Chapter 32 Part 2

Xia Xifeng nearly spat out another deity-insulting prophecy.

This Little Sun is actually quite amusing. Really so lively and adorable.

“Then the Hope City it is,” Xia Xifeng said. “I kind of feel like this name is even more arrogant.”

But since the deity himself had granted the name and Xia Xifeng couldn’t come up with anything else, arrogant it was.

Got a problem? Go ask the Church of the Sun about the Sun of Hope.

When Suer learned of the Sun of Hope “granting the name,” he gave a helpless smile.

The Prophet truly fit this name “Hope” the best.

When he had established his city back then, the Sun of Hope had also wanted Green Sand City to bear this name, but he had wanted to keep as low a profile as possible and didn’t agree.

This time, the Sun of Hope finally got his wish.

Hopefully, He wouldn’t be too noisy—just as the Divine War was about to begin, dragging the other deities into a celebratory banquet.

The Sun of Hope wasn’t the ancestral god of the halflings, but his personality was quite similar to halflings—both loved finding excuses to throw banquets. So He had connected His Divine Domain with the halfling ancestral god’s Divine Domain, and they often gathered together for revelry.

Suer prayed, “Heavenly Father, is ‘Hope City’ also a name granted by you?”

The Heavenly Father transmitted a response of approval.

Suer smiled.

The Heavenly Father rarely responded to small matters. It seemed the Heavenly Father was truly very doting towards this little prophet.

Xia Xifeng and Qin Lang’s pioneer knight domain was finally named.

The Sun of Hope said: This city shall be called the Hope City. If you disagree, choke on it.

When Perila received this oracle, he once again suspected whether the Twin Suns had accidentally made a mistake when choosing their Favored.

Didn’t the Sun of Hope’s personality clearly match Leo better?!

The Sun Church received a very vague oracle and didn’t catch these roguish words, but they did receive the Sun of Hope’s approval.

Well then. The importance of the Hope City is going to be elevated again.

Once the Hope City expanded, the Sun Church might even move its headquarters here.

The Silver Moon Church was also contemplating this matter.

The Silver Moon was the profile of the Sun. Where the Sun was, the Moon was there too.

The two churches poured in massive funds and began preemptively claiming land.

They needed to prepare to build “church districts” within the city in the future.

Well then, the land prices in the Hope City surged yet again.

The merchant caravan hadn’t even departed yet, and the initial investment for the agricultural workshops had already been recouped.

Xia Xifeng wiped his face again, pressing down the corners of his mouth.

Selling land really is profitable.

He had to hold back. Real estate was prone to bubbles. A healthy fiscal policy couldn’t rely solely on selling land.

But real estate really is profitable.

Xia Xifeng said to Qin Lang, “I’m about to be corrupted.”

Qin Lang said, “There’s just the basic mental protection item order from Green Sand City. You still have ten thousand left to make.”

Xia Xifeng: “…Shut up.”

He was clearly the city lord. Clearly the feudal lord plus capitalist who should be hung from the streetlamps. How had he become the one being squeezed?

What was even more infuriating was that Qin Lang, who had no Life Skills, had become his overseer.

“AAAAARGH! We need to hire workers!” Xia Xifeng was frantic. “Start literacy classes and vocational schools immediately! We need more workers!”

Qin Lang agreed. “Fine.”

The newly earned money was invested right back in. Xia Xifeng needed to take on even more orders to balance the fiscal deficit.

Xia Xifeng: “…”

He tilted his head, staring at Qin Lang. “Is your job just to add more work for me?”

Qin Lang said, “When you’re working, I’ll go clear out magical power contamination points?”

Xia Xifeng pouted.

He actually knew that while he was busy, Qin Lang was also very busy.

He buried himself in the workshop. All the affairs of the city, big and small, were handled by Qin Lang. Qin Lang even had to find time to grind monsters and level up. All he himself had to do was sit and wait for the experience to roll in.

