Sir! Don't close the net!

The middle-aged man paused, then quickened his pace.

"No one will approach during the ten minutes before and after the explosion and collapse. If we make good use of this time, we can enter the ruins."

"Tu, all you need to do next is go to the church of the branch of the Church of the God of Steam and Steel in the Triassic Circle. Someone there will meet you and help you get your identities."

Li Yili raised an eyebrow, looked at the middle-aged man and then at the refugees who were already pulling on the rope and preparing to go down. The middle-aged man was not the only one with a child.

Chapter Four: No rush, law enforcement hasn't arrived yet.

It's very simple to put an elephant in a refrigerator.

Open the refrigerator door, stuff the elephant inside, and then close the refrigerator door.

Smuggling into the wasteland is easy; just slip through the collapsed city walls during the explosion.

In the ten minutes that followed, a full twenty minutes, the trench dug by the engineering team was not wide enough to be considered a national border. It was less than 100 meters wide and less than 15 meters deep, but considering that the excavation of the wasteland had only recently begun, this scale was already quite efficient.

But the chasm that was meant to separate refugees later became a broad avenue for them to sneak into the wasteland.

Even a leisurely stroll of twenty minutes is enough to cross this sunny avenue.

Well, as long as you're not worried about being blown up or crushed by collapsing city walls.

Will no one approach the area within ten minutes before or after the explosion?

Does anyone really dare to approach the location that is about to be blown up ten minutes before the explosion?

The twenty minutes were cut in half, leaving only ten minutes. These ten minutes were not just about crossing the chasm and entering the triple circle of the wasteland; they also required rushing to a safe location where the law enforcement would not be detected by them when they patrolled ten minutes later.

This is not something that can be done in ten minutes.

The last resort is to limit the blast radius and grit your teeth and rush in. If you're lucky, the explosion will stop shrinking right in front of your nose; if you're unlucky, you'll be blown away.

While you can gamble on avoiding being hit by the blast from the blast radius, the collapse of the city wall is a real event with no chance of escape. The probability of an ordinary person daring to rush inside and escaping being crushed is the same as the probability of being struck by lightning on a sunny day.

Anyone with a modicum of sense would refuse such a reckless deal. Therefore, an additional condition was added: the city wall was built with substandard materials, and the quality of the materials used was far below the original specifications. It may look fine on the outside, but the inside is already rotten to the core. When it collapses, it will only be a frightening sight.

This gave the refugees hope of winning the gamble, and most importantly, it showed that not every section of the wall was built with such shoddy workmanship, and that the chasm could not always be as wide as it is now, making it impossible to cross.

With a bit of pulling and tugging, these refugees decided to act recklessly.

But this also indirectly shows that the two sisters, [War] and [Plague], are really having a blast.

Li Yili held her back, waiting for time to pass.

During this time, he did not try to communicate with Aditi, nor did he have any more conversations with the middle-aged man. Instead, Rebecca kept circling around Aditi. It was unclear whether it was the wolf part that was restless or the human part that was agitated, but from his perspective, it was simply a case of the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood.

Little Red Riding Hood, who had seen the Big Bad Wolf's true face, held her head and trembled, too afraid to speak.

"Ok?"

Rebecca, who was standing behind Aditi and smelling Aditi's hair, blinked, withdrew her tongue, and looked up at the ancient city wall, which was extremely silent under the starlight.

"Is it going to explode?" Noticing Rebecca's movements, Li Yili raised her hand and shook her arm.

The middle-aged man who was looking at the pocket watch paused, subconsciously glancing up at Li Yili before looking down at the watch in his hand, his expression somewhat stiff. "Mr. Richard, there are still fifteen minutes until the agreed time."

“Really? Then it’s obvious the other party doesn’t care about the time you agreed on,” Li Yili shrugged, reached out and grabbed Aditi by the back of her collar, lifting her up.

"You, you let me go—"

Feeling utterly humiliated, Aditi blushed and swung her arms up and down forcefully, trying to get rid of Li Yili.

“You can choose to let her hold you,” Li Yili nodded to Rebecca.

Rebecca blinked, nodded quickly, and opened her arms.

Aditi's gaze lingered on Rebecca's outstretched paws before moving upwards to the wolf's head, which was hidden by the robe and whose eyes glowed green.

Aditi's swaying arms gradually drooped down, and she stopped speaking and moving, looking just like a dirty doll.

Just now, she felt something wet on the back of her head. It couldn't be her imagination; Rebecca had tried to lick her head. If Rebecca had been holding her... she probably would have ended up in Rebecca's mouth halfway there.

Seeing that Li Yili and Rebecca were about to leave, the middle-aged man hesitated for a moment before stuffing his pocket watch into the side pocket of Aditi's clothes. He raised his hand and waved. Aditi was silent for a while before raising her hand to wave goodbye, when she felt dizzy. Before she could react, she was already being carried on Li Yili's shoulder, her face facing Rebecca who was following behind Li Yili.

Li Yili whistled as she smoothly slid down the edge of the chasm, while the refugees who were still holding onto the ropes along the way cast surprised glances at her.

Only those who bought tickets to smuggle themselves across the border knew this place. There were still fifteen minutes left until the agreed time. If they got too close to the city wall now, they would be blown up in fifteen minutes. They didn't understand, but they instinctively began to feel restless.

