The interface, which means “exchange, communication” or can be translated as “communication, forum,” was constantly refreshing its content at an astonishing speed. In the blink of an eye, tens of millions of “posts” in text-title format appeared and were then submerged:
“Help!”
“Please, just a sip of water!”
“Who am I? Where am I? How many fields does my family own? How many cows are in the fields? Where are my beloved red shorts?”
“Major discovery: Wish can resurrect the dead!”
“Tearful history: Never Wish for food! Never Wish for food! Never Wish for food! — 300 catties of spoiled dead pork only exchanged for two black steamed buns!”
“Friends from the former Shengjing area, come in and chat!”
“Floating Islands can merge under certain conditions; survivors might be able to team up!”
The mental state of the disaster victims of the apocalypse was completely broken, which could be seen from the exponentially increasing number of posts, even though they knew it was useless.
Three days passed, and this section remained the same.
There were no more black-hearted administrators or operators, no familiar top posts, hot searches, or normal reading records.
In short, a chaotic mass of content was constantly refreshing, like a hacker’s usual junk data cluster attack on a server. Posts from the previous second would be gathering dust in some corner the next, and meaningful information was scarce.
Besides, most survivors were busy struggling for survival; who had the time to post random nonsense here?
A “private chat” suddenly popped up.
“Si Fu Xing He: Cang Laoshi, Cang Laoshi, how are things on your side? My Floating Island is drifting towards you, but the progress bar isn't moving at all. What’s going on? Is this broken interface faulty, or are we too far apart?”
Li Cang couldn't answer that question.
“Si Fu Xing He: How’s your illness? I’ve been drifting for three days, not to come over and collect your warm ashes!”
“Cang: Don’t call me Cang Laoshi. Also, is it really appropriate for you to choose such a name? I won't die for now. The flesh on my back has lost most sensation. Doctors mentioned that the abnormally overgrown vertebrae in the later stage might compress the spinal cord and surrounding tissues, possibly causing paralysis.”
“Cang: I used a rope made from bedsheets and rebar to hook a drifting Wild Island. I dug up a wild rose, which is edible, and some shepherd's purse. I’m even stewing vegetables over a fire!”
“Si Fu Xing He: …Damn it, at least let me finish talking!”
Heh, how could eating be more important than a brother with whom he peed and played in the mud since childhood?
The shepherd's purse in the can was thoroughly cooked into a green paste.
Li Cang was helpless. He blew on it a few times and swallowed it, gritting his teeth—
Fortunately, Li Cang smoked and always had a lighter in his pocket.
Otherwise, where would he have gotten a hot meal these past three days, relying on those unreliable scattered sparks?
Smokers, for the most part, have a common quirk.
You can smoke my cigarettes worth dozens of yuan, but if you take my 1 yuan lighter, I’ll definitely fight you for it.
Li Cang held the green plastic 1-yuan lighter, which still had more than half its gas and was printed with a swimsuit beauty, his expression very devout.
“My benefactor, I cannot thank you enough for this meal. From now on, I will only use you to light good cigarettes. If I press you for a cigarette under a hundred yuan, I am a fool.”
The boiled shepherd's purse left a bitter taste in his mouth.
The calories of this stuff were like the laws of the Philippines, equivalent to the prawns and beef on instant noodle packaging. A low-EQ person would say it has none, while a high-EQ person would describe the image as for reference only.
In short, it was slightly more practical than drawing cakes to satisfy hunger or quenching thirst by looking at plums, though very limited. It truly wasn't filling, but at least he could feel its weight and volume in his stomach.
Well, at least it was much better than digestive tablets.
Returning to the wishing interface, he hesitated and typed in a description:
“Heal (deleted), inhibit abnormal spinal growth.”
The reply from the wishing interface was entirely red like blood:
“Insufficient resources: fate coin.”
Li Cang was a bit irritable.
Give me more hints, damn it!
What the hell is this fate coin anyway?!
Did the system eat the instruction manual with dipping sauce when it was installed?
He reached back and felt his jagged spine—
His skin had almost no sensation; the touch on his hand was like feeling the back of an alligator snapping turtle.
Before the disaster, Li Cang had been hospitalized for quite some time. All 26 vertebrae were progressively overgrowing, compressing the spinal cord and skull inwards, and muscle, blood vessels, and tissues outwards, with the atlas bone protruding sharply.
At the same time, there were several related or unrelated complications as a bonus. All medical treatments were useless, and the strangeness of his condition was worthy of being the primary inclusion criterion for industry-standard teaching materials.
The good news was that all treatment was free.
The bad news was that all treatment was always free.
He wasn't afraid of dying. How could a foodie be afraid of dying? A foodie was afraid of starving to death because he couldn't eat.
Huddled in the corner, Li Cang began to wait by the stump for the rabbit.
If Floating Islands were close enough, they would attract each other. The larger one would pull the smaller one, causing it to slightly deviate from its original path.
And like Li Cang did before, symbolically “tying” it with a simple rope could slow down the island's drifting speed to a certain extent.
Furthermore, every survivor’s Floating Island could “annex” smaller Floating Islands to grow in size. Li Cang guessed that the annexing island’s area had to be at least dozens or hundreds of times larger than the annexed one for this to happen.
Li Cang’s Floating Island had annexed four “Floating Islands” over the past three days, none larger than a washbasin. The change in area was negligible, almost imperceptible to the naked eye.
The Floating Island from which he previously dug the wild rose, for example, showed no sign of being annexed.
After taking a few more sips of salty rainwater, a slight, needle-like burning sensation on his tongue, Li Cang felt his strength recover slightly.
He strongly resisted the urge to pull up the wild rose by its roots and take a few bites, continuing to stare at a Floating Island that had just emerged from the haze, moving in a very regular trajectory.
For three days, every dusk, it appeared from the left side of Li Cang’s Floating Island, tracing an arc, then slowly drifting away along a predetermined route.
Li Cang was sure that its path was gradually getting closer to him each time. This time, the closest distance had reached the point where his rope hook could reach it.
“Boom~”
That Floating Island shattered the half-meter diameter rocks and soil blocking its path, moving very fast.
He had only one chance.
“Now!”
The rope with the rebar hook at its end spun a few times in his hand, then shot out with a whoosh, hitting the edge of that Floating Island squarely.
It hooked on!
The two Floating Islands, moving in completely different directions, suddenly pulled the rope taut.
It was hard to imagine that two massive Floating Islands were ridiculously tugged by such a small, weak hand-spun cloth rope, spinning like bumper cars.
The two empty islands, as if they had no weight or hardness, slammed together with a thud, finally sticking firmly.
“Awesome!!”