Chapter 50

Zhongzhou City is located in the southwest and is a famous tourist city. However, for many years, its rural areas have not undergone significant changes.

With the development of robot industrialization and agricultural automation, as well as the generational population turnover, the majority of the rural population has started to flood into the city. Due to the wealth gap between the rural and urban areas, this trend is even more pronounced in Zhongzhou City. As a result, many "dead villages" have appeared around Zhongzhou City—villages where no one lives.

The state, in order to prevent the land in these villages from becoming wasteland, is planning to reclaim all the land. However, this has not yet been implemented.

Zhou Xian's hometown is now in this state.

Only one house and one courtyard remain, with nothing else left.

In fact, not only Zhou Xian's hometown, but the surrounding old houses are also in the same condition.

Because of the rain last night, the muddy yellow earth made it difficult to walk, and Zhou Xian walked on the road with one foot deep and one foot shallow.

Zhou Xian had only experienced such an environment in games before, but in the real world, the feeling was completely different.

Some of the surrounding houses were already damaged, while others were still being maintained by automatic robots. The former looked as if they had been abandoned for several centuries, while the latter gave the illusion that time had stopped.

The deserted village was silent, with only the sound of robots working in the fields in the distance.

"—We're here."

Following the rusty door number, Zhou Xian finally found his old house, which had been unoccupied for about ten years.

The front gate of the courtyard in front of the old house was gone, but the walls of the courtyard were still standing.

The dilapidated house was still intact, at least it didn't seem to be missing any bricks or tiles. Although it was very old, it still seemed habitable.

The door of the house was not locked, just slightly ajar, just like the other abandoned houses.

"Creak—"

As the door was pushed open, a cloud of dust made Zhou Xian cough continuously.

"This place is really old."

In the hall, there was an eight-person table, which, though old, was still standing. However, the two benches next to the table were scattered on the ground. In front of the hall, there was an old hanging scroll that had turned white and was no longer legible.

As for the few rooms, they were almost empty. The wooden boards on the beds had been removed, and the two wardrobes were also empty.

Zhou Xian's grandparents had passed away when he was young, and most of the things here had been moved away. After that, Zhou Xian's family had been renting a place in the city until his father died suddenly at work.

Zhou Xian was now wearing a set of sportswear and carrying a large backpack, which contained a simple sleeping bag, some water, and dry rations. In his hand, he was also carrying a burlap bag with difficulty.

"Is there a well here?"

In the courtyard, Zhou Xian unexpectedly found an old hand-pump well. The handle of the well was rusted, but the overall structure was still intact.

Zhou Xian walked over and pressed the handle with force. The inside was clearly decayed, and it took extra effort for Zhou Xian to use it.

But water eventually gushed out of the well.

At first, it had a rusty smell, but after Zhou Xian pressed the handle for several minutes, the water turned into clear, fresh spring water.

"Phew, the most troublesome water source is now taken care of. This is perfect."

Using a cloth and clear water, Zhou Xian cleaned the old wooden table and then took out a disc-shaped device.

This was a network booster.

Although the internet in the city was fully covered with no dead spots, the place where Zhou Xian was now had no infrastructure at all. To go online here, he needed this device.

The booster, which could work continuously for a week, would last until the police investigation was over.

—After BeiDou was taken to the police station, he also exhibited the same symptoms as Ying Tianlong, and both fell into a coma. In total, there were now three such cases at Zhongzhou Academy.

According to the doctors' tests, an abnormal substance was detected in the blood of the three patients who had become comatose. The hospital even suspected that it might be a virus.

Thus, the police and the hospital jointly issued a notice to the school. After isolating and examining everyone, the entire school was temporarily closed for a strict inspection and disinfection.

Thanks to the rapid progress of technology, after half a day of isolation and examination, Zhou Xian was already out of the hospital. At this time, he was just about to implement his plan.

After setting up the device, Zhou Xian took out his Black Iron Head. To come here, Zhou Xian had specially equipped himself with a solar-powered mobile power source, which could be used for the Black Iron Head. Additionally, if the booster failed, he could use this as a backup.

"Network status adjusted, nearest signal source search completed, best signal source matched. You can now freely access the internet within 100 meters of this device."

After adjusting the device, Zhou Xian took out the remaining items from his backpack and prepared to continue working.

"Mr. Zhou Xian, your goods have arrived. Please check them."

At this moment, an electronic voice came from outside the door.

Zhou Xian opened the door, and a delivery robot was standing outside. Behind the delivery robot was a truck. Although the ground was extremely muddy, the requirements for the ground of the current hover cars were completely different from those of cars from over a decade ago. The fully automated vehicle, despite driving on the muddy ground, still looked brand new.

"Iris scan complete, facial recognition complete, DNA data match complete. Mr. Zhou Xian, your package has been delivered. Unloading will begin now."

After saying this, several transport robots came down from the truck and began to unload the goods.

"Mr. Zhou Xian, where would you like the goods to be placed?"

The delivery robot asked in an emotionless electronic voice.

"Just put them in the middle of the courtyard."

"Okay."

After saying this, the transport robots began to move, placing the goods Zhou Xian had ordered in the middle of the courtyard.

"Mr. Zhou Xian, your package has been delivered. Have a pleasant summer vacation."

Watching the robots complete the delivery and quickly leave, Zhou Xian sighed, "The service of the delivery company's robots is much better than that of the school's..."

After the robots left, Zhou Xian went to the courtyard to inspect the boiler, iron felt, and other equipment he had ordered. Although he had received the equipment from the robots, Zhou Xian did not immediately start working. Instead, he ran back and took a dazed live chicken out of his burlap bag.

"Come on."

Zhou Xian took out a bowl, grabbed the chicken by its feet, and began to bleed it.

After collecting a full bowl of blood, Zhou Xian returned to the courtyard and used his fingers to dip in the blood and draw on the wall.

At first glance, it seemed that Zhou Xian was just making crude graffiti. But upon closer inspection, each character on the wall began to twist and change.

In just a few minutes, Zhou Xian had written a full circle of text. Then he put down the bowl and took a deep breath: "Illusionary Array—Activate!"

As Zhou Xian spoke, the space around him immediately began to distort. If someone were to look from the outside, they would be surprised to find that everything in Zhou Xian's courtyard had suddenly disappeared!

After completing this, Zhou Xian did not rest. Instead, he took out a stack of yellow talismans and began to write on them with the remaining chicken blood, creating over twenty talismans.

After finishing, Zhou Xian finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"The things in the game can actually be used in the real world. Every time I use this ability here, I feel how magical this world is..."

Zhou Xian looked at the talismans.

"Talisman: A prop used by a Taoist to cast spells, with no special attributes."

Unlike the unreliable talismans with a failure rate that BeiDou had, the talismans Zhou Xian had just made were "normal" talismans. However, because this was the real world, even though these talismans were items that could be bought from any street vendor in the game, they were still of great significance to Zhou Xian.

After finishing this, Zhou Xian finally turned his attention back to the pile of equipment in the courtyard.

This was the main event of the day.

"Dragon Tomb" was a very peculiar game. In the game, even secondary professions had to be done step by step. Although there might be some system assistance, in general, if you learned blacksmithing in the game, you could basically do it in the real world; if you became a gourmet in the game, your cooking skills in the real world would also improve significantly.

In other words, apart from certain supernatural elements, many things in the game were feasible in the real world.

After arranging everything, Zhou Xian started a fire.

Smoke rose from the courtyard and drifted into the air.

However, if someone were to observe from the outside, they probably wouldn't see any smoke. If they looked up into the sky, they might see something.

For Zhou Xian, this was a victory.

"Alright, let's get started..."

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