Chapter 281: Outlook

"But even if we raise the price to 500,000, the law enforcement system surely won't agree, right?" one of the guild masters said, his mind still quite clear. "Aurora City has market regulations. Our pricing is too outrageous; they'll definitely send people over..."

"For the low-level enforcers, whoever comes, give each of them 50 kilograms of coal. It doesn't matter if they use it themselves or sell it at a higher price. For every additional 'mark' an officer has, give them an extra 100 kilograms. They don't need to do anything, just delay things a little."

Yan Shang slowly pulled a train ticket from his pocket and spoke, "Our train departs in three hours... In the current situation, three hours is enough for us to clear out all our inventory."

"But, what if they don't accept it?"

"Don't accept?"

Yan Shang smiled faintly.

*Boom—!!*

The next moment, the lounge door suddenly burst open, startling the two guild masters!

Amidst the rising dust, a black-haired woman stood silently outside the doorway. Behind her was a tall man, whose entire body resembled stone. Only his chest was barely visible through the doorframe, indicating his total height likely exceeded three meters.

As they appeared, waves of terrifying pressure emanated consecutively from the squinting man, the black-haired woman, and the stone man, turning the two guild masters' faces ashen with fear!

"My Starfall Merchant Guild has already suffered a severe blow..." Yan Shang picked up his teacup and said flatly, "I originally thought we'd have to tuck our tails and slink away, but now, against all odds, Heaven has given me a chance to turn things around..."

"Whoever obstructs my business will die."

The Wisteria Café.

Aurora Monarch coughed for a long time before finally easing a bit. He casually picked up a frozen, hardened rag from the table and wiped the bloodstains from his hands, his expression utterly exhausted.

"Are you okay?" Chen Ling couldn't help but ask.

Aurora Monarch didn't answer. He merely silently dropped the rag into a trash can, his attention returning to the brewing coffee, as if it were the only thing he cared about at the moment.

Outside the window, occasional noisy scuffles could be heard, like someone crying, like someone wailing. Chen Ling turned to look, but through the frost-covered glass, he couldn't see what was happening outside; he only knew they seemed to be fighting over something.

Inside the café, it remained quiet, with only the sound of Aurora Monarch brewing coffee and the mournful whine of cold wind seeping through the door cracks.

"Do you prefer more milk or less?"

"...Less, please."

A moment later, Aurora Monarch brought two cups of coffee and sat down by the window.

Chen Ling sat across from him and took the latte Aurora Monarch pushed his way. The rich aroma of coffee filled his nostrils. In that moment, he felt as if he had dreamt back to before the Great Calamity, sitting once more in a café amidst skyscrapers, watching the pedestrians and vehicles outside, a brief sense of peace and tranquility rising within him.

Aurora Monarch took a sip of his coffee. A hint of life finally returned to his pale face. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly, as if, like Chen Ling, he was recalling something.

"Although it doesn't feel like much time has passed... drinking this coffee truly gives me a long-lost feeling, as if spanning across time."

"Isn't a slumber of over three hundred years a long time?"

"For those outside, yes, it's a long time. For me, it was just a nap." Aurora Monarch picked up his coffee, about to take a second sip, only to find the coffee in his cup had frozen solid, completely stuck to the mug.

A bitter expression appeared in Aurora Monarch's eyes. He reluctantly yet helplessly set the coffee cup down, gazing at the frost-covered glass, and spoke softly,

"Who knew that after waking up, the world would turn out like this... And I, too, am close to dying of old age."

Chen Ling looked at Aurora Monarch's lost, absent-minded face, which still appeared to be under thirty years old. As a doctor, he was certainly young and handsome. Yet, such a person had silently missed the latter half of his life in a deep slumber.

Waking up, the world had been turned upside down, and his own life had reached its end.

"Did you... get married?"

"No." Aurora Monarch paused for a moment. "But I had a fiancée, a colleague from our unit. We were already preparing for the wedding, but then..."

Aurora Monarch did not continue, and Chen Ling, having roughly guessed what happened, also did not press further.

"So, even if you've ascended to Ninth Order, you can't extend your life?"

"Extend life?" Aurora Monarch shook his head. "Humans are humans, and human lifespans are limited. Even hibernation doesn't extend our lifespan; it only slows down the rate of my aging... But I will still have the day I die of old age."

"But the people at Aurora Base spent over three hundred years trying to extend your life."

"...Perhaps." Aurora Monarch's expression was somewhat complex. "In fact, the mission of Aurora Base was far more than just that... Extending my life was merely one of their attempts for the continuation of humanity, and beyond that, they also had many other attempts,

For example, creating artificial Aurora domains; for example... creating another Aurora Monarch. They would extract my genes for artificial insemination, attempting to clone an Aurora Monarch in that way... Or injecting some of my cellular tissue into organs found elsewhere, trying to replicate part of my power, and so on... In short, they tried every method they could think of."

"Did they have your consent to do all this?"

Aurora Monarch looked deeply at Chen Ling. "These plans were jointly proposed by me and them before I went into slumber..."

"...But they still failed."

"That's right." Aurora Monarch sighed. "Perhaps it can't be called a complete failure; they did gain something during the process, but it had little overall impact... They couldn't analyze why I possessed this power, nor could they perfectly replicate another Aurora Monarch capable of expanding a domain to protect the entire Aurora Territory... Similarly, they couldn't extend my life.

But they can't be blamed for this. Even before I went into slumber, others had already attempted these things... Even with the technological standards before the Great Calamity, none of this could be achieved. The hibernation project was a desperate choice we made when we had nowhere else to turn.

We could only pray that time would bring us a miracle, but as time passed, scientific research standards continuously regressed, and the difficulty of experiments only increased. In the end... nothing was gained."

Aurora Monarch slowly set down his coffee. The coffee cup, frozen solid, landed on the table with a dull thud. The air suddenly fell silent.

He looked at the misty glass window, and suddenly let out a bitter laugh,

"So, where exactly is humanity's way out?"