Welcome to the Ability Shop!

Chapter 57 Trip to Yunzhou
……

The customers left one after another.

They also bought a lot of beer and fast food, and for many, tonight will be a sleepless night.

The old man was the last to leave the family, and he took two extra packs of cigarettes with him before he went out.

"Aren't you going to meet up with your friends?" he asked.

"Now?" Chen Xuan shook his head with a smile. "I still have to mind the shop."

"You're a strange fellow, how can you be so patient?" The old man said with a sigh. "After today, the world will probably be very different. This reminds me of when we joined the WTO and bid for the Olympics, the scene was just as lively."

"Did the world change after that?"

"Things have changed. You might not feel it, but it's been changing since you were born. But for our generation, those events were like a clear dividing line, with everything before and after them being very different."

Chen Xuan didn't respond, because he saw a hint of melancholy in the other person's eyes.

"Why am I telling you all this? Honestly." The old man chuckled self-deprecatingly, picked up a cigarette from the bar and put it in his pocket. "If you have any friends, contact them. I'm sure they have a lot to talk about with you too."

After saying that, he staggered out of the shop.

For some reason, Chen Xuan felt that his movements were not as agile as before, and the half hour he spent there felt like several years had passed.

friend?
Does that colleague who blocked me count?
Chen Xuan suddenly realized that he was indeed all alone in the city.

“Now we’ve become the most heinous villains,” Lin Qing interrupted his thoughts. “But this is a common practice in the organization. Unless they’ve also seen the future with their own eyes, no one will deny their own correctness.”

Do you drink alcohol regularly?

Lin Qing paused for a moment, then laughed, "You should ask me how much I can drink. Let me put it this way, when I set my alcohol metabolism to the highest level, all the drinks in this store combined wouldn't be enough to get me drunk."

Chen Xuan took two bottles of chilled beer from the freezer. "Let's have a drink too."

"Okay, I don't need to pay, right?"

"It's on me."

On the alleyway in front of the shop, Chen Xuan set up a small table and two folding chairs, ordered some barbecue, and started eating and drinking with his customer and employee.

The weather is also great tonight; the moon hangs clearly high in the sky, like a crescent moon.

After downing two drinks, he asked, "Do you know who was the person who was supporting the Weixian Agency just now?"

"His name is in the stored information; his code name is Doctor." Lin Qing nodded.

Chen Xuan was somewhat surprised, "That's it?"

"What you want to ask is, how important is he, right?" A glint of light flickered in her eyes, as if she were searching for information. "Overall, his research level is indeed quite high, but only within this era. When his abilities and scientific research are combined, the progress of many research projects is extremely rapid, which cannot be described as progressing by leaps and bounds. His main contributions to the organization are the laboratories he led and the large amount of capital he brought in. Even if we get rid of him now, Weixian will not stop its progress."

Chen Xuan's brow twitched. "No, I was just asking casually, and you immediately thought of assassination?"
"That last question... have you really considered it?"

“Of course, I’m willing to do anything as long as there’s a sure way to avoid that disaster,” Lin Qing replied. “The 2025 Safeguard Agency is like a speeding train, its power is expanding rapidly, and this cannot be changed by eliminating one or two people.”

The disaster was brought about by the technological revolution, with the advent of nanobots being a key factor.

There are many technology companies leading the development of nanobots, and they are all strongly associated with the Dimensional Organization. Moreover, these companies' products are not limited to nanobots; they are leaders in AI, robotics, military equipment, medicine, prosthetics, and many other fields.

Or rather, it was precisely because of the assistance of government agencies that they became super giants leading the technological revolution.

Therefore, Lin Qing believed that subverting or destroying the organization was the most feasible approach.

The logic was sound, but Chen Xuan still had some doubts and couldn't find a suitable answer no matter how hard he tried.

What exactly is ability?
Was his acquisition of this shop also a change caused by the point of intrusion?

"I suddenly wondered, what if the Dimensional Limitation Agency really collapses or ceases to exist before the deadline? Would those technologies definitely never appear?" Chen Xuan picked up a skewer of grilled meat and said slowly, "The combination of ability and scientific research has driven the rapid development of technology, but even without ability, it would have been developed someday, wouldn't it?"

