Cave Refuge

Hearing Dong Tianyu speak like this, the other party's face turned white, then green in quick succession. Seeing the continuous change in the other party's complexion, Dong Tianyu didn't bother to pay further attention. His mood for conversation having been disrupted, Dong Tianyu lost the desire to continue chatting.

"It looks like you've brought a group of people out, so you must have encountered some problems. You should attend to your important matters first. Once you're done and have some free time, we can talk again."

"Alright, after such a busy period, you should go back and rest. I've sent your current address directly to your tablet. You can find your home by following the positioning on the tablet."

Hearing Madeline's reminder, Dong Tianyu responded with a smile, "Thanks, I got it," and then left immediately.

After Dong Tianyu had walked a good distance away, someone from the crowd behind Madeline finally spoke up, "Is what he said true?"

Without needing Madeline to answer, another person in the crowd spoke up, "There's no need for the other party to deceive us over something that can be easily verified with a little time and inquiry."

Seeing that the group behind her was on the verge of arguing over this matter, Madeline touched her forehead and then, somewhat helplessly, said, "Enough. Now is not the time to discuss this matter. Have you all forgotten the purpose of our outing? Let's attend to our main task first, and we can talk about other things when we get back."

Seeing Madeline's grim expression, the others fell silent and followed her closely as they left through the city gate.

Although there weren't many people who had originally settled here with Madeline, seeing the bustling crowds on the streets now, Dong Tianyu could guess that after he left, perhaps other survivors had inadvertently discovered this place and decided to settle here.

Using the address displayed on his tablet, Dong Tianyu quickly found his new house. Perhaps due to the low population in the settlement at the moment, there were rows of very neat two-story detached villas in the residential area, each surrounded by a spacious yard.

Aside from the square and unattractive design of the houses, Dong Tianyu couldn't find anything else to fault.

Upon finding his house by the door number and noticing that the gate was unlocked, Dong Tianyu simply pushed the door open and entered the yard. There were no green plants in the yard; apart from a path paved with bluestone, the rest was packed with earth, and the cleanliness of the yard was remarkable.

Just like the gate, the doors to the house were unlocked. As Dong Tianyu entered, a look of "as expected" crossed his face.

Dong Tianyu understood his parents' disposition; if there were any items of value left in the house, they would have definitely locked not just the door, but the gate as well.

It was only because the interior of the house was decorated in Syrian style, with only a few wooden benches in the living room and nothing else, that his parents had felt secure enough to leave.

Considering that both Father Dong and Mother Dong were equipped with Storage Equipment given by Dong Tianyu, even though they had to leave the base due to the sudden appearance of the Rust Wind, they had packed up and taken everything they could from the room when they fled. Therefore, Dong Tianyu was certain that they must have kept some furniture in their Storage Equipment.

Knowing that his parents had furniture but didn't bring it out showed their attitude toward the house.

Since his parents already felt this way, Dong Tianyu didn't bother to needlessly furnish the house. He simply pulled a lounge chair out of his Storage space and lay down on it to rest, waiting for his parents to return.

As time passed, Zachary drifted into a hazy dreamland. Just as he lay in that state between dream and wakefulness, an inexplicable sense of palpitation suddenly surged in his heart. He immediately opened his eyes.

However, when Zachary opened his eyes, the sight before him left him stunned in place. Faintly, he remembered that according to the address Ye Liuyun had given him, he had entered an unfinished room with Syrian-style decor; except for a few small stools, there was nothing else in the room.

Yet, now that Zachary had opened his eyes, he found himself in a very luxuriously decorated room, and the bamboo recliner he had originally been lying on had swiftly transformed into a high-end looking massage chair.

"Wait a second—the recliner turned into a massage chair in a blink!"

Despite his instinct to dismiss this occurrence, the strange dissonance that arose in the depths of his heart firmly imprinted the scene he had just witnessed.

Perhaps it was Zachary's subconscious belief that the high-end massage chair under him was just a bamboo recliner, which was why, somehow, he found himself sitting back on the massage chair. He then activated the button on the armrest, and a very comfortable squeezing sensation repeatedly emerged on his back.

Before the natural disaster, Zachary had also paid to sit in massage chairs, but the sensations weren't too impressive. The tools in the massage chairs' backs, which were supposed to be massaging him, felt rigid and rough, providing a very poor experience for Zachary.

When Zachary lay down now, it was as though he had stripped off his shirt and someone was using two airbags to directly knead his back; the soft and meticulous touch was even more delightful than the interactions he had with the Canaries in the Cave.

Yet the more comfortable this feeling became, the stronger the dissonance in Zachary's heart grew. As he subconsciously used Divine Sense to observe his surroundings, this third-person perspective from his Divine Sense still showed him lying still on the bamboo recliner.

As Zachary employed his Divine Sense, two drastically different images suddenly appeared in his mind. Visually, he saw himself in a beautifully decorated villa, but from the perspective of his Divine Sense, he was still unmoving on the recliner.

In the visual perspective, Zachary had gotten up from the massage chair, while in the Divine Sense view, he was still lying motionless on the recliner.

In his visual perspective, Zachary walked to the living room, picked up some fruit from the coffee table, and smelled it, the rich fruity fragrance hitting him directly; and when he tentatively bit into it, the crispy flesh made him yearn for more.

Just as Zachary was about to take another big bite, he noticed that his Divine Sense perspective still showed him motionless on the recliner. Worried, Zachary conducted a Spiritual Sense Scanning of his body and immediately noticed one of his nerves was damaged.

This nerve wasn't completely severed but looked as if something had bitten into it, tearing apart a section.

This discovery sent a shock through Zachary, and the dissonance that had been gradually intensifying suddenly became even more acute. The opulent decor he visualized was, for an instant, replaced by the Syrian-style decor he remembered from the past.

Of course, this image flickered like a stuttering monitor, appearing only a few times before vanishing.

But Zachary had come to a realization. He set down the fruit he had just taken a bite from, carelessly picked another from the fruit bowl on the coffee table, and checked his body again to confirm that, apart from the slightly torn nerve, there were no other injuries.

Then Zachary picked up the fruit again and, just as before, carefully nibbled off a small piece of flesh. Despite his caution, the crisp and sweet flesh still lingered deliciously in his mouth.