"B-rank green?" Yang Mingzhao was slightly taken aback. "I remember—wasn't this a protest march involving nearly a million people? And it only ended twenty-four hours ago."
"Actually, the latest count puts attendance at 1.3 million, making it bigger than Ice Valley City's protest at the end of last year. But less than twenty-four hours after it ended, Gem Coast had already fully restored public order. The markets on Fleet Square, Golden Palm Avenue, and Clock Street have reopened, as have the Holy Spring Museum and Future Park. They even just held a concert at Republic Square."
"A concert?"
"Yes, the Good Morning Kittens' surprise concert, or something like that. Apparently it was spontaneous, as a way of giving back to their fans. There was no advertising, but more than a hundred thousand people still showed up."
"Spontaneous?" Yang Mingzhao scoffed.
"Spontaneous." Director Hedden nodded solemnly.
"As expected of the Alliance. Truly astonishing... um, powers of recovery." Yang Mingzhao sighed. In many cases, the ability to keep up appearances also reflected a country's organizational capacity and power to mobilize. It was quite clear that, at least in this respect, the Alliance was still at the very top of the universe. It might be an advanced skill the Blue Star Commonwealth could never master, even if it studied for another century.
"That's already better than ninety percent of the Commonwealth's cities. It's even better than Earth," Killian said, clicking his tongue in amazement.
Mr. Hedden immediately looked embarrassed. He was a bureaucrat in the intelligence department, but he was still part of the security apparatus, so public order concerns were directly relevant to him.
Of course, whatever the case, a B-rank green rating meant the city's public safety was suitable for unarmed visitors from out of town. That was the rating assigned