Chapter 1672: Herder's Secret Continuation

NO．287：Herder's Secret Continuation

Heaven's Gate City is a good place, good in that it possesses genuine diversity.

Compared to the Boundary Gate District, which boasts a long history and therefore has traditions worthy of respect, preservation, and yielding slightly to newcomers, Heaven's Gate City is, as previously described:

It mainly offers constant innovation.

It also chiefly presents a vast, diverse world.

As the place with the most 'Heaven's Gates' and also as the federation's outermost trade port, the population of Heaven's Gate City is destined to be overwhelmingly composed of transmigrants and extraterrestrials; as for the locals…

Locals certainly exist, after all the city's founding history is indeed enough for the original colonists to have produced several generations of offspring; however, whether these children, once grown, wish to stay here is another matter.

As a trade port, and also as the location of countless gates to other worlds, there is essentially no resistance to outward development.

Rather, it is a strong driving force: even to this day, Heaven's Gate City's supportive policies still have a place for foreign trade and extraterrestrial exploration.

"So, in fact, a considerable number of people here live the life of an infinite flow protagonist?"

"... If you think that way, I have no objection."

After briefly recalling what 'infinite flow' meant, Aomo silently rolled his eyes, thinking that this niche term originating from transmigrants had long been superseded by 'heavenly flow,' yet this guy still seemed stuck in that era.

In the transmigrants' culture, which constantly undergoes ultra‑rapid metabolism, someone like Bi Ze might only be able to mix in an extremely small circle.

Whether one can find a substitute before the circle deteriorates is indeed not an optimistic problem, but perhaps the person involved simply doesn't consider or care about these matters.

"That really is both enviable and daunting…" He seemed to think a bit, then shrank his neck, "Or maybe just forget it."

"What the hell, acting like a solo infinite‑flow idiot, my life in this future web‑novel setting is also pretty awesome!"

"... Extraterrestrial exploration can be done in a team."

Too lazy to point out the loneliness and anxiety revealed by the other's thinking habits, also too lazy to ridicule what this 'future web‑novel life' is, Aomo merely gave a symbolic jab at the start, then promptly returned to his own selection.

He was looking for a book.

In a city that is constantly changing and dotted with stars like a chessboard, it naturally possesses knowledge unavailable elsewhere.

Or rather, information.

From other lands, other planets, even other worlds—theories, literature, biographies… the Heaven's Gate City Library collects all kinds of books; you can always find something that interests you here, just like Bi Ze, who keeps trying various odd titles on the library's search page and breaks into a grin.

He seemed to treat that page as some Dongyan web fiction site and Jidong light novel website, with Chinese and Japanese constantly switching; occasionally one could hear two indecipherable strange laughs, which made Aomo slightly regretful.

Even after altering his appearance and disguising himself, striving not to let others recognize Aomo Lindun's complex identity, his presence still made him conspicuously noticeable.

Never mind anything else; just the white‑haired, cat‑eared literary‑level librarian in the distance has already glanced over more than once.

Each time, the deepening frown between his brows resembled a countdown of dwindling patience, prompting Aomo to unconsciously start a mental countdown—a subtle habit he'd long cultivated.

He unconsciously recorded and judged the other's patience level, formed mental expectations, and occasionally even felt pleased at the moment that limit was broken…… Although he only displayed such a dark humor during the mid‑race of the Dream Cup in the Light‑Chasing Club, before that he had indeed buried it for a long time.

But it can't really be said that it isn't his bad taste, can it?

After all, back then he really needed to stall for time.

Although he first tried to convince the other to tentatively believe him before revealing the truth—and that approach counts as an appetizer for getting justice for his two female subordinates—but as he'd said before, his motives in many matters aren't pure; in a sense, this also counts as a professional's counter‑measure.

The more one enjoys observing, the more one enjoys analyzing and reasoning, the more one ought to consciously disguise oneself to raise the cost of being observed, analyzed, and reasoned about.

Some trifles, when repeated often, often become an excellent hindrance that drives certain people crazy over right versus wrong on the screen.

Just like that librarian who glanced over here a moment ago, that look was exactly one that made Aomo feel unusually familiar.

Is he called… Bu Qishixian?

I don't know whether it's his real name or an alias; given that this is Heaven's Gate City, there's a decent chance he's an extraterrestrial resident, and Aomo wouldn't reject such a name.

For an otherworldly being, any form of address isn't strange; others might not get used to it, but a trainer ought to be able to adapt.

