Back to Blue Star

"What's a vacation??"

Just as Lin Feng was puzzling over it, the elevator announcement immediately gave him an answer.

[Ding-dong! Vacation begins. Elevator ascending. Vacation duration: fifteen days.]

The elevator began shooting upward. Lin Feng gripped the handrail on the wall tightly. This time, the elevator was moving faster than ever before, and he had no idea what it was up to.

A moment later, the elevator stopped.

The elevator doors slowly opened.

The familiar white veil of light appeared before Lin Feng.

Strangely, the system hadn't given him any corresponding notification this time.

That left Lin Feng a little uncertain about what to do.

[Ding-dong! Survivor, please step out of the elevator and enjoy your vacation. No items obtained in the elevator world may be taken outside. Time in your elevator will be paused. No items obtained in your original world may be brought into the elevator.]

Original world?

What did that mean? Could the real world be on the other side of this veil of light?

Lin Feng glanced at Little Velociraptor. If time in the elevator was paused, he probably wouldn't go hungry, so Lin Feng could rest easy.

After stepping through the veil of light, Lin Feng felt his whole body grow lighter and discovered that he had actually entered another elevator.

Only this elevator had no screen, and all the floor buttons on the side could be pressed.

Lin Feng tried pressing the button for the first floor, and the elevator began descending slowly.

In the mirror set into the elevator wall, Lin Feng noticed that his clothes had actually changed. They had been replaced with a casual outfit.

He felt around in his pocket and found his own phone.

"What the hell is going on?"

As Lin Feng puzzled over it, the elevator doors opened.

Only then did Lin Feng discover that he was actually in a shopping mall.

Most of the employees were middle-aged, though, and there didn't seem to be many young people. Perhaps they were all working better jobs.

Just then, Lin Feng suddenly realized that this mall looked familiar. Wasn't this the mall he used to visit all the time?

Even the placement of every counter was exactly the same.

He touched the wound on his face. It still hurt badly. This wasn't a dream.

A bold idea suddenly occurred to Lin Feng. Could he have returned to Blue Star?

Actually, verifying that idea would be very simple.

Over three billion people had suddenly disappeared from his world. There was no way it wouldn't be in the news.

Lin Feng took out his phone and immediately searched Baidu for recent major news stories.

Sure enough, the pinned news story was about the recent mass disappearance of people.

The story had been published a month ago.

It stated that extremely thick fog had appeared all around the world that day. Only after the fog dispersed had people discovered that more than half of the world's humans were gone.

National governments had also quickly implemented emergency measures and so on. What had once been a labor surplus had become a labor shortage.

To prevent war from breaking out, the major powers had all signed nonaggression treaties...

"I really did return to Blue Star!"

Lin Feng spoke excitedly.

Thanks to Xia Country's enormous population base, its society remained relatively stable even after so many people had vanished into thin air.

Just as Lin Feng was about to put his phone away, he suddenly caught sight of another news story.

[Lighthouse Country tycoon Forde's private cruise ship hijacked. The hijackers' identities remain unconfirmed, but they are suspected to be pirates. No passengers aboard the cruise ship were killed or injured. Forde stated that he would investigate the matter thoroughly.]

"This... it couldn't be..."

The corner of Lin Feng's mouth twitched slightly.

This had to be a coincidence. It had to be...

However, as Lin Feng was trying to convince himself that all of this was a coincidence, a text message arrived.

[Michael]

"No, no way..."

Lin Feng spoke with a slight tremor in his voice.

[Hey! Lin, how's it going over in Xia Country? We've finished dividing up the money from robbing that cruise ship. Your share will be deposited into your bank account shortly;

Don't worry, it's through legitimate channels. I initiated the transfer under the name of Old Cui's international trading company. It should reach your bank account in three installments within six months.]

Soon, Lin Feng received another text message, this time from the bank, informing him of an overseas transfer into his account totaling sixty million RMB.

"This is for real!"

Lin Feng nearly coughed up blood. The next moment, the bank called. They weren't asking about the source of the transfer, though, but whether Lin Feng wanted to upgrade his membership tier.

The transfer had already been processed to make it entirely legal, so no one would trace it back to Lin Feng.

Naturally, Lin Feng chose to accept the bank's upgrade. He had nothing to lose anyway, and he wouldn't be staying here very long.

In fifteen days, he would have to return to the elevator world.

Now, Lin Feng wanted even more to see whether any other incidents familiar to him had happened in the real world.

"Young man, could you move aside? I need to mop the floor."

As Lin Feng stood there looking at his phone, an older woman spoke from behind him.

"Oh, sure. Sorry, ma'am."

Lin Feng hurriedly nodded, then moved out of the way.

Standing in the middle of the mall looking at his phone really was a little silly.

Lin Feng hurried out of the mall, then took a taxi to the place he rented.

He probably hadn't been listed as missing yet. He could tell from the bank's reaction.

If he had been listed as missing and then suddenly reappeared, the police would probably have come looking for him by now.

Once someone else upgraded their elevator to level eight, they would get a vacation too. He could let them explain things to the government then. He didn't want to be taken in and questioned nonstop until his vacation ended.

After returning to his room, he found the leftover instant noodles Qin An had eaten that morning still sitting on the table.

With a look of disgust, Lin Feng threw away the cup of instant noodles, then took out his phone again to browse the news.

[Aeroflot flight SU207 disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. The plane's crash site has yet to be located. There were 375 passengers aboard...]

[Will housing prices plummet after the drastic decline in the world's population?]

[Today, governments around the world announced that they would begin distributing childcare funds...]

Most of the jumble of news stories had been written by independent content creators. Lin Feng could tell from the headlines alone that they weren't worth reading. They were purely clickbait.

The only story with any real value was the disappearance of the Aeroflot flight, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with Lin Feng.

However, did it really have nothing to do with him?

Far away, on an unnamed island in the Pacific Ocean, a human holding a fire axe and a lighter was desperately hacking at the savage in front of him who wanted to eat him.

P.S. Returning to Blue Star is the biggest piece of foreshadowing. Guess what it means yourselves. I'm not telling.