Chapter 289
“Where do these fruits called mutated blueberries grow? And how can we get more of them?” Shan Feng asked.
“They grow very far from here,” Tang Yu’an replied vaguely.
Shan Feng looked disappointed. He glanced down at the female giant. “Auntie Shana, can you still hold on?”
The giant woman was drifting in and out of consciousness and couldn’t respond.
At that moment, Tang Yu’an said, “If we finish building the house, we’ll be able to collect more mutated blueberries in a short time.”
Shan Feng was a little confused—he didn’t quite understand what a house had to do with picking fruit.
Still, he said, “Alright, I’ll leave it to you then!”
He reached into Shana’s pocket, eventually pulling out a crystal stone and handing it to Tang Yu’an. “Take this as payment. If it’s not enough, there’s more where that came from!”
Since the crystal belonged to Shana, the system didn’t consider the trade complete yet.
Tang Yu’an looked toward the female giant—and just then, she opened her eyes slightly, clearly having heard their conversation.
She nodded at Tang Yu’an.
“Alright. I promise, I’ll bring back more mutated blueberries as soon as I can.”
[You have completed a profitable trade with a new customer. EXP +3, Points +110,000]
110,000 points—easy!
“We’ll be back soon!”
Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi said goodbye to the giants and quickly returned to the riverside. They handed the gathered materials to the construction robot.
To speed things up, Tang Yu’an summoned three more construction robots.
In less than an hour, a simple wooden house was completed.
Tang Yu’an quickly set up the branch store, naming it “Peace Grocery Store No. 17.” Then he activated the protection barrier and teleportation array, linking it to the first interdimensional cabin.
As the number of branch stores increased, the points required to build and activate teleportation arrays grew too—but Tang Yu’an was rich enough now that it wasn’t a concern.
They used the teleportation array to return to the first cabin, then jumped back to Desolate City Haven—the teleportation array connected to the interdimensional cabin was now part of their home base in the swimming complex.
Soon, they arrived at Store No. 8, located near an abandoned chemical factory.
As they exited the shop, a thick green poisonous mist filled the air outside the protective barrier. The toxic plants that once grew around the building had already withered.
“Is it because the environment changed?” Tang Yu’an looked at the dead plants.
Zhou Qi nodded. “Most likely.”
Tang Yu’an had been planning to collect the toxins in the green mist and gradually renovate the place.
But now it seemed that plan might need to be shelved.
If mutated blueberries could only survive in this toxic mist, changing the environment might cause them to lose their entire supply.
Next, they expanded the barrier outward with fences and soon found a large grove of blueberry trees.
Since Ai Lu had left, no animals were around to collect the newly ripened fruit, and many had already fallen to the ground.
Tang Yu’an quickly used his inventory list function to gather them up.
In the end, they collected 15 kilos of high-quality mutated blueberries and another 10 kilos of lower-quality ones that were still effective for detoxification.
“Twenty-five kilograms should be enough, right?”
If not, they’d have to check the interdimensional store for antidotes.
Before leaving, Zhou Qi took out a wood-element crystal and carved a rune near the blueberry trees, embedding the crystal inside.
It was a basic rune, the first one he and Tang Yu’an had learned. It could channel the energy from the crystal into the environment.
Increasing the local wood-element energy could strengthen the plants and boost their growth.
Once the crystal was in place, Tang Yu’an removed the fence, allowing the toxic mist to flow back in and surround the plants.
Since Shana was still waiting for the antidote, they didn’t linger and immediately returned through the teleportation array.
By the time they arrived at the riverside cabin, the sky had grown dark. Shana, who had been lying in the forest, had been moved to the riverside and now rested on Shan Feng’s picnic blanket.
Aside from Shan Feng, two more giants were there—presumably Shana’s husband and daughter.
As soon as Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi appeared, all three giants looked toward them.
To be honest, being stared down by three giants was a bit overwhelming—
Even though Bo’er’s daughter looked younger and only came up to Shan Feng’s waist, she was still close to ten meters tall!
“Xiao An, Xiao Qi!”
Shan Feng was the first to greet them and walked over. “How did it go?”
