Chapter 22: The Pinnacle of Steampunk Romance—A Floating City in the Sky! (5.6K)

This mobile city floated above the thick cloud layer, its chimneys belching gray-white smoke, while the roar of propellers echoed endlessly across the sea of clouds.

Li Ye was dumbfounded. "Can this mobile city actually fly in the sky?"

He rushed to the watchtower and grabbed a telescope.

The exterior of the mobile city was wrapped in thick, massive city canvas. These canvases were vibrant and colorful, possessing a fairytale quality, gathered together to form the shape of a hot air balloon. Through the gaps in the canvas, Li Ye could see its internal structure.

Its main body was composed of layered metal platforms and riveted armor plates, with steam pipes of various sizes snaking through them, transporting high-pressure steam. Dozens of giant airships were suspended from the base of the city, while massive propellers were installed at the tail. The flanks featured striking giant mechanical fins, which allowed the city to maintain balance amidst storms and air currents.

Its auxiliary vehicles consisted of various hot air balloons and a few small airships.

Li Ye squinted, straining to look further. What intrigued him most was how the residents of this mobile city lived.

As the telescope moved slowly, he saw exactly what he had imagined.

The mobile city was divided into more than a dozen layers from bottom to top. The reason it had far more levels than a standard Tier 1 mobile city was that, floating in the sky, it was no longer constrained by height limitations. Its distribution of levels was the exact opposite of a Tier 1 city: the upper levels housed the boilers and power zones, the middle levels were for residential areas, and the lower level was reserved for the nobility.

Li Ye could see the massive steam reactors in the upper levels in operation, with mechanics and apprentices bustling about. The streets in the middle levels were made of crisscrossing iron mesh and riveted steel plates, with large and small roads intersecting; every roadside featured gear-driven elevators and conveyor belts. Residents moved back and forth, busy with their own affairs, while some leaned against railings, waving to the people on the ground far below.

The noble zone on the lowest level was quite small, roughly the size of half a soccer field. Its layout was unexpected: there was only one quaint, old-fashioned small house, a small patch of grass next to it, and a wooden fence surrounding the perimeter.

The mobile city drifted along slowly, watched by the longing gazes of everyone in the fortress.

As Li Ye watched, the corners of his mouth curled upward. "How wonderful," he couldn't help but exclaim.

The sky is always the romance that humanity most desires to touch.

From the myth of Chang'e flying to the moon or the Greek gods residing on Olympus, to the art of Van Gogh’s "Starry Night" with its swirling brushstrokes burning the night sky, and then to the science and technology of hot air balloons, airplanes, and rockets... humanity has always sought to touch the sky in various, clumsy, yet persistent ways.

Li Ye put away the telescope and closed his eyes, beginning to imagine life on this aerial mobile city.

Waking up in the morning, one would push open the window to see a flowing sea of clouds. The morning breeze, laden with thin mist, would pour in, and the rising sun would cast the silhouettes of the giant propellers onto the cloud walls, projecting beautiful reflections. Below, the flowing earth—mountains, lakes, plains, and towns—would all be within view.

Workers in the boiler district would shovel coal while chatting, occasionally waving to brush off the black ash from their clothes. Residents would push open their shutters to let in air mixed with coal smoke and morning dew. They would put on their goggles and hoods before heading out. On the interwoven suspension walkways, children would run past, happily gripping the railings...

Since he had traveled to this world, Li Ye had lived with his nerves tightened by the need to survive. But now, his mood had silently relaxed a great deal.

In this wasteland apocalypse where order had collapsed and survival was the highest priority, if one could live on a flying mobile city, that would be truly magnificent!

He suddenly felt that if the *Tomorrow* could become an aerial mobile city, that wouldn't be bad at all. But he could only sigh with regret.

Transforming a mobile city into an aerial mode was extremely difficult. Not only did one need to collect a series of flight components, but the entire city would have to undergo a complete, radical overhaul. It required an immense amount of resources, manpower, and material wealth.

It was rare for one aerial city to appear among a hundred cities; that was the extent of its rarity. It was precisely because of this that when such a city appeared before them, everyone felt it was as beautiful as a fairytale.

At this moment, everyone in the fortress had stopped what they were doing and looked up at the aerial city.

