Chapter 60 The Only Way to Peace

Just the day after the Dimension Management Agency held its public address, Chen Xuan received over a dozen phone calls early in the morning.

They were all from places where he had worked in the past.

Whether it was the fast-food restaurant or the major IT corporation, they all asked the exact same question: Would he be interested in returning to work?

"What on earth is going on? Can an agency even drive up the employment rate?" He was utterly baffled.

"It hasn't raised the employment rate; rather, it has drastically reduced the number of people willing to work." Lin Qing sent him a video link. "Take a look at this."

Chen Xuan clicked on the video and saw pedestrian plazas packed with tents. Those who couldn't find space for a tent simply sat directly on the ground, doing nothing other than chatting and playing cards. Coupled with the crisp and refreshing autumn weather today, the atmosphere of leisurely comfort was dialed all the way up.

The problem was that today was not the weekend.

Chen Xuan suddenly realized that these people were not heading toward zoos or other parks; their sole purpose for gathering here was likely one thing: "Abilities"!

For a moment, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Do they think an ability is radiation? That the closer you are to the intrusion point, the higher the mutation probability?"

"If you look at the real-time city map, that area is already paralyzed by traffic jams." Lin Qing shrugged. "Perhaps half of Jiangcheng's residents have rushed over just to join the fun. If the botanical garden hadn't been cordoned off, they'd probably be stampeding into another world in groups."

Chen Xuan could not help but sigh. The general public is just that pragmatic—what is erosion, and what are wanderers? None of my business. I just want to awaken my own superpower, is that wrong?

More importantly, people do not worry about scarcity, but rather about inequality. If someone goes to the plaza to bask in the sun and obtains an ability, while working themselves to the bone at their job yields nothing, wouldn't that be a massive loss? No wonder his previous workplaces had all called to inquire about his employment status; it turned out they were suffering from a severe labor shortage.

He had not anticipated this side effect after forcing the Dimension Management Agency to surface.

"Didn't the agency in your world cause this kind of situation when they went public?" Chen Xuan asked Lin Qing curiously.

"Of course not. Robots and AIs have replaced the vast majority of jobs, and prosthetic bodies are much easier to acquire than ordinary abilities. The vast majority of the population being idle is the norm there, regardless of whether the agency goes public or not."

Well, it seemed he could only slowly wait for this storm to pass, Chen Xuan thought. Once people developed a realistic understanding of the probability of ability awakening, social order would perhaps return to normal.

Of course, there was another possibility: that society would never return to what it used to be.

For instance, there was no shortage of such discussions online—that the industrial era had come to an end and humanity was about to enter the era of abilities. Yet he knew in his heart that the new era of the next decade would more closely resemble a combination of the two.

"Are you Mr. Chen? I've left your delivery right here."

A courier placed a square cardboard box on the small table by the shop's entrance, then sped away on his electric tricycle. One could see that his vehicle was piled high with packages, overflowing to the brim.

"So there are still people focusing on their work." Chen Xuan unwrapped the packaging, only to find that the item inside was a deep blue fabric wallet.

When did I ever buy something like this? Nobody even uses wallets these days.

He picked up the box and checked the back, only to discover that the sender's address was identical to the recipient's address. He instantly realized that this gadget had been sent by the Ability Store.

Prying the wallet open, Chen Xuan indeed found a "payslip" and five hundred-yuan banknotes inside.

The payslip detailed his September salary composition: LV3 Store Manager Basic Salary 15,000 RMB + Chaos Performance Bonus 0 RMB + Disability Subsidy 0 RMB + Other Allowances 0 RMB, for a total of exactly 15,000 RMB.

He nearly dropped the wallet onto the floor!

Could this salary be any stingier? A monthly salary of 15,000 RMB sounded decent, but just selling a few immortal pills earned him more than ten times that amount!

Besides, wasn't there only five hundred yuan in the wallet?

Chen Xuan took out all the money from inside and counted it in his hand again; there were indeed only five 100-yuan bills. Where was the remaining 14,500 of his salary? Had the finance department embezzled the whole thing?

However, when he opened the wallet again, he found that another five banknotes had materialized inside.

Chen Xuan paused slightly, then belatedly pulled out his phone, realizing that he had indeed received a withdrawal text notification in his inbox.

After tinkering with it for a while, he figured out how the wallet worked. It could only dispense funds, not deposit them, and the maximum amount he could access at any one time was his entire salary. To say the thing was magical, it certainly had its wonders—a seemingly ordinary wallet contained hidden dimensions within, capable of holding banknotes far exceeding its volume. But to say it was useful, it had virtually no utility; its convenience and ease of use were utterly crushed by electronic payments. At least, Chen Xuan couldn't think of any use for it right now.

