Chapter 583 - 361: Is This Heaven?
Chapter 583: Chapter 361: Is This Heaven?
Even Li Xiang’s eyes lit up.
The temporary Shelter Li Xiang dug was, of course, larger than the one Kanna had made. It was located deep underground and had several rooms, as well as small ventilation shafts. Kanna’s people were all outside, warming themselves by the fire and eating beef soup.
"Here, Kanna, this bowl is for you." Li Xiang personally took a large bowl and filled it to the brim with tomato and beef brisket soup for Kanna. It was packed with large chunks of brisket, and a rich layer of fat floated on the surface of the red broth. Just looking at it made Kanna’s mouth water.
"Thank you, Lord Divine Envoy." Kanna took the bowl but didn’t eat immediately, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"You don’t have to be so formal in the future. Just call me Brother Xiang, or Boss," Li Xiang said.
"Thank you, Boss." Kanna still chose the title "Boss." ’Calling him "Brother Xiang" makes me feel unworthy. It would feel like a dream, not real at all.’
Kanna ate three large bowls in a row before her stomach finally felt somewhat full. The journey had drained her physical strength and Spiritual Power. Now, with three bowls of beef brisket soup in her, she felt better than ever.
Li Xiang had the others eat only a little at first, telling them to eat more in a few hours. When ordinary people who have starved for a long time suddenly gorge themselves, it can cause problems. But Kanna was an Extraordinary Being, so there was no need to worry about that.
In fact, Kanna could circulate her Spiritual Power to aid digestion. She was only about seventy percent full.
Kanna slept for nearly eight hours. Her people had eaten two or three meals, and each of them had received warm clothes distributed by Li Xiang.
The Shelter was now filled with joyful laughter. A few people had fallen ill with fevers, and Li Xiang had given them medicine. Minor external injuries were, of course, even easier to treat.
Li Xiang’s Otherworldly Warehouse was extremely well-stocked, containing everything one could possibly need. He even had clothes for the baby, which left the child’s mother pleasantly surprised and deeply grateful.
Speaking of which, the infant was incredibly resilient to have survived the journey, though it was now terribly frail, nothing but skin and bones.
Li Xiang spoke with Kanna, asking if she was willing to join the "Earth Vein Passage Envoy" team.
Kanna was naturally thrilled and agreed without a moment’s hesitation.
Afterward, Li Xiang led them on their way. With his Tier Twenty-Seven Cultivation, he used Earth Escape to effortlessly carry Kanna and her group along. He moved so quickly that they reached City No. 03 in just a few minutes.
Li Xiang almost never used the main gates when he went out, preferring to enter and exit using Earth Escape. This time was no different, even with a group of people in tow.
In truth, there was a complete procedure for entering the city under normal circumstances, with the disinfection step being absolutely essential.
At every entrance and exit of the Underground City, there was a disinfection plaza and several curved glass sterilization tunnels. Nano-disinfectant sprays would fill the air, some carrying the fresh scent of lemon or green grass.
But as Li Xiang brought them in, enveloping them with his Spiritual Power during the Earth Escape, he had already used Spiritual Power Vibration to disinfect them, ensuring no viruses or pathogens were brought in. Thus, this step could be skipped.
The moment they passed through the final rock wall, a "blinding" warm white light made everyone instinctively raise their arms. After months of trekking through darkness, they had almost forgotten what sunlight felt like.
Once they finally adjusted to the bright lights of the Underground City, Kanna and her people were overcome with shock, as if they had fallen into a surreal science fiction world.
It was an impeccably clean and tidy Underground City, resplendent and futuristic. Like Granny Liu stepping into the Grand View Garden, Kanna and her people were in awe of everything. They looked everywhere, their gazes darting about, feeling more than a little out of place.
Li Xiang led them to a resting area in the municipal hall, where rows of chairs were set up. He told them to wait there, explaining they could also walk around the nearby streets but shouldn’t go too far. Then, he went to find Jiang Cai’Er.
Instead of sitting, Kanna and her people paced back and forth, peering curiously at the streets outside through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
A few of the bolder girls, including one of Kanna’s cousins, asked for her permission and went outside. The others remained inside the municipal hall.
Kanna warned them not to go more than five hundred meters away, lest they get lost and couldn’t be found later.
"We know, sis." Kanna’s cousin was named Tanya. She had particularly full lips and her skin was a bit darker than Kanna’s. She wasn’t as beautiful as Kanna, nor was her figure as good, but she had a brilliant white smile.
Tanya and a few of her friends excitedly ran outside. The mother holding the baby watched them for a moment, then followed. A few others, unable to contain their curiosity, also scurried out.
