Xiao Li's Strange Reaction

Feng Jun had always hoped, from the bottom of his heart, that he could grow a little taller. Before this, he had thought that goal would never be realized in this lifetime. At best, he could only be like some Xiao Ming and buy a pair of height-increasing shoes.

But now, he could actually undergo a second growth spurt. He had to admit, it was quite tempting.

Yet no matter how tempting it was, what interested him most right now was still his ability to turn things into cash.

So he returned to his dorm, dug out two sets of autumn underwear, then found a thick jacket and heavy trousers, along with a rechargeable flashlight, and stuffed them all into his suitcase.

What made him sigh most was a pair of infrared binoculars. He had bought them back in college. Besides studying and working out, he had been a half-baked backpacker during his student days. Though he had never traveled very far, he had bought quite a bit of related equipment.

He really missed those school days, when he could let his dreams soar without restraint and flaunt his youth...

He had also bought a kukri with those infrared binoculars, but when he graduated, he sold the knife to an underclassman—carrying something like that while traveling far and wide could easily bring trouble upon himself.

After stuffing all the necessities into the suitcase, Feng Jun picked up his phone just as he was about to operate it when the door opened and Qin Tao walked in.

Feng Jun waited for a moment and found that the guy had actually sat down at the head of his bed and started playing games on his phone. With no choice, he curled his lips in frustration and dragged the suitcase out.

Qin Tao spoke without even raising his head. "You're leaving?"

Feng Jun glanced at him, saw that all his attention was on his phone, and answered casually, "Going out for a walk."

Qin Tao said nothing more. For someone as homebound as him, asking that one question was already unprecedented.

Feng Jun dragged his suitcase downstairs. Passing a convenience store, he paused to think, then went in and bought two 1.25-liter bottles of mineral water and several boxes of chocolate.

When he dragged his suitcase through the entrance of Hongjie Club, Xiao Li at the front desk happened to be yawning toward the door. She froze when she saw him come in. "You're... going somewhere?"

Feng Jun's lies came right off the top of his head. "The suitcase is a little dirty, so I brought it over to wipe it down."

"Mm." Xiao Li nodded. She was the sort of person who did not like to overthink things, so she easily believed him. Then she remembered something. "I'm not using my phone right now. Is half an hour enough for you?"

Feng Jun paused before replying, "Well, how about... forget it?"

"Forget it?" Xiao Li's willow-leaf brows shot up at once, and she snapped angrily, "I deleted my online banking and Alipay, and I even transferred all the money in Liaoliao to someone else. And now you're telling me... forget it?"

"Fine." Feng Jun felt his scalp go numb as he listened. He could only nod gloomily. "I thought it might not be convenient for you. I'll use it now. Ten minutes will be enough."

"Ten minutes?" Xiao Li looked at him suspiciously and handed over the phone. "Where exactly are you planning to use it?"

Without thinking, Feng Jun answered, "The restroom."

"The restroom?" Xiao Li blanked for a moment, then shot out her hand and snatched the phone back with astonishing speed.

She unlocked the screen and swiftly opened the photo album. Her pale fingers danced across the screen so nimbly it was dazzling.

Without a second thought, she tapped seventy or eighty times in rapid succession, then hit delete before handing the phone back to him again. With a smile that was not quite a smile, she said, "Why not find yourself a proper girlfriend? Why go for this crooked path?"

Damn it! Feng Jun slapped his forehead in distress. "You don't think I was going to look at your pictures and... do that, do you?"

"I won't give you that chance," Xiao Li replied proudly. "The rest are all food and scenery photos."

Feng Jun stared at her speechlessly. After a long while, he finally said, "You... really thought too much."

Was he really that desperate?

Feng Jun carried the suitcase into a stall, turned on Xiao Li's phone camera, and propped the phone on the toilet tank lid—her phone actually had a little stand, making it very convenient to adjust the angle.

He hooked the suitcase handle over his right elbow, swiped open the screen of his old-fashioned phone with his left hand, and tapped the blank space. "Off you go~"

The next moment, he arrived once again on that stretch of Gobi wasteland. Sure enough, the suitcase hanging from his elbow had come with him.

The sun still had not set. In this space, once he left, time seemed to stop as well.

A blast of cold wind swept over him, making him shiver involuntarily. He hurriedly opened the suitcase and began pulling clothes onto himself.

He did not need the autumn underwear just yet. The thick jacket and heavy trousers were already quite warm. Then he looked around before glancing at the mark on his left wrist.

