Chapter 291
“Brother Qi, we really only took a little over four months from Uncle Bo’er’s house to here, right?” Tang Yu’an asked Zhou Qi.
“Yeah, why?”
Tang Yu’an then shared his discovery.
Zhou Qi frowned. “Could it be that the two worlds are merging faster?”
They had discussed this possibility before—once the two worlds fully merged, the flow of time would sync.
Thinking of something, Tang Yu’an quickly opened the staff forum to check the date.
Today was Year 1 of Haven, June 23.
Sure enough, 12 days had passed in their home dimension since they left!
“Let’s test it again,” Zhou Qi said.
“Okay!”
The two of them recorded the time on their neural terminals, then traveled between the two worlds. They eventually concluded—
Originally, the time ratio between the two worlds was 30:1, but now it had changed to 10:1.
Of course, this wasn’t an exact figure, but it was close enough.
“So that means the worlds really are merging faster? Is the spatial rift expanding?” Tang Yu’an asked.
Zhou Qi thought for a moment and said, “Maybe the number of rifts has increased. Let’s go take a look outside.”
Hopefully nothing had happened to Haven while they were gone… but since Grandpa Li hadn’t sent them any urgent messages, it was probably fine.
Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi flew out of the swimming center.
The Haven settlement in Desolate City had changed drastically. What used to be just a few hundred meters around Building No.1 had expanded significantly, thanks to the discovery of a new method to extend the protective barrier, making land expansion much more efficient.
Now, the land surrounding Desolate City was all within the Haven’s territory.
Most of the land hadn’t been developed yet, but that was only a matter of time.
Clearing land, planting crops, raising animals, and building houses all required manpower, which created many new jobs.
Old Li had sent people to Linhai Town to recruit—due to the cold wave spreading toward the sea, daylight hours had decreased, reducing salt production efficiency. So Linhai Town had a surplus of labor.
When they saw that Haven was hiring, many idle workers came flooding in.
With food and lodging covered and a small daily income in Peace Coins, it was already a very decent job for them.
Especially when they got to live in such a comfortable place like Desolate City Haven.
Plus, with the addition of bus routes, the population flow between the two areas became much more frequent, finally adding a touch of prosperity.
Under the protective barrier, the area outside the swimming center looked barren, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Tang Yu’an and Zhou Qi flew beyond the barrier—and immediately noticed something unusual: a thick layer of ice had formed outside.
The ice was about two to three meters thick, clearly not from accumulated snow.
They landed on the surface, and Zhou Qi used his power to dig a hole in the ice. As expected, there was flowing water beneath it that hadn’t frozen.
“Did the spatial rift open again?” Tang Yu’an guessed.
“Let’s check the center of Desolate City.”
“Mm-hmm.”
They had set up a teleportation point in the city center before. Using the teleportation array in the swimming center, they arrived instantly.
Stepping out of the small building, they saw a thick layer of ice outside, along with streams of unfrozen water and aquatic creatures gushing out of a visible rift.
“That rift looks wider,” Tang Yu’an said, using a high-powered telescope. He could even see the underwater landscape on the other side of the crack.
Zhou Qi looked up at the sky. “Once the cold disaster passes and the scorching sun returns, Desolate City will turn into a vast ocean again.”
The good news was that they no longer needed to worry about water shortages. The bad news… wasn’t so comforting.
Floods were always disastrous—not just for humans, but also for plants and animals. Many would die, and their corpses being carried everywhere by the flood could easily lead to outbreaks of disease.
“Before that happens, let’s expand our territory as much as we can.”
Ideally, they could surround the spatial rift with barriers to keep the flood from spreading too far.
“Should we tell Grandpa about this?” Tang Yu’an asked.
Zhou Qi thought for a moment, then nodded. “It’s fine to tell him. The existence of the rift isn’t exactly a secret.”
The Fortress had already sent teams into the other world, meaning at least a small number of people were aware of it.
And Grandpa Li was someone they could trust completely.
“In the future, maybe we can send powerful ability users over there regularly,” Zhou Qi said.
Even though time passed faster in the other world, ability users lived longer, so the impact would be manageable.
Plus, the other world had a much higher concentration of energy, meaning ability users would improve faster—and maybe even extend their lifespans.
“Mm! That’s a great idea.”
It was the same for him and Zhou Qi—one of the big reasons they were able to catch up so quickly to the wasteland’s top ability users was thanks to their training in the other world.
If this plan worked, Desolate City Haven’s combat power might finally catch up to the Fortress sooner!
But then Tang Yu’an sighed and said, “Sigh… If only the teleportation array to the original world could be built faster.”
The original world’s time flow probably hadn’t changed, meaning one day there equaled three days here… and thirty days in the other world.
The time gap between the three dimensions was widening…
“Actually, that’s a good thing,” Zhou Qi had a different opinion. “We get more time to build our strength and figure out how to deal with the aberrants.”
