Grandpa Jing took another puff before speaking. "Wu County's about to get buried by a mudslide. Your Paternal Eldest Aunt and Paternal Second Aunt's families can't get into Wu City right now. They said Wu County hasn't been completely flooded yet, but they can't move until the relocation order comes down. I asked your dad to bring some gifts and talk to people, see if we can say they're just visiting relatives in Wu City, maybe let them stay here."
"Did it work?" Jing Shu asked.
Grandpa Jing shook his head. "No. Even if they sneak in, anyone without a registered address here's considered undocumented. If they get caught, they'll be detained. The community's been doing full inspections every few days, afraid outsiders will slip in."
"So now we can only wait or get an officially approved travel permit. Those things cost thousands of virtual coins, and even then you can't buy one unless your household registration's already here. What scares me is that once Ningshan City sends another wave of people into Wu City, your aunts' families will never make it in."
Grandma Jing looked troubled too. All her children were her flesh and blood. She might've favored Jing An a bit more, but knowing her two daughters were out there suffering—hungry, cold, without a roof over their heads, and worst of all unable to enter Wu City—still made her heart ache.
"Ningshan City… that million-level metropolis," Jing Shu murmured. In her previous life, she'd been at the bottom of society and never cared about such things. People back then only talked about how much they'd worked, how many virtual coins they'd earned, how much food that could buy, or when the higher-ups would add another buffet day.
She did know Wu City had merged several times, bringing in more people every round, but there were still deaths every day. Beyond that, she hadn't known much. Oh, right—she remembered the leader of Wu City was called the Tyrant. It was like how people used to only know the country's leader's name, but nothing else.
"Don't worry, Grandpa. Wu County hasn't been completely flooded yet, right? That means they can still live there for another ten days or half a month. Don't panic, I'll ask around during this time, see if I can get them some legitimate ID passes."
"Ah, it'd be best if the flood never reaches them. Who wants to leave their hometown?" Grandma Jing clasped her hands together, muttering prayers. She hoped the water would rise slower, that it wouldn't drown Wu County or Banana Community, and that everyone could just stay safely inside their homes.
After that, Jing Shu started telling all the fun stories from her trip, leaving out the dangerous parts. Since she'd been keeping in touch every day with messages and video calls, her family didn't feel too anxious. Before dinner even started, Jing Shu couldn't keep her eyes open and went back to her room to sleep.
Even in her dreams, she was still practicing inside the Cube Space. She also multitasked to reorganize everything inside. She wrote a new plan sheet, calculating every type of supply down to the cubic meter. By the time the migration happened next year, she'd only have 729 cubic meters of usable space, minus the several dozen cubic meters taken up by farmland.
With the new upgrade adding 200 extra cubic meters, Jing Shu wanted to plan carefully what to fill it with. Before the migration, she'd have to move all the supplies she couldn't carry into the Cube Space. If she messed up and couldn't fit everything, that'd be a disaster.
Now that she'd reached the third form and could eat inside the space, that little comfort made her want to adjust her crops again. Even if it cost some Spirit Spring, she planned to stockpile more food so she could eat directly inside the space anytime. That way, she could eat less while traveling, saving supplies for the migration.
Then she discovered another perk of the third form: inside it, the Cube Space felt wonderfully warm and cozy, like basking in sunlight. It was amazing, nothing like the bitter cold of this fifth year, when temperatures dropped to minus seventy degrees and everyone could see their breath with every step.
Crack!
Jing Shu split open a massive watermelon, easily weighing over twenty kilos, and started digging in with a spoon. Before, she'd always had to sneak food in her house, making sure the smell didn't spread or the sound didn't get noticed. But now, she didn't have to care about any of that. The freedom felt incredible!
She wondered if she could cook and store food inside the space too. That'd be so much more efficient and convenient. Jing Shu decided to try it in a few days. If it worked, she'd start using her nights to prep supplies and save her days for other tasks.
Oh, and about the six new plots of land from the upgrade—she planted all of them with different fruits, harvesting and storing as she went. Once she got more seeds, she'd save a few plots for the rice she'd been dreaming about, to bring back home before the migration.
The weather in Wu City was getting colder, the muddy water rising higher. Cars and buses could barely move, but that didn't stop the rich.
The joy of the wealthy was something ordinary people couldn't even imagine. To them, there were no obstacles, only inconveniences.
Jing Shu clicked her tongue as she sat in a modified Maybach, its engine roaring, propellers spinning wildly. The car crawled through the muddy swamp at a turtle speed of thirty kilometers per hour.
It was the same driver as before—quiet but with a dry sense of humor—and he was quite proud of the car. After all, he'd modified it himself.
Qian Duoduo was picking Jing Shu up to attend the shareholders' meeting at Xingfu Shiyuan. She hadn't even known about the meeting, but Qian Duoduo somehow heard she'd returned and insisted on pausing everything just to fetch her.
"All the shareholders are waiting for you, miss," the driver said, stepping harder on the gas. Not that it helped much.
"Well, isn't that flattering?" Jing Shu muttered, twitching her lips. "It's just a meeting, what's the big deal? Did they have to drag me out first thing in the morning?"
Yawning, she thought about how her parents had been getting to work this past month using the hover-skates Grandpa Jing gave them, each with two pedal paddles. Their own car was useless now. Walking six or seven kilometers every day was brutal.
Her dad had tried using the amphibious shark submarine before. It was powerful and flashy, but the problem was, the mud around here reached thigh-deep. The land mode was too high, the water mode too shallow, and it'd just sink into the muck. It worked, sure, but it was such a hassle—and a total gas guzzler.
"Hey, driver, was this modification expensive? Does it burn a lot of fuel? I was thinking about modifying our car too, make traveling easier. But can it still be restored afterward?"
"Fuel consumption's around twenty percent higher. As for the price, that's hard to say. This one used parts straight from Mr. Qian's private yacht. But restoring it? Nah, that's impossible. Once it's modified, the car's permanently changed. If you're interested, Mr. Qian's still got a few yachts lying around."
"Oh, I'll think about it," Jing Shu said, clicking her tongue. Spending a few million just like that wasn't something she could afford. Their car was all they had, and once the ground froze solid and snowed, it'd still be usable.
"It's just that traveling for the next few months is gonna be a pain."
===
Author's Note:
Been a bit busy these days. My dad's chemo cycle started again—once every 21 days. Sigh.