To be honest, even if a crisis did break out, Jing Shu likely wouldn't be able to offer much assistance anyway.
Li Chenglong sprinted up the path to the small hut, his footsteps echoing against the hard ground.
He paused for a second to catch his breath, his eyes scanning the high-end "workplace" his big sis had managed to assemble. It's an impressive sight in the middle of these ruins, and he couldn't help but marvel at her resourcefulness before he called out.
"After observing things for so many days, we have made new discoveries about our geographical location," he said, his voice rising with a sense of urgency. "My uncle said to call you over to discuss the next self-rescue plan."
The moment those words reached her, Jing Shu stood up. She didn't hesitate, immediately following Li Chenglong as he led the way toward the seventh floor of the building. This was Boss Lü's personal territory.
It was her first time stepping onto this level.
The hallway felt different here, colder and more oppressive. Inside a hidden room on this floor, Boss Lü had commissioned a fully sealed structure made of titanium alloy. It stood there like a giant safe, its metallic surface reflecting the dim light in sharp, clinical glints. Nobody knew exactly what he kept stored behind those heavy, reinforced walls.
Even though a flicker of curiosity crossed her mind, Jing Shu simply hadn't had the time to care about such mysteries lately. There were far more pressing matters to attend to.
The gathering spot for the meeting was a space that had served as a hotpot restaurant before the world fell apart. Now, it looked run down and eerie, a hollowed-out shell of its former self.
The bright crimson decorations, once meant to evoke appetite and celebration, now felt macabre. Combined with the dim, flickering firelight from a few scattered barrels, the atmosphere was especially creepy. Long shadows danced across the peeling wallpaper like grasping fingers.
Only a few large round tables remained in the hall, their surfaces scarred and stained. The empty, divided hotpot pots sat in the center of the tables like metal eyes staring at the ceiling.
Quite a few of the wooden chairs had already been smashed and burned as firewood, leaving gaps in the seating. Even the decorative crimson curtains and fabric partitions had been torn down. They now served as makeshift blankets for the people huddled in the corners.
"Just find somewhere to sit," Li Yuetian said.
She was perched atop one of the hotpot tables, her silhouette framed by the orange glow of the fire. She spoke to Jing Shu and Li Chenglong as they stepped through the entrance.
As Jing Shu looked at the metal pots, a sudden thought crossed her mind. It was a shame to see them just sitting there. Maybe she should secretly take one of those pots later. In the future, she could still use it to enjoy a dual-flavor hotpot.
Everyone gradually gathered inside the hall. The group was a motley collection of survivors. Some squatted on the tabletops to keep their feet off the cold floor, while others lay sprawled across the wooden surfaces. The most outrageous sight, however, was Boss Lü.
He had pushed several chairs together and converted a large round table into a giant bed. He lay there comfortably, yawning beneath the folds of a thick, luxurious blanket that looked out of place among the grime.
Besides Jun Bao, Jin Baba, Wang Miao, and the few government officials Jing Shu recognized, everyone else present belonged to Boss Lü's faction.
A balding old man stood near the front of the room. He held a wooden door panel upright, using it as a makeshift chalkboard while he scribbled complex diagrams across the grain with extreme seriousness. When he turned around to face the group, Jing Shu recognized him instantly.
Wasn't that the old principal of her university, Wang Zhiren?
"Let me explain our current geographical position in detail," Principal Wang said, tapping the door panel with a piece of charcoal. "It's a little complicated..."
He held his data results and was just about to launch into a long, academic speech when Boss Lü interrupted him with a loud groan.
Boss Lü shifted beneath his blanket, his expression impatient. "None of us understand all that complicated stuff," he complained. "Just keep it simple. Tell us where we are and how we get back to Wu City. That's enough."
The old principal sighed, the sound heavy with the frustration of an educator who couldn't find an attentive audience.
"Based on the time differences from the earliest days, we should have continued drifting westward," he began, trying again. "But..."
"But what?" Boss Lü urged him on, propping himself up on one elbow. "Old man, you are killing us with suspense here."
"But the time difference kept changing," the principal explained, his hands moving animatedly. "Sometimes it was earlier, sometimes it was later. According to the calculations..."
He immediately launched back into a series of endless technical explanations, citing degrees, currents, and temporal shifts. Boss Lü listened with a confused expression, his brow furrowed, while the academically hopeless crowd nearby stared blankly. They had absolutely no idea what the man was talking about.
So where exactly were they?
Li Yuetian spoke up, her voice deep and steady. "So Principal Wang means that we were drifting before, but these past few days we have been circling around the same area?"
Principal Wang paused to wipe away the sweat beadling on his forehead. This group seriously didn't even understand the most basic concepts of geography. And he was a math teacher by trade. Making a math teacher explain geography to people who couldn't even read a map was exhausting.
