The Last 299 Days of Humanity

Chapter 104 Persistence
The place where Yu Qing and the others landed was several kilometers away from their car. Since the car was only "borrowed" by them, they couldn't summon it to come by itself and had to walk there.

Public transportation in Changjin has long been abandoned. People here hardly ever travel. Or perhaps they're just too lazy to go out.

The reasons for this trend can be traced back to a very distant period of time.

Back in Yu Yunshan's time, Changjin employees didn't have to do anything; they would receive a monthly grant of 500,000 RB from Yunshan Group.

Residents of Changjin also received free food, water, electricity, and fuel. This aroused envy and resentment from much of the world at the time. Young people from all over the world flocked there, hoping to settle down and enjoy a better life.

But soon people found that life seemed to lack passion, and they couldn't muster any interest in anything. Men, women, and children alike were listless every day, yawning constantly. No one talked about love, because the humanoid beauties and humanoid lovers were more perfect than all humans.

When people get together, they do nothing but engage in lively conversation. Fantasy and similar topics are the most popular. The question of how many legs ants have once sparked a heated debate in Changjin that lasted for over nine months.

Their only earnest pursuit is to achieve immortality like the immortal jellyfish. They are eager for anything that can add even a minute to their lifespan.

With Yu Yunshan's passing, the welfare benefits provided to Changjin residents decreased year by year. After more than a decade, the grants stopped altogether, and residents could only enjoy free food and utilities.

People began cursing the damned place and the municipal authorities, and fled the city.

Those who stayed in Changjin had no skills, no source of income, and were used to a leisurely life, so they spent their days at home playing those outdated virtual games.

Most incredibly, despite the food being free, people loathed having to eat three meals a day, finding it too much trouble.

As a result, a gene-intervention project became popular here, through which a person could have four stomachs.

People with four stomachs only need to eat once a week, which is said to extend their lifespan by more than a decade. After all, they can spend most of their time lying in bed ruminating, requiring little physical activity, thus slowing down the aging process of their cells.

Yu Qing was walking on the street when the Changjin people were lying in bed ruminating, so he couldn't see a single person.

Although this was his ancestral home and the place where he rose to prominence, Yu Qing truly hated the city. He even planned to move the Yunshan Group headquarters to another location in the future.

People without perseverance and pursuit are just a bunch of walking corpses.

Yu Qing was exhausted after walking only a few miles, so Yao Dan had to carry him. They ended up taking two hours to walk this stretch.

But when they arrived at the parking spot, they found that the car was gone.

It turned out that the big woman from Mingshan was furious when she saw that Yu Qing and the others had left after their test drive and never returned.

Although she didn't know where Yu Qing ultimately took the car, she could track its initial 30-kilometer journey.

So she drove another car and searched along the same route until she finally found her car in Changjin. She then spent most of the night in the car, hoping to catch Yu Qing and tear him to pieces.

But Yu Qing and the others didn't come out again for a long time, so she had no choice but to call her car back.

Yu Qing never expected things to turn out this way.

Without transportation, it would be almost impossible to walk back to Mingshan, and besides, there wouldn't be enough time.

There's nowhere to buy a car in Changjin.

They walked for two hours and only saw one broken-down car parked on the side of the road. There were no cars driving at all, so there was no need to waste time on the idea of ​​getting a new car.

He had no choice but to press the call button on his watch and ask the two secretaries in the ultimate office for help.

He received a reply quickly. There was no response regarding the transportation arrangements made years earlier, making it impossible to arrange a replacement.

However, headquarters has available vehicles that can be called upon, which would make it impossible to keep his whereabouts and identity secret.

"We must not have any dealings with headquarters!" Yu Qing shouted at his watch.

After a silence of more than ten minutes, the secretary gave him another option in an apologetic tone.

There are two self-propelled boxes in the ultimate office, left over from when they were transported in. She can teleport them there, and then he can send himself like cargo to his destination.

That was the only option. He could only pray that the land route between Changjin and Mingshan would be smooth sailing!
More than half an hour later, the bicycle arrived at Yu Qing and the others.