Sure enough, the mark was now extremely faint, seemingly even fainter than after he had first grasped the grass. In other words, if he did not recharge it, he would not be able to enter the space again next time—neither this place nor Liaoliao Farm's space.

It seemed that bringing supplies in this time had consumed quite a lot of energy.

Then he needed to establish a quantitative standard for the energy needed to bring supplies in!

The next moment, Feng Jun shook his head. He did not have time to think about that for now. The most important thing was to carefully scout the surroundings and not waste this hard-won entry.

He spent more than two hours circling the village, but did not discover a single living creature.

He picked a sheltered spot and began changing clothes, putting on the autumn underwear beneath his thick jacket and heavy trousers.

He waited until the sun set before trying to enter the village. After another four or five hours, he had walked through the entire village.

There truly were no living creatures in the village. However, he did come across some scattered bones that appeared to be human.

He even found a skull in a shallow pit, bearing signs of having been gnawed on.

Feng Jun was not particularly timid, and he had come here to uncover a fortuitous encounter. But even so, stumbling across a skull in the middle of a desolate wilderness late at night was enough to make his entire body tremble. He remained rattled and dazed for quite some time.

Originally, he had brought a thin towel blanket, intending to spend the night here if anything happened. But now it seemed that the wilderness was far colder than he had imagined, and the blanket could hardly fend off such cold.

Not to mention the many human bones around him. If he could sleep under those circumstances, how enormous would his heart have to be?

Even if Feng Jun's heart was a little bigger than most, it still fell within the bounds of a normal person's.

He did not know how long he endured. It felt as distant as an entire century before the sun finally rose. When he saw a streak of red glow appear on the horizon, Feng Jun could not help tearing up.

Damn it, you finally showed up! If you hadn't, this guy really wouldn't have been able to hold on!

He had already eaten all the chocolate he had brought. He had not drunk much water, though; he had not even finished one bottle of the 1.25-liter mineral water. It could not be helped—the water was simply too cold. It chilled his teeth in his mouth, and swallowing it made his body shudder.

Next time he came in, he absolutely had to prepare a large amount of supplies!

Once the sun rose, the temperature quickly climbed as well. Feng Jun moved his body a little and began one final investigation of the village.

After searching everywhere, he found nothing meaningful. There were some fragments of clay jars and coarse porcelain bowls, but those things... probably would not sell for much.

Even a little silver... or some copper coins would do. At least then I wouldn't have come all this way for nothing.

Still, he had not gained nothing at all. On a broken wall, he found two drawings: one was a portrait of a person, and the other was an animal resembling a rabbit.

The drawings were not very good. They had been made with charcoal sticks, and in Feng Jun's eyes, after having studied sketching, they were not much better than a child's scribbles.

Yet from the figure in the drawing, he could still determine that the people here dressed at roughly the level of the Xia Dynasty. Their upper and lower garments were already separate, a two-piece outfit, and their lapels crossed to the right.

"Could I have crossed over?" Feng Jun stroked his chin and pondered with a frown.

Then he found a broken stone slab with faint writing on it. It looked somewhat like traditional Chinese characters, but not entirely.

Even if he really had crossed over, there was nothing to fear. Feng Jun sat on a stone stump and thought it over. In any case, he could return. This was a two-way door.

He just did not know what dynasty this was.

Feng Jun swept his gaze around. He planned to return now, and he did not know when he would come again, so he needed to observe everything carefully in case he missed anything.

The next moment, he vaguely felt that something was wrong somewhere. Raising his left hand, he saw that the mark on his wrist had faded until it was almost impossible to make out.

But why... did he feel like the mark was heating up?

Feng Jun raised his right hand and touched his left wrist. Sure enough, the place where the mark was really was a little warm.

Very quickly, he found the source of the heat—it came from the stone stump beneath his butt.

When his left hand touched the stone stump, the heat from the mark intensified.

There was something wrong with this stone stump!

The stump was not large, about a foot square and a foot and a half high. Roughly half a foot of it was buried in the soil.

Feng Jun spent nearly half an hour digging it out. He tried to lift it with both arms, but could not move it. It weighed at least three or four hundred pounds.

He believed that such a heavy object could not be brought back to the real world. Never mind whether he could lift it—he simply did not have enough energy to take it out.

Besides, he had to consider how others would react—he had merely gone to the restroom, yet came out carrying a stone?

He raised his leg and kicked the stone stump over. "This is seriously infuriating... huh?"