He thought Lin Qing would think for a long time, but to his surprise, she replied easily, "Perhaps, just like humanity will one day perish, but that has little to do with us. New disasters will bring new people to turn the tide, and I just need to focus on the task at hand." Chen Xuan couldn't help but admire her mental fortitude even more, "That doesn't seem wrong."

You believe in the wisdom of future generations, right?

"Even in the worst-case scenario, if we failed to stop the Dimensional Agency and those devastating technologies were still developed, my mission wouldn't be a complete failure. At least I can have my epitaph engraved on my tombstone: Stop wasting money building the Crystal Palace!"

"Hahahaha..." The two of them burst into laughter.

After laughing, Lin Qing raised her glass to him again, "But then again, I think the future is already changing little by little. This is the first time the organization has been forced to do these things. They have never mentioned publicly recruiting ability users before. This is probably a good start."

Chen Xuan clinked glasses with her and said, "I agree."

At least his ability store can significantly expand its business scope.

……

……

The last time Liu Shuyue came to Yunzhou, she was just passing through.

This place is relatively close to the kingdom's center, so few demons would venture into it. Yunzhou is also not large, with only two towns within its borders with populations exceeding 100,000. The one to the east, Jiufeng City, is where the Liu family is located.

She was already standing outside the city.

Unlike the towns of Qingzhou, there was no need to worry about foreign invasion here. Therefore, the city walls were only used to defend against bandits and refugees, and were generally not very high, appearing at first glance like a long, narrow courtyard wall. Her previous impression of this place was one of ordinariness and tranquility; though not as prosperous as the royal city, it was more stable than the border towns. Before meeting the shopkeeper's world, her ideal of a unified Qi Kingdom consisted of places like Yunzhou.

But right now, she only felt a burning anger in her chest.

There were numerous camps set up in the fields outside the city, and checkpoints were set up on all the dirt roads leading to Jiufeng City. This was clearly not a normal situation.

Judging from the numerous flags, the army encamped here does not belong to Yunzhou.

Did these soldiers know why they were sent there?

Considering that the barricades and sentry posts faced not the outskirts of the city, but the gates of Jiufeng City, she felt the soldiers were aware of this.

That's why she felt an anger she had never felt before... and a sense of absurdity.

Would these people really rush into the city and massacre the unarmed civilians if the King of Qi gave the order?

However, reading stories from ancient and modern times told her that it would happen.

She couldn't expect a general who, upon receiving the king's order, would immediately lead his army to this place to be a person of high moral character.

Even so, Liu Shuyue still wanted to try harder, first to clear up the rumors in the Liu family, and at the same time, completely sever her relationship with the Great Qi without giving the King of Qi an excuse to kill.

Using an invisibility talisman, she silently passed through the city gate checkpoint and entered Jiufeng City.

It must be said that the desolation of the streets was palpable. Apart from the beggars lying blankly by the walls, she could hardly see any people walking around. All the shops along the street had their doors tightly shut, and the windows were boarded up. What saddened her even more were the gallows erected along the roadside, with corpses hanging on them swaying slightly, and notices below stating their crimes: unauthorized escape from Jiufeng City.

This situation clearly didn't happen overnight.

It's likely that when King Qi wrote that letter, his generals were already preparing for what happened today.

All of this is forcing me to give in.

But she had already made up her mind when she slew the dragon that even if she died in the vast wilderness, she would not serve the King of Qi again.

Liu Shuyue dispelled her invisibility, approached a beggar, and placed a Snickers bar in his bowl—the shopkeeper had said it was very filling, even more so than instant noodles, and she had verified this on the way; it was indeed true. "Where is the Liu family's house?"

The beggar looked up at her, a look of horror on his face. "You can't mess with the Liu family! You'll be in big trouble!"

"You just need to answer me."

He picked up the Snickers bar, sniffed it, took a cautious bite, and then wolfed it down. After finishing, he licked his fingers with lingering satisfaction and said, "...Northwest, you'll find it in the northwest, a very large mansion. But I advise you not to go; after today, they'll probably be a bunch of dead!"

(End of this chapter)