Otherwise, look at those horse‑girls at your school—what names do they have?. jpg

Aomo often wondered whether the teachers at Telesen had ever looked forward to each year's student roster, but this sense of curiosity itself is also fleeting and not worth mentioning. Whether the horse‑girls are called Super Little Bay or Super Stream, or Zhengzheng Opera King or Good Opera, it doesn't matter; what's important is that you might be able to use those different titles to gather information from different angles.

That male librarian wearing cat ears can also be found in official records via the 【Bu Qishixian】 tag on his work badge, and more information of uncertain veracity can be retrieved under the 【Feng Xingshilang】 label, which looks more like a personal name.

Aomo's current busyness is also based on the same principle.

Although people's stereotypical image of a library is just a pile of physical books. Apart from obscure knowledge, in informational terms it is entirely an outdated, old‑fashioned label, having nothing to do with information‑gathering venues.

But the Heaven's Gate City Library can be featured on tourism promotional pages as a functional building for a major characteristic advertisement.

An overly automated, informational, diverse library mainly boasts rapid content updates.

Even sheet music from centuries ago might be updated, books from centuries ago might be updated, magazines from a few weeks ago might be updated—here is recorded everything that can be recorded, and this so‑called 'everything that can be recorded' is a very fluid standard. You can see both street‑trash books here and items whose truth is uncertain but give the sense of a high collection threshold, like dubious unofficial histories and pseudo‑science.

Locals have them, and so do extraterrestrials.

They might disappear the next day, or even within a few hours, proving their worth in some sense.

They might also persist, waiting for your dissemination to make them vanish.

And among them are also some news scraps that nobody reads, which from the start could earn Bi Ze an exclamation like "How does this kind of thing even exist? This must be the sort of divine‑mandated person who'd turn biology material into something on E‑site!"

But this guy originally came just to bum a ride with his android girlfriend to save on travel costs—a vacation slacker—so compared to Aomo, the efficient person busy with private affairs, he naturally has twelve parts more leisure and spontaneity.

So he can complain twice, feel twice, and laugh twice at whatever he flips through at the library service window, whereas Aomo is constantly clicking, scanning, looking, and even the act of humoring his complaints is a symbolic multitasking sidekick; his real focus remains on the progress and direction of the monster‑industry introduction information for Heaven's Gate City and the various magazine records.

Yes.

In Heaven's Gate City, which can be nicely called a gathering of outstanding talents, less nicely a mix of fish and dragons, and even less nicely a place where demons congregate, an organization like the Beast Sect can easily hide itself in the city, concealing its monster‑related information among the vast amount of monster‑related data.

Extracting that gang's data from there is not impossible, after all; the practice of hiding greatness in the city is tantamount to putting the answer on the question, so with intent one can always ferret it out.

Moreover, he even used data tracking of the Beiersita Beast to obtain the whereabouts of the black‑clad bishop's contacts with fellow believers back then.

Instead of rushing in and startling the snakes, by taking it as a center and tracing outward the radiating relationship network, one will definitely gain something.

But that is actually quite time‑consuming.

Right now there is a more efficient and not‑too‑costly method: understanding and analyzing the local monster‑industry trends.

With the results in hand, one can bring one's experience and connections as a monster‑industry promoter in the Boundary Gate District to visit and seek help, leveraging local and industry big players to do the screening—efficient and allowing one to act as a hands‑off manager; and if, beforehand, one had intervened to foster a cooperation opportunity between the Boundary Gate District and Heaven's Gate City, this efficiency could be improved even further.

His current search is precisely for such an opportunity, but while doing so, an idea has occurred to him.

A rather vague idea, heading in the direction of reversing cause and effect, whose core is 'regardless of whether there is an opportunity, one can rely on the Beast Sect to turn around and establish cooperative relations with local enterprises.'

Considering the Beast Sect's lack of law-abiding awareness, let alone members who hold universal values, this is clearly feasible, but Tianmen City is also a place with relatively good public order yet actually quite unstable.

Even though monster-related cases ought to involve significant losses, ordinary criminal cases still don't raise much of a fuss. Worth noting, even if they don't reach the level of the incident Aomo faced last time he was here—'if mishandled it could destroy half of Tianmen City'—they should still be able to rouse one or two districts and merit a top-five spot in the local news bulletin.

So the idea remains vague; even with artificial intervention, another round of his familiar 'offender herding' would still yield no direction, let alone a proper method that would relatively reduce the affected area and severity.

So his workload will be noticeably prolonged.

He thought he needed more basic information.