Meng Chao sank into deep thought.
With the population of tens of millions of people, Dragon City was much larger than any of the prosperous capitals on Earth, and it also had a perfect light and heavy industrial production chain. So it could not be compared to a mere spaceship.
Dragon City was so large that it could maintain the normal operations and continued existence of human civilization.
But when they had just transmigrated, that was not the case.
At that time, Dragon City was divided by fog, viruses, zombies, and monsters.
Many of the survivors could only live in lairs, and their circle of activity did not go past a building.
When they looked around, they only saw broken walls full of holes, thick, black smoke coming from roaring flames, or fog so thick that they could not even see their own hands.
Many of the diaries from the survivors stated that at that time, they felt that they had been abandoned by the world. They even suspected that not all of Dragon City had transmigrated, and only their region or building had been sent alone to the Other World.
The lairs were made of sealed off buildings, with each building being a unit, and this formed a lair civilization. It was similar to the spaceship civilization that wandered about alone in the vast galaxy.
And compared to the spaceship humans, the transmigrators faced an even worse situation.
At the very least, the spaceship civilization did not need to deal with viruses that could invade bodies through every opening and zombies that went mad and howled as they attacked them.
They also did not face the risk of spirit energy invading their brain and causing spirit energy deviation, which turned humans into human-shaped monsters.
Ye Xiaoxing sighed. “The maintenance of one’s status as human while standing at the entrance to hell is very difficult. Humans were born as animals, so it’s natural that they can instantly revert to something inhuman, like a wild beast or a monster. It’s all so that they can survive, even for one more second.
“When Dragon City just transmigrated, it faced its darkest era, and all morals, laws, and humanity’s glory were torn to pieces. Countless people turned into zombies and countless spirits were twisted under the numerous threats, which turned those humans into demons in human skin.
“Women sold their bodies seven times for one cracker. Men spilled seven buckets of blood in a fight for one barrel of gasoline. Both ate their own children in dark corners, then killed each other so that they could eat each other.
“The nine great mega corporations that gave birth to the Survival Committee were not pure and innocent lilies when they were just formed. After all, they were born in an era where everyone did whatever they could to accumulate capital. At best, they were slightly better than the absolutely rotten bandits. They knew to think about their long-term development and maintained order to protect their own interests.
“If an Earthling from the twenty-first century saw the first ten years after Dragon City transmigrated, they would definitely shudder at the hellish life. They would also never admit that Dragon Citizens at that time were part of Earth’s civilization. They would even go as far as not to call them human at all.
“Fortunately, we managed to get past that stage.
“We rebuilt order and restored law as well as the dignity of morals. We judged many of the criminals from the dark age and suppressed the demons who committed heinous crimes. We also came to regret the mistakes we made because we were forced to do them.
“Dragon City returned to the embrace of Earth’s civilization, and we were finally able to raise our heads to declare with dignity that we are still Earthlings and are the expeditionary forces of Earth’s civilization!
“But Dragon City didn’t manage to get past the dark age because we were born kind. It’s not because of the morals and laws on Earth being embedded deep in our genes, either. It’s also not some bull like justice definitely prevailing. It’s simply because we were numerous enough.
“Even if Dragon City was on the verge of destruction, we had more than ten million people and a lot of facilities for industrial work and technology. Many of the elderly who came from Earth were alive, and they helped us maintain our style of living, laws, and morals. They pointed our civilization forward, and when there was no other choice, they told us how to die with dignity.
“Meng Chao, have you ever thought about how the transmigrators would have ended up if Dragon City wasn’t as large as it was, like say if we shrunk one hundred times? When invaded by viruses, zombies, monsters, and spirit energy, would we still have been able to retain our identity of Earthlings after half a century?”
Meng Chao thought about it deeply.
He remembered Wu Wu. She was brought up by Ghost Leopards.
She had forgotten her human identity and did not even know how to speak human language. She was fortunate to be discovered by the exploration team from Dragon City, but she could only blend into human civilization after a few years’ worth of work.
But the results of being brought up by monsters still left marks on her. She might never be able to get rid of them as long as she lived.
“Not all people are as lucky as we are,” Ye Xiaoxing said. “Before Dragon City transmigrated, it was a large urban cluster. Aside from the core city area, it also had a large number of satellite cities, feature towns, mega factories, and research centers scattered in the shape of a hoop around the core city area.
“Before Dragon City transmigrated, Earth was also on the verge of another war. A lot of the technology innovated towns, industrial towns, and military towns along the coastline were moved near Dragon City.
“Many of the satellite cities had biotechnology, technology to create supercomputer chips, and automatized machine technology that was far more advanced than in the main city area. Some of these towns were turned into independent university cities. They had a lot of experts, students, and researchers, all of whom were smart people.
“Unfortunately, the dimensional vortex brought by the transmigration caused the dimension around Dragon City to be incredibly distorted. It was just like a wave that crushed a ship and flung dozens of dinghies far away from it.
