Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Entering the City
Four kilometers is not a long distance.
Yu Lian took about half an hour to reach the city gate.
Upon arriving at the gate, he didn’t rush to enter the city. Instead, he walked slowly along the mud-yellow city walls, circling a small half of the perimeter outside.
The micro-military camera on his collar clearly recorded the appearance of the city walls.
With the help of a directional signal transmitter, and utilizing the high-frequency base station outside the city, the footage was transmitted in real-time to the Fire Camp, eighteen kilometers away.
In the ’Fire’ squad command center.
A group of newly arrived expert scholars were gathered in front of a 56-inch LED screen, continuously analyzing and discussing the useful information shown in the footage.
Although drones had previously filmed the outer edge of the city walls, the perspective was still a top-down, bird’s-eye view.
No matter how high the filming precision of military drones is, how close they can zoom, they ultimately cannot match the quality of face-to-face filming.
In the footage transmitted by Yu Lian, details that drones could not reveal were now clearly visible.
For example, the unfamiliar language of the alternate world, which had been uncertain for a while, can now be confirmed as completely different from Earth’s language.
Additionally, Fire Camp has gained a more detailed understanding of the height and appearance of the alternate world humans.
Interestingly, these alternate world humans resemble Huaxia People in appearance: black hair, black eyes, a gentler facial structure, unlike the more angular features of Westerners.
However, compared to Huaxia People, alternate world humans are slightly shorter in stature, but extreme individuals are quite tall—among the footage transmitted by Yu Lian, a man about 2.4 meters tall was found, who might even compete for a Guinness record on Earth.
After Yu Lian finished filming the city walls.
A middle-aged scholar wearing glasses suddenly furrowed his brow and showed confusion: "Something’s not right... The height of the city wall is around eighteen meters, higher than Ming Dynasty Jinling. This height is abnormal, during Tang Dynasty Chang’an city walls were just over six meters.
In theory, for a city of this scale, having walls around seven meters is considered tall."
Lin Li asked, "Could it be that their basic productivity level is relatively high? They have more manpower and resources to build the walls?"
The middle-aged scholar shook his head and said:
"Captain Lin, did you notice the footage Squad Leader Yu shot at the city gate?
Among the people coming and going, quite a few were wearing patched-up clothes, having visibly malnourished faces and bodies, with refugees making up half of those entering the city.
Whether the upper class possesses extraordinary powers or not, at least the basic productivity of this city cannot be surplus enough to arbitrarily construct such walls."
Seeing Lin Li being somewhat puzzled, another relatively older scholar added:
"In social morphology, the minimum standard of surplus basic productivity is the emergence of a large middle farmer class—this principle is not difficult to understand, only when people are well-fed and clothed do they have the energy to squander surplus productivity.
In other words, if the city walls of this city are built so high, there must be a reason. I personally have a viewpoint, could it be for defense against external enemies?"
"Teacher Qian, I agree with your perspective," the middle-aged scholar adjusted his glasses and pointed at the screen: "Everyone, look here... yes, right here."
The footage the middle-aged scholar pointed at was located a few meters above the city gate entrance, where there was a noticeable dark mark: "Is it possible that these are dried blood stains?"
He then pointed out a few places:
"There... here... and here, the varying shades of color at the aforementioned spots, combined with marks that resemble blood stains, could these be traces left when the city walls were patched after battle damage?"
After hearing the middle-aged scholar’s assessment, everyone fell silent.
Lin Li could not help but touch his chin.
If what the scholar said is true.
To let a city choose defense over livelihood.
Then this world is probably not very peaceful.....
.......
Elsewhere.
After collecting enough information about the city walls, Yu Lian returned to the city gate, queued up among the crowd.
Perhaps due to the sheer number of refugees, the soldiers guarding the city performed a cursory inspection and let Yu Lian in.
"Phew, the first checkpoint passed."
After entering, Yu Lian quickly leaned against a street corner.
Seeing no one around, he took the opportunity to adjust his headscarf, using his fingers to touch the earpiece: "Matcha Matcha, this is Pudding, I’ve entered the city, preparing to make the second dessert."
"Pudding Pudding, this is Matcha, the first dessert has been received, the taste is excellent, please continue to prepare."
After disconnecting the communication, Yu Lian exhaled a breath lightly.
Simultaneously focusing his thoughts, he recalled the city structure map filmed by drones.
Soon, Yu Lian pinpointed the largest street in the city, labeled by the command center with the uppercase letter ’A’.
He then hunched over, like an ordinary refugee, timidly meandering along the street edge.
The street coded as ’A’ was approximately twenty meters wide and five to six hundred meters long, traversing the city center.
The flow of people on the street was barely acceptable, with various shops lining the sides, with a mix of sounds interwoven, marking the economic core area of the entire city.
But in Yu Lian’s eyes, rather than human figures bouncing along the street, they were lively, walking pieces of intelligence:
In restaurants and marketplaces, the types of food from the alternate world could be collected;
Vehicles traveling along the street could provide information about alternate world transportation tools, which could to some extent allow one to assess the city’s industrial level.
Some animal-powered vehicles could still gather biological information about the alternate world—for instance, just now, Yu Lian saw a creature resembling a cow but with six legs pulling a truck past;
Mobile stalls could identify the minimum value of currency in the alternate world, combined with transaction footage from other medium and large shops, a supercomputer could lightly analyze the currency system of the alternate world;
Adding various sounds collected by recording devices, linguists could at least break down some common phrases from the alternate world, and these are often very crucial foundational seed words for a language system.
All of the above signifies the advantage of discovering large biological gathering points.
As long as one could blend in, gathering intelligence is just a matter of time.
Even if languages do not connect, paths could still be knocked open.
Just like on Earth.
Who knows if within some cities there are undercover reconnaissance operatives from alien civilizations like Yu Lian, sneakily gathering intelligence?
Ahem ahem...
Back to the point.
The street A is only a few hundred meters long, not very long, as an elite reconnaissance soldier like Yu Lian can walk through it in a few minutes.
But to ensure ample sampling, he often would stop after walking a few steps, crouching in front of shops to gather data.
In front of popular shops, Yu Lian would squat for a whole hour.
Yu Lian was not afraid of fatigue, but worried that the conversation data he gathered was insufficient, making it difficult for the command center to perform sample analysis.
Thus, after a lot of bustling, most of the day had passed.
While walking all the way, Yu Lian always felt a bit awkward—the atmosphere of this street seemed a bit off.
The street was filled with a large number of refugees, and pedestrians appeared to be in a hurry.
Even those doing business in the shops, customers and shopkeepers seemed absent-mindedly completing transactions.
It looked like something significant was about to happen.
While Yu Lian was planning to wander A street again to see if he could find any clues, new communications arrived from the command center:
"Pudding Pudding, this is Matcha, the second dessert has been tasted, materials are abundant and the texture is rich. Please start preparing the third dessert, repeat, please start preparing the third dessert."
Yu Lian immediately retreated to a corner, though inwardly eager to find out what was happening in the city, as a soldier, obeying orders is a duty, so he promptly replied: "Pudding received, pudding received, beginning preparation of the third dessert now, the preparation process may take long, please be patient."
After disconnecting the communication, Yu Lian casually picked a crossroads and quietly left A street.
His next target was the largest mansion in the city: the footage previously captured by drones, an eight processes in and out large estate.
It was also the most luxurious building in the whole city—apart from this estate, the largest yard in the city had just a layout of four processes, a whole double difference.
If Street A represented the economic center of this city.
Then the mansion undoubtedly stood for the power hub of this city.
Meanwhile, it was also the building most likely to possess extraordinary power.