Adi, whose back was facing the city wall, instinctively felt uneasy and subconsciously grabbed Li Yili's clothes.

"How much time is left?"

"five."

"Five?" Adi blinked and tilted her head.

"Four."

At first, Adi was stunned, but when Li Yili said three, she realized what was happening and immediately closed her eyes.

"two."

"one."

Deep red light, shifting from orange, crisscrossed along the cracks in the ancient city wall. Heat waves flung out countless fragments of stone, accompanied by a violent explosion. Flames and smoke crashed down on Li Yili, who was closest to them, like a tidal wave.

Li Yili rubbed her ears, and black liquid swirled out. A tattered yellow raincoat emerged from the liquid, its long, twisted shadow stretching in the leaping firelight, as if someone was hunching over and chuckling.

The refugees, who were still calculating the time with their pocket watches, were stunned for a moment, but the sound of the collapsing city wall brought them back to reality.

The explosion began; they had less than ten minutes left.

The refugees dropped their belongings and rushed toward the collapsing city wall.

"Why was it brought forward!"

"I do not know!"

"Charge!"

The scorching heatwave, the choking smoke, the falling boulders—everything was like hell, but behind them lay an even more terrifying hell.

The refugees braved the heatwave, narrowly avoiding falling rocks, and made their way over the city walls.

Everything was so natural and incredible.

A refugee instinctively turned his head to look over. Amidst the falling boulders, burning flames, and billowing smoke, a yellow figure stood, seemingly gazing at them.

"Aren't we going over there yet?"

Rebecca instinctively leaned forward and asked.

"Not urgent."

Only when the last brick landed did Li Yili lift her leg and strut across the scorching bricks, swaggering through the ruins.

Chapter Five: The Raven Doctor Wandering in the Industrial Smog

"Five, six, seven, eight... well, they're all in the past."

Li Yili carried Adi and strolled leisurely across the still-smoking ruins, glancing around at the surroundings.

While the Wasteland lags far behind other places in terms of the Chosen Ones, it far surpasses other regions in scientific development.

In the wasteland, even the most basic amenities, such as gas supply systems and water pipes, are only found in the wealthy neighborhoods of Instass, the world's largest seaport.

Of course, this is just publicity.

The most basic configuration means the most basic expenditure.

Newcomers to the wasteland haven't yet established themselves and earned a stable income, so they naturally can't afford to pay for their monthly gas and water supply. Gas and water supply lines are basic necessities, and it's not like you can just ignore them if you don't use them.

The cruel and dark side of the wasteland is also quietly revealed.

Either include this luxury in your monthly bills, or find a cardboard box and live as a homeless person until you solve your income problem.

Not having a stable place to live means that one's mental state will be very poor, making it difficult to pass interviews in the service industry. Although physical labor industries do not care about mental state, it is easy to fall to the bottom of the social hierarchy and have problems with wage deductions.

Of course, the wasteland has a special arbitration committee to handle such wage deduction issues, but those who dare to do so are often not afraid of such arbitration. They drag things out and in the end, the party requiring arbitration is always forced to give in first due to life's pressures.

As a result, many people ended up homeless and became real homeless.

Some say this is a strategy to solve industrial smog by relying on homeless people who wander around every day.

So every night you can see a lot of homeless people wandering around the streets of San Die Quan, but today San Die Quan is a bit too quiet. Combined with the industrial smog that lingers in this industrial country, there is an unusual sense of deathly stillness.

“The footsteps have stopped,” Rebecca, standing behind Li Yili, said in a low voice.

Li Yili was taken aback, looked around, and narrowed her eyes.

The refugees who ran in earlier have disappeared.

Although the industrial smog is quite heavy right now, and it's easy to lose sight of people if you go far away, the smog won't cover up the sound of footsteps. And those refugees can't just think that everything is fine once they enter the Triassic Circle and take a leisurely stroll. Right now, they are probably rushing towards the branch church that the Church of Steam and Steel has established in the Triassic Circle.

It's impossible for there to be absolutely no movement.

“This industrial smog… has a sound-isolating effect, and the only place in this world that is close to a normal society is starting to become abnormal,” Li Yili raised her hand and waved.

Industrial smog is getting thicker and thicker over time, gradually obscuring the colorful starlight.

Rebecca instinctively sensed something was wrong and took a step back, but the hard touch on her back made her freeze in place.

"Li, Li..."

"what happened?"

"The city wall..."

"City walls?"

Li Yili turned around and was immediately stunned.

Rebecca was sprawled against a wall. Normally, Li Yili would have made a few comments, because Rebecca looked exactly like a mouse cornered by the cat in Tom and Jerry. But he couldn't say anything, because just a few seconds ago, they had walked over there.

Is it a case of being trapped in a maze?

Just as Li Yili was hesitating about whether to physically restore the wall that looked abnormal to its original state, Aditi, who was leaning on his shoulder, suddenly gripped him tightly.

The yellow raincoat on his back, his body trembling slightly.

"There's something..."

Before Aditi could finish speaking, Li Yili heard the sound of crisp footsteps.

Through Rebecca's vertical, beastly eyes, Li Yili saw it.

Two fist-sized red lights rose from the hazy industrial smog. As the red lights flickered, streaks of blood flowed along the industrial smog, and the sound of viscous liquid dripping was added to the footsteps.