They were all sensible enough not to stray far, simply exploring the immediate vicinity. Everything was so new and technological.
The dome over the main thoroughfare projected a virtual starry sky, its flowing galaxy complementing the neon lights on the ground. Inside a glass-walled shop, a holographic mannequin was displaying jewelry inlaid with Spiritual Energy Crystals. As Tanya leaned in closer, the mannequin suddenly blinked and smiled. "Would you like a virtual try-on?"
The startled girl fell backward onto the glowing floor tiles.
On the holographic advertising screens lining the street, a virtual image of Jiang Cai’Er was explaining the latest model of Spiritual Armor, with streams of data unfurling beside her like a phoenix’s wings.
Not far away, a patrol of six-legged robotic dogs passed by, their metal shells glowing with faint blue energy patterns.
Tanya and the others stared at the robotic dogs with curiosity.
One of the robotic dogs suddenly stopped and turned toward the mother holding the baby. A mechanical claw extended, holding out an insulated baby bottle. "Lactating female detected. City No. 03’s Maternal and Infant Care Program has been activated."
When the warm goat’s milk was placed in her hands, the mother tremblingly knelt and kissed the robot dog’s sensor, only to be gently lifted by a mechanical arm. "According to Article 19 of the Dawn Outline, the dignity of a citizen is sacred and inviolable."
Kanna’s uncle felt an urgent need to use the restroom. Spotting a public toilet at a street corner park, he walked over.
When the crystal doors of the public restroom slid open automatically, Kanna’s uncle thought he had mistakenly entered a palace. A mirrored dome ceiling refracted the soft light, the air was filled with the fragrance of cedar, and every stall was equipped with a fully automated cleaning system.
When he discovered that a temperature-sensitive pad on the rim of the toilet bowl automatically raised the seat, this man, who had once shared a dry latrine with ten thousand others in the slums, sat down on the smart toilet, buried his face in his hands, and wept.
If the men reacted this way, one could only imagine how the women felt.
The mother with the infant stayed in the restroom for a long time, unwilling to leave. What’s more, right next to the restroom, there was even a nursery.
’This isn’t a restroom at all; it’s a super-luxurious mansion!’ She had never in her life seen a toilet so heavenly.
They entered a commercial street where the neon signs suddenly transformed into a sky full of fireflies. A holographic nine-tailed fox leaped from a ramen shop’s sign, weaving a ribbon of light above their heads to form the words "Mid-Autumn Special."
As Kanna’s younger brother stared at a dessert shop’s molecular gastronomy display—where a levitating crème brûlée was deconstructing and reforming into the shape of a phoenix—he felt a gentle tug on his pant leg. A cleaning robot was there. The drop of ice cream he had let fall while mesmerized had already been disintegrated without a trace by a nano-swarm.
"Is this really the Apocalypse?" one of Kanna’s older sisters-in-law, who was thirty-five but looked closer to sixty, asked. She touched a warm, faux-wood bench in the community center, and a holographic menu immediately popped up, displaying a wellness meal plan for the elderly.
When an AI voice asked in Hindi if she would like to contact a volunteer, she suddenly gripped Kanna’s hand tightly. "Little sister, have we arrived at Shiva’s Sumeru Mountain?"
A holographic news column on the street corner was playing an interview with Jiang Cai’Er. When an image of Li Xiang flashed on screen, Kanna’s people fell to their knees and kowtowed in unison, until a patrolling android police officer gently lifted them with an Energy Field. "Citizens, kneeling obeisance of any kind is prohibited in City No. 03."
They hadn’t been exploring for long when Li Xiang returned, followed by several staff members. They helped Kanna and her people process their identity chips and assigned them to an apartment building: five girls to a room, family rooms for married couples, and six men to a room.
Additionally, each person received a settlement allowance of one hundred Heat Coins.
"Tomorrow, our staff will come to take you to choose your jobs."
The fact that they were also being provided with jobs—and could even choose them—filled Kanna’s people with an excitement that was beyond words.
Dinner was in the public cafeteria downstairs from their apartment. It was a sumptuous meal, yet it cost each person just over one Heat Coin—excellent value for the price.
When "dusk" fell, the community AI automatically adjusted the wavelength of the ambient light based on everyone’s biological data.
Kanna lay on the temperature-controlled bed in her assigned apartment, gazing through the panoramic window at the children playing outside. Their clean, healthy, and lively figures overlapped with and then separated from her memories of slum children fighting for food in piles of filth.
When a cleaning robot gently knocked on the door carrying a glass of honey milk, this Earth Element Transcendent who had once torn Exotic Beasts apart with her bare hands finally curled up like a lost child and sobbed.