What was Jing Shu's team here for? To find seeds, of course. But now that they knew they'd completely missed the fleet, rest or no rest didn't matter anymore. If they didn't hurry to catch up, the distance between them would only keep growing.
Even Jing Shu couldn't help but envy Qian Duoduo's helicopter. If she had one too, she could've flown straight over to check things out. But then again, finding them in these endless mountains would be like looking for a needle in the ocean. Helicopters were a pain to fly in such terrain anyway, though even guzzling fuel like crazy would still be faster than trudging along like this.
She told herself there were pros and cons to both. Helicopters had their downsides too.
"So, which direction do we go?" Yang Yang's tone was low as he started discussing it with the head butler, Lǚ Liu. Choosing the wrong route would only take them farther away from the fleet.
Lǚ Liu pointed toward the front. "We'll take the main road here. I'll send a few teams to check the other routes, and if anything comes up, we can head there right away.
This road's gonna take forever," Lǚ Liu sighed. With mountains this long, and no sign of the fleet anywhere, they'd have to go all the way to the end.
"If the fleet really got swept over here, that might not be so bad," Yang Yang said, dragging a finger across the map. "No matter where they ended up, we can still mount a rescue. What I'm worried about is..." He trailed off before finishing that thought.
"Let's hope they're holding out."
The group fell silent. Everyone's mood sank, especially Jing Shu's. Those were the seeds she'd worked so hard to bring back from America. If she hadn't run out of space in her Cube Space back then—and if those seeds hadn't been so sensitive that they couldn't be transported openly—she never would've handed them over for official transport. What could she say? Some things were just fate.
"They'll make it until we find them," Yang Yang said, trying to lift the mood. No one rested after that. They climbed into the vehicle, with Hong Bin told to sleep while Lǚ Liu took the wheel.
In her heart, Jing Shu muttered, "The sooner we rescue them, the fewer of my seeds they'll eat." God only knew how much her heart ached. Every meal that passed meant fewer seeds. Eating them wasn't the problem—it was losing both the people and the seeds that terrified her. Time really wasn't on their side.
The team leader, Jun Bao, didn't say a single word the whole time. Even when Lǚ Liu and Yang Yang discussed plans, he never joined in, making him seem like a total background character. Jing Shu didn't bother asking what was up with him—she figured his brain just worked differently from everyone else's.
Everyone else was frantic over the seeds, while Jun Bao was crouched in the dirt, playing with mud. He even climbed a small hill and came back carrying a whole bucket of it. "I found some unusual soil," he said seriously.
Lǚ Liu, ever the considerate one, didn't want him to feel ignored. While driving, she asked, "Is it like the stuff we found yesterday afternoon?"
At least that kept the atmosphere from getting awkward. Jing Shu, however, didn't have the patience to care. She didn't even react when Jun Bao quietly picked up a few chicken feathers from the floor. Last night, before bed, he'd asked if he could pluck a few himself.
Back then, Xiao Dou—the chicken—had stared at him in utter disbelief. "What kind of human wants my feathers?"
"No," Jing Shu had said firmly. "I'm saving those for making a down jacket." Xiao Dou had let out a relieved cluck, clearly thinking, "Over my dead body."
"I've never heard of chicken feathers being used for down jackets," Jun Bao had said. "Can I at least have one?"
"Not even one! Goose feathers work, don't they? Why can't chicken feathers? You looking down on my chicken? My chicken's feathers are even warmer." Jing Shu had refused him outright. Normally, she wouldn't mind letting someone pluck a couple, but this guy was... odd. Who knew what he'd use them for?
Persistent people like him gave her headaches. Most folks were jealous that she had a chicken that could lay tons of eggs—they either wanted to buy it, steal it, or eat it. But this man? His interests were on a whole other level.
Forget it, whatever. She wasn't giving him anything anyway.
Jun Bao didn't argue, but his eyes stayed locked on Xiao Dou, clearly not giving up.
Even in this pitch-black apocalypse, Jing Shu could still see clearly. But at that moment, she wished she had some kind of godly sight, just so she could find the fleet right away.
The minibus rumbled along the winding mountain road. "Here, the roads twist eighteen times, and the rivers curl nine more," someone hummed quietly.
It was all steep cliffs and sharp turns. One bad move, and the whole car would tumble down.
The next four or five days were spent navigating those mountain roads. Every time they finished climbing one mountain, another loomed ahead. Occasionally the terrain leveled out, and Jing Shu couldn't help but feel relieved—until ten minutes later, when more endless peaks appeared. From what she could see, there was no end in sight. Mountains surrounded them in every direction.
It almost felt like they were trapped in the heart of the range, destined never to leave.
Never leave?
Jing Shu's chest tightened. The scene felt strangely familiar. A sharp pain stabbed through her head, and for an instant, something flashed in her mind—something important—but it vanished before she could grasp it. That blank, fragmented feeling again.
She knew this too well. Every time the Cube Space was about to upgrade, something bizarre always happened.
"Wait... could this be a sign it's about to level up?" Jing Shu thought, her pulse quickening. She immediately began focusing on connecting with the Cube Space. What else could she do?
While Hong Bin and Lǚ Liu handled the driving, Yang Yang and Lǚ Liu plotted their course. Jing Shu, apart from cooking for everyone, devoted every spare second to practicing with the Cube.
It had been stuck for over half a year now. She'd thought it hit a bottleneck, that without a special trigger it couldn't advance. She hadn't expected the opportunity to come like this. The timing sucked, but she couldn't waste it. There wasn't much time left before the migration, and she needed more storage space—the current one wasn't nearly enough.
If she couldn't remember what she'd forgotten, so be it. The more she tried, the harder it would come. She took a deep breath, relaxed, and immersed herself in the Cube's world.
Then suddenly, a realization struck her. "Wait... I've been to the Tianshan Mountains before. But there weren't this many winding roads!"