Chapter 321
Mid-July.
Lin Hui was still searching for a way to cure Liu Xiao. In the meantime, new public notices calling for survivors had already gone out across the surrounding area.
Black Cloud City had lost nearly half its population to death and injury. The notices drew in a considerable number of people who had managed to hold on—most of them barely surviving in ruined buildings, basements, caves, and other improvised shelters. For them, the notice was a lifeline.
Untouched by the Sea Cry, these survivors had been tempered by sheer attrition. Their constitutions and lifespans were the best of what remained. Even so, the population influx brought serious complications.
"First, living space. The Inner City is already overcrowded, and we've had to start stacking multi-story blocks on top of one another. Then there's the food and drinking water." In the central courtyard of the Clear Wind Dao Academy, Zhang Yao and Gongsun Xinlian had sought Lin Hui out to go over the policy arrangements ahead.
With Xie Chang'an gone, Lin Hui had become their backbone. For the skeptics, a visit to the Moon Tower—where the three leaders of the Three Islands Alliance still stood frozen—was enough to silence them. Those three were completely immobilized. Their mind-spirits could still transmit messages outward, but they could not break free, and their grip on the outside world was slipping with every passing day.
"My Evil Energy is severely damaged. Purifying the water supply is barely enough to keep pace with what we have now..."
Maintaining Black Cloud City's livelihood had always depended on Black Cloud's Evil Energy to purify everything. With it damaged, the output had collapsed. The work of purifying water and livestock had fallen entirely to his bloodline relatives—but their abilities fell far short. The gap between a Blood Ancestor and a Mistborn was enormous, to say nothing of lesser bloodline members. Even pushing their Evil Energy to the limit, they could barely meet the current population's demands.
"What about before?" Lin Hui asked, at a loss. "How was it managed then?"