Chapter 252: Smuggling Trade
According to the Underground World’s timekeeping, time reached evening. Meng Xiyue led the Little Girl whom Yuan Zhu rented to her, returning like a king.
When he met her at the residence in the surface world’s Animal Husbandry Village, the Little Girl looked in high spirits.
Her small backpack behind her was bulging, packed full of gifts and local specialties from Cicada City. She couldn’t wait to share them with her younger brother and the new Big Brother, looking like she had a pleasant day.
In contrast, Meng Xi’s mood wasn’t high. She had a sulky face, somewhat depressed and frustrated. So Yuan Zhu curiously asked: “What’s the situation? Did you hit a wall while visiting Cicada City and accessing the higher-ups? Did our ‘supplies’ fail to sell?”
Meng Xiyue replied listlessly: “Not at all. This batch of supplies we brought was very popular in Cicada City. From commoners to the noble class, everyone liked them. I’ve cleared all the inventory and traded it for precious ‘spirit medicine’ and other supplies. I think it’s a business opportunity. The issue is that every transport requires using ‘coins’, which is a bit costly, and our profits were mostly taken by Happy Home!”
Yuan Zhu: “That’s why I’m researching the Nightmare smuggling channel. You also need to work hard to perfect Cockroach Dreamland, so Space of Gods and Happy Home don’t earn the price difference! You’re upset because of this? Having a market for Main World supplies in the Underground World is a good thing.”
Meng Xi shook her head: “Not at all. Sigh, I miscalculated! As you know, this batch of supplies we transported are all portable cheap goods. Cicada City’s native nobles aren’t fools either; they know how to shop around. Pure supplies are indeed rare in the Underground World, but they’re not that precious. Ultimately, they’re just rare cheap goods.”
Yuan Zhu was initially a bit confused, feeling like he didn’t understand what she was saying. He thought Meng Xi had gone mad and was rambling incoherently. But soon, he realized the problem!
Besides them team members in the Underground World, Animal Husbandry Village had also brought in a batch of Otherworld management higher-ups, responsible for the Domain’s operations and commercial trade matters.
So, Cicada City’s procurement personnel could frequently contact this group of ‘Otherworlders’ and learn intelligence about the world outside Eclosion World through them.
The Captain’s Otherworld employees might not have access to ‘smuggling channels’. But these people had mouths and could communicate and exchange information, indirectly letting Cicada City’s higher-ups know the prices of this batch of supplies. It shattered Yuan Zhu and Meng Xi’s dream of monopolizing information channels to greatly inflate prices.
Yuan Zhu: “Did the administrators in the village reveal information about other worlds to Cicada City?”
Meng Xiyue nodded: “More than that. After realizing that simply selling ‘cheap supplies’ wouldn’t make us rich overnight, I got the idea to promote Mao Mao King’s luxury children’s wear and make a quick buck. But as soon as I arrived in the Lower Urban Area as a guest, I found that the little princesses and young masters here were already wearing Mao Mao King luxury children’s wear. One by one, they stopped even cultivating ‘True Qi’ and turned to faith in Mao Mao King instead. Missed out on billions, heart aching!”
Yuan Zhu was slightly startled upon hearing this and asked doubtfully: “Anti-Law?”
Meng Xiyue nodded.
Now, the adult Cicada Tribe higher-ups in the Lower Urban Area had their ‘Qi Refining cultivation’ long fixed, so they still retained the True Qi System. But the children who planted ‘Dao Seeds’ in their Dantian were now pausing Qi Refining one after another, putting on luxury children’s wear instead, and starting to worship and sacrifice to Mao Mao King at home, embarking on the same Supernatural Path as Mai Lili.
This was truly unexpected, yet reasonable.
Yuan Zhu thought for a moment and raised a new question: “You say the Captain looks down on our little smuggling business. But could these Mao Group management personnel secretly smuggle supplies to make small money and encroach on our niche?”
