As soon as the high priest gave the order, the main city immediately sprang into action, and the divine messengers sprang into action, going out into the streets to bring back all the instruments.
This was the scene of chaos after Ye Tianxuan and all his believers had celebrated. Many of the once extremely precious life-life coins were scattered on both sides of the street. In the past, even if only one fell, it would be snatched up by people. But now, the divine messengers could fill a bag by picking them up.
"This is terrifying... and this is what they didn't sweep away after they squandered it..." A divine messenger looked at his small bag of life-life coins and was lost in thought. "I worked in the main city for a month and only got this much, but now I can find it by picking up trash on the street... Do life-life coins still have any value?"
"Don't think too much about it. He's just a person of unknown origin. Although he has a long lifespan, he won't stay in our Longevity City for long. We'll wait for the God of Longevity to return, and then we can go back to the old days."
"But wouldn't following that Master Ye allow us to return to the past?"
"Are you going to betray the God of Immortality? He is a god who has favored us for a long time. The god will not abandon us, and we cannot abandon the god. Perhaps this is just a test that the god is giving us. If we can get through it, we will continue to be favored by the god."
"...Perhaps." The divine messenger carrying the bag shook his head and sighed. He began to envy those believers in the God of Leaf. Their good days had come, but the suffering of those who continued to believe in the God of Immortality was yet to come.
But life goes on. They used to live better than these residents, and all they'll have to endure in the future is a little worse off than them. But the position of the divine messenger is what it is. No matter how many lifespan coins the residents have, they still have to go to the main city to exchange them. The high priest's position is unshakable.
With that thought, they felt a little more at ease and continued to sweep away the remaining life-sustaining coins on both sides of the street, then moved the devices with empty coins to the main city.
Because the supplies needed by the shops had been bought up, many shops had closed down, making Changsheng City exceptionally deserted at the moment. Everyone was staying at home, counting their lifespan coins and looking forward to the future.
Once the high priest replenishes their lifespan, they can use these lifespan coins to exchange for more lifespan and resources, and their lives will only get better and better.
Because there are too many life-extinction coins in the entire Longevity City, the High Priest raised the threshold for exchanging life-extinction coins. The original minimum was fifty life-extinction coins, but now it has been raised to five hundred. However, given the amount of life-extinction coins that the city's residents currently possess, the impact on them is still not significant.
The High Priest's goal is to gradually raise the threshold for exchanging lifespan, ensuring that the value of lifespan remains extremely important within the City of Immortality.
Unaware of this, Ye Tianxuan's actions were even more decisive and ruthless.
When lifespan was stored again in the main city's device, the people watching the main city quickly went back to report. Then, a large number of people holding lifespan coins quickly and in an organized and disciplined manner crowded in front of the main city and exchanged all the newly stored lifespans.
From the moment the life-exchange device was moved out until it was completely emptied, only half an hour had passed. During that half hour, the queue in front of the main city was almost entirely controlled by that group of organized and disciplined people. Other residents didn't get any life-exchange tokens. They came with many life-exchange gold coins, but could only stand a few meters away anxiously.
"High Priest! Someone's here to rob us with Life Coins!!" The person who came to report really didn't want to shout this, but judging from the aura at the door, it really seemed like they were here to rob us of Life Coins. They were too forceful and domineering.
"I understand," the high priest murmured slowly, standing by the window and staring intently down below.
Her gaze was fixed on the dense crowd below, and then fell on the man sitting in the corner outside the crowd, holding a megaphone and directing the queue.
Ye Shen, it's really laughable. He's respected by others, yet an ordinary person can call himself a god.
"He doesn't have the power to trade lifespan. Even if he had an infinite lifespan, he couldn't give his lifespan to others. He's using me." The high priest murmured slowly. "He uses me as a middleman, storing his lifespan in a machine and then letting his followers snatch it. It's a disguised way of giving his lifespan to his followers, just through my hands."
"What are we going to do? Many residents of Longevity City haven't been able to redeem their lifespans, but when you store more lifespans later, your followers will still snatch them up. Isn't that just taking all the lifespans you stored out and giving them to your followers? We're working for nothing!" A divine messenger gritted his teeth in anger. These people are simply thugs! They don't care about the lives of others!
"Should we continue accumulating lifespan?" another bewildered messenger suggested. "No one else has redeemed it yet?"
"There's no way we can keep pretending." The high priest frowned unhappily, glancing at the others outside the crowd. All the residents who hadn't exchanged any of their lifespan coins were standing outside. "Even if we pretended, they would just be snatched away by that man's followers. The other residents of Longevity City wouldn't be able to get any."
But the High Priestess knew very well that she was in a dilemma whether she pretended or not. If she continued to replenish her lifespan, it would only be taken by that man's followers; if she didn't pretend, the residents wouldn't be able to exchange for it.
Since the residents couldn't redeem it anyway, she simply stopped replenishing her lifespan, not wanting that man's followers to benefit from it.
"If we don't replenish lifespan, the residents of Longevity City will probably cause trouble… Everyone is anxious because they can't exchange for lifespan." The divine messengers scratched their heads, sensing the high priest's predicament.
After a few seconds of contemplation, the high priest turned and ordered, "Go and issue a notice saying that because of the arrival of the false god, the lifespan of the City of Immortality cannot circulate. Let them hate that man! Transfer their anger to him."
"Yes, yes!" One of the divine messengers hurriedly went down to issue the notice.
The other divine messenger who remained murmured, "High Priest, besides the issue of lifespan, there's also the urgent problem of supplies."
"It's possible that the people in Changsheng City who don't worship that Ye Shen are all people with long lifespans and no immediate danger to their lives, so they can suppress the issue of lifespan. But the bigger problem now is... at least half of the circulating goods in Changsheng City have been taken away by Ye Shen."
The divine messenger standing behind him stepped forward with a troubled expression and whispered, "Originally, we controlled some basic resources in Changsheng City. Merchants exchanged these resources with us in exchange for lifespan. They then sold these resources in Changsheng City and operated jobs for the lower-level residents of Changsheng City to obtain more supplies."
"But now the lower-class residents have all gone to worship God Ye, and merchants are bringing large amounts of life-long gold coins to exchange for new supplies from us. Our main city's supplies are simply not enough."
The high priest's face darkened, and his angry gaze fell upon the area outside the main city, where he happened to meet Ye Tianxuan's eyes as he fanned himself and looked up.
Ye Tianxuan smiled and raised his hand in greeting, his seemingly nonchalant demeanor only fueling the High Priest's anger.