The aerial city slowly slowed down, began to descend, and emitted a whistle of two long blasts and one short one.

"That means it wants to communicate! It wants to rest at Roland Fortress!"

Realizing this, Li Ye became instantly excited. Lin Wu, who was inspecting the *Tomorrow*, seemed to sense his thoughts and spoke up.

"Lord, this aerial city is quite enviable, isn't it? Do you want to go up and visit?"

"Yes." Li Ye nodded, his eyes full of emotion. "Even if it's just to go up for a few minutes and look at the scenery on the ground while it flies, that would be enough."

"Really? Just thinking about it is amazing... Can I go with you?"

"No, you have to keep working."

As Lin Wu adjusted his glasses in disappointment, Li Ye rubbed his hands together excitedly and took the elevator platform back to the ground.

By now, the aerial city had reached the airspace above Roland Fortress and had begun a slow descent. Its helmsman had carefully chosen a landing spot and announced the action through a speaking tube.

The aerial city gradually stopped heating its burners, opened its exhaust valves to about 50%-70%, and maintained that opening while slowly descending toward Roland Fortress. When it was about forty or fifty meters from the ground, it fired its burners briefly to dampen the impact, allowing it to hover above the fortress with its gondola level.

People from the aerial city took hot air balloons and slowly reached the ground. Li Ye looked closely and discovered that they were all Westerners with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Leading them was the butler of the aerial city's lord. He was over fifty, his expression rational and restrained, his back straight as a ruler, and his brows permanently furrowed, much like a stern head teacher staring at students by the window in high school. He flipped open his notebook and spoke to the crowd.

"Then, as I have planned, we will purchase 2,000 units of iron ore, 1,000 units of coal, and 500 units of fuel at this fortress..."

When he looked up, he realized he was already surrounded. Almost everyone in the fortress had gathered there.

The butler introduced himself. The aerial city was named *Adventure*, a Tier 1 city. His name was Gray, and he was the butler for the city's lord. It came from the distant Basin Region.

According to him, the *Adventure* was about 300 meters tall, 700 meters in diameter, and its main structure was about 120 meters thick. Its total area across more than a dozen levels was 12 square kilometers, capable of accommodating over 500 people. Typically, the *Adventure* flew at an altitude of 300-1,500 meters, and could ascend further in emergencies. Its speed was generally 20-50 kilometers per hour, and it could fly continuously for one to two weeks.

However, the crowd was completely uninterested in the data the butler provided.

"Sir, may we go up and visit?" a child asked, raising their hand.

"The lord is naturally very happy to invite everyone, especially children," Gray replied, his face still impassive. "But I dislike children, because when they are noisy, they are like out-of-control clockwork toys, and often make terrible noises exceeding 140 decibels."

"But Mr. Butler, you were a child once too," a little girl said timidly.

Gray shook his head slowly and firmly. "No, I have been calm and self-restrained since I was young; I almost never made a racket. Someone often said I was like a boring little adult because of that."

Before he could finish, a long line had already formed in front of him. Seeing this, Gray helplessly relaxed his brow and added, "Lords of mobile cities may have priority."

Li Ye immediately showed his lord's bracelet. To his surprise, he saw two other hands raised high with lord's bracelets in the crowd. It was Li Jin and Lei Jian.

"Are you two still so childish at your age?" he asked, astonished.

The two were looking at the *Adventure* overhead, speaking excitedly. "Nonsense! No matter how old a man is, he'll be moved when he sees this!"

Under the arrangement of the butler, Gray, the three lords took a hot air balloon up to the *Adventure*.

They arrived at the middle level of the *Adventure* and stepped into the "Rivet Plaza," the core location of the middle zone. It was both a marketplace and a social center. Repairmen at stalls hammered parts, sparks splashing onto the iron-plated ground with tiny hissing sounds. Small pharmacies had glass vials lined up in display cases, with labels reading "High-Altitude Sickness Relief" and "Dizziness Tonic." Street vendors hawked unique "Gear-Grilled Meat Skewers," with chunks of meat skewered on small propeller shafts, roasting slowly using residual heat.

By the windowsills, residents tended to cold-hardy steam-greenhouse plants, their roots entwined in metal grids. A few street performers played steam organs, the notes rising and falling with the changes in low-altitude air currents. The bakery's steam ovens released the first wisp of toasted aroma; the crusts of the freshly baked bread were exceptionally crispy in the low-pressure environment, while the insides were as fluffy as down.