Cicada City’s second-generation heirs had all gone Anti-Law Mao Mao King. These Mao Group employees naturally had higher status and closer ties to Cicada City. This little smuggling business could potentially be snatched away.
Meng Xi shook her head: “I don’t think so. We still need to use Happy Home as a transit for transporting supplies, consuming coins to achieve it. How could this group of Otherworld cattle and horses ordinary people do that? They’re not Happy Home employees; their status is the same as ordinary working cattle and horses in Taixi City. Do they somehow have the ability to smuggle directly through the Nightmare Layer without relying on Space of Gods? If they had that ability, why work for Mao Mao King? They’d have gone solo long ago.”
Yuan Zhu: “Not necessarily impossible. Our difficulty in opening the Nightmare channel is because the Real World has the Spirit Layer as a super firewall blocking it. Even entering the Spirit Layer, there’s still the barrier of Second Ascension. But that Li Hai World clearly isn’t the Present World; it’s hard to say what the situation is. What if it’s another Bubble World, also located within the Nightmare Bubble Layer…”
Meng Xi decisively refuted: “That would make mutual communication and connection even less likely! You know the Nightmare Bubble Layer is notoriously chaotic and disorderly. Even if two ‘Bubble Worlds’ successfully connect today, by tomorrow, the two Bubble Worlds will be worlds apart. Even if they reconnect successfully, World A’s time might rewind 20 years, while World B fast-forwards 100 years. Or after a period without contact, both worlds spontaneously shatter.”
Yuan Zhu was somewhat unconvinced: “Are Bubble Worlds that fragile? Shattering just like that.”
“Why else call them Bubbles? The worlds in the Bubble Layer are like bubbles—one poke and they burst.”
Yuan Zhu countered: “Is our current Eclosion World the same? I think this world is very resilient. After experiencing one Great Destruction, it stubbornly rebuilt the ‘underground civilization’. Moreover, this world’s scale isn’t small at all, and its power system isn’t weak either; it wouldn’t be easy to destroy.”
Meng Xiyue: “From another angle, Eclosion World suffered a Great Destruction, greatly injuring its vitality and severely downgrading, on the verge of death. Now, this world is frantically self-rescuing, but surface resources are completely exhausted; the Underground World seems prosperous but is in its final struggle. The Underground World’s survival resources actually completely depend on the endless root tendrils left by the Immortal Realm Tree, which are non-renewable and will eventually be depleted. Do you know what those people talked to me most about today while I was selling supplies in the Lower Urban Area?”
Candle shook his head: “Don’t know.”
Meng Xi: “They thought we were also Li Hai people and were eagerly inquiring about the conditions to immigrate to Li Hai? The Captain used less than half a year to open up the current situation in the Underground World and establish friendly ties with over a dozen Insect Cities. It wasn’t just personal strength; it was also the opportunity to smoothly ascend to a more stable, safer new world without Shattering the Void.”
Eclosion World now is like a ship that’s already sunk and leaking. All cultivators are frantically breaking through Heaven Rank, competing for control of the Dream Hole, and striving to break through the realm of Beyond Heaven: Feathered Ascension.
Translated, it’s shattering the physical body through the Dream Hole to escape into the Nightmare Layer, escaping Eclosion World’s corrupt spiritual energy environment, refining brand new Gangsha Qi (new pollution source energy) to support one’s own ‘energy cycle (True Qi)’, crossing the Nightmare Layer to safely reach a higher-quality ‘Bubble World’.
This kind of ascension path often lacks repeatability due to the Nightmare Bubble Layer’s chaotic nature. Even if Feathered Ascension truly succeeds, later people find it hard to imitate and must blaze a new trail, opening a new ‘ascension path’ with extremely high risk.
Therefore, the doomsday atmosphere in the Underground World remains thick. Even forming a new Insect Cultivator civilization, the future is still uncertain.
This is also why Mao Mao King can quickly take root and expand.
The Captain’s promise of fleeing might not be believed by many. But bringing a group of Otherworld management personnel fully proves he has channels to escape the current world and immigrate to another world.
