Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 114: Not Knowing the Cost of Firewood and Rice Until You Run a Household (Second Update)

Chapter 114: Chapter 114: Not Knowing the Cost of Firewood and Rice Until You Run a Household (Second Update)

"Not bad, it seems Lord Ding has some decent city planning skills, everything looks so well-organized!"

Instructor Ding busied himself for a while and felt quite accomplished.

In fact, he wasn’t any kind of advanced player when it came to city planning. When he played similar games before, he’d often create routes as twisted as pretzels, and in building games, he only knew how to construct matchbox-shaped structures.

However, "City of the Abandoned Gods" already had the foundations of a city in place. Although there were many open spaces, the zoning was mostly done, so even randomly placing items wouldn’t result in a disaster.

Just then, an event completion notification popped up.

[Hunger Relief Accomplished!]

[You generously distributed some of the stored grain to feed the hungry citizens in the city. Although it was old and even somewhat moldy, most of the hungry citizens were still tearfully grateful.]

[This modestly increased public satisfaction towards you. In the future, a few of these citizens might become a force to reckon with in the development of your city. Of course, they could also become a burden that drags your city down.]

This was the event completion notification screen, and to the right side of the screen, a "Lord’s Advisory Manual" pop-up appeared.

[Lord’s Advisory Manual]

[The Voice of the People and the Lord’s Decisions]

[As a City Lord, you will frequently hear various requests from your citizens, and your counselors will provide you with a variety of solutions. But please remember, the public often wants the quickest and best solutions without considering the cost—which, in most cases, is clearly beyond your capabilities.]

[As a City Lord, you need to weigh the overall situation, make optimal judgments, and not agree to all of the public’s demands. Sometimes, you can be stubborn and solve problems entirely according to your own ideas.]

Actually, the first issue Instructor Ding addressed was the "Shelter", but at that time, the shelter was not yet completed.

The "Food Issue" was the second problem, and Instructor Ding chose the "middle path" by distributing old, moldy grain to the disaster victims, which slightly increased satisfaction.

Instructor Ding didn’t mind; he planned to continue dealing with other matters.

However, after closing these two interfaces, Instructor Ding suddenly noticed an exclamation mark above the head of the little girl Xia Mi in the Castle Lord’s Mansion.

"Hm? Isn’t the study task not over yet?"

Instructor Ding moved the mouse and clicked on the exclamation mark, and a new interface popped up.

[Father, why would you give moldy grain to the hungry people?]

[Hungry people are human too, and they deserve the most basic rights. Moreover, this grain might make them sick, or even lead to more severe consequences.]

[I think you should at least provide them with food that hasn’t spoiled. Or, if you don’t have time to handle these trivial matters, I can do it for you.]

[(Xia Mi’s fondness for you has decreased.)]

"Hmm? What’s this about!

"Aren’t you studying in the Castle Lord’s Mansion? Just focus on studying, what do you care about my distributing grain for!

"Besides, if not moldy grain, should I give them fresh grain? I can’t even afford enough fresh grain for myself!

"I’m providing you with food, clothing, and education, and just because I give some irrelevant hungry people some moldy grain, you lose fondness for me?

"This is outrageous!"

Instructor Ding was speechless. This was like him playing a game, and suddenly some loudmouth king comes out saying, "Didn’t you just score a double kill moments ago?"

As a gamer, what he hated most was people who preached about what to do.

Moreover, in Instructor Ding’s view, Xia Mi was completely clueless about household expenses, and the drop in fondness made no sense at all.

"Forget it, considering you’re just an innocent child, I won’t take it to heart."

Instructor Ding didn’t dwell on it and simply closed the pop-up notification. After all, it was just the personal opinion of a little girl, so if some fondness was lost, so be it. There would be ways to gain it back later.

The game progression continued.

Instructor Ding had not realized that nurturing the little girl Xia Mi was also a core gameplay aspect of the game. His focus was still on the development and construction of the city.

He tried to make the most out of limited resources to cope with various emergencies.

As time went on, the problems of the City Forsaken by Gods grew more numerous, and many issues were interconnected!

For example, a sudden change in weather could lead to a decrease in grain production, which, in turn, could cause hungry villagers from nearby villages to seek refuge, and accommodating these refugees would further deplete the stored grain in the city, leading to a shortage of food in the City Forsaken by Gods as well.