“Dragon City was separated from the satellite cities, and because of the obstruction created by the fog, mountain ranges, and monsters, over the past few decades, we were not able to obtain any news about them. It’s hard to imagine what they have gone through.
“Based on expert evaluation, there’s little chance for the satellite cities to have survived independently when faced with the invasion from the Other World, because their populations were only from a thousand to tens of thousands. At most, they might have had a few hundred thousand people.
“But even if they did manage to survive, they would lack water and electricity. They wouldn’t have the strength to defend their home, and when dealing with despair of being invaded by all sorts of enemies every day, the tragedies that happened in Dragon City would definitely be mirrored in their areas too. Famine, chaos, cannibalism, collapse of order, death of morals… All of this definitely happened in the satellite cities.
“The difference between us is that the main city area was large enough, and it had the ability to get through the most difficult and darkest times. We could also correct our mistakes and regain the glory of human civilization.
“But the satellite cities weren’t large enough. Once they fell into darkness, it was very difficult for them to rely on their own strength to regain their humanity.”
Meng Chao fell silent for a while, then asked, “Didn’t Dragon City’s exploration team find a lot of our satellite cities and save their survivors? Even though they’re more barbaric and fierce than the people from the main city area, it’s not as if we couldn’t save them.
“I have a friend who is a student from Agricultural University’s monster controller course. She’s a panther girl who grew up in the wild since young, and after a few years of education, she has successfully regained her humanity.”
“You’re talking about Wu Wu, right?” Ye Xiaoxing said. “She’s a special case. The monster research center gathered a large amount of manpower, material resources, and countless other resources to save her. Most of the humans who were brought up by monsters don’t have her talent and her conditions.
“As for the lost towns you mentioned, they were broadcasted in the news and all of them were close to Dragon City. The paths leading to them were relatively smooth. The fighting power and resources from Dragon City could easily reach those places, and the degree of invasion from the Other World they suffered is rather light. That’s why they could still be saved.
“In truth, the exploration team discovered far more satellite cities than what has been mentioned by the news.
“Many of the satellite cities were quite far from Dragon City when they transmigrated to the Other World. The paths leading to them were shrouded by fog, and monsters raged there. It was not suitable for the Red Dragon Army to mobilize a large number of soldiers to those places and spread out to attack the monsters.
“Why didn’t we reveal it to the public? Our abilities were not strong enough, so we couldn’t save all the citizens in those cities.
“Besides, after half a century, the satellite cities had become completely different. It’s difficult for us to tell whether their citizens are still humans, monsters, or creatures who are half-man and half-beast. We can’t tell whether their civilization can still be considered as a human civilization.
“If we recklessly reveal the current situation of these satellite cities, it might have a huge impact on the order in Dragon City. It might even throw the definition of Dragon Citizens and human civilization into chaos. So…”
Meng Chao scratched his head.
In his previous life, he had encountered elves and dwarves, so his definition of humans was pretty open.
He thought about it and said, “Is it really that bad? Over the course of human history, there were countless dark periods of history where people ate their own children, but we still managed to get over them!”
“If it was something as simple as people eating their children, it would be good.”
Ye Xiaoxing sighed and tapped the table for a long time. Finally, he made a decision. He brought out a safe from beneath a pile of messy documents and took out a folder from inside it. There was a thick stack of files within it, and he handed it to Meng Chao.
Meng Chao cast a glance at the files.
The first set had some rather blurry pictures.
An incredibly large tree grew out of a skyscraper. It was situated in a dilapidated city full of broken walls covered in vines and brambles.
The branches of the tree blanketed half of the town, and there were large pouches hanging down from them, which resembled tentacles. The pouches were as thin as cicada wings. Their surfaces were covered in bloody veins and looked like huge insect cocoons, but they also looked like the fusion of fungi and fruits.
“What is this place?” Meng Chao cast a puzzled gaze at Ye Xiaoxing.
“This is Dragon King Town. It’s one of the satellite cities affiliated to Dragon City. It’s a production town that was incredibly industrialized. The town had two big machine production industries and three branch campuses of an institute of technology. It also had tens of thousands of youths and a certain degree of defensive abilities.
“The problem is, the male to female ratio in Dragon King Town was at a great imbalance.
“Most of the students and employees in the institute of technology and machine production industries were men, and due to the pollution from the industry as well as other factors, the female family members who taught there or were in charge of the management of the industry preferred staying in the main city area of Dragon City or commercial towns nearby. When they transmigrated, the male to female ratio in the town might have gone from 8:2 to 9:1.
“You should be able to guess what conflict started among the strong men in the town when they transmigrated out of nowhere. The gender ratio was incredibly imbalanced, they were surrounded by fog, and isolated for decades. You should also be able to imagine what sort of problems they faced when they wanted to continue their civilization.”