“They contacted us again,” Liu Peiqiang said. Just as Wang Han had predicted, Qiu Jiji sent another communication request only five minutes later.
"Get ready to connect," Wang Han said, signaling the octopus head to start its performance again.
"The debt is ready so quickly? I don't see anything you've prepared!" After the communication was reconnected, the projection appeared again in the sky above London. Looking at Qiu Jiji on the other end of the video, the octopus-headed man asked amidst everyone's concern.
“Mr. Alien, we don’t have that many Hong Kong dollars, and the total amount of Hong Kong dollars required by this planet doesn’t even add up to that many,” Qiu Jiji said upon hearing this. “So we hope there are other solutions.”
"Let me show you a video!" Upon hearing this, the octopus-headed creature didn't answer Qiu Jiji, but instead gestured to its tribesmen to play the video. Above London, the screen projection, originally split in two, now appeared in three parts.
"Boom..." The video had barely begun when four yellowish-brown planets were destroyed and shattered by four enormous red beams of light. The entire planet was blown to pieces. Everyone was shocked by this scene. Science fiction was still in its infancy, and they had never seen such a shocking scene before. The destruction of planets, four planets being blown to pieces, was absolutely terrifying.
"These are four mining planets. Because the debt was too huge, we had no choice but to destroy the planets and take the minerals to pay off the debt." As the video played, the octopus-headed man provided timely commentary.
"Why shatter the planet?" Qiu Jiji asked, her voice trembling, as she watched the video of the planet reduced to fragments. Everyone in the city held their breath, watching the video and awaiting the octopus-headed man's answer. They were afraid—afraid that Earth would become like that too.
"If we don't shatter the planet, are we going to have to pay an even higher price to mine it? That's not worth it! Shattering the planet makes mining much easier, and transportation is also more convenient, saving a lot of costs." The octopus-headed man said this as if it were commonplace.
The scene then shifts to a snow-covered landscape with a gloomy gray sky. Terrifying ice freezes seemingly highly developed cities, and in the distance, massive thrusters spew long columns of fire that pierce the clouds. The purpose of these fires is unclear. The camera zooms in, finally revealing the entire planet, propelled through space by these fiery jets, leaving a massive trail of flames behind it.
"This ecological planet is because it can't repay its debts, so we're going to freeze it, exterminate all the species, build planetary engines on it, and sell it to another planet," the octopus-headed man continued to explain. This scene was actually before the Wandering Earth was taken into Wang Han's Divine Might Space.
As the octopus-headed narrator explained, viewers on the screen felt another chill run down their spines. Selling an extinct species as a planet—it's terrifying. What horrified them even more was that Earth is an ecological planet, perfectly meeting the criteria for selling a planet.
“You don’t need to worry so much. We’ve calculated that your debts don’t reach the threshold for selling a planet,” the octopus-headed man said. “But if you can’t repay your debts, we will capture species, including but not limited to humans, for sale to pay them off.”
As the octopus head spoke, the scene changed again, revealing a well-preserved ecological planet. Various spaceships roamed freely, capturing the planet's creatures. Laser cannons on the spaceships destroyed any resistance. In the ruins, numerous robots searched for cities that had become wastelands.
"This planet owes a debt of slavery, which must be repaid with slaves. However, they refuse to repay, so we have no choice but to forcibly capture slaves. The losses caused by using such coercive methods are borne by them and cannot be included in the debt repayment. The losses incurred by our efforts to recover the debt are also borne by them."
Watching the changing scene and listening to the octopus-headed man's explanation, everyone felt a chill run down their spines, and all thoughts of resistance vanished. Seriously, from any perspective, resistance would only lead to self-destruction.
Finally, the scene changed again, revealing a massive space fleet with at least a thousand warships. The octopus-headed figure concluded, "This is one of our debt collection fleets from our cosmic debt collection company, located right here in your M77 Nebula."
"Gulp!" Everyone watching the video and the projection swallowed hard. The meaning of the octopus head's last sentence was very clear: if the debt was not repaid, this massive space fleet would come to Earth to forcibly collect the debt.
"It seems that the etiquette on your planet is to address males as 'sir,' so sir, what other solutions did you just mention?"
"This...this..." Qiu Jiji stammered, unable to utter the words he had prepared. What if these aliens disagreed? The people would definitely tear him to pieces.
"A call from the United States."
"A call from China."
"A call from the Romantic Empire."
"A call from Germany."
"A call from the Little Book Empire."
"There are also more than a dozen other countries." The secretary rushed over and hurriedly reported, "All the countries have said that they have been broadcasting the situation live. If the friendship with the aliens is damaged because of the British Empire's debt, and the whole world is plunged into a war with the aliens, they will declare war on the British Empire together. Therefore, the British Empire must repay all debts as soon as possible and cannot delay payment."
It turned out that after spies from various countries reported the situation, countries around the world were very concerned about what was happening here, and some reporters and spies even broadcast it live. The video and words shown by the octopus-headed figure had also frightened them, and this time they hurriedly called. Nobody wanted to be dragged into the mess by the British Empire.
This chapter is not finished, please click the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
