Right, she had absorbed some of that crimson crystal and liquid earlier. Could that stuff actually save someone? And if it could, how would it work? Her fingers brushed against the fabric of her coat as she considered the possibilities.
When Jing Shu's consciousness returned to the Cube Space, the quiet surface of the one-cubic-meter pool of crimson liquid had dropped again. The fluid sat at the bottom of the stone-like basin, its color so dark it appeared almost black in the corners.
One thing was certain: there was less of it every time she checked. Maybe it was simply fading on its own because of its special nature. After all, it came from the fourth dimension, which represented 'time.' Time flowed, so maybe this did too.
Or maybe the Cube Space was secretly using it. Or worse, maybe her body was absorbing it without her realizing it. Either way, that would have to wait until she got back home to study. The most important thing right now was returning to China. The thought of the long flight across the ocean made her shoulders feel heavy.
She had to get out of America fast. If they got caught while being wanted, there would be no way to escape back home.
"I was hoping to see a few more places here," she murmured, her voice lost in the hum of the ship, "but the space is already full. What we have brought back is plenty anyway."
The harvest from this trip had been massive, so she let it go.
After more than half a day of travel, Cargo Ship No. 808 finally reached a new dock. The metal hull groaned against the tires of the pier as the vessel came to a halt. They made it without any accidents. After settling accounts on board and checking the manifests one last time, everyone said their goodbyes to the crew and boarded the private jet.
Qian Duoduo's private jet couldn't carry much, so they reorganized and divided the materials they had gotten from the Rhine Manor. The cabin was cramped, filled with the smell of expensive leather and the metallic scent of looted crates.
The supplies Jing Shu stored inside her space didn't count in the group's share. But items like the Z10-generation bacterial synthetic meat, which had to be disclosed publicly, were still considered her spoils. She would hand them over later, but ownership stayed hers.
The team's loot distribution was simple: whoever gathered the materials had first pick. Anything unwanted could be auctioned off to others using contribution points or donated to the state for points. At the end, everyone split the total points evenly.
Some convenient and valuable items went straight into her hands, like the Z10 meat formula and the ZS880 liquid, which was the main target of their mission this time. She held the small glass vial, watching the liquid move against the walls of the tube.
As for the rare Mars meteorite that could extract the elements needed for ZS880, they decided to turn that in for a large number of contribution points. They would split the reward evenly among the surviving members.
Jing Shu sorted through the dozen or so packages she had taken from the villa. She kept more than half for herself and auctioned the rest at low contribution value. If more than two people wanted something, they bid with points, and the final value would still be split later.
From the seven or eight packages from the tower, she only took a few things and gave almost ninety percent to her teammates. Most of it was rare food and materials anyway.
They were great items, but she already had plenty of food and supplies. Her space was full of premium goods she had taken from the villa and from Jobus himself. She really didn't need more.
"Mirror, you collected the most stuff. You really don't want anything from the tower?" Snake Spirit asked. He sat on one of the plush seats, his hands resting on a crate.
To the others, the villa's items looked like junk—trinkets, crystal photo frames, eternal candles, and other decorative pieces. But the tower's supplies were different. They were practical, lifesaving gear for the apocalypse.
More importantly, Jing Shu had risked her life for those. She had rushed in during the explosion's final seconds to grab them. Nobody thought she was being greedy for taking more. She had earned it.
"I'm good. I already took plenty." Jing Shu cleared her throat. Sure, her space had made it easy to hoard that much, but she had earned it fair and square. Without her space, all that stuff would have been left to rot or be vaporized in the fire. Nobody had time or room to carry it off.
Besides, it was because she found the laser room and the key that they even got to the villa's resources and then reached the tower.
Not that it mattered now. Maybe that Priest would send a nun to loot what was left. Though honestly, he probably couldn't even get through the laser defenses to reach the chip key.
Speaking of Priest, he hadn't left with them. After tending to Jie Lu with Xiao Hei, he had chosen to stay behind in the ruins.
"Priest still has unfinished missions. We will go ahead, and Xiao Hei will stay to help him out," Yang Yang had said at the time.
Xiao Hei couldn't go back to China anyway, so this was his best path—staying with Priest to complete missions. Maybe he would even take over Priest's work someday. Hopefully by then he hadn't start every sentence with "God says" or "Amen."
After Jing Shu finished distributing her share, they moved on to the weapons. Everything dismantled from the tower was stored on Cargo Ship No. 808. Jing Shu reserved a warning plane, and most of the other heavy weapons were turned in for contribution points, which they split evenly. Some team members kept small personal arms, checking the magazines and cleaning the barrels.
Then came Monkey's loot. After he picked what he wanted, the rest was divided among the group. Jing Shu didn't see anything worth taking.
Yang Yang's haul, though, was impressive. He had literally emptied an entire tech building, filling a truck with crates. A lot of it was research equipment, which was worth a fortune in contribution points once the state specialists got their hands on it.
Other than the ZS880 formula, which had to be handed over as a mission item, he only kept what he personally needed. The rest of the scientific equipment was collectively exchanged for contribution points and split evenly.
While sorting through Yang Yang's pile, Jing Shu found something curious: a dried tree trunk sealed in a glass container filled with a special liquid. The wood was gray and gnarled, its surface covered in deep ridges. The attached note read: 'Unknown. Under research. Appears dead but resists all attempts at revival while showing no signs of decay.'
It didn't seem too valuable. It wouldn't fetch many contribution points either.
"It kind of looks like that dead tree at the fourth-dimensional gate, but not exactly," she murmured. She bought it for 50 points. She planned to raise it inside her space to see if she could revive it. Jing Shu had a strange fondness for plants and livestock, so long as they were useful.
If Xiao Dou ever stopped laying eggs, there would be no 'No. 1' title for her. The hen must have sensed Jing Shu's gaze because it quickly laid an egg. The shell made a light clicking sound as it hit the floor, and the bird gave a nervous cluck.
The more Jing Shu dealt with contribution points, the more she realized they were the true universal currency and a hard one to earn. You could only get them through bringing in foreign resources, so who knew how much overseas scavenging the others had done already?
In this division, Jing Shu ended up with the most, but everyone still earned a hefty amount. The ZS880 life-extension formula alone would bring them tons of contribution points. Add the ancient cauldron they had acquired, and that was another huge bonus.
After all, their first mission was official, and this one was half-private. Either way, the points were rolling in.