Trash 011

"Kid, you folks must be from the north, right? It's not like the north around here. There are plenty of deep ravines, and if you're not careful, one slip and you're gone."

To such advice, Fang Zhiyi merely nodded to show he understood, but then continued to do exactly as he pleased.

Seeing that he wouldn't listen, the locals stopped trying to persuade him, only hoping that this boss wouldn't end up falling to his death in the mountains.

Fortunately, the few men accompanying him seemed to have backgrounds as hunters, so they weren't afraid of venomous snakes or fierce beasts.

Peng Huan'er stayed behind in the city to watch the shop. She discovered that her young master truly had a talent for business. Ordinary wood, modified according to his instructions into exquisite ornaments, was actually quite popular with many people.

However... such income was nowhere near enough to cover their expenses. Every few days, Fang Zhiyi would send someone with a message asking her to buy grain or tools, and she had no idea what he was actually trying to do.

But thinking about how the young master had more money on him than he could spend in a lifetime, Peng Huan'er stopped worrying about it.

Her only concern was that nothing bad would happen to him.

Covered in dust and dirt, Fang Zhiyi looked at the map in his hands. Little Hei was beside him, pointing things out, and Fang Zhiyi began to sketch based on its descriptions. Finally, he held up the map and laughed heartily under the moonlight.

On his hand-drawn map, this place was a sunken valley, surrounded by sheer cliffs that looked as if they had been carved by swords and axes. If it were anyone else, they would surely marvel at the uncanny craftsmanship of nature.

Only Fang Zhiyi had a face full of excitement.

"Begging for food while sitting on a treasure trove. Tsk, how should I evaluate them?"

The next day, the loggers noticed that the wandering refugees who usually worked alongside them had disappeared. But they didn't think much of it. People working for Fang Zhiyi came and went; who had the time to pay attention to where they went? They just felt the boss was generous and didn't cause trouble, so they just kept their heads down and worked.

"Young Master Fang, dig here?" a man wearing an animal skin vest asked with a frown. If Fang Zhiyi hadn't led the way, he wouldn't have dared to come into these deep mountains. He never expected there to be a valley like this.

Fang Zhiyi nodded, and the man and his companions began digging. They dug down for more than ten feet, but aside from dirt and crushed stone, they found nothing, and progress was somewhat slow.

No one knew what Fang Zhiyi was looking for, but since he didn't tell them to stop, they kept digging.

Li San craned his neck. "Young Master, out in this desolate wilderness, what good stuff could there be?"

Fang Zhiyi cast a meaningful glance in the direction where Little Hei was. Li San followed his gaze, but there was absolutely nothing there.

"The absolute best stuff," Fang Zhiyi smiled.

Suddenly, someone let out an exclamation. Fang Zhiyi stopped his idle chatter and leaned over to look down.

Then he saw a flat piece of metal lying in the dirt.

"Did we dig up an iron mine?" someone asked excitedly.

Li San leaped down. "Does your family's iron mine produce finished products directly?"

"Huh? Then what is this?"

Fang Zhiyi stood up. "Keep digging along this line!" He began calling the others over to start working together.

"Not going to hand-craft technology this time?" Little Hei watched as the thing before them was gradually unearthed.

"Hand-crafting isn't nearly as fast as picking up something ready-made," Fang Zhiyi laughed. "After all, this valley was literally blown open."

"With the current production capacity, I'm afraid this kind of material couldn't possibly be manufactured." Fang Zhiyi looked at the massive metal again.

"Is it possible that the divine weapons of those Dou Qi warriors are just scavenged pieces of this synthetic metal?"

Little Hei and he exchanged a smile.

Meanwhile, the remnant soul inside the jade pendant was already dumbfounded.

"Oh, oh, oh! Ten-thousand-year meteoric iron! And so much of it! Combined with the cultivation method I taught you, you could even fight against five... no, ten ninth-tier Dou Zongs!"

"I'd have to be sick in the head to go fight them," Fang Zhiyi cursed, then looked at the jade pendant. "But we can have a good discussion about your line of thinking. For example, how did you come up with the principle of sucking Dou Qi out of someone else's body and converting it for your own use?"

Peng Huan'er felt inexplicably uneasy. Recently, not only had the young master not returned, but even his companions rarely showed up. Only Bold Wu frequently brought messages with a face full of exhaustion, asking either for food or tools.

"The shovels you took just a few days ago are already broken? What on earth are you guys doing?"

Although Bold Wu looked exhausted, his eyes were filled with irrepressible excitement. "Hehehe, big secret, it's classified!"

These activities didn't attract much attention. Everyone knew the timber shop was logging deep in the mountains, so transporting food and tools was perfectly normal.

In the valley, over a dozen men worked together to pry open a twisted door, with dozens of broken tools tossed to the side.

The moment the door opened, Li San and the others were stunned. Behind this bizarre door was an inexplicable space. The things inside were items they had never even heard of, let alone seen.

Fang Zhiyi, on the other hand, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Seeing Fang Zhiyi walk in completely unguarded, Bold Wu tried to stop him, but Fang Zhiyi waved his hand, acting as if he were very familiar with the place.

"Young Master, what exactly is this place..."

"The future."

Watching Fang Zhiyi tinker with those things that looked like torture devices, the jade pendant panicked.

"Great hero, big brother, ancestor! Please don't mess around! Whatever you want to ask, I'll tell you everything I know without holding back! When I was three, my mother remarried; when I was four, my father took a new wife; at five..."

"Can you shut up?" Fang Zhiyi interrupted impatiently. "You don't understand science."

He looked at the damaged laboratory before him, his heart filled with mixed emotions. He never expected that after he had merely started things off, those future generations would be able to achieve such a level.

Even he would have to spend time studying it.

Little Hei, meanwhile, was being used as a detector, reluctantly helping him search around for other usable items.

"Humans are truly terrifying..." Fang Zhiyi flipped through a notebook filled with notes, unable to help but sigh. "It's hard to imagine that after reaching such heights, they actually managed to wipe themselves out."

His finger stopped on the last page of the notebook.

The schematics and concepts on it were clearly things that only existed in sci-fi movies.

"A starship..." Fang Zhiyi stared intently, not even noticing that Little Hei had returned to his side.

"What, are you going to build a starship?"

He didn't even turn his head. "Nonsense. At our current level, building a car is a struggle, let alone a starship. Technological progress cannot happen without the support of massive resources... Besides, I can't even understand it." He closed the notebook. "But I think I understand why this world turned out like this."

"Hmm? You guessed it again?"

"It's not a guess, it's a deduction." Fang Zhiyi looked around. "The development of technology constantly depletes energy. This war destroyed the vast majority of things, leading to the current scarcity of resources. Just the existence of Dou Qi is enough to make humans fight over it endlessly."