The box is a bit small, after all, it was originally used to transport a single humanoid creature. And it has a feature that's very unfriendly to Yu Qing: it's sealed to prevent rain. Fortunately, it also has an active ventilation port, although it's not very big.

Once the destination and waypoints are set for a self-propelled container, they cannot be changed. This is because real cargo cannot change its course midway.

To prevent any unexpected situations or the sweltering heat from exceeding his endurance, Yu Qing set up twenty checkpoints along the way.

Yu Qing reluctantly crawled into his bicycle, while Yao Dan's bicycle led the way, and thus began their journey back to Mingshan.

The box was pitch black, and he couldn't move his hands or feet. He was glad he had been smart enough to set up so many waypoints; otherwise, if he had continued to bump around all the way to Mingshan, the living Yuqing would probably have become the dead Yuqing.

At each stop along the way, the lid would automatically open, and Yu Qing would take the opportunity to stand up, stretch his arms and legs, and breathe in the fresh air.

Once he had recovered, he nestled back into the box, closed the lid, and moved forward automatically again.

This box is very fast; it's a high-speed self-propelled box. To prevent damage to the cargo, it must be in a closed state to move.

The bicycle used to transport Yao Dan back then was an economical model. Based on her own experience, she gave Yu Qing a bad idea.

Seeing Yu Qing's discomfort, she suggested that once the box started moving, Yu Qing should pry open a crack to let in some air.

At a crossroads, Yu Qing emerged and went to find a sharp rock by the roadside.

He actually found the stone, but a gust of wind blew it shut by itself.

After closing the lid of the bicycle, Yu Qing was left outside and ran off on his own.

He couldn't possibly catch up with it, and even if he did, it wouldn't open the lid until he reached the designated stop.

Now only Yao Dan's box was available. It couldn't fit two people, so Yao Dan had no choice but to give her box to Yu Qing, letting him chase after the other box and try to intercept it at the next checkpoint. Yao Dan, on the other hand, had to walk to catch up.

In fact, the two boxes moved at the same speed. Less than three minutes after Yu Qing's box automatically stopped and opened its lid at the next stop, Yao Dan's box, which Yu Qing was sitting in, also arrived.

He took off his clothes and draped them over the edge of the box to prevent making the same mistake again. Then he ran to the front, covered the edge of the box with his hands, and found some odds and ends on the roadside to block the lid from falling down.

After confirming that there were no problems, he sat in the back box and put his clothes back on.

Even after more than two months, he still can't adapt to the hot and humid weather, and is becoming increasingly reliant on air-conditioned clothing. He worries that he might have to change his initial plan and develop a heat-resistant gene to adapt to this new living environment.

Waiting is also a kind of torment. Yao Dan doesn't have any special ability to walk, and it's estimated that it will take two or three hours from the last stop to when he comes to meet him.

He was all alone in this remote place, and the psychological pressure was immense.

If he were to encounter an attack from a wild animal at this moment, he would not know how to deal with it, especially a pack of wild animals like wolves.

Humans were not much stronger than wild beasts at first, but they formed a group larger than any wild beast: society. It is society that makes humans incredibly powerful.

He has now lost his place in society and, by his own abilities alone, can only become food for many wild beasts.

His concerns were not unfounded, and such a situation was unfolding before his eyes. Under the starlight, he saw a dozen pairs of blue, glowing eyes approaching him in the distance.

He had dealt with wolves many times and was deeply terrified by their tacit cooperation and their ruthless fighting.

He gripped the lid, ready to slam it shut and run if things went wrong. Once Yao Dan arrived, he could sit in the empty box he'd left behind and chase after him.

However, he inadvertently discovered that the ruby ​​ring on his hand was gleaming with a ghostly cold light.

He turned the gemstone on the ring face, and following the method his secretary had taught him, pointed it to the brightest spot between the two eyes and gently flicked it.

The light in those eyes vanished quickly. It seemed they had been killed.

But then he noticed that the bright spots were increasing in number and rapidly approaching him.

He realized that killing a few more wouldn't stop them, so he figured it was better to run away than waste his limited ammunition.

So he lay down and quickly closed the lid. The bicycle continued speeding towards the next waypoint.