Compared to the complexity and sheer exhaustion of Qin Lang’s work, his own was far less.

But he still wanted to complain.

This cursed work. He really didn’t want to do it for a single day more.

Xia Xifeng reflected. Was he becoming willful?

Just as Xia Xifeng was considering whether he should apologize to Qin Lang for his unreasonable tantrums, Qin Lang did something major.

He took out a “bandit den” and tied up all the “bandits” and brought them back.

A full two hundred of them.

Two hundred cat people.

Xia Xifeng: “…Ah. Fantasy Realms’ signature lizardmen.”

The corner of Qin Lang’s mouth twitched upward.

Sorry, he normally didn’t laugh, but some jokes in Fantasy Realms were just really funny.

“Yes, Fantasy Realms’ signature lizardmen,” Qin Lang said. “Actually, I didn’t capture them. They threw themselves at me.”

The Fantasy Realms joke that even made Qin Lang laugh was a “Western fantasy translation feature joke” that only people who’d played Western fantasy games or often read Western fantasy novels could understand.

Back in the day, Western fantasy games and novels were mostly “unofficially imported,” and the translations were very freewheeling. There were phonetic translations, meaning-based translations, ones focused on native faithfulness and elegance, ones piggybacking on the popularity of other works, and ones that were utterly baffling mistranslations.

For example, the traditional Western fantasy “orcs” weren’t the fuzzy, beast-human hybrids the masses imagined. They were originally a term the author coined, meaning an evil creature. So they weren’t fuzzy or cute at all, and even had a pig snout.

Fantasy Realms played on this gag—the most famous Western fantasy mistranslation gag: the kobold gag.

In the Dungeons & Dragons universe, kobolds not only had absolutely nothing to do with dogs, the original word “Kobold” itself had nothing to do with dogs either. They looked like lizards, claimed to possess dragon bloodline, and were descendants of the dragon clan.

Meanwhile, in another phenomenon-level Western fantasy game, World of Warcraft, kobolds distinctly had rat heads.

Here we’re only talking about the kobolds from Dungeons & Dragons.

There were multiple explanations for why lizard creatures were translated as “dog-headed men” (kobold). Since it was a very old joke, the truth was no longer verifiable.

When new players first encountered Dungeons & Dragons, they were completely baffled why kobolds were lizardmen. Even after reading the “research,” they were still confused.

They didn’t care what was going on in the heads of those ancient translators. They simply asked very plainly: if lizardmen are kobolds (dog-heads), then what are the sub-human races that look like little puppies called? Are they called lizardmen?

Never mind that there weren’t any dog-people in Western fantasy yet. It’s Western fantasy; is it not completely normal for dog-people to appear?!

So many players created fanworks playing on this gag, drawing adorable dog-people and labeling them “These are lizardmen.”

This was a gag that only veteran Chinese Western fantasy players would smile knowingly at.

Fantasy Realms took this gag and iterated on it.

In Fantasy Realms, the Chinese term “Kobold” (Kobolds) still referred to lizardmen, while “Lizardman” (Lizardmen) referred to dog-people.

The kobolds (dog-heads) claimed to be descendants of the dragon clan, but the dragonborn didn’t acknowledge them; the lizardmen (dog-people), on the other hand, were close relatives to werewolves, and the werewolves acknowledged this offshoot.

So what did this have to do with cat people?

This was a special easter egg race from an official event.

If there are dog-people, how can there not be cat people? Cat lovers protested vehemently.

Thus, the lizardmen gained a subspecies: the cat people.

Cat people and dog-people were both not humans with cat or dog heads stuck on. They were upright-walking cats and dogs.

While the dog-people (lizardmen) were more like the orcs from traditional JRPG fantasy settings, or werewolves from neighboring Western settings, the cat people were truly just adorable cats that stood up.

Veteran Monster Hunter players had a collective “What the hell.”

