Starting Cultivation in Wasteland

Chapter 990 - 856: Calamity Out of Nowhere

No wonder Claire was so worked up—among the "Habitable Twin Stars" of the Tianpeng Star System, Paradise Star was way better than Homeland Star.The two planets were developed almost at the same time. Homeland focused on agriculture and even outperformed Paradise Star in the early stages.

For a long period, Paradise Star had been suppressed. It had nothing to do with policy; it mainly came from different development directions.

Later, Paradise gradually caught up; the Gemini Star ran neck and neck for a long time before Paradise finally pulled ahead.

At the end of the day, Homeland’s industrial structure was relatively single, while Paradise’s industrial development was comparatively balanced.

Now the gap between the two was growing ever larger. Homeland Star was increasingly hollowed out, while Paradise Star was in a state of net population inflow.

On top of that, Paradise’s commerce, entertainment, and tourism were all extremely developed. Compared to it, Homeland Star was pure countryside.

But precisely because it was so developed, Paradise Star ran very strict checks on outsiders, with a fully mature inspection system.

It was because Granny Jia understood this thoroughly that she chose the relatively quiet Homeland Star as a foothold.

However, in her plan, the next step was also to set foot in Paradise, which happened to coincide with Qu Jianlei’s needs.

More than a month after the land expropriation incident died down, they finally set off for Paradise Star.

They left Fourth Master at home to keep watch. He had garrisoned in the Warhammer Star Realm for a while and had little interest in Paradise Star.

Besides that, Youyou was working hard to improve and stayed behind together with Xiao Qin.

To reduce unnecessary trouble, Qu Jianlei and the others did not use the Omen Ship and instead chose a Passenger Starship.

After all, the Omen Ship was registered in the Hope Star Realm. Homeland Star could barely accept that; Paradise Star was another matter.

Since they were in the same Tianpeng Star System, Paradise Star was fairly polite to visitors from Homeland, but the related checks were still unavoidable.

However, that friendliness did not come out of nowhere.

The seven of them had just walked out of the Star Port when someone came up to chat them up. "Thinking about emigrating to Paradise? We offer the most professional services!"

The group ignored him. Only after they had walked quite a distance did Flower Scorpion mutter, "Wasn’t it supposed to be really hard to emigrate to Paradise?"

Rarely, Granny Jia actually answered her, "From other planets to Paradise it’s hard; from Homeland it’s not."

Claire didn’t quite get it. "Same Star System—doesn’t that count as poaching your own people?"

"Performance has to be shown by comparison," Xiang Xue tossed out lightly. "And what’s more obvious than a comparison right at your own doorstep?"

Since they’d already passed inspection, it was much easier for everyone to move around.

Paradise Star lived up to its name. Although the checks were strict, their frequency wasn’t high.

This was a planet with extremely developed entertainment, tourism, and commerce. If they checked IDs at every turn, wouldn’t that just drive people away?

In fact, Paradise Star had an abnormal amount of monitoring—practically everywhere. Trying to commit any crime came with a very high cost.

It was exactly that type of place that didn’t look very intimidating, yet in reality the deterrence was omnipresent.

The seven of them played for a whole day, and only when checking into their lodging did they once again experience the ever-present inspections.

Bear in mind, to avoid trouble, they had specifically picked a top-tier hotel.

Still, while the checks seemed cautious, they were brief—it was basically going through the motions.

After they successfully checked in, little cards were actually slipped in under the door—kind of over the line for such a high-end hotel.

However, they weren’t offering things like "in-room injections," but services introducing immigration options.

Anyone who could afford such a high-end hotel was presumably a high net-worth customer, so the targeting... was actually pretty on point.

They went out to have fun again on the second day. On the third day, Qu Jianlei split off from the others to collect the various materials he had arranged.

Paradise Star was just too lively—crowds everywhere and all kinds of entertainment; of course, the prices weren’t cheap either.

The other six were having a great time; Qu Jianlei, on the other hand, was having a rather rough time of it.

The materials he needed weren’t that many. If he pushed himself, he could have finished the purchases within three days.

But the planet’s omnipresent monitoring seriously cut down his efficiency.

He could change his appearance and even his height, but he couldn’t change his movement trajectory.

Moreover, the monitoring here included far more than cameras; there were also audio collectors, abnormal energy perception instruments, and so on.

Constrained by these conditions, he could only slow his pace and do a lot of pointless things to cover his tracks.

As for asking his teammates for help... he would have liked to, but it wasn’t realistic.

First, the materials needed to be identified and discussed with the sellers in a very professional way.

Second was the issue of changing appearance and masking his aura. Even Granny Jia, who was the best at this, was still a notch below him.

By the time Qu Jianlei finished purchasing all the materials, six whole days had gone by.

On the sixth day, night had already fallen by the time he drove off to rendezvous with his teammates.

But unfortunately, halfway there, he ran into a traffic jam!

This was the first time since his transmigration that Qu Jianlei had ever encountered a traffic jam in an Imperial city.

The Hope and Celestial Hook Star Realms both had vast land, sparse population, and excellent infrastructure. Traffic jams were almost impossible there.

