Mysterious Space

There were four beds in Feng Jun's employee dorm, one of them empty. He had only two roommates: Zhao Qi and Qin Tao.

Both were club lackeys. Zhao Qi's relationship with Feng Jun was a little tense, while Qin Tao was the sort who couldn't be coaxed into farting even with three sticks. Other than work, he liked to hole up in internet cafés playing games—a total shut-in.

But although Qin Tao loved internet cafés, he never stayed out all night. He simply returned rather late.

He was a Yang City local, and his relationship with Feng Jun was fairly ordinary too.

Feng Jun looked at the empty farm, then at the two sleeping men, and curled his lip unhappily. Both were highly suspicious, but... there were two of them. He had no way of knowing which one was more suspicious.

In any case, that was what life at the bottom was like. All kinds of filthy thoughts, ugly faces, and despicable deeds were laid bare without the slightest concealment.

Hurting others without benefiting oneself? That was perfectly normal.

Feng Jun sighed silently. What could he do? His screen lock had no password.

But in the next moment, his eyes lit up. Since pulling weeds was exhausting, shoveling out the grass was a pretty good option too.

For the moment, he forgot that perhaps he could use his right hand to harvest the grass.

In any event, it did not affect his mood much. After leaving the dorm, he deliberately went out and devoured a huge breakfast, eating until fried dough sticks were practically piled up to his throat before he set down his bowl and chopsticks in satisfaction.

Entering the farm to explore its rules was truly physical labor.

Ignoring the stall owner's astonished stare, he bought Xiao Li breakfast as well, then strolled leisurely into the club.

He had not come in last night, and the area he was responsible for had been cleaned spotlessly. Feng Jun wandered around once, saw that Xiao Li had not arrived yet, and drifted over to the employee changing room.

Liu Shuming was already there. The moment he saw Feng Jun come in, his face darkened. After a while, he finally asked with a black face, "Did you break my charger?"

Feng Jun rolled his eyes at him without saying a word. He pulled out his phone and began scrolling through it as if nothing had happened.

Liu Shuming's face turned green with rage, but he did not dare ask again. He could only spit viciously. "Pretty boy, you really think you're some decent man now?"

That was clearly a jab at Feng Jun's relationship with Sister Hong. But Liu Shuming had not named anyone, and Feng Jun's complexion was not particularly fair anyway—he simply was not dark. Being called a pretty boy probably had more to do with his relatively high education.

Feng Jun did not bother with the insinuation. He placed his left hand on the table, his fingers unconsciously tapping the surface. Then he set down his phone and used a finger of his left hand to tap an empty spot on the screen.

He knew his left hand could not tap Liaoliao Farm, and he did not even dare tap any other icons. But... tapping a blank part of the screen could not possibly cause any problems, right?

This was the sort of behavior that came from having nothing better to do, and as the old saying went—idle hands stir up trouble!

So in the next moment, Feng Jun met with disaster. To his astonishment, he found himself in a strange space.

It was a wasteland. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but gravel, as though he had been dropped into the Gobi Desert.

He looked up and saw a sun in the sky, but it was exceptionally huge—more than twice the size of a normal sun. Looking farther away, he could make out mountain peaks and faint traces of green.

Yet where he stood was utterly barren. There were no plants, no animals, not even insects. There was only endless gravel and gust after gust of biting cold wind.

Feng Jun stood there dumbstruck for a long while before muttering softly, "Fuck... I really do have itchy hands."

If he wanted to leave now, he should be able to exit easily. But since he was already here, he decided to walk around and see what this place was all about.

As for the fact that he had entered the phone right under Liu Shuming's nose, that did not matter. It was too late for regrets now. Besides, once he entered this place, time outside should have stopped.

He looked around again and discovered that in what appeared to be the east, beyond the distant mountains and faint greenery, his sharp eyes could just barely make out some relatively orderly structures.

Then he might as well go take a look. Feng Jun headed east. He had eaten plenty for breakfast, so he did not need to worry about his stamina for the time being.

But the saying that mountains could kill a horse when seen from afar was no empty phrase. He walked for nearly three hours before closing the distance even slightly. By then, he could vaguely make out that those rows of structures seemed to be houses.

Would there be people in those houses? Feng Jun frowned. According to the rules of webnovels, this was the moment when he should hide himself and stay alert for all sorts of villains appearing around the buildings.

He looked up at the sun. It had already begun to dip westward, and both its light and heat were fading. The Gobi was growing cold, and the wind had picked up. Only after stopping did he realize that his body was beginning to chill.

So he turned up his collar to ward off the cold wind.

