other than the liquor in my establishment, which is mixed from industrial alcohol, brewing requires a key resource. That resource is grain or fruit that humans can consume normally.

"I grew up in Wanlijin territory. If Wanlijin didn't brew alcohol and instead distributed the food resources it controlled, a third of the Lower City's people could eat one more Starch Bar every day.

"That's only a hypothetical.

"In reality, every gang deliberately keeps most Lower City residents in a state where they can barely sustain life. The gangs also distribute vitamins and anti-darkness medicine regularly. Those things are all shipped down from the Upper City."

Wang Jixuan quietly considered his words.

"This is the fortress."

This seductive middle-aged man, Thomas, seemed somewhat saddened as he watched the streets. He murmured:

"This is the fortress.

"Brother, what do you think is the most important thing about living in this world?"

Several answers rose to Wang Jixuan's lips.

Talent? Comprehension? Natural aptitude? Perseverance?

The seductive, sorrowful middle-aged man beside him had already answered his own question:

"It's where you are born.

"If you are born in the Middle City, you receive full protection above Floor Twenty-Eight. At worst, you deal with bullying and harassment. Below Floor Twenty-Eight, there's a risk of kidnapping. If you are born in the Lower City, you will most likely end up like what you see before you. If you are luckier and good-looking or strange enough, you'll be taken to City of Joy to work in the service industry. If you are physically strong, you become gang muscle and cannon fodder, only to be killed by someone eventually. Ordinary people—if they don't work in gang workshops, they lie around here until their corpses are sent to the oil refinery after death. There isn't much difference between the two. If you eat more, you work more. If you are born into one of the few noble families in the Upper City, wow, then you are truly lucky.

"Hard work and struggle change nothing.

"Oh, right. If you are in the Middle City, there is still the tiniest chance to change your fate—assuming your physical qualities are good enough and the fortress needs large numbers of soldiers, reducing its industrial population. Then you can enlist normally and fight for the chance to enter the Upper City as an officer.

"The Upper City's soldiers are high-quality individuals selected through genetic screening while still embryos.

"In the Lower City, there is no chance at all. If the fortress needs a large number of new troops, it activates the fortress war protocol. The Lower City gangs can produce fifty thousand young and middle-aged men and women at any time, implant chips in their brains, and turn them into Protocol Soldiers. Even if they don't die in the war, they only have a few years left because of Aftereffects.

"Don't underestimate the fortress's will. It is cold and cruel. It does not pity individuals. Its priority is ensuring that this group has a greater chance of continuing.

"The Lower City gangs are controlled by that will.

"Never forget that the era we live in is the end of Human Civilization."

Thomas stretched.

"That's your first lesson. It was listed in the package. Remember to give me a good review when you write to your uncle later... All right, make your choice now. Do you want to be a waiter on Floor Forty-Six, or go to Floor Forty-Nine to brew alcohol, harvest other people's organs, or make chemical agents?"

"Brewing," Wang Jixuan said softly.

Wanlijin territory bordered the Black Fire Gang's territory, and the two frequently fought. It had been his target from the start.

Thomas said, "Wow, that's a rare choice. Wanlijin has always been suppressed by the Black Fire Gang because it has too little profit. The other two make outrageous profits!"

"Wasn't the Black Fire Gang not an option?"

Wang Jixuan abruptly changed the subject. He looked into the man's eyes, carrying a trace of the weariness of his true age:

"What about you, Thomas?

"I imagine your life has not been smooth sailing. You should be considered a successful person in the Lower City. How did you do it?"

"Do you have any manners?"

Thomas frowned as he spoke. Then he sighed and stared blankly out the window.

He really did not want to talk about it.

A worldbuilding chapter, introducing the fortress's internal ecosystem.

Everyone may find it a little wordy, but these are foundational settings and necessary. The next chapter will move the plot forward~

Also, we're working hard to climb the new book rankings. The overall response to this book has been quite good, and the various statistics have been unexpectedly strong, so Gui has no choice but to invest more and more effort into maintaining the quality of the writing.

Please keep reading! Please vote, bookmark, and send monthly tickets! If you like this work, remember to recommend it to your friends!

My sincere thanks!