This was indeed a troublesome problem.

  Meng Chao remembered that Dragon City only started to slowly modify and solve the problem of the slums long after the Monster War.

  At that time, Dragon City had already walked down the path of the great expedition with great vigor, and through the colonization war, they continued getting new territory and market.

  The industrialization machine known as the city rumbled. It continued providing countless new jobs for the people, and the Red Dragon Army continued expanding. It could provide positions for the large number of young adults. And with the new territories, they could also build new homes. Naturally, the millions of citizens living in the slums then could be sent to different places.

  But the current Dragon City lacked resources and space. It did not have a sufficient number of jobs either. It was thus easy to pull down the lair, but impossible to resettle the one million citizens.

  Shen Yupeng continued, “I told you just now that due to the pressure from the Home Party, the Survival Committee has to use a special budget to upgrade at least three hundred old residential areas fully by the end of the year. This money alone is enough to crush Dragon City’s financial system.

  “Also, right now, the industries and the Red Dragon Army are expanding outward. We have to set up a large new city in the northern area from Shattered Starlake to Raging Waves. The frontlines in the east, west, and south also have countless forward operating bases and developing lands that are slowly merging together. We have hundreds of projects that are about to start, because we’re trying to build around twenty new areas at the same time.

  “If we manage to build all these new areas, we will, of course, be able to change the tactical situation of Dragon City. The threat from the monsters will even be destroyed without us having to do anything. The internal conflict in Dragon City will also be solved perfectly.

  “The problem is, if we take leaps instead of steps, we’re going to end up with a sprain. There are hundreds of projects in all the cardinal directions, and we want to build around twenty new areas. Every single one of these new areas require an astronomical amount of resources. No matter how fast our cash flows, we’ll only be able to see the effects three or even five years later, and this is if the monsters don’t launch any large scale attacks and everything goes smoothly.

  “All the projects take up a lot of resources. I’m going to be blunt here and say that the nine great cultivation families, including Universe Corporation, might seem to be rich and powerful, but everyone is giving up everything they have and betting their life savings on these projects. We even have problems ensuring daily operations. There’s just no way we can solve the problem of the slums.

  “Also, the people from the Home Party threatened the Colonization Party with public opinion, right? Now that they’ve tasted victory, aside from asking for the upgrading of the old residential areas, they’re starting to promote the plan to provide three nutritional meals for children of the right age groups. They want to be in charge of the meals of the children from three to eighteen years old and the young adults’ meals as well.

  “They want the government to provide high-calorie nutritional fluid and standard food packs with spirit energy to ensure that each child can bring out their full potential, withstand high-intensity training, and in the end, awaken to supernatural abilities.

  “I know that this is a good thing. After all, every child is equal and every person has the right to cultivate. The problem is, who is going to provide those three nutritional meals?

  “In any case, the financial situation in Dragon City is absolutely terrible. During this critical moment, we just don’t have the money and resources to solve the problem of the lairs.”


  Meng Chao had heard about the three nutritional meals plan from Zhao Feixuan before, and he agreed to it fully.

  After all, after the Monster War, they would immediately head into the colonization war.

  There were countless enemies who were even more terrifying than monsters lurking in the depths of the Other World.

  The new generation of Dragon City had to do its best to grow, cultivate, then surpass their predecessors and their limits. At the very least, they had to be ten times stronger than what he remembered so that they could have hope of standing proudly at the top of all the races in the Other World.

  Aside from that, if they could unify the standards of the cultivation resources for all the young adults and teenagers in the city, it would be beneficial to the breaking of the solidification of the social strata and promoting the unity of different social strata.

  But Shen Yupeng’s words hit the point as well. The plan was good and all, but who would be in charge of it?

  Meng Chao could only scratch his head. “So, this means that even though we know that the lairs have a lot of gray industries, are corrupted places that hide evil, and have plenty of wanted criminals hiding in them, we still can’t do anything about them?”


  “There are certain really old professions in human history that have existed for thousands of years. There were also plenty of rulers who had great visions in the past who wanted to be in control or get rid of them completely, but even after countless dynasties and emperors died, these ancient and ugly gray industries still remain,” Shen Yupeng said.

  “Dragon City is a place that is not quite the same as the normal countries on Earth. On one hand, we have to constantly be on guard against zombie and monster invasions. No one knows whether they will still be alive in the next few seconds. Everyone is facing great mental pressure, and they need all sorts of channels to vent their frustrations and seek comfort.