But in the next instant, he leaped into the air. "Holy shit... I brought my clothes in with me?"

The discovery thrilled him beyond measure. Outside the phone, it was early autumn in Yang City. Feng Jun was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and long pants, the standard Hongjie Club summer uniform.

He reached into his trouser pocket and, sure enough, found cigarettes and a lighter.

The lighter was not windproof. Feng Jun had to work hard before he finally lit a cigarette. He took two deep drags in bliss, then could not help grinning. "I'm rich, I'm rich. This ability to cash out... it's just too damn powerful."

Having a storage space like this already fulfilled every expectation he had ever had for some miraculous encounter.

After thinking it over, he decided to quietly approach those rows of houses anyway. Not for any other reason, but because entering the phone space consumed far too much battery power. Before he had harvested any cash, he had better conserve his limited funds.

Another two hours passed before he finally sneaked to within about half a kilometer of the houses.

By then, the sun had sunk even farther west, and the wind was more biting than ever.

Feng Jun stared at those houses in shock. "So they're... ruins?"

This was clearly some sort of village. There were not many houses, only seventy or eighty. Every roof had been destroyed, and the walls were mostly ruined as well, leaving nothing but broken walls and crumbling ruins.

Only because the houses had been laid out rather neatly did they look like orderly buildings from afar.

To the west of the village, there was even a large threshing ground, along with a stone mill.

The millstone's wooden axle was still there, but its frame had vanished somewhere long ago. The whole village looked even more broken and desolate.

Feng Jun frowned deeply, silently calculating. Could there still be people in this village?

His instincts told him nobody had lived here for a long time, but... when one roamed the martial world, one had to stay vigilant against people who might kill for treasure at any moment.

Oh, no. Kill for a miraculous encounter.

But if he just left like this, he had no idea when he would save up enough energy to come back next time.

Feng Jun hesitated for a long time before gritting his teeth. Forget it. At worst, he could buy some electricity later.

The important thing was... it was fucking way, way, way too cold here right now!

In the next moment, he reappeared in Hongjie's employee changing room.

Immediately afterward, there was a bang nearby. Feng Jun turned his head and saw Liu Shuming viciously slamming shut his locker.

Looks like this bastard didn't notice anything strange about me! Feng Jun let out a soft breath, then immediately raised his hand and slammed it hard against his thigh. Fuck, I'm such a pig.

Only now did he realize that if time stopped outside when he entered the phone, then no matter what strange changes occurred to his body outside, they would last only for an instant so brief it could be ignored.

Even if his body entered the phone too, no one might notice... time had stopped at that moment.

If I'd known that, why would I need a bicycle... no, why would I need to borrow a phone?

He put away his phone, locked his clothes in the locker, and pushed open the shower room door. In just that short time, another greasy layer had seeped out over his body.

He turned the hot water all the way up and felt the scalding stream pound against his chilled skin. He let out a blissful sigh. That feels incredible. I nearly froze to death just now.

As he washed, he began staring at the mark on his arm again, pondering it. With the color faded to this extent, he could probably enter that space only one more time at most, right?

After coming out of the shower room and changing clothes, he left the changing room and found that Xiao Li had arrived. Not only had she finished breakfast, but she was standing at the front desk, enthusiastically explaining something to two young men.

Feng Jun thought about it and felt there was no longer any need to borrow a phone. In that instant when time stopped, who would notice what state he was in?

What mattered was making the proper preparations to visit that wilderness again. First, he needed to confirm the storage ability of that space. Second... he had better figure out what exactly that wilderness was.

Of course, he still needed to carefully work out the specifics. He could not waste energy lightly.

The rest of the morning passed without a ripple. At noon, he did not go to the cafeteria either. Instead, for the third consecutive day, he went to a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

This time, he did not eat as much as he had the previous two times, but the owner did not mind. When it came time to pay, he suddenly spoke up. "Have you gotten taller lately?"

"Gotten taller?" Feng Jun glanced sideways at him, smiled, and nodded. "At twenty-three, a late growth spurt... maybe."

In fact, he had felt something similar himself. He seemed to have grown a little taller.

"You definitely got taller," the owner said, nodding with absolute certainty. "You used to be about the same height as me. Now... you're a bit taller than I am."

People with similar builds could most directly sense changes in each other's height.

"Really?" Feng Jun became much more interested when he heard that. Among Chinese people, his height of 1.73 meters was not considered short.

But nowadays, everyone considered tall to be beautiful. Just two days ago, Wang Haifeng had said that even 1.75 meters was merely third-rate disabled.

That bastard was 1.81 meters tall, so naturally he felt no pressure saying something like that.