Tang Yu’an pulled out the fifty pounds of mutated blueberries. “All here.”
“Great!”
Shan Feng quickly carried them over.
A fire was burning near the camp, and a clay pot sat beside it, faintly giving off a medicinal scent—
Apparently, while they were away, Shan Feng and the others had tried other methods, but with limited results.
Shana had slipped back into unconsciousness, her face once again showing that bluish-black tint, though not as bad as when they first found her.
Bo’er and his daughter looked curiously at the two tiny people, but their concern for Shana quickly drew their attention back to Shan Feng.
They helped lift Shana up and opened her mouth to feed her the mutated blueberries.
Then they stood by her side, watching anxiously.
Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi sat on Shan Feng’s shoulders and listened as he said, “After you left, I swam across the river and found Uncle Bo’er and Mai Mang.”
Upon hearing Shana had been poisoned and was near death, the father and daughter had rushed over.
As Shan Feng spoke, Tang Yu’an was thinking—Wait, this world has wheat too? That plant must be huge!
After feeding Shana the full 50 pounds of blueberries, her condition finally started to improve. Her shallow, weak breathing gradually became stronger.
By the next morning, she finally regained consciousness and could even sit up on her own.
Bo’er and his daughter, who had stayed by her side through the night, couldn’t help but weep with joy.
“That’s great, you’re finally okay!” Uncle Bo’er said. “Tell me, what exactly happened?”
Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi also gathered around.
The dark purplish tint on Shanna’s skin had completely faded. Though she still looked weak, she was clearly out of danger.
Hearing Bo’er’s question, she began to recall what had happened.
It turned out that a long time ago, a group of palm-sized little people had appeared in the forest near where Shana lived.
At first, she hadn’t paid them much attention.
After all, they were so tiny, and the powers they used were similar to magical beasts—nothing that could pose a real threat to her.
After her initial curiosity wore off, Shana stopped bothering with them and continued enjoying her peaceful, solitary life—eating, drinking, and relaxing.
The two sides had coexisted peacefully for quite some time.
But recently, the little people had grown greedy and started expanding beyond their territory. Eventually, they set their sights on Shana’s magic crystal mine.
Even though giants couldn’t cultivate using magic crystals, they were still widely useful and acted as a form of currency among giants.
Naturally, Shana refused to give up her property, and a fierce conflict broke out between her and the little people.
Although the little ones could transform into magical beasts, even those beasts were just small fry in front of a giant.
As expected, Shana won the battle easily.
“They couldn’t beat me, so they resorted to underhanded tricks!” Shana said angrily. “I got poisoned and couldn’t fight back, so I had no choice but to flee.”
She had fled all the way to this place and finally collapsed in the forest, unable to go on.
At this point, she turned to Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi, giving them an embarrassed smile. “Sorry, I misunderstood you before. Thank you for saving me.”
She then took out a crystal stone. “This is a token of my gratitude.”
Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi exchanged a glance. Then Tang Yu’an shook his head and said, “Shan Feng already gave us a reward. We can’t accept this crystal, but…”
“Do you need some nice clothes?”
Tang Yu’an still had a task that required him to complete two profitable trades with the female giant.
“Oh yeah! Their clothes are amazing!” Shan Feng stood up and showed off the outfit he was wearing. “And they’re super comfortable!”
Shana looked at them with surprise.
“You really are different from those little people I met.” She nodded. “Alright, make one set of clothes for each of us. That will be your payment.”
Only then did Tang Yu’an accept the crystal. Before he could say anything else, Shan Feng had already jumped in to help sell: “Look, and this is a thermal cup!”
Since they’d already seen what the thermal cup could do, Uncle Bo’er immediately said, “I want one! Do you still have more?”
After a flurry of trades, Tang Yu’an’s points balance had gone up by another 500,000!
This was insanely profitable!
They then took measurements for Bo’er’s family and returned to the small house to begin crafting using their housekeeping robot.
Meanwhile, Shana and Bo’er sipped on sweet tea from their thermal cups while discussing their next move.
“We can’t let this slide!” Shana said angrily. “I’m going to get revenge!”
