Chapter 133: Little Garden
Planet X-C362 – Brown Earth was just the same as it was three years ago. That being said, after witnessing the prosperity in the ten trade Sectors, even the most high-end zones of Planet Brown Earth appeared mundane to his eyes.
As usual, there were plenty of well-dressed, self-important and high-class people walking about the street with arrogant eyes everywhere on the street.
They guarded their own territory and lived their own lives. It was not a bad way to enjoy one’s life though.
Old Devon had opened a small shop at the city, and he also invited people from the slum to help him out. He led a pretty good life these days, and he even had a son now despite his age. A smile hung on Old Devon’s face the entire time; at the very least Old Devon was smiling very cheerfully when Cillin saw him.
Tang Qiuqiu ate happily while holding a huge ice cream in one hand and a lollipop in the other. Occasionally, she would look curiously at her surroundings.
Originally, he had planned to take a train, but since the gray cat noisily demanded that they take a flying car, Cillin complied to its wishes and stopped a taxi. After he gave the address, the flying car rose into the air’s special roadway and flew away.
Cillin forbad the gray cat from speaking carelessly outside, so the gray cat expressed all of its feelings on its round eyes instead as it stared unblinkingly at the flying cars all around the taxi. It could not help but move its paws for a bit. It could not be helped, the sight made its paws itchy and it wanted to slap them.
Cillin watched the sceneries outside the window as they passed by the taxi. This planet looked just the same as before. If it was a part of the ten trade Sectors, then it would likely experience a huge change every year; a backwater Sector’s development was much slower.
When Tang Qiuqiu had finished the ice cream in her hands, they had also arrived at their destination.
This might only be the edge of the slum, but anyone would notice the huge distinctive difference between it and the bustling zone at the front.
“Brother Cillin, is this your birthplace?” Tang Qiuqiu asked. In her mind, there was no such thing as a hometown. There was only the concept of a birthplace, and it was a concept that she held no attachments to whatsoever.
“Yeah.” Cillin sucked in a deep breath. The air was per usual mixed with dust and decadence.
The gray cat was currently crouching on Cillin’s shoulders, and on occasion it would let out some hmphs from its nose. It was obvious that the gray cat viewed the place with extreme disdain, and the contrast was only made more obvious since they had just come out from the bustling zones of the city center. It seriously did not imagine that Cillin was born in such a shabby place.
The shacks were still shacks, and the garbage heaps were still garbage heaps. There were fewer people though. There were now a few more abandoned houses than there were in the past.
While treading the familiar streets in his memory, he arrived at the entrance of a bar. It was the bar Old Devon had gifted Cillin, and it was also the bar Cillin had worked at for many years in. Before he left he had rented it to Er Cheng, the guy who lived in the same shacks as he did. When Cillin checked his original debit card, he noticed that a sum of money would be transferred to his bank account every year on time. Although this sum of money wasn’t much to Cillin right now, it was a proof of Er Cheng’s integrity. Cillin was very satisfied with this.
Er Cheng’s older brother Da Cheng was also a member of the slum. However, Da Cheng was a determined and hardworking man who worked at a high radiation zone and by chance evolved his genotype from rank F to rank E, hence officially becoming a member of the city. However, Er Cheng did not have his brother’s courage. He was satisfied with just being able to live his life peacefully. Therefore, when Cillin had decided to rent the bar to Er Cheng, the man had been very happy. Now it would seem that Er Cheng had led a pretty good life for the past three years.
Cillin no longer looked the same as he was three years ago. No one could recognise him. The bar’s business could not be considered good, but it was passable at least.
Cillin did not stay at the bar for long before he went to Genya’s house. The intelligent robot in the house had been keeping things tidy, so the place wasn’t too dirty overall. The Fuji tree hadn’t grown at all, and it looked exactly the same as it was three years ago.
After surveying around the area once, Cillin contacted an agent and bought all of the abandoned houses. He also sent a home design blueprint to the agent and requested them to reconstruct the buildings according to the plans. At the same time, Cillin paid more than the full sum of the buildings on the spot, causing the agent to be overjoyed and promising repeatedly that they would definitely get the job done well.
Cillin used his alternate identity to process the relevant procedures. Once he had acquired ownership or the buildings, he then passed down the remaining tasks to the agent and let them be the one who supervise and urge completion of the buildings.
Cillin had some savings, and it was in galactic credits no less. If he were to convert them into Sector credits, the amount he would get in return would be sizable. It would not cause him a problem even if he were to purchase the entire slum with the money. However, Cillin chose to allow the small slum to develop freely on its own. He did not wish to break the town’s pace.
Cillin had also learned that the reason there were less people in this place was mainly due to a chain reaction brought by a newly developed planet X-C369 not far away from planet Brown Earth X-C362.
Planet X-C369 was originally a planet that was much more poor and backward than even planet Brown Earth. Moreover, this planet’s habitability as only at rank B, and that meant that more supporting equipment was required if a person chose to migrate to the planet. Since these equipment cost a huge amount of capital, it was one of the reason why the planet was of no interest to anyone for many years.
But three years ago – not long after Cillin had left planet Brown Earth – planet X-C369 by chance caught the eyes of a surveyor from the GAL famous Feniers Family, and had its development and management rights purchased by the scout. The planet’s fate was changed since then, and it was given the name, ‘Little Garden’.
‘Little Garden’ was twice as big as planet Brown Earth, and its development required a huge amount of labor force. The one thing that Sector X did not lack was cheap labor force, and planet Brown Earth alone provided one fifth of the total labor force required to develop ‘Little Garden’. Of course, the laborers chosen for this task were of a higher class than usual. Even the lowest acceptable genotype rank had started at rank E. This caused planet Brown Earth to lose a huge amount of laborers from their city center, thus giving the people at the slum a chance to prove their worth. Even some healthy F rank laborers was able to find a minimum wage job at planet Brown Earth’s city center. That was why the slum’s population had decreased.
In just a year’s time, planet X-C369 had transformed from its near primitive state to a beautiful and colorful garden as its name suggested.
Now, under the Feniers Family’s promotion, ‘Little Garden’ had become famous in Sector X, and was one of the more important tourism planets they owned. Every day, there were people from every corner of GAL who came to visit this planet.
“Do you guys want to go take a look at ‘Little Garden’?”
Cillin asked Tang Qiuqiu and the gray cat while holding a ‘Little Garden’ pamphlet.
“Yes!”
“Yes!”
The duo answered in unison with great expectation. The images on the pamphlet were incredibly attractive to both man and cat.
“Alright. Our next stop will be ‘Little Garden’. Let’s go see the legendary sea of flowers.”
Planet Brown Earth had a direct flight to ‘Little Garden’, but this time Cillin processed a ‘pet’ identification for the gray cat. The space inspection center outside ‘Little Garden’ had tighter management, and while it wasn’t impossible to fool them, the gray cat had to appear anyway once they arrived on the planet. To avoid any unnecessary troubles down the line, Cillin decided to process a ‘pet’ identification for the gray cat.
The word ‘pet’ caused the gray cat ground its teeth in great dissatisfaction though. After some thoughts, it thought: Oh birdy*, it’s not like I’ll be staying too long inside this special ‘pet’ cabin anyway. We’ll reach there in a nap’s time!
*same meaning as ‘oh well’
Little Garden. You know it’s great just from its name alone!