Isn’t this just our Ailu Cats?!

How did Ailu Cats come to Fantasy Realms to work part-time?!

Even more gut-busting for the players was that Fantasy Realms and Monster Hunter actually had a crossover. A lizardman subspecies person and a famous NPC from Green Sand City accidentally fell into the world of Monster Hunter, providing the veteran hunters with new armor and cats.

The signature Cat Lizardmen of Fantasy Realms only appeared during game events. Xia Xifeng and Qin Lang both thought they wouldn’t appear in reality.

They never expected that Qin Lang had actually “captured” a whole den of Cat Lizardmen and brought them back.

The event concerning the Cat Lizardmen was indeed set to open in Green Sand City, the “starter village.”

Who’d have thought Green Sand City actually had these rare Cat Lizardmen!!

“Respected Lord, you have defeated us, captured us. We shall be your slaves!” The cat person tilted his head up, opening his big, watery cat eyes wide. “Whether it’s carrying bags, pushing mills, or pulling carts, we can do any hard labor! So long as we have a little straw hut to live in and a slice of dry bread to fill our bellies! We Cat Lizardmen endure hunger the best!”

Although Qin Lang was not a cat lover, he accepted the Cat Lizardmen throwing themselves at him.

In the game event, the Cat Lizardmen were indeed all-purpose hardworking little helpers, similar in that respect to the Ailu Cats.

He complained again—these Cat Lizardmen were basically just Ailu Cats, right!

Because the Cat Lizardmen were truly so capable, the players unanimously requested that they become a permanent fixture.

Official news stated that in the game’s second installment, Cat Lizardmen would join the player’s “companion” roster.

They hadn’t gotten to enjoy Cat Lizardmen as companions in the game, yet after transmigrating, they actually encountered Cat Lizardmen throwing themselves at them.

They’d naturally accept them!

The Cat Lizardmen were indeed highly intelligent, incredibly hardworking, and honest.

Xia Xifeng only demonstrated three times, and most of the Cat Lizardmen were able to pick it up.

A few days later, the Cat Lizardmen who had thrown themselves at them had thoroughly selected the most outstanding members of their clan to become the first batch of workers in Xia Xifeng’s farming implement workshop, earning the status of citizens of the Hope City.

The Cat Lizardmen cried so hard the fur on their faces was all matted.

G-good, such good people! How could there be such good people!

From now on, the Hope City is the homeland of us Cat Lizardmen! We will defend our homeland to the death!

“Come, come, come, all of you come. We can fit you all.” Xia Xifeng remembered the in-game lore stating that the entire Dream Continent had fewer than fifty thousand Cat Lizardmen. The ones living near Green Sand City probably numbered at best a little over a thousand.

When the Hope City expanded in the future, even if every Cat Lizardman in the entire Dream Continent moved in, the city could house them.

With this, Xia Xifeng’s manpower shortage was temporarily solved.

A certain island nation had a saying: so busy you’d even borrow a cat’s paw. And now, he was truly using cat paws.

Xia Xifeng regained his previously cheerful demeanor. “Old Qin, players used to complain: if the entire Dream World only has fewer than fifty thousand Cat People, how are we supposed to get every player a Cat companion? Even without the event running, Fantasy Realms’ peak concurrent players at night can break a million. Now the two of us can each have ten thousand Cat companions!”

Xia Xifeng spread his five fingers wide, though it was unclear how five fingers were supposed to represent ten thousand cat companions.

“Mm.” Qin Lang’s response was still as cold and perfunctory as ever.

He wouldn’t tell Xia Xifeng that it was because he saw Xia Xifeng so busy he was going crazy, remembered the existence of the Cat Lizardmen, and held onto a faint hope, searching for traces of the Cat Lizardmen for many days. He had done the “story quests” he detested most for several days straight before finally waiting for the Cat Lizardmen to throw themselves at him.

There was nothing much to say about it.