Ten minutes later, Yu Xi dragged Yu Zhenzhen, pushing past the protests of two flight attendants, and hurriedly exited the plane. They made their way back into the terminal through the connecting passage.
The moment she stepped into the terminal, Yu Xi heard the system’s voice in her mind.
System: “Host, you’re finally out.”
Yu Xi: “Just now… I was caught in a time-loop zone—or you could call it a Möbius loop.”
System: “Yes.”
Yu Xi: “The fragments I saw before losing consciousness—are they from this fragmented world?”
System: “Correct.”
Yu Xi: “So, as the name suggests, a fragmented world is incomplete, right? My guess is that we couldn’t reach Sa City because Sa City isn’t within the boundaries of this fragment. Am I correct?”
System: “Yes.”
Yu Xi: “Let me guess again. The plane couldn’t leave this city either. When the plane first took off, we could still see the city below. The anomaly happened only after the plane had been flying for half an hour. That means it reached the boundary of the fragmented world, beyond which is something like a void. The plane was then pulled back. From this half-hour flight, we can roughly estimate the size of the fragmented world—it’s about the size of the entire Lushan Peninsula.”
System: “Correct.”
After confirming, the system added, “Host, you’re very clever.”
As expected, this fragmented world wasn’t simple.
Yu Xi remembered that everyone on the plane had lost consciousness, herself included. A powerful force had pressed her into unconsciousness—a force so overwhelming that even with her physique enhanced nearly sixfold, she couldn’t resist it.
She had inflicted a severe wound on herself just to gain a few seconds of clarity, but those few seconds had been crucial.
In that brief window, she had not only seen the fragment pulling the plane but also clearly discerned its appearance.
Now, she had two additional theories, but they weren’t suitable to discuss with the system just yet—not with Yu Zhenzhen by her side.
After dragging Yu Zhenzhen around all day, Yu Xi knew she needed to placate her. If not, the bad-tempered little cat beside her might explode.
Unable to resist, Yu Xi pinched her face and ruffled her soft, fluffy hair. “Let’s leave first. I’ll explain later.”
“What are you doing?” Yu Zhenzhen covered her face and stepped back. “Who gave you permission to touch me?”
Yu Xi glanced at her. “Read fewer domineering CEO novels.”
“I don’t read those!” Yu Zhenzhen retorted angrily.
“Then why does everything you say and do feel like it’s straight out of one of those cringe novels?” Yu Xi teased.
Yu Zhenzhen quickly realized the jibe, but just as she was about to retort with something sharp, she caught herself—it would only sound even more juvenile. Frustrated, she swallowed her words.
Feeling indignant, Yu Zhenzhen huffed and turned to leave, only to be stopped by Yu Xi grabbing her hand.
“Let’s go together.” Yu Xi’s expression turned serious, her demeanor calm yet firm. It made Yu Zhenzhen instinctively comply.
She was, after all, a smart girl and could tell the difference between feigned seriousness and genuine concern. She could see that her mother was on high alert for some reason.
Since they had disembarked abruptly, their checked luggage couldn’t be retrieved. However, the suitcase had been more for appearances and contained only a few sets of clothes. Losing it wasn’t a big deal.
Yu Xi led Yu Zhenzhen out of the terminal, intending to return to the parking lot to retrieve their car. But before they could leave the airport, both of them began to notice something odd about their bodies.
It felt as though, now that they had left the time-loop zone, signals from their bodies were finally being received by their brains.
Yu Zhenzhen clutched her stomach, groaning in discomfort. “What’s going on? My stomach hurts so much. I feel awful… and so hungry.”
Yu Xi frowned. It wasn’t just hunger she felt—there was also an overwhelming fatigue, as if her body hadn’t rested in ages, endlessly repeating the same actions.
Of course, with her physical resilience, the hunger and exhaustion she felt weren’t as apparent as Yu Zhenzhen’s visible distress.
She retrieved a ham sandwich from her Star House storage backpack and handed it to her. Yu Zhenzhen, clearly starving, surprisingly didn’t protest. She obediently tore open the packaging and began devouring the sandwich in large bites.
After eating half the sandwich in one go, she paused, seemingly thinking of something, and glanced up at Yu Xi. Before she could speak, Yu Xi reached out to pat her on the head again. “I have more. You finish this first.”
“I wasn’t worried about you,” Yu Zhenzhen muttered stubbornly, then buried her head to continue eating.
Yu Xi watched as she repeated the motions of biting and chewing. Suddenly, something occurred to her. She took out a phone—one linked to the world’s systems—and checked the date displayed on the screen.
September 27, Friday.
Friday?
How could it be Friday? She distinctly remembered today was the second day of the sports meet, which should have been Thursday. Unless…
Yu Xi: “System, how long were we stuck in the time-loop zone?”
System: “You’ve noticed. You were in the time-loop zone for twenty-six hours.”
YuXi
:
“Twenty-six hours? So the time inside wasn’t repeating a specific segment but rather a specific process. How many loops did I go through?”
System: “Each loop lasted one hour, twenty-one minutes, and six seconds.”