The rich began to hoard and inflate the price of grain. Even if Instructor Ding used the strictest measures and decrees to control the price of grain, it could not change the fact that people were starving to death every day.

Therefore, Instructor Ding decided to employ even stricter measures, forcibly requisitioning grain for rationing.

Yet this caused the satisfaction of the populace to steadily decrease, and the starving citizens began to riot. The church seized this opportunity to propagate the idea that "this is divine punishment," inciting people to commit extreme acts.

Unprocessed corpses of the starved would induce plagues, and as the plague spread, it would lead to panic, further worsening the labor shortage and the church’s disruptions...

Instructor Ding was robbing Peter to pay Paul, and his head was spinning from the chaos.

Of course, these issues were not always present.

The good news was that from time to time, these domestic issues would be temporarily put aside, and after a while, it might not even be necessary to resolve them anymore.

The bad news was that this was because of war!

Periodically, the City Forsaken by Gods would erupt into warfare. Sometimes the Holy Church Army would claim to be crusading against heretics and come knocking, sometimes rogues would come to plunder, and other times a rebellion would break out among the starving populace and the church.

Whenever war broke out, the game’s domestic system would be put on hold.

The city’s residents would flee back to their homes and lock their doors, trade at the market would stop, and Instructor Ding could only control the City Lord to lead the garrison soldiers into battle against the invaders.

After the war, certain problems that were not easy to solve would be resolved automatically. For example, some starving citizens had died in the city, and if their bodies were left unattended, they would soon spread plague.

So, was it the guards responsible for defense that dealt with those bodies? Or did they pay the poor to do it? Or perhaps they simply conscripted able-bodied men to handle it?

Players would indeed fall into a kind of decision paralysis.

But now, there were corpses everywhere in the city!

Naturally, there was no need to make choices anymore, as everyone had to work together; otherwise, if the corpses were transported too slowly, a plague would break out quickly, and everyone would be doomed together.

After a victorious war, a multitude of domestic affairs regarding the handling of the aftermath on the battlefield would arise. These affairs could override some of the previous issues.

Moreover, the satisfaction of the populace towards the City Lord would improve.

Playing up to this point, Instructor Ding began to understand why history textbooks say, "When domestic conflicts within a country become too great, war is waged to transfer those conflicts."

From the perspective of a heartless ruler, indeed many problems stemmed from having too many people.

If it were possible to eliminate some people without shaking the foundation of one’s rule, that really was a method to alleviate conflicts.

After scrambling around, although somewhat disheveled, Instructor Ding managed to keep the population and resources of the city in check, barely addressing the current major challenges, and the game could still be played on.

However, what truly vexed him was that no matter what issue he dealt with, the Little Girl Xia Mi would always offer a different opinion, and each time, her favorability would drop!

Not letting refugees into the city, favorability dropped;

Suppressing the riots, favorability dropped;

Not providing enough heating for the populace under harsh cold conditions, favorability dropped;

Even when the "Animal Migration" event was triggered, not saving some small animals, the favorability would still drop!

Up till now, even Instructor Ding himself didn’t know how much favorability the little girl had left for him.

But considering that he was the girl’s foster father and had been providing for her well, even if the favorability had dropped some, there shouldn’t be any grave issues, right?

"Fine, since you like to act like the all-knowing critic, it’s time for you to take action!

"You’ve received so much education after all, you should have some governance ability."

Instructor Ding glanced at Little Girl Xia Mi in the Castle Lord’s Mansion.

Since the beginning of the game, Instructor Ding had been arranging educational activities for Xia Mi to learn knowledge, and he had ensured her standard of living was as high as possible.

Although he couldn’t see her specific Attributes, her avatar had changed. She had transformed from the frail-looking little girl at the start to a healthy, cheerful, and resolute young woman.

Just with this character portrait, in other games, she would definitely be a main character!

Of course, it probably counted in this game too.

Although Xia Mi had been disagreeing with him constantly, Instructor Ding felt he should bring her out to try.

Not knowing the cost of running a household until one actually does; if she were to handle these specific affairs, perhaps she would realize the hardship of her foster father and come to a sudden realization?

This was not impossible.

After all, the official statements confirmed that the game City of the Abandoned Gods also employed fake-AI Technology. Even though the game mechanics didn’t make it very sensitive, but as long as it was used, there should be limitless possibilities.

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