As for Paradise Star... the infrastructure was also top-notch, but in some mega-cities during rush hour, traffic jams were really unavoidable.

Qu Jianlei was driving a rental car. When he ran into a traffic jam, he could set it to auto-drive and then get out and walk.

But this car was rented with a deposit. If he pulled something like that, who knew who would end up profiting from the deposit, and it would look suspicious as hell.

Actually, he could’ve used his ID to rent a car—the forged papers he’d spent a fortune on were good enough for interstellar travel, so renting a car was no problem.

But he would never consider that second option. Once you get used to doing things like that, you’re being irresponsible to yourself.

So he could only sit in the car and wait, feeling more than a little disgruntled: a dignified Golden Core cultivator helpless against a traffic jam, that’s just...

Even though night had fallen, it was still a bit hot. Many cars had rolled down their windows, and Qu Jianlei followed suit.

Anyway, in a place packed with surveillance like this, the best thing to do was honestly blend in with the ordinary people.

The traffic wasn’t completely at a standstill; the cars could still inch forward, just at a pace infuriatingly slow.

Especially with some guys on bicycles and electric skateboards weaving through the stream of cars, making the congestion even worse.

At that moment, Qu Jianlei found himself envying those people a bit. "This is too much. They brag about good law and order, yet no one bothers to rein these guys in!"

Then suddenly, he sensed something off.

An electric skateboard rolled up to the rear side of his car, with a helmeted figure standing on the board.

The person reached out, yanked open the rear door, and grabbed for the backpack on the back seat, movements unnervingly fast.

There were only a few daily necessities in that backpack; Qu Jianlei used it just to keep up appearances.

"You’ve got to be kidding..." In his heart, he was really cursing up a storm. This kind of thing could actually happen here? And they had the nerve to call this Paradise Star?

To be fair, in a big forest you’ll find all kinds of birds, that was understandable, and he knew that.

But what was he supposed to do? Not reacting was definitely not an option; that would be a lifelong joke on him.

Yet once he made a move, he’d inevitably be investigated by the City Guard—being in the right didn’t matter; they’d at least want a statement, right?

He let out a soft sigh and sent out a thread of extremely subtle Spiritual Power.

Point-blank output... it was as fast as it gets, and then he quickly opened the door and got out of the car.

The helmeted person already had the backpack in hand, but their body suddenly froze.

The next second, a pair of big hands slid under the person’s armpits, and a voice sounded, "Why are you spacing out? Get in the car!"

As Qu Jianlei spoke, he was surprised to find that this guy wasn’t unconscious—just a bit dizzy.

So one of his hands swept across the back of the other’s neck, so fast that an ordinary person wouldn’t see a thing.

The helmeted figure’s body went limp; they were completely out cold.

Qu Jianlei helped the person into the car, then picked up the electric skateboard from the ground and shoved it inside too.

When he closed the rear door, he even slapped the window, pointed inside a couple of times, and muttered a few words.

Only then did he sullenly pull open the front door and get back into the driver’s seat.

Quite a few people actually saw this scene, and some of them suspected the helmeted person was committing a robbery.

Stuff like that was indeed very rare on Paradise Star, but you couldn’t say it never happened.

Only when they saw Qu Jianlei’s reaction did the onlookers rethink it—oh, so these two know each other!

Obviously, if they didn’t know each other, no one would react like that.

Of course, some still had their doubts—no matter how you looked at it, it seemed like a bag snatch.

But no one wanted to get involved. Paradise’s law and order might be good, but if you reported it to the City Guard, as a witness you’d have to waste your time too.

So they just assumed the two knew each other. If it really was a bag snatch, then the thief deserved to run into a hard case; the outcome was still satisfying to imagine.

After that little episode, Qu Jianlei couldn’t link up with his teammates for the moment; he had to deal with this bag thief first.

Just killing them outright was off the table—unless he drove out to some deserted spot—but a taxi would still expose his movements.

He sighed and gazed ahead at the flow of cars, expression indifferent.

Ten-odd minutes later, the traffic began to speed up.

Qu Jianlei drove to a shopping mall and pulled into the underground parking lot.

Picking a spot with few people, he folded the electric skateboard and stuffed it into the backpack, then helped the helmeted person out of the car.

The strength in his hands was more than enough; unless someone was staring closely, they wouldn’t notice that the helmeted person was completely unconscious.

The underground parking lot was big, and it had bathrooms. He dragged the person straight into one of them.

No matter how good Paradise Star’s law and order was, they couldn’t very well install surveillance cameras in the bathrooms.

Once inside, he locked the door, raised a hand, and removed the other’s helmet. "Huh, a woman?"

It was the face of a middle-aged woman, but very quickly, Qu Jianlei noticed something new. "Layered on makeup too?"

Through Perception, he could tell her actual age wasn’t that high.

However, he didn’t care about that—he’d killed people younger than this before.

But before killing anyone, he planned to interrogate her first.

It wasn’t that he was avoiding killing, even by Imperial rules, whoever dared to offend a Supreme like this could be killed with no consequences.

His main goal was to confirm whether this person’s appearance was some faction probing him.

This wasn’t paranoia; it was just that he’d recently purchased a lot of rare materials, so it was necessary to be on guard.