Thus, a large number of Insect City noble heirs started wearing luxury children’s wear, worshiping Mao Mao King, cultivating Anti-Law, all to take the ‘Mao Otherworld trade route’, ascending to the Upper Realm as employees and fleeing their hometown.
As fellow Anti-Law Masters, compared to Mao Mao King, Yuan Zhu suddenly felt a bit inferior.
Yuan: “By your logic, even if these ‘Insect second-gens’ successfully flee to a new ‘Bubble World’, it’s still not safe—the new world could shatter at any moment.”
Meng Xiyue patiently explained: “This ‘not safe’ is from your Du Ling Star perspective. From inside a ‘Bubble World’, the world’s life and death can last hundreds or thousands of years, enough for dozens of generations of inheritance—not short at all. But observing from outside the Nightmare Bubble Layer, this life and death has no time concept, so it seems very brief.”
“From what I know, the Nightmare Bubble Layer generates ‘bubble cavities’ out of thin air every moment. These ‘bubbles’ form easily and shatter even more casually. In Buddhist Dharma, they are called Illusory Bubbles. But if gods and demons from the Spirit Layer drill into them, temporarily settle, inject matter, bring laws, operate and maintain them, guiding the Bubble Layer to infuse energy.”
“Then these ephemeral ‘bubbles’ gradually gain mass and strength, forming Worlds to resist the destructive forces from the Nightmare Bubble Layer. The current world belongs to the type with deep heritage. It has shattered once but not completely succeeded and is actively struggling to self-rescue. Even if completely destroyed, it won’t fully dissipate—it might split into more ‘small Bubble Worlds’ and reboot different main storyline ‘Insect Cultivator worldlines’ inside the World.”
Hearing this explanation, Yuan Zhu immediately thought of Little Xihong Realm. That ‘Bubble World’ naturally bore the brand of Buddhist Pollution and Filthy Bone Pollution, yet it was somewhat off and not comprehensive.
He boldly guessed that originally there was a large bubble similar to Eclosion World, whose internal ‘Buddhist Dharma civilization’ suffered erosion from ‘Filthy Bone Pollution’, ultimately triggering Great Destruction. The world collapsed and shattered into numerous small bubbles, rebooting and refreshing internally, but the natives remained ignorant, cultivating a semblance of ‘Buddhist Dharma’ for a way out, deriving the bizarre Buddha Tomato route.
Thus Yuan Zhu sighed: “Sounds pretty dangerous. I don’t get it—since Bubble Worlds are so unstable, why do the Spirit Layer’s demon gods ‘Second Ascend’? Escaping into the Nightmare Bubble Layer to court death.”
Meng Xiyue retorted: “The explanation I got from school faction textbooks is: when your own entity breaks through to a certain limit, you have no choice but to ‘Second Ascend’, rejected by the Spirit Layer and forced into the Nightmare Bubble Layer. Just like in the Real World, excessive pollution accumulation leads to rejection into the Spirit Layer.”
“Numerous Bubble Worlds are like isolated islands in the sea, relatively safe footholds. They can briefly shelter gods and demons, allowing them to accumulate power, constantly leaping and advancing in the sea… ultimately reaching the Other Shore. That is, a deeper layer of the Nightmare Bubble. I suspect Mao Mao King’s old nest is actually built in a deeper layer.”
Candle was startled: “Huh, there’s more? Layer after layer, endless!”
“See the Nightmare Bubble Layer as a turbid sea, Bubble Worlds as floating debris and residues in the ocean depths. These residues will eventually sink to the seabed, piling into a solid ocean floor. That ocean floor isn’t just the next layer down? A god or demon rejected by the Spirit Layer—how could it grow in an even smaller, less stable ‘bubble birdcage’? Obviously, only entering a vaster, more solid high-energy world beyond the Spirit Layer can one become a True God.”
Yuan Zhu quickly accepted this theory—no other reason, it was highly logical and very scientific: “Learned something!”
