"Could the Cube Space's third form be meant to help me practice the Rubik's Cube better?" Jing Shu wondered. As she turned the thought over in her mind, she realized it wasn't impossible.
Inside the expanse of the space, she didn't feel any fatigue. Instead, a steady, vibrant warmth thrummed through her manifested limbs, leaving her full of energy and strangely focused. Her entire body felt light and buzzing. In short, she felt amazing.
She began by sorting the complex materials of the tenth-tier Rubik's Cube, familiarizing herself with the tactile resistance of the segments before she started running through the memorized formulas. Her fingers moved with a fluid precision that felt heightened in this void. After several hours of focused movement, a thought suddenly struck her. "Wait a damn second. Wasn't I supposed to be asleep? Why the hell am I practicing cubes? Does this even count as sleeping?"
When she opened her eyes back in the physical world, she blinked and stared up at the shadowed tent ceiling. Her mind continued to spin with the algorithms she had just been practicing. Strangely, the heavy sleepiness that had plagued her was gone. But every time she drifted back toward rest, she would find herself once again standing within the Cube Space, stuck in a strange loop of wondering whether she was actually asleep or still awake.
Luckily, she didn't get hung up on the paradox for long. After several more days of grueling travel through the sludge, the convoy finally reached the outskirts of Wu City.
Jing Shu felt a mixture of anxiety and relief. They had gone through so much trouble just for a seed collection, and so many unexpected events had unfolded along the way. Still, no matter how grueling the journey had been, the outcome was positive. Finding the seeds was the best possible ending to the mission.
This trip had also yielded two major gains.
The first was securing Xiao Wei. From now on, the girl's presence meant a stable, renewable food source. Jing Shu might not have been acting purely out of charity, but with more food being produced, fewer people in Wu City would starve to death like they had in her previous life. The higher-ups would naturally stop bleeding every coin from Qian Duoduo. That meant she could continue following behind him in peace, using his status as a shield. Having someone powerful to take the heat always made her life easier.
The second gain was the upgrade to the Cube Space. It had expanded by over two hundred cubic meters, providing a vast new area to store supplies. By the time the next year's migration arrived, she would be able to prepare far more resources. This gave her a massive boost in both her long-term security and her post-apocalyptic comfort.
She planned to carefully calculate exactly what to store within those new walls. She needed to use every bit of the expanded volume efficiently while still preparing for the specific challenges of the migration. Survival came first, but she wasn't about to give up comfort and flavor while she did it.
Xiao Wei had already sent the first bug batch along with Xiao Hong and the rest of the team to an abandoned village on Wu City's outskirts. They were currently waiting for Jing Shu's people to connect and begin the extermination and harvesting work. Jing Shu had already contacted Qian Duoduo. Once they finalized the details of their agreement, they could officially begin production.
As for the seed convoy, they still had to wait for the rescue team to reach the heart of Wu City. After settling Gashan Valley's villagers, the seeds would be handed over to the city's officials. Only after negotiating prices with the government side would the seeds finally end up in Jing Shu's hands. Honestly, that entire collection, containing hundreds of thousands of species, was priceless to China right now. Most traditional crops had already vanished from the earth.
In just a few more years, even the most common poultry—chickens, ducks, and fish—would be nearly extinct as well. The creatures surviving in the apocalypse would all be new species that had adapted to its harsh rules, like the aggressive dino-chickens.
There wasn't much left for her to do here. She could simply head home and wait for the news to reach her.
She tried to recall what this specific period of her previous life had been like, but the memories were vague and blurry. She only remembered that the fourth year's landslide had been one of the less catastrophic events. It was nothing too thrilling. But this life was already vastly different. The mud outside was knee-deep and thick. Cars could barely move through the sludge, and Wu City had probably become impassable for standard vehicles. Traveling in the future was going to be a nightmare.
If the suburbs were already in this condition, the inner city had to be a disaster. The mud was cold and sticky. Once the temperature dropped further and it froze, it would harden into heavy, jagged clumps that clung to everything.
The moment their minibus entered Wu City's vicinity, it was stopped at a highway toll station. Because of the earthquakes and the extensive road damage, only a few routes into the city remained functional. Anyone trying to enter had to pass through one of these checkpoints.
The minibus rolled to a heavy stop, the engine groaning. Jing Shu's head throbbed with a dull pulse as she heard a growing commotion outside. She crawled out of her tent and looked at Hao Yunlai. "What is going on out there?"
Hao Yunlai rubbed his eyes, his face pale and half asleep. He had been dozing fitfully ever since they set out. "I have no idea. Let's get out and see."
Once she stepped off the bus and into the biting air, Jing Shu realized the toll station wasn't as deserted as she had expected. All four lanes leading into Wu City were jam-packed with a sea of people and idling vehicles. The air was filled with the smell of damp wool, woodsmoke, and the metallic tang of the mud. The atmosphere was noisy and chaotic.
Some people were standing knee-deep in the freezing sludge, wearing thick, stained coats and clutching their luggage. Others had set up makeshift tents along the nearby slopes. Thanks to her sharp night vision, Jing Shu could see that someone had even used an excavator to flatten a patch of land further up the mountain. They had built rows of prefab houses there. It looked like people were settling in for a permanent stay.
"What is going on? Why are there suddenly so many people outside Wu City? This can't be good. Every extra mouth means more burden for the city's resources," she muttered, her brow furrowing.
She headed into the toll station's main building and saw rescue team member Xiao Zhao arguing with a pair of men inside.
"Xiao Zhao, what is this about? Wasn't this toll station abandoned ages ago? Why are there people here again? Don't tell me they are charging entry fees now?" Jing Shu asked. She glanced at the two young men in stiff black coats who stood behind the counter.
Xiao Zhao looked miserable, his shoulders slumped. "No fees. The problem is way worse than that. The smaller cities around Wu City—Wuchang, Xinlan, and Xidu—all got buried in landslides. The capital ordered Wu City to take in the disaster victims. But Wu City's government said they can only accept people in batches. They can't just let everyone rush in at once.
So now, every major route into the city only allows a limited number of people in each day. They are using the national database to evaluate everyone. You have got to prove you are useful, that you have got specific skills. Only then do you get an 'entry permit' and priority access. Everyone else just has to wait."
Jing Shu blinked in surprise. So those cities had all been wiped out by landslides. In her previous life, she had barely paid attention to the news, only remembering that a huge wave of people had suddenly flooded in and been forcibly resettled.
"But what has that got to do with us? Why won't they let us in? We are locals. We just went out for a while. You are even part of the official rescue team, aren't you? Doesn't that count for anything?" she asked, her gaze shifting to the two bureaucratic young men.
Xiao Zhao looked close to tears. "They said that excuse doesn't work anymore. Everyone claims they are locals. How can they tell who is lying? They said we have got to get proof from our community administrator, then have it approved by the local director, and finally—"