"This is wonderful." Watching these scenes, Lei Jian couldn't help but sigh from the bottom of his heart. "How I wish I could live here every day."

Although Li Jin nodded along, he still spoke with concern. "What if you encounter strong winds, heavy rain, or thunderstorms?"

"Cough, it's a bit of a mood-killer to say that right now, don't spoil the atmosphere..."

While the two chatted idly, Li Ye walked along the corridor toward a certain place. He was most interested in the lower level, which housed the old house, the meadow, and the fence.

He soon reached the lower level and looked toward the old cottage. No matter how you looked at it, it was just an ordinary wooden house. A peaked roof, a chimney, and cream-colored outer walls—it looked like a gingerbread house stuck together with rainbow candies.

The small wooden house's door was open, and one could peek at some scenes inside. In a photo frame above the living room fireplace, a young couple embraced in front of a small repair shop, the wooden frame polished bright by frequent touching. On the faded floral sofa, there were two depressions, and the left armrest bore fine scratches from someone's crochet hook while knitting a sweater. On the old refrigerator were yellowed recipe cards with a series of warning-like notes about healthy eating. Two pairs of slippers sat in front of the door, their fuzz long since worn away. One pair was scattered haphazardly, while the other was placed neatly, as if still waiting for someone to return.

Li Ye watched all this in silence, silently feeling the passage of time in the house.

Just as he hesitated whether to knock and notify the owner, a sound came from one part of the house.

"Hm?" Li Ye looked toward the sound in surprise and saw an old man frozen in place, sneaking a piece of cake into his mouth. The man was over eighty, his silver hair as messy as a dandelion, but his eyes were still as bright as a child who had stolen candy.

"Oh, I thought it was Gray coming," he said, letting out a breath of relief. "Welcome, young stranger. If you have time, come in and sit for a while."

"Actually, I am here."

Gray appeared behind Li Ye, impassive, nearly scaring the old man into falling over. His form moved like lightning, swiftly snatching the cake away and placing it back on the plate—it was hard to imagine a fifty-year-old butler could be so fast.

"Please give up on the idea of eating sweets; your physical condition can no longer handle them."

The old man held his hands together, sulking like a child who had made a mistake.

...

"This is Claude, the lord of the *Adventure*," Gray introduced to Li Ye, who was sitting on the sofa.

As he spoke, he covered his forehead with a headache. "Even though he's eighty-seven, he's still like a child who hasn't grown up, making trouble and causing mischief every day..."

"Don't always use that exasperated adult tone, Gray; you're more than twenty years younger than me," Claude grumbled.

The old lord tried to use the gap in Gray's speech to dip his finger into the cake's cream to sneak a taste, but the latter deftly hit his hand with his notebook.

"Ouch! Take it easy!" he cried out in anger.

"You cannot touch sweets anymore. If the Lady were still here, she would definitely be angry and hit you."

"Ellie wouldn't, she was a very gentle person." The old lord retracted his hand with lingering attachment. "I'd want to see her every day now, even if it meant getting hit."

Gray paused upon hearing this, a trace of gentleness appearing in his usually stern eyes. Li Ye listened from the side, smiling silently.

Claude then noticed the lord's bracelet on his wrist. "Oh, so you're a lord too." He rubbed his hands and leaned in. "I wonder how your mobile city is doing, and if you've experienced anything worth remembering."

Just as Li Ye was about to answer, the old man suddenly smiled and patted his shoulder lightly. "Before you tell me, why not listen to my story first?"

...

Claude had been an orphan since he was a child, growing up in a fortress. A kind repair shop owner adopted him and raised him to be a mechanic from a young age.

When Claude stepped into the repair shop, cautious and uneasy, a little girl screamed and rushed out, accidentally slapping a thick book onto his face. That was the owner's daughter, Ellie, and the book in her hands was an adventure log of an aerial city written by a lord.

The two children of the same age thus became acquainted.

The repair shop always had endless work. Young Claude would squat in a corner, patiently repairing customers' items, while Ellie would always laugh and run wild around him, occasionally helping with "mis-help." When the shop closed, they would light a kerosene lamp and read that adventure log, and in their spare time, they would lie in front of the rainy window, fantasizing about life in an aerial city.