One could only say that the store really had a knack for pranking its managers.

"Store Manager," Lin Qing's voice interrupted Chen Xuan's silent complaints, "your guest has arrived."

He looked up toward the stairwell and saw that the visitor was none other than Liu Shuyue.

...

"Has Miss Lin's health not fully recovered yet?" Liu Shuyue asked as she sat on the sofa, watching Lin Qing help pour tea. "You wouldn't have used a transaction as a pretext to swindle her out of a large sum of money and make her work as your laborer to pay off her debt, would you?"

"What are you talking about? Am I that kind of unscrupulous store manager?" Chen Xuan coughed twice. "Her situation is rather special; she can't return to her original world and is currently homeless, so I've let her stay temporarily in the shop and work as an assistant on the side."

"—Must be nice."

"What?" Her voice was too soft, and he didn't catch it clearly for a moment.

"Nothing. Yunzhou's situation is even worse than I anticipated. The Prince of Qi isn't just making verbal threats; he genuinely intends to move against the Liu family and the surrounding towns. I saw troops stationed outside Jiufeng City, and rogue cultivators launching attacks against the Liu family inside the city." Liu Shuyue recounted everything she had seen and heard in detail. "They were already losing patience before I went there; now that they know I've joined forces with the Liu family, the Prince of Qi will likely intensify his efforts."

"Do you still feel you have nothing to do with the Liu family?" Chen Xuan cared more about this than the commotions stirred up by the Prince of Qi.

She nodded slightly. "If I were an infant carried away from the Liu family, I surely would have seen other infants during the dozen years I grew up in the Lotus Cloud Sect. But then again, I hadn't really thought about my parents before; the sect didn't teach those things, and it seemed I had been sitting in the great hall practicing cultivation techniques ever since I could remember. What if I remembered incorrectly..."

"I can help you confirm it."

"How?"

"Just draw some blood," Chen Xuan said. "Your blood, Liu Zhiyuan's blood. If convenient, Liu Qing's blood would be best as well."

"A blood-test to determine parentage?" Liu Shuyue instantly grew skeptical. "Can such folk methods really be reliable?"

"What folk method of blood testing, it's a DNA test!"

"D-N-A?" Liu Shuyue thought for a moment. "Fine, what you say should be reliable. I'll draw the blood for you later."

"Ah, there's no rush for that. I need to prepare a few syringes first; contaminated blood is useless," Chen Xuan hurriedly stopped her. "Let's resolve the issues of the people of Yunzhou and the Liu family first. What are your plans?"

"I originally thought the Prince of Qi wouldn't truly take action against innocent civilians, and that his purpose in forcing me to Yunzhou was to gather a batch of rogue cultivators to capture me. If it were merely a game of cat and mouse, I could maneuver against them all by myself. But his current actions have undoubtedly stripped him of any qualification to rule as a monarch... His threat even surpasses that of ordinary demons."

Liu Shuyue fell silent for a moment before speaking slowly, "In my eyes, he is already someone who must be eliminated."

"Unfortunately, my abilities are limited. I cannot fight my way into the royal city under the heavy guard of the imperial guards and cultivators, especially given that many of my reliable combat spells must be retrained from scratch..." At this point, her gaze drifted toward Chen Xuan with a faint, lingering look.

Chen Xuan averted his gaze slightly, pretending nothing had happened. He knew she couldn't go back on her word, but that didn't rule out the possibility that she was laying emotional groundwork for the next transaction.

She continued, "Furthermore, the people of Jiufeng City are not like the refugees fleeing Qing州 who are willing to abandon their ancestral properties and farmland to migrate to the Wanshan Great Wilderness. People always harbor wishful thinking because the butcher's knife hasn't truly fallen on them yet. Even if it does fall, they will pin their hopes on the Prince of Qi sparing them once he slaughters the Liu family."

"Therefore, after much thought, I have only one choice: to crush the enemy's threat head-on in Yunzhou!"

"No matter how many troops the enemy sends, no matter how many cultivators they assemble, I will make them crash and burn!"

"If I cannot defeat the Prince of Qi's forces here, winning in the royal city would be even more impossible."

Achievements recorded in *Encompassing the Past and Present* also bore witness to this.

It was just that most of those historical feats ended in failure, because winning against the odds with inferior numbers and strength was never an easy task.

Yet now, she had the unconditionally supportive Spicy Village, the Liu family willing to follow her commands, and a store manager capable of solving any thorny problem. This most arduous path suddenly seemed not quite so difficult to walk.