Uncle Bo’er frowned. Though he was angry too, he hadn’t let it cloud his judgment.
“Let’s wait until you’ve fully recovered,” he said. “It takes two Purple Moons to get to Lake Paar from here, and the flood season is coming soon.”
During the flood season, the area where Shanna lived would be submerged.
That sobered her up. “Alright, I’ll wait until the flood season ends. But I swear, those little pests are going to pay dearly!”
Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi had been quietly listening under a shade umbrella.
“Seems like the ones who poisoned Shana really might be from the Fortress,” Tang Yu’an said. “Remember how Chi Hao and the others were sent to find a spatial rift? Could those people be from Qingmu Fortress?”
Zhou Qi nodded. “If it really is Qingmu Fortress, then the spatial rift they’re using is likely close to us.”
It was unclear when exactly the fortress discovered the rift…
But even though this dimension had abundant resources, it was filled with danger. The people from the fortress likely hadn’t established a deep foothold yet.
“They took over Shana’s magic crystal mine. That might lead to a big development for them,” Tang Yu’an said.
Zhou Qi wasn’t so optimistic.
“The bigger the crystal, the more danger it holds. They might not get the outcome they’re hoping for.”
Tang Yu’an nodded. “Should we go check it out?”
“Let’s wait until we’ve escorted Shan Feng to his destination first.”
Judging by what Shana and her family said, they wouldn’t be returning anytime soon—and without them as guides, there was no way to get there.
“Alright, sounds good.”
Anyway, they had already built a teleportation array here, so traveling back and forth wouldn’t be difficult.
That same day, Uncle Bo’er carried Shana onto a boat and they crossed the river to return home.
A few days later, Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi finished the clothes, and Bo’er and Shan Feng came back in the boat to pick them up.
When Bo’er heard Shan Feng was going to find Sasa, he even lent them the boat.
“Let’s go! Time to continue the journey!”
Shan Feng took them downstream, and this time their speed was much faster.
Tang Yu’an had already recalled the pets, and now he and Zhou Qi snuggled together in Shan Feng’s pocket, only daring to poke their heads out. Otherwise, they might be blown away by the rushing wind.
Thanks to the boat, they were moving quickly, but this world of giants was unimaginably vast.
They sailed for four more months before finally reaching their destination.
And during that time, Tang Yu’an celebrated his seventeenth birthday—one step closer to adulthood.
The landscape of the Thousand-Layer Forest was quite unique, resembling stacked terraced fields.
Shanfeng tied up the boat at the riverbank, changed into his new clothes, and led Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi into the forest.
After walking for a bit, they saw a wooden cabin.
“Sasa! Sasa!”
Shan Feng happily ran toward the cabin, and as he called out, the door creaked open.
A female giant wearing a fur skirt stepped outside. When she saw Shan Feng, she was delighted at first—but then her expression turned stern.
“You still remember to come find me?”
“Sasa, don’t be mad! Look what I brought you!”
Shanfeng showed her the thermal cup, but Sasa’s attention was caught by his brand-new outfit.
Then she noticed Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi poking their heads out of his pocket.
She blinked, rubbed her eyes in disbelief.
Noticing her gaze, Shan Feng grinned and held his hand under the pocket, letting Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi hop into his palm.
“Look at my new friends!” Shan Feng said. “This is Xiao An and Xiao Qi! Aren’t they cute?”
Thanks to Shan Feng’s overly eager presentation, Tang Yu’an lost his balance and fell over in his palm. Zhou Qi quickly reached out to steady him.
Sasa’s eyes sparkled like stars.
“They move! So cute!”
“Hello, Miss Sasa,” Tang Yu’an said, standing up and greeting her politely.
“Wow, you can talk too!” Sasa exclaimed in surprise.
“Yes, I’m Xiao An, and this is Brother Qi,” Tang Yu’an said with a polite smile.
Sasa gave them the same starry-eyed look Shan Feng had. She looked at their tightly clasped hands and couldn’t help but ask, “So… are you two brothers?”
Tang Yu’an paused, glanced at Zhou Qi, then smiled.
“Nope—we’re a couple.”