More than a decade later, the repair shop owner passed away, and the adult Claude had become a skilled and even famous mechanic. He inherited his foster father's shop and the responsibility of taking care of Ellie. She had also grown up, changing from a wild little girl into a quiet young woman. She no longer caused "mis-help" as she used to, but helped work honestly.

Once, when Claude stood on his tiptoes to change a lightbulb in the shop, he suddenly stumbled, and Ellie rushed over to help hold the bulb. Their fingers touched the bulb, and as their eyes met, the sparks that flew were uncertain whether they were electrical or something else.

There was no grand, earth-shattering romance; the two young people simply, ordinarily fell in love. They ran the shop and raised their children, supporting each other for over a dozen years.

In a sudden accident, they lost their two children. Claude was still able to hold on, but Ellie began to collapse. Watching his wife grow thinner and more haggard day by day, Claude felt heartbroken but helpless. It wasn't until one day, while tidying up the house, that he suddenly found that adventure log.

He found their childhood dream. When Claude came before her and miraculously revealed the picture of the aerial city from the log, Ellie’s eyes brightened for the first time in a long while.

The couple pulled themselves together, working diligently at the repair shop every day. When Claude was busy in the shop, he saw Ellie bring back an orphan who had been wandering in the fortress. That was a little boy who, despite his ragged clothes, still held his head high. Claude waved his wrench, wanting to tease and scare him, but the boy stepped on his foot unexpectedly, making him howl.

However, even though Claude was a famous mechanic, and even though he had worked diligently for over a decade, he still couldn't save enough money to buy a mobile city, let alone transform it into an aerial one.

The couple gradually grew old, and their hair turned gray. That night, looking at his dying wife and the adventure log in her hands, Claude looked at her with eyes full of guilt. But Ellie just smiled and shook her head, closing the log and gently taking his hand. Her gentle eyes seemed to be smiling, as if she wanted to say something. When Claude asked, she just showed a hint of mischief in her eyes and shook her head with a light laugh.

...

Claude sat dejectedly in front of the closed repair shop, not knowing what to do. There was a movement beside him; he looked up and found it was Gray handing him the adventure log. This boring little boy had long since become a boring adult, and he was still keeping a straight face even as he handed the book over.

Claude slowly opened the adventure log and found that there was new content inside. It was every bit of their life together recorded by his wife over the decades—from when they met, got to know each other, supported each other, to when they fell in love...

Without realizing it, Claude's eyes were already wet. When he turned to the last page, a sentence was written there:

"You are the greatest adventure of my life."

Long after, Claude finally calmed his heart. He closed the log, stood up, and looked at Gray. The two looked at each other and nodded slightly.

The repair shop reopened, and the old man and the young man continued to work diligently. The story of Claude and Ellie gradually spread throughout the Basin Region.

One day, when Claude was closing the shop, he saw several residents of the fortress walking toward him. A few units of iron ore, a wrench, a small metal plate... everyone took turns handing things to the bewildered man.

In the days that followed, more and more people visited the repair shop. Steam pipes, chimneys, mechanical parts... all kinds of things appeared in front of the shop, gradually piling up into a small mountain.

Bounty hunters, survivor convoys, mobile city lords... through the collective efforts of the entire Basin Region, they had somehow managed to put together an aerial mobile city over the course of a dozen years.

Claude thus became a lord, and Gray became his butler. He named the aerial city the *Adventure* and moved the small house where he and his wife had lived to the lower level, setting sail anew.

"How wonderful..." Li Ye couldn't help but sigh from the heart.

Claude rubbed the adventure log carefully, his eyes full of nostalgia. "As you can see, I will continue to adventure in this world until I return to my Ellie's side."

...

With a roar, the *Adventure* started slowly and began to patrol around the fortress. Li Ye stood by the railing, his hair disheveled by the breeze, his eyes shining brightly.

Plains, lakes, mountains, forests... at this moment, everything on the earth was in full view, and it was breathtakingly beautiful.

Claude was by his side, the old lord gripping the railing tightly, gazing at the scenery on the ground with him.

"Hey, young man! My story is finished, what about yours?" he said loudly.

Li Ye thought for a moment and smiled gently at the old lord.

"It's just begun."