Chapter 324

Luo De hadn't been angry in a long time.

Those desert folk who had been probing with tentative thoughts instantly wilted, not daring to utter a word, their minds filled with the scene of him, upon first arriving at A Ru Cun, daring to defy village regulations and employ private punishment, strangling to death the guards who had sneaked to his house to steal and feeding them to the scarlet eagles.

They certainly didn't expect that.

Expressions can deceive, words can deceive, actions can deceive.

Only this thought in the heart cannot escape the reflection of mind-reading technique.

Even without mind-reading technique, Luo De would not believe the words of these radical Scarlet King followers.

Everyone knows they are extremely dissatisfied with Luo De's closeness to the Dendro Archon.

Even under the leadership of the Scarlet King's Envoy, the desert folk finally attained fair status and a truly good life.

But this does not prevent them from continually doubting Luo De's identity.

Especially after having witnessed the Scarlet King's favor.

The higher their loyalty to the Scarlet King, the greater their suspicion of Luo De compared to before.

Still the same saying.

Because the Three Gods Covenant of the past is now a thing of the past.

Thus the desert folk of the radical faction still firmly believe the old rumor that the Scarlet King was ambushed and plotted against by the Dendro Archon.

Holding such a belief.

The more loyal to the Scarlet King a person is, the greater their hostility toward the Dendro Archon, and the less they understand and question the Scarlet King's Envoy Luo De who is close to the Dendro Archon.

So they deliberately asked those questions, wanting to use them to verify whether Luo De's relationship with the Scarlet King was truly as such.

Thus, on the subsequent journey.

Luo De then stopped giving them a pleasant look.

The desert and the rainforest differ in one respect.

That is, here in the desert, hierarchical relations are viewed as extremely important.

This is not only true for the Scarlet King's followers; the Flower God's followers observe the same rule.

Just as in the past, when the small tribes of the desert saw the big tribe, they had to perform the kowtow ritual.

In ancient Sumeru.

The notion of hierarchical rank was even more deeply ingrained back then than it is now.

So when Luo De produced his identity as the Scarlet King's Envoy and directly suppressed those Scarlet King's followers who had harbored second thoughts, they dared not utter a word; even the one Luo De had gripped in his hand, who was nearly having his throat crushed, they still harbored no resistance, prostrating themselves on the ground in terrified fear, knocking their heads to the ground to beg Luo De for forgiveness.

Such a state.

It continued all the way to the outskirts of Hope City.

"Yo, isn't that Envoy Luo De? You have time to come back again?"

I don't know if it's fate or not.

Anyway, as Luo De was preparing to bring people into the city, he once again encountered Youla, who was on patrol.

Although her words sounded somewhat mocking, her face was actually full of smiles.

"Long time no see."

After returning a smile, Luo De stepped forward and gave a glance, saying: "These people are the ones I brought from A Ru Cun, requested by the Grand Discipline Officer; I have other matters, so you take them to Cyno later."

"Oh—?"

Youla's eyebrows rose, and she instantly understood Luo De's meaning.

At least she had once been a Wave Knight of Mondstadt.

She also had the experience of enduring years of side‑eyes, and in reading people's expressions she was quite adept.

Luo De only needed to give a glance, and she knew these people required special handling.

"Alright, everyone, come with me."

Youla's smile vanished, she assumed the bearing of a City Patrol Captain, and beckoned without allowing objection.

Following behind her, the City Patrol members surged forward like wolves and tigers, directly herding these troublesome desert folk into the city like driving ducks.

Having dealt with these people,

Luo De then entered the city together with Ying and Paimon.

Waa—

Paimon, who had been exclaiming in amazement all along the way, suddenly raised her voice even higher upon seeing the even more distinctive Sumeru.

The construction of Hope City has never ceased.

Even the original buildings and infrastructure are constantly repaired and updated when the new districts are being built.

Especially the main city gate, which serves as the entrance.

Naturally, it is also the most carefully done.

Unlike the most advanced Fountain in Teyvat.

Hope City's current architectural style should be closer to the urban style of Luo De's past life.

Of course.

It is the style of a small city.

The urban style capable of accommodating millions or even tens of millions is still beyond what Sumeru can bear.

This is a determining factor brought about by productivity.

In fact.

Don't look at Hope City being planned and built on a scale of millions; the actual permanent population now is at most around three hundred thousand.

This is the limitation brought about by productivity.

According to Luo De and Nadixa's plan.