  “Yet plenty of young adults can’t find suitable jobs, so for the sake of survival, they can only work in the gray industries. The Survival Committee can do nothing aside from turning a blind eye to it.

  “The only thing we can do is gather all the gray industries in one place and ensure that they remain in the lairs. First, it’s so that they won’t affect the rest of Dragon City. Second, it’s so we can execute the barest control over people like Saber Jin Wanhao.

  “Let me be blunt, if you think of Dragon City as a mansion, then the lairs are the toilets. They are, obviously, the places where dirty stuff gathers. Sometimes, the drainage will be blocked and make the mansion stink. Sometimes, you will even have pests crawling out.

  “But before we have the ability to completely renew the mansion, the only solution is to pinch our noses and go down to clear the drain, not blow up the toilets.

  “It’s easy to blow up the toilets, but how are we going to handle the things under them?”


  This comparison was very crass, and it might not suit the idealists’ tastes, but Meng Chao could understand it.

  He pondered over it before he asked, “If the mastermind is really hiding in the depths of Golden Tooth Lair, what are we going to do?”


  “I’ll first contact Saber Jin Wanhao. This Underground Emperor is not going to just watch so many robbers make his kingdom stink,” Shen Yupeng said. “If the mastermind is really an abnormal beast and its biochemical lab is really hiding in the depths of Golden Tooth Lair, Jin Wanhao should be even angrier and more agitated than we are. We might not even need to do anything; he will get rid of all the robbers and the abnormal beast on his own.”


  Meng Chao remembered that he had caused quite the trouble the last time he came there with Lu Siya.

  In the end, they were only able to get out unscathed because Shen Yupeng had paid his greetings to Saber Jin Wanhao.

  By the looks of it, Shen Yupeng shared a pretty good relationship with Jin Wanhao.

  Or rather, Universe Corporation had a good relationship with Golden Tooth Lair.

  But Meng Chao was still skeptical about whether Saber Jin Wanhao could handle the Vortex.

  Shen Yupeng could tell that Meng Chao was feeling skeptical, so he said, “Don’t underestimate Golden Tooth Gang’s leader. He has been lurking in the lair for decades, and he might be the most unfathomable one among all the older generation elites in Dragon City. He might not have shown his strength for years, but one thing alone is enough to make you understand how terrifying he is.

  “You should know that plenty of infamous lost people all choose to hide in the depths of the lairs, right?”


  Meng Chao nodded.

  Everyone knew this.

  Many lost people chose to hide in the lairs after they committed major crimes because the lairs were densely populated with good and bad people and had buildings set up in such a complicated fashion that they were like mazes. The lost people relied on the hundreds of thousands and even millions of lair citizens as hostages to deal with the secret police and bounty hunters.

  The secret police was really troubled by the lost people, but they could not face the risk of tearing down the lairs and taking away the homes of hundreds of thousands of people as well as fighting the lost people in an all-out battle. That was why it could only allow the lost people to remain inside.

  “It has been years, and plenty of lost people have fled into the lairs, but the secret police can’t do anything about it, and it’s a really embarrassing thing when we talk about it.” Then, Shen Yupeng changed his tone and said, “But did you notice that once the lost people flee into the lairs, they usually fall silent and seldom commit any crimes? If any lost person uses the lairs as their base and comes out often to commit crimes, they are soon captured or killed by us.”


  Meng Chao was a little taken aback.

  It seemed like…… that was really the case.

  The infamous lost people seemed to always hide their identities once they committed the crimes that made them infamous and fled into the lairs. It was as if they completely disappeared once they entered inside.

  If any of them still decided to keep to their old, evil ways and attacked time and again, they were mercilessly suppressed by the adjudicator court.

  A thought popped up in Meng Chao’s mind, and he said, “Saber Jin Wanhao takes in the superhuman criminals who flee into the lairs?”


  “I don’t know and I don’t want to know. In any case, Saber Jin Wanhao is a really charming and resourceful person. He won’t allow anyone to destroy the order in Golden Tooth Lair. We can’t do it, the lost people can’t do it, and naturally, the abnormal beasts are not allowed to do it too,” Shen Yupeng said.

  “Regardless of why he does it, what method he used to maintain order, and how twisted the order in Golden Tooth Lair has become after it has been used for decades, it’s still better than no order and things returning to a lawless, bloody jungle.

  “This is a tacit agreement among the older generation superhumans and Saber Jin Wanhao.

  “I believe that Jin Wanhao won’t break that agreement so easily.

  “So, he will definitely give us an explanation in regards to the large-scale robbery, the origins to the Deification Capsules, and the truth about the mastermind!”