Compared to Exodus, the narrow alley with Ah Quan's fruit stand looked like a strip of toy building blocks.
As the massive, snow-white spaceship headed straight for it, Lin Sanjiu felt a moment of panic. She thought they were going to crash into the stand. But everything that loomed closer seemed to stretch with an incredible elasticity. It expanded layer by layer, as if the texture and material were bloating outward, eventually opening up to fully accommodate the ship.
In a split second, without any time for second thoughts, Exodus was absorbed by the fruit stand.
There was no time for communication; Lin Sanjiu could only grip the armrest of her chair tightly, watching Yu Yuan at the controls as he steered Exodus, chasing after Ah Quan's disappearing shadow.
'Hold on, if we catch up, we won't collide with Ah Quan—'
Before the thought even fully formed, a wave of shimmering light filled the cockpit's big screen.
The Great Deluge? No, it couldn't be—it didn't make sense for it to appear here. No, this wasn't the Great Deluge.
Lin Sanjiu suddenly sat upright, realizing what they had entered.
Ji Shanqing's analysis was close but not entirely accurate. Ah Quan hadn't simply opened a passage between the warehouse and the pocket dimension.
Exodus and its crew were now traveling through a channel Ah Quan formed himself.
The big screen filled with a kaleidoscope of reflections—sunlight, lamplight, starlight, and the glare of mirrors—all the lights and scenes Ah Quan had witnessed in his lifetime.
Sounds of laughter, singing, honking car horns; the scent of a woman's hair, the softness of a pressed mattress, the crunch of melon seeds, the icy chill of freshly turned tap water in winter—they formed a chaotic, intricate stream, surging forward like the pulse of a new life.
He was a person, despite his inability to walk, die, or truly live. Ah Quan was a real living being.
"Ah Quan, can you take care of my dog for a few days? My mom won't let..." A child's voice faded away, followed by the whimpering of a puppy.
"Fifty-one pounds is already a bargain! Money's worthless now..."
"Will you buy dinner if your team loses?" Half of a tilted soccer field rushed past.
"Why do you do this? Why?" A mocking voice laughed. "Do you think our organization has so many talents because of good HR?"
Who was that?
Lin Sanjiu instinctively tried to see the speaker's face, but the memory slipped away into the distance, drowned out as more memoirs engulfed her once again.
It felt like an instant, yet also like living through the lifetime of a man in his thirties. By the time Lin Sanjiu snapped back to her senses, Exodus had already burst through the pocket dimension.
With momentum unabated, the ship shot into a bright, fresh blue sky. The sun suddenly blazed onto the scene, and clouds brushed against Lin Sanjiu's cheeks—a new world.
"Turn back!" Lin Sanjiu shouted, faster than she could even think.
Exodus was moving at incredible speed; a delay of even a second could mean being hundreds of kilometers off course. If the ship's pilot hadn't been a Veda, the reaction time needed to slow down and turn might have pushed them even farther away from Ah Quan.
Thanks to the Veda's precision, Exodus turned back immediately. No one could have reacted faster than Yu Yuan—because the Veda didn't respond after the situation changed but at the exact moment it began to change.
Their quick turnaround was what allowed Lin Sanjiu to catch a fleeting glimpse of Ah Quan's shadow before the pocket dimension vanished.
As Ah Quan had mentioned, the pocket dimension always activated within the Twelve Worlds Centrum, and this time was no different. With just one look, Lin Sanjiu could tell she was in a part of the Twelve Worlds Centrum she had never visited before: the ground was buried under a thick, dense layer of gray haze, solid and impenetrable, like molten iron rolling endlessly, submerging the earth until even the trees were submerged.
From the haze rose towering scaffolding. Frameworks of reinforced concrete, covered with wood, bricks, and various materials, extended in layers, connecting one to the next, forming countless wide artificial platforms high above the haze.
On these endless platforms, small houses, tents, and rolling shops were scattered. The pathways twisted and turned, crowded with posthumans, ordinary people, and the occasional duoluozhong. They moved on foot, pedaled bicycles, or traveled up and down on ropes. The air buzzed with small flying devices, many marked with a "TAXI" sign, zipping between the layers of scaffolding.
Ah Quan's pocket dimension had activated inside an open-topped flying ship hovering mid-air.
It was unclear whether this flying ship was meant for sightseeing or public transport. Roughly the size of three medium yachts, it drifted leisurely through the sunlight, leaving dazzling white ripples in its wake.
Posthumans stood scattered across the deck of the ship. Whatever they had been doing before, they all turned pale at the sudden appearance of the giant spaceship bursting into the sky and quickly turning back toward them. Their mouths gaped, and they pointed at the sky while stumbling backwards in shock. Amidst the chaos, Ah Quan stood out, remarkably calm.
In the wooden-floored cabin, he was the only one who didn't seem concerned about Exodus. Instead, he looked around the cabin with a curious expression. For him, every activation of the pocket dimension was a rare chance to glimpse the outside world.
"Don't hit that ship," Lin Sanjiu instructed, her eyes fixed on Ah Quan's image on the big screen, though she knew Yu Yuan was already well aware. Then, she frowned.
No, it wasn't just curiosity on his face; Ah Quan looked as if... as if he were searching for someone.
Who was he looking for?
In the next moment, Ah Quan vanished.
Lin Sanjiu leaped up from her seat and rushed to Yu Yuan's side, nearly slamming into the control panel. Pointing at the ship on the screen, she felt cold and hot sweat breaking out across her back and palms. When she opened her mouth to speak, her voice trembled with excitement.
"He's on the ship!"
Lin Sanjiu's words came out in a rush, and only after speaking did she manage to collect her thoughts. "I get it now! Ah Quan's pocket dimension is portable, which is why the location changes every time it activates. The person carrying Ah Quan's pocket dimension is on that flying ship right now!"
END