Meng Xiyue waved her hand irritably: “Stop, no more of this! These things are too far from us. You haven’t even opened the Door, yet you’re thinking of crossing the Nightmare Bubble Layer? Even if you open the Door, you can only wander in the Spirit Layer. You haven’t entered the Spirit Layer yet, have you?”
Yuan Zhu refused to accept it and retorted: “How not? Weren’t we briefly in the Star Realm Bank Interior once?”
“That doesn’t count. Poor kid, if there’s a chance, sister will take you in for a stroll.”
Then, Meng Xiyue introduced the details of this ‘supply transaction’.
Among them, ‘spices and seasonings’ and ‘precision mechanical instruments’ like watches were very popular with Lower Urban Area nobles.
Class exists everywhere, even in primitive tribes—the savage chieftain’s life is much more comfortable than the bottom savages.
In a Supernatural city-state like Insect City, the Cicada Tribe higher-ups in the Lower Urban Area had long lived lives of luxury and hedonism, even having alcoholic beverages brewed from ‘pure water’ to drink.
In contrast, before joining Yuan Zhu, the brother and sister drank bug juice, tree sap, grass juice. When Yuan Zhu gave them pure water, they complained it tasted weird and was garbage.
Therefore, seasonings that make food tastier; spices with exotic flavors different from pheromones; and mechanical watches that precisely tell time in the sunless Underground World were hugely popular.
As for precision experimental instruments, the Lower Urban Area only procured small quantities, transporting them to Insect City artisans to improve production efficiency.
Ordinary medicine and arms were not of interest to Lower Urban Area higher-ups. On the contrary, the poor ghosts in the Upper City District had strong buying desire.
Especially arms—after the Little Girl simply demonstrated, it immediately attracted massive attention.
For Earth Rank powerhouses, firearms’ attack power and practicality were far inferior to their own ‘True Qi Martial Arts’. But for ordinary people stuck at Human Rank struggling to survive, firearms’ lethality could greatly save ‘True Qi’ consumption.
The ‘True Qi’ refined daily wasn’t much to begin with, and most had to be spent removing one’s own pollution and nurturing spirit insects. The remaining small amount of True Qi couldn’t all be used to nourish meridians; some had to be reserved for emergencies.
Once entering a ‘pollution zone’ to gather resources and encountering magic worm attacks or other dangers, it required massive True Qi consumption and overdraft. Now with firearms, just biubiubiu could save a lot of ‘True Qi’ for cultivation.
And above firearms, ‘grenades, rocket launchers, flamethrowers’ were supreme treasures with even stronger lethality, even handling some ‘Earth Rank crises’.
Underground World’s magic worms aren’t truly stupid—once injured by a grenade or heavily damaged by a rocket launcher, they will flee. And the Underground World’s most common ‘insect tide crisis’ is best countered by flamethrowers.
Mass spraying of viscous fuel to incinerate magic worms not only quickly disperses insect tides, but the burned dead ones can be recovered and sent to the Incinerator to refine Bug Gold. The thick smoke from incineration is then fed to the Dream Hole (sewage channel) in exchange for Nightmare Power.
Meng Xiyue: “Although Lower Urban Area higher-ups look down on ‘arms’, they also don’t allow Upper City District commoners to freely trade them. So they placed an order to buy up all our ‘arms’, then resell to Cicada City Residents at high prices to earn the price difference.”
Yuan Zhu: “Very reasonable.”
Meng Xi: “But when they arranged people in the miasma zone to test various weapons, a small hazard occurred. Arms weapons have high cost-performance, but the Underground World’s decaying environment, besides breeding ‘polluting energy’, also easily breeds flammable gases like ‘methane’. If someone in a high-pollution passage mishandles it, it directly triggers chain explosions. People die faster than magic worms, causing our ‘arms’ reputation to drop somewhat and the price to be pressed down.”
Yuan Zhu: “Damn… can’t even make money anymore?”