That meant she had gone through at least twenty loops. Yet, during the first nineteen loops, she hadn’t noticed anything at all. This time-loop zone was terrifying.
Because of the loops, she had lost an entire day. The original plan to escape to Sa City was now ruined, and she had to find another suitable refuge.
Yu Xi led Yu Zhenzhen back to the car. She retrieved a beef and cheese burger and two cups of taro pearl milk tea from her Star House storage, placing them on the dashboard before resuming her feeding efforts.
Yu Zhenzhen, clutching her chest, watched Yu Xi’s subtle movements. Lowering her body as if pretending to grab something from the car seat, Yu Xi actually conjured the items out of thin air. Yu Zhenzhen’s heart raced. She kept glancing outside, afraid someone might pass by and notice something unusual.
In reality, Yu Xi’s lowered posture ensured that even if someone passed by, they wouldn’t see anything suspicious inside the car.
“Don’t eat too fast. You’ve been starving all day, and eating too quickly will upset your stomach. If you feel tired, recline your seat and nap for a while. I may need to drive for quite some time.”
“All day?” Yu Zhenzhen didn’t understand what she meant.
Yu Xi gestured for her to check her phone. Yu Zhenzhen took it out, stared at it, and froze. “Is my phone broken? Why does it say today is Friday?”
For a senior high student, these past few days were the most anticipated, with the sports meet followed by a long national holiday. Everyone had been counting down the days, so there was no way she could have gotten it wrong. Today should have been Thursday—how could it suddenly be Friday?
The apocalypse hadn’t started yet, so there were many things Yu Xi couldn’t explain to Yu Zhenzhen. Moreover, there was another secret about their world—one she hadn’t decided whether or not to reveal.
Yu Zhenzhen was only eighteen. Should she be told that her entire life would be confined to the Lushan Peninsula? That leaving its boundaries would trap her in a terrifying time loop she could never escape?
Or should she be told that the world she lived in wasn’t just an apocalypse but also a broken one? That it might even be nothing more than a fictional story?
Yes, the fragment Yu Xi had seen before losing consciousness on the plane didn’t show mountains, rivers, or cities. Instead, it was covered entirely in text, as if torn from the pages of a book.
First, Yu Xi drove to a car rental agency to extend the lease on the Jeep they were using for another week. She also arranged for a car ownership transfer with the rental agency’s owner, pocketing the money from the sale of the vehicle.
She already had a rough new plan in mind, thanks to a conversation she overheard between a couple she met at a hotel. They had mentioned a certain place.
Before heading there, she took Yu Zhenzhen to a street specializing in outdoor survival backpacks and various camping, hiking, and diving gear to stock up on more supplies.
Since they couldn’t leave the Lushan Peninsula, the highest elevation on the peninsula was Lushan in the north-central region, particularly its peak, Luyuan Summit.
She had researched online and found that Luyuan Summit was a well-developed resort area with not only hotels and inns but also scattered vacation cabins throughout the mountain.
These vacation cabins were private accommodations, limited to one group of guests per cabin. Meals were self-catered, but the privacy and independence made them ideal for their situation.
Yu Xi planned to stay there during the early stages of the apocalypse. The high altitude would reduce the impact of storms, and she had already called ahead to confirm that, being in a typhoon-prone area, every cabin was equipped with lightning protection systems.
In the longer term, the Lushan area was also suitable for becoming a human refuge.
She had noted that
World Mission 2
involved establishing a human shelter.
A shelter was different from a refuge base. The former was a smaller concept, while a base was more comprehensive, with an operational system in place. A base had to meet higher standards than a shelter.
Under Yu Zhenzhen’s stunned gaze, Yu Xi nearly emptied an entire diving store of its equipment and oxygen tanks. She also bought a mountain of camping, climbing, and survival gear, filling the Jeep to the brim with barely an inch of free space left. Even the roof of the car was strapped with equipment, including inflatable rafts.
After leaving the outdoor gear street, Yu Xi asked, “Anything special you feel like eating?”
Yu Zhenzhen hesitated for a moment before answering, “Milk tea and fried chicken.”
So, in an underground parking lot, Yu Zhenzhen watched her mother magically make all the equipment in the car disappear in an instant. Then, Yu Xi led her upstairs to several different milk tea and fried chicken shops, buying a variety of takeout meals.
An hour later, the two set out again, driving toward the northern highway.
When the car passed through the tollgate and merged onto the highway, Yu Zhenzhen could no longer hold back. “Can you tell me now?”
“I’ve come back from a month in the future, so I know many things you don’t. Staying in Blue City will be dangerous.”
“And going to Lushan will be safe?”
Yu Xi frowned as she checked the time on her phone. There were sixteen hours left until ten o’clock the next morning. The drive from Blue City to Lushan in the peninsula’s north-central region would take about two and a half hours.
She didn’t know if signs of the apocalypse, such as heavy rains or typhoons, would appear during the drive, so she couldn’t guarantee the journey would be safe.
“I’ve done everything I can. The rest is up to luck.”
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