Thankfully, his personal knowledge was vast enough to bridge the gap, even if it was a struggle.
"These people are even worse than the worst class I ever taught," he thought to himself.
Just as that thought crossed his mind, Principal Wang suddenly noticed a familiar figure standing near the back of the crowd.
Huh?
Wasn't that Jing Shu?
He remembered her clearly. She was the student who had arranged a private room for him when things first started. Afterward, that enthusiastic young fellow named Xiao Liu had even helped move his luggage. They had treated him pretty well over these past few days.
Principal Wang cleared his throat and shook his head. "It's not that simple..."
He sighed again. No matter how he explained the mechanics, these people still couldn't seem to grasp the gravity of the data. His old occupational habits kicked in, and he pointed a finger toward the back.
"That student over there, Jing Shu," he called out. "Come up here and explain this problem to everyone."
Right after the words left his mouth, the principal realized something felt slightly off about the command, given their current circumstances. But Jing Shu had already started walking toward the front.
She took the homemade charcoal marker from Principal Wang's hand and flipped the wooden door panel around to find a clean spot. With a few swift, practiced strokes, she drew a large circle, then a smaller circle inside it.
She kept drawing, layer after layer, the circles shrinking inward until she finally tapped the very center point. The entire drawing was completed in one continuous line that spiraled all the way to the middle, resembling the @ symbol.
Jing Shu's expression became serious as she looked at her own drawing. For all these days, she still hadn't figured out why the time difference showed them traveling in one direction during the first dozen or so days. Then, after another dozen days, the pattern had repeated.
Later, the cycle had shortened to seven or eight days, then five or six, then three or four. Only after hearing Principal Wang's explanation today did she suddenly understand the terrifying reality.
"See this drawing?" she asked, gesturing to the spiral. "This is the route we have been traveling these past days. We have been moving in circles like this. Back then, one large loop took ten to twenty days to complete. But now, one small loop might not even take a full day anymore. That's why the time difference has become so strange."
The drawing was ridiculously simple, stripped of all the technical jargon that had confused everyone before. Even someone as academically hopeless as Boss Lü understood it instantly.
He nodded, the realization finally dawning on him. "So how do we get back to Wu City now? How do we contact people from Wu City?"
Jing Shu shook her head slowly. "The problem right now isn't whether we can return to Wu City," she said. "The real problem is the danger coming next."
"Danger? What danger?"
Boss Lü had gotten too comfortable lately. Aside from that one monster attack earlier, life had been relatively peaceful during these past days. He didn't want to hear about more trouble.
"We have probably been dragged into a whirlpool," Jing Shu explained, her voice dropping an octave. "The speed is only going to get faster and faster. When that happens..."
She didn't continue the sentence.
The current danger wasn't just the whirlpool anymore. Below the building was an endless mass of sludge sirens. If the building slowed down or the structures were compromised enough for them to climb ashore, total annihilation was guaranteed.
And the Rubik's Cube Space couldn't store people. At that point, even Jing Shu herself might die.
She still had hidden trump cards up her sleeve, of course. But unless everyone else was dead, she wouldn't reveal them. Her secrets absolutely couldn't be exposed to anyone under any circumstances. In other words, the worst possible outcome was the complete destruction of the group, and even her trump cards could barely ensure her own survival.
Only now did everyone in the hall realize how serious the situation truly was. The silence that followed was heavy. Nothing could survive inside the center of a whirlpool storm.
Principal Wang finally nodded in satisfaction, a small smile touching his lips. At last, someone had properly explained what he had been trying to say all along. As expected of a student from his school. Well... technically he hadn't taught her personally in a classroom setting, but giving speeches to the student body still counted, right?
"Ahem."
Principal Wang cleared his throat to regain their attention and continued.
"Based on the timing, we will probably reach the center of the storm in another two days. But I don't know what conditions are like there. The building may sink, or perhaps there will be a new way out. My suggestion is that we can't sit around waiting for death. At the very least, we need to control our direction and avoid getting dragged into the center."
The building itself was basically an island now, floating in a vast, watery wasteland. But how were they supposed to control the direction of an island?
"Even ships weighing dozens of tons need massive anchors and propellers to steer," someone muttered from the crowd. "How are we supposed to move an island this huge?"
Jun Bao stepped forward, his face set in a grim line. "Actually, we have already been constructing a massive improvised paddle system. These past days we have dismantled every steel bar and material we could find. Maybe we can alter our direction slightly when the time comes."
Wang Miao added, "We have also organized people to build emergency flotation boats. If all else fails, we will abandon the building!"
Abandon the building?
Jing Shu's mobile mansion was still on top of it.