Then Yao Dan saw an open box parked ahead and noticed the miscellaneous items under the lid. She knew that Yu Qing had done this, and that he had probably run into some trouble and left early.

So after clearing away the clutter, she immediately began her pursuit.

Yu Qing stretched his muscles at each point along the way, while Yao Dan merely went through the motions at each point, sometimes taking only a few seconds. As a result, Yao Dan caught up with Yu Qing after a few points.

The next morning, they finally entered Mingshan City and arrived at a place not far from where they had parked the day before.

Yu Qing reset the destination of the bicycles and sent them back to Changjin.

At this point, Yu Qing and Yao Dan went over their story again to cover up their trip to Changjin.

They lifted the restrictions on Lingxi and restored contact with Furong and the others.

When Yu Qing ran breathlessly to the car, Fu Rong and the others were waiting anxiously there.

Yan'er called out, "That woman didn't do anything to you, did she...?"

At this moment, the sharp-eyed Furong noticed that Yu Qing had a watch and a ring on his hand, and asked, "Honey, where did you get these...?"

Yao Dan rolled her eyes at Fu Rong and said, "Can't I just not ask? Mind your own business!"

"That's it," she said mysteriously to Furong and Yan'er, "They were all given to my husband by that big woman. We ran away, so get in the car and leave here immediately!"

Coincidentally, that woman happened to be passing by yesterday. When she saw Yu Qing and his group, she angrily came over to beat them up.

Yan'er shouted, "That woman came to snatch him away!"

Upon seeing this, Yu Qing and his companions sped up and fled, quickly taking to the sky and heading towards the direction where Chang'e and the others had stopped.

In just a few minutes, Yu Qing reunited with Chang'e and the others.

Apart from Yao Dan, everyone else thought that Yu Qing had been forced to stay overnight by the big woman from Mingshan, so no one dared to laugh out loud.

Yu Qing feigned embarrassment and said, "Are you trying to rebel? Anyone who dares to laugh at me, get out of here right now."

It wouldn't have mattered if he hadn't said it, but his words made the girls burst into laughter.

Daji laughed and said, "My dear, we were so worried last night, afraid that woman would use you as a toothpick to pick her teeth."

Yu Qing cursed, "Believe it or not, I'll cut off your nose. Anyway, it's not there to breathe, so I might as well dry it and use it as a whistle."

After playing around for a while, Yu Qing said, "Chang'e, you guys go first, Daji and Danggui in the middle, and Yao Dan and I will bring up the rear. Let's go to the sword workshop. Let's try to reach the Third Paradise within a week!"

After setting off, Yao Dan looked at Yu Qing and asked seriously, "Husband, if you find a hundred women in the Third Paradise, what do you plan to do? Will you accept them all?"

Yu Qing laughed and said, "I don't think that's possible. But if they find out there are a hundred men, things will be even worse. They definitely won't believe you're some kind of supernatural being, and they'll all be vying to marry you and have sons for them. What will you do then?"

Yao Dan said, "We're all taken, but the newcomer E Ying hasn't signed with you yet. Let them fight over her, whoever gets her keeps her. What do you think of this idea?"

"Not good. I'm afraid she'll be torn apart like she's been pulled apart by five horses. Someone will hold her by one arm, someone will grab her by one leg, and someone will carry her head."

Joking aside, Yao Dan's joke did remind Yu Qing that he should still think of various contingency plans in advance.

He was focused on finding the scattered native humans, but he never considered that an imbalance in the male-to-female ratio would also cause serious problems.

He thought that if he only found a hundred women, the problem might not be too bad. But if he only found a hundred men, he really didn't know what to do.

This is not because he is selfish, but because he faces an unavoidable predicament.

In this latter situation, settling them in becomes a major problem. Unable to find mates, they may eventually migrate to other ethnic groups.

In the worst-case scenario, they might even turn on each other. Whatever happens, all his efforts will ultimately be in vain.

If the people we find are all illiterate like Danggui, lacking any culture or knowledge, that would be a real headache.

The key issue is that when the theme parks were first established, each park used a different language and script, unlike now where Mandarin is widely spoken, which made communication between them a problem.

(End of this chapter)