Hope City here will in the future be built into Sumeru's industrial center, and it will also use it as the core, radiating out more cities to the east, west, south, and north.

But that is the future.

Now, the just-started Hope City still mainly relies on agriculture and animal husbandry.

It has the foundation of the oasis source.

Compared to other desert regions, Hope City's farmland environment, including the newly built A Ru Cun, is somewhat better; moreover, the Fertility Blessing has now opened its use to desert people, and if there is a lack of rain, the Great Merciful Tree King will not stint on his divine power to give Hope City an artificial rain, so on the agricultural basis, Hope City here is not much worse than the rainforest area.

However, artificial rain still relies too heavily on the divine.

Therefore the Great Merciful Tree King provided a mechanism that can control the weather, called the Fahluna Divine Mechanism.

Luo De saw this once in the Water Heaven Jungle.

As for the origin of this thing,

This needs to be told starting from ancient times.

Back then, the Cold Heaven's Nail fell on Sumeru, smashing the originally lush Sumeru Rainforest into a expanse of yellow sand.

Note.

At that time, the regions turned into desert were not just one side of the desert; even the present rainforest area was within the range destroyed by the Cold Heaven's Nail.

To reverse the desert and restore the rainforest.

The Great Merciful Tree King, together with his retinue Lanmu Hu Kunda and the divine power and authority of the Dendro Archon, jointly created the Fahluna Divine Mechanism.

Such a divine mechanism normally absorbs moisture from the air and underground water from the sea; once it stores and purifies enough, it brings rain, simultaneously bestowing the life force from the Dendro Archon, and in this process stores water power again; if the water vapor near the Water Heaven Jungle still falls short of the set value, it will rain until the desert land is covered in green, the Water Heaven Jungle is born, and the barren land becomes full of vitality.

It's a pity that at that time the desert was not under the Great Merciful Tree King's management; rashly intervening in the Red King's territory would be overstepping and likely cause disputes between them.

Moreover, at that time the desert people also had the Flower God leading the Soul-Settling Clan, which brought rain and greenery to the desert, so the Fahluna Divine Mechanism was not urgently needed there.

So after negotiating with the Red King and the Flower God, the Great Merciful Tree King abandoned the idea of manufacturing the Fahluna Divine Mechanism in the desert.

Later the Red King fell, the desert dragons were leaderless, and chaos ensued.

As a foreign god, the Great Merciful Tree King could not make the desert people submit, and also lacked sufficient divine power to produce the Fahluna Divine Mechanism again.

Thus this great project capable of long-termly altering the climate of Hope City and even the whole desert was delayed for hundreds of years, until now there is again a chance to realize it.

About this matter. Starting from seeing the lush farmland outside Hope City, Luo De has been explaining to Ying and her companions; those who listened attentively also included Lei Dianying and Lei Dianzhen.

Compared to Ying and Paimon, who have always been simply amazed.

Lei Dianying and Lei Dianzhen's thoughts are obviously much more.

Especially Lei Dianying, who had never paid attention to people's livelihood, when Luo De explained the efforts the Great Merciful Tree King made for Sumeru since his revival, even if she was curled up in the One Heart Pure Land and her expression couldn't be seen, from her silence Luo De could tell she cared deeply about what he said.

"You back then were indeed too obstinate."

"This matter has already happened; regretting it is useless."

Luo De fully exerted the tone a teacher should have, continuing: "What you need to do now is to figure out how to make the lives of Inazuma's people better, not demanding much—at least enough to eat, warm clothes, and a life with hope."

"Oh, and also."

"Don't learn from the Great Merciful Tree King."

"Also don't learn from Wen Di or Zhongli."

"Just do as you think fit; after all, you two sisters, one bright one dark, when one makes policy and the other checks its implementation and effect, it will be much better than now."

Having said that, Luo De said no more, letting the two sisters think it over themselves.

Actually, speaking from the heart.

Lei Dian is truly a good deity.

Lack of martial strength is just lack of martial strength.

In governing a nation, she is far stronger than Lei Dianying—by who knows how many times.

But the times have ultimately changed.

Five hundred years have passed, and the Inazuma people's pursuit of quality of life is no longer what it used to be.

The simplest example.

Namely, the Inazuma people are extremely fond of light novels about transmigration.

Even Yae Miko sighs over it; the Inazuma people are so dissatisfied with their current life that they even eagerly chase after the fictional other worlds in novels.

This point is very similar to Nadixa's situation.

Likewise, she has also not personally managed a country for five hundred years.