The slower time in the original world meant fewer deaths caused by aberrants. And also…
“Mom and Dad will age more slowly!” Tang Yu’an’s eyes sparkled.
Thanks to their ongoing cultivation, their lifespans had already increased—though it was unclear by how much, it was definitely longer than people like Tang Sheng.
If time passed slower for his parents, then relatively speaking, they could stay with them longer, too.
“That really is great!”
The more Tang Yu’an thought about it, the happier he felt. He couldn’t help but smile and say, “Brother Qi, you’re so smart!”
Zhou Qi also smiled and reached out to pat the top of his head. “Let’s use the lottery spins first. We’ll handle the other things afterward.”
“Okay!”
They returned to the small cabin and teleported back to the RV they hadn’t been to in days.
The RV had already come to a stop.
Tang Yu’an opened the map for a look and saw that they were already near Old Mo and Gan Lin. The RV had simply stopped because buildings were blocking the way.
“Let’s go find Old Mo after the draws!”
Grinning, Tang Yu’an was just about to open the lottery page when a system prompt popped up.
[EXP full. Merchant level +1]
[Merchant level reached Lv28. New items available for exchange in the store: chocolate, whipped cream, slippers, glue, electric mosquito swatters. See ‘Wholesale Market’ for details]
[+2 storage slots added to portable warehouse. Total slots: 36. +1 shareable slot. Shareable slots available: 9]
[New filter feature for identification bubbles added. See skill panel for details]
[New “Random Jump” function unlocked in RV mode. See shop panel for details]
[+1 Seven-Day Flash Sale Refresh Card]
Seeing the notifications, Tang Yu’an said excitedly, “Brother Qi, I leveled up again!”
He then authorized the new portable storage slots to Tang Sheng and read out the other upgrade rewards to Zhou Qi.
Chocolate and whipped cream were both high-calorie foods—perfect for survival in the apocalypse. Slippers and glue were common daily items. As for the electric mosquito swatter…
Zhou Qi showed a strange expression. After a pause, he asked, “Are there extra-large versions of mosquito swatters?”
Just like the giant-sized thermos bottles, rain boots, and self-heating hotpots they had traded to the giants—everything had been made in the largest available size to suit their needs.
Tang Yu’an nodded, and then his expression also turned weird.
“You mean…”
“Could we use the extra-large mosquito swatters as weapons?”
Tang Yu’an imagined the scene and burst into laughter. “We could give it a try! We even have extra-large batteries now.”
Even though the giant-sized swatters required more points to redeem, he had plenty of points at the moment.
Leaving points unused in the account would be wasteful—might as well turn them into actual resources while he could.
The new filter for identification bubbles was also super helpful. He often identified tons of items at once, resulting in a screen filled with pop-up bubbles—
Especially in the other world, where there were crystals everywhere.
Before, he could only block all bubbles at once. Now, with the filtering feature, he could avoid clutter without missing anything valuable.
And then…
“Random Jump function?” Tang Yu’an read aloud curiously. “What’s that?”
He quickly opened the RV management panel in the shop and, sure enough, a new feature had been added.
[In RV mode, you can spend 2,000 points to activate a Random Jump. The RV will be relocated to a random location—either on an unlocked map or an undiscovered one.]
“Unlocking this function costs 880,000 points… So expensive!”
Tang Yu’an couldn’t help but complain. Even though he had a lot of points now, unlocking just one feature for 880k was way too steep!
“And it costs 2,000 points each time, with the jump location being random…”
If he could choose the destination, it would be more useful—they wouldn’t have to spend so much time traveling.
“Maybe it can be upgraded later,” Zhou Qi suggested.
Tang Yu’an thought it over and nodded. “Let’s wait and see. We don’t need it right now anyway.”
Maybe after they met up with Old Mo, they could give this new function a try.
So he closed the panel, opened the Lucky Wheel, and started the lottery draws.
“Thirteen spins in total—there’s no way I don’t get something good!” Tang Yu’an said excitedly, rubbing his hands together.
He blew warm breath into his palms, then tapped the button to spin.
[Congratulations! You’ve drawn a mid-tier Magic item: ‘Basic Healing Potion’. See Wholesale Market for details]
Tang Yu’an: 0.0
Basic Healing Potion? Was that the one he could only get from the Seven-Day Flash Sale or the Dimensional Store before?
He had actually drawn it from the wheel—and now it was available for unlimited exchange in the Wholesale Market?
Tang Yu’an couldn’t help but cheer.
“Brother Qi, we hit the jackpot! Look what I just got!”
Zhou Qi, who had already been granted exchange authorization, looked at the system message and couldn’t help twitching at the corner of his mouth.
He really drew that too?
Zhou Qi forced a smile. “Yeah, not bad. Keep it up.”
“Mm-hmm! If only I could get the Healing Bandages too,” Tang Yu’an said.
Healing Bandages restored health by a percentage and worked quickly—super handy for emergencies!
Of course he will get it.