The Last 299 Days of Humanity

Chapter 90 Lazy City
Yu Qing's serious-sounding nonsense instantly dispelled the oppressive atmosphere from before.

Yan'er even believed Yu Qing's lies and excitedly asked, "Baby, why didn't you call us to go and fight back for you? Who is he who dares to try and steal our girl?"

Daji laughed and said, "Use your brain! If my darling really suffered such a loss, would he tell us?"

Yao Dan said, "I bet my husband had a good time all night, and when he woke up in the morning he found that the beautiful woman next to him had wings and had just laid a bird egg, so he was so scared that he pulled up his pants and ran away, and then got lost in the reeds..."

Yu Qing couldn't help but laugh and said, "Damn it, it's like you saw everything. Yao Dan, I'm warning you, be careful what you say in the future. Don't say sarcastic things to different types of people. What do you mean by laying a bird's egg? I think you're talking nonsense."

Yao Dan said, "Yes, Your Majesty! But, my lord, may I ask why you didn't want to go to Wuding just now and wanted us to fly there directly? Knowing your temperament, you want to go and see everything to broaden your horizons."

"Yes, even when the Queen Mother of the West is taking a bath, I want to go over and see if her butt is white! But Wuding is different, it's not interesting at all."

"Does my husband have any new information? The information I have here shows that it's still quite lively over there, why is it getting boring?"

"Then your information must be outdated. Back then, it was indeed a prosperous place, one of the major producers of many rare metals on Earth. People didn't have to do anything; they were too busy sitting at home counting money."

But later, with technological advancements, those things could be freely synthesized, and they could only be sold for the price of sand. However, people had become accustomed to idle days and had no money for extravagant lifestyles, so they chose to spend their days sleeping in.

Clever capitalists saw a business opportunity here and invented a gene-injection drug that introduced the sloth's sleep gene into humans. This drug quickly became popular in Wuding, and thirty years later, the entire city's inhabitants had become "sloth people," sleeping 20 hours a day.

Yao Dan asked, "So they only get 3 or 4 hours of exercise each day?"

Yu Qing said, "Yes. I sleep twice a day, going to bed at 8 pm and waking up at 6 am the next day. After getting up, I spend 60 minutes washing my face and eating, then go out for 30 minutes; I go back to sleep at 7:30 pm and wake up at 6:30 pm, then spend another 60 minutes washing my face and eating, then go out for 30 minutes..."

"Goodness, there's only one hour of activity time per day!"

"So the city is mostly closed off, and the streets are deserted. What would we do going to such a dead city?"

Daji said, "My dear, who told you this? How is that possible? It's simply unimaginable."

Yao Dan said, "If anyone else is asking, it must be that girl from Jinchengzi. They are neighbors with Wuding, so what they said should be true."

After Yu Qing and his group flew to within 10 kilometers of Wuding City, they witnessed firsthand the power of this "bedroom town."

Since it was only 11 a.m., the sloths of Wuding were still asleep, so all land, water and air transportation to the city was closed.

Yu Qing and his group's car was stopped by an electronic fence and had to land on the ground to wait. Entry and exit to Wuding are permitted from 7:00 AM to 7:30 AM and from 7:30 PM to 8:00 PM. This meant they had to wait another eight and a half hours before they could enter the city.

Before the land checkpoint leading into the city, there was a huge clock device, but not a digital or analog clock; instead, it was a large hourglass, nearly two meters tall. When the sand inside the transparent cone had run out, it was time to enter the city.

There was a line of poetry on the edge of the hourglass that nearly made Yu Qing furious. It read:
"A dream of flowing yellow sand, why wait in vain!"

Yu Qing asked Chang'e and Yao Dan, "Do you have any ideas on how to make those damn hourglasses run faster? It's so boring to wait for hours in this desolate place."

Yao Dan said, "Smash that thing, and it'll leak all out immediately."

Yu Qing shook his head and said, "Nonsense. I guess the mechanism that triggers the level is the sand that leaks in from below. All the weight of the sand is transferred to the bottom, and the level opens automatically."

Chang'e said, "That means all the sand on top has to leak down. The only way is to pressurize the sand on top, so that it will leak down faster." Yu Qing thought for a moment and asked, "It seems that the container on top is sealed. If you raise the temperature of the air inside, can you increase the pressure?"

Chang'e said, "Absolutely! But how can we raise its temperature?"

Yao Dan clapped her hands and laughed, "That's easy! The two of us can just go there and play a game!"

Chang'e asked, "A game? What game?"

Yu Qing laughed and said, "I know. When you two put your palms on that container and spin around quickly, it looks like you're chasing each other and playing a game, but actually you're using friction to generate heat and raise the temperature of the air above the sand."

"But won't your palms get chafed?"

Yao Dan laughed and said, "Husband, you are truly brilliant, but why are you so confused? Can't we hold something in our hands?"

"Yeah, yeah, let's go play the game right now! Damn it."

After a while, Yao Dan and Chang'e started circling the container. At first, they moved very slowly, as if they were playing a chasing game. Soon, the two of them spun around like a whirlwind, and even water couldn't get in.

When they stopped, almost all the remaining sand had leaked out. Yao Dan saw that some sand was still leaking out and wanted to go and clean it up again, but Yu Qing stopped her.

"It's too obvious, we can't cheat anymore."

After waiting for about another hour, the hourglass finally ran out. Sure enough, the checkpoint opened. But just as Yu Qing and his group were about to drive in and out, a barrier behind the checkpoint slid down, revealing another hourglass just a meter away!
The hourglass has a separate closing timer; it should open when there's only half an hour of sand left to drain, and close after that. Currently, the sand in its container is still flowing at a normal rate, so the closing time window hasn't arrived yet!

What's even more infuriating is that the previous level automatically closed after being open for half an hour.

This means they've messed things up here, and if the people from Wuding don't discover the malfunction and fix it, they'll never be able to get in.

That's what you call trying to be clever but ending up making a mess of things.

The remaining food and water had long been wasted by Danggui along the way, and Yuqing was now thirsty and hungry, in a terrible mood.

Furong waddled around looking for food, and after searching for a while, she finally caught a toad. She built a fire, roasted it, peeled off its skin, removed its internal organs, and then handed it to Yuqing.

Yu Qing took the toad, kissed Furong, and laughed, "Since ancient times, it has always been the toad that wants to eat swan meat. Today, it's the other way around. The swan is eating the toad."

This little bit of food wasn't enough to fill their stomachs, so Yao Dan thought about trying her luck in a more distant place. Yu Qing said, "Forget it, we won't starve to death if we skip a meal or two! We can use this as a chance to teach our eldest princess a lesson!"

Furong asked innocently, "Who is the eldest princess?"

Yao Dan pointed towards the angelica root and said, "Isn't that it? You're such a blockhead."

Furong retorted defiantly, "My head is made of iron!"

Yu Qing went back to his car to sleep, but he couldn't fall asleep. Mi Fei's image kept flashing before his eyes. He truly regretted leaving her so easily. If only he could persuade her to come with him, how wonderful that would be.

(End of this chapter)