When she truly took charge of Sumeru.

The knowledge she absorbed in the void turns out to be overly theoretical.

This thus resulted in Nadixa being vexed by those extremist factions, and other things that nearly slipped out of her control.

These matters only improved after the Great Merciful Tree King's revival.

"You previously said to let Lei Dianying return as a shadow warrior, and you continue to go to the Electro Archon."

"Actually, that's not very reasonable."

"Your two personalities differ too much."

"And the ways you handle many things are also completely different."

Luo De said this to Lei Dianzhen.

At the same time.

He took the example of the Great Merciful Tree King and Nadixa jointly managing Sumeru: "Look, Nadixa likewise has not managed a country for five hundred years, so for her the things she can handle well are limited to the rainforest side, and this is still just following many old systems, merely modifying the basis of the policy toward the desert."

"If you let her handle desert affairs,"

"then, given her personality and way of handling things, the desert might become even more chaotic than before."

Luo De saying this is not meant to disparage Nadixa maliciously.

"But rather because he is too familiar with Nadixa."

She is known for handling desert affairs, yet she still fully adheres to the rainforest region's appeasement policy—hesitant and indecisive in dealing with issues, unwilling to enact harsh measures even in turbulent times.

In contrast, the Great Merciful Tree King.

Having taken charge of this lawless land that has seen no proper management for five hundred years, she consistently executes thunderous measures with the same resolute attitude as Luo De, showing no excessive leniency out of love for humanity.

This is how Hope City came to be built as it is today.

Having said that.

Leidian Zhen fell silent for a moment, then asked, "You mean Haiqi Island?"

"There are also Qinglai Island and Heguang Island, soon to be redeveloped."

Luo De's meaning is quite clear.

Places requiring harsh measures should be handled by the martial artist Leidian Ying, for she is sufficiently ruthless.

Areas needing appeasement policies to improve livelihoods should be entrusted to the experienced but soft-hearted Leidian Zhen.

Using a management approach similar to that of the Sumeru Dual Gods, we will carry out a major overhaul of Inazuma's order.

This topic ends here.

And that basically concludes it.

Leidian Zhen and Leidian Ying, deep in thought, raised no objections; they remained silent for the rest of the journey until they arrived at Luo De's home, where they saw the Great Merciful Tree King lounging with legs crossed, eating snacks, and their emotions stirred once again.

"Hey, Ba'er, Ba'er Ze Bu~"

"We haven't seen each other in five hundred years."

"What a pity."

"You two can't come out now; otherwise, you could taste the date coconut candy I made myself."

The Great Merciful Tree King, going by the alias Nabu, still bears that playful, girl-next-door appearance, showing no trace of divinity.

After greeting the two old friends, she waved at Ying and Paimon: "Hey there, new friends, I'm Nabu, Luo De's little sister~~~"

"Don't mess around."

"They know who you belong to."

I don't know why, but every time I hear the Great Merciful Tree King introduce herself like this, Luo De feels as if ten thousand ants are crawling all over him, making him uncomfortable everywhere.

Fortunately, he had gotten a preventive shot in advance.

Ying and Paimon both know her current false identity.

So they caused no trouble.

Leidian Zhen, however, interjected: "She wasn't like this before—how now..."

"Just like you."

Luo De snapped back irritably: "After being assimilated by my aura, your brain went haywire."

"Uh"

"That's what was said."

That is, if one couldn't see Leidian Ying's expression, Luo De would probably not escape a beating.

Leidian Zhen, on the other hand, didn't really care.

She went on laughing: "Yeah, I think my current personality is pretty good—at least I don't have to pretend to be all serious in front of people like I used to."

"Hey——"

Luo De pursed his lips, cradling the One-Heart Dream in his arms: "All right, I'll take care of this—don't worry. By the way, could I have dinner before getting to work? I've gone to great trouble to prepare a feast."

This had been arranged beforehand.

No one would object.

"Oh dear~~~~"

The Great Merciful Tree King, having taken the blade, lazily stretched and joked: "I'm truly a toiling soul—when Amon was around I had to clean up after her, during the Ebony Calamity I had to prepare for the future, and now that I've barely managed to stay alive, I must again go out and toil."

Talk is talk.

Yet she showed no reluctance, earnestly holding the One-Heart Dream to her chest: "All right, I'll handle this—don't worry. Besides, could I have dinner before getting to work? I've gone to great trouble to prepare a feast."

(End of chapter)