Chapter 190: Lafite

Most of the Y-shaped pipe's volume is buried beneath the soil, made of some unknown metal, with a diameter of nearly five meters.

The left arm of the Y-shaped pipe is the mission's target location, where a valve is installed, flanked by two circular blue recesses.

The right arm of the Y-shaped pipe has a valve but no recesses; beside the valve is a hole one person tall, with piles of radial dust accumulated below it.

Golden energy beams, like flames, continuously seep out from the breach, radiating suffocating heat.

This entire stretch of barren ground was likely cleared by the heat waves.

The bandaged man stared at the golden beam, silent.

The prophetic painting showed he was struck by such an energy beam, reduced to shattered fragments.

"You two keep watch. I'm going over to check."

Zhao Zijing first launched a drone to patrol the surroundings, then activated her reconnaissance skill to confirm no ambushes were present,

before picking up the mission battery and advancing slowly, examining it closely.

The shape and size of the blue recesses perfectly matched the mission battery—it appeared the battery was meant to be inserted.

She used telekinesis to lift the battery and slowly lower it into the recess; with a "click," the battery rotated downward and locked into place.

Immediately, the battery's remaining 60% charge plummeted rapidly, as if being drained into the pipe.

Inside the pipe, a deep rumbling echoed.

"Hssss—"

Just as everyone assumed the mission had been cleanly completed, the breach on the right pipe suddenly began leaking the energy beam at a faster rate.

Rolling heat waves swept outward; Zhao Zijing's previously deployed drone, merely brushing against the edge, lost control and crashed to the ground.

The carbon-fiber propeller blades—designed to last at least thirty years—softened and dissolved outright.

The plastic casing rotted into pulp, revealing rusted, corroded electronic components inside, as if buried in a landfill for decades.

Zhao Zijing reacted instantly, releasing telekinesis to push herself backward, retreating from the energy flow's center and returning to the armored vehicle.

Midnight Howl pulled a two-meter-tall thick iron plate from her backpack slot and slammed it into the ground ahead.

This iron plate was a Company Product from Prometheus Corporation; upon landing, it instantly unfolded sideways into a solid shield wall,

blocking the distant, weakened gusts of hot wind.

"Are you alright?"

Midnight Howl turned to look at Zhao Zijing; the latter was unharmed, but her temples had turned slightly white, and fine wrinkles had formed around her brows and eyes.

She looked suddenly decades older.

"!!!"

Zhao Zijing widened her eyes, gritted her teeth, and in her fury, her hair stirred without wind.

Unlike players obsessed with appearance who rushed to Uglie Street salons to turn themselves into celestial beauties,

she never cared much for her looks—but aging for no reason was infuriating.

The Crimson Driver glanced nervously at Li Cheng, hoping he wouldn't say something flirtatious to Zhao Zijing now—this could easily turn violent.

Unexpectedly, Li Cheng paid no attention to Zhao Zijing's physical changes; after a moment's thought, he decisively pulled from thin air—

Wine?

Several crates of Feitian Maotai were tossed by Li Cheng beyond the shield wall, exposed to the energy stream.

Then came several crates of wine: domestic brands like Zhangyu and Great Wall, and foreign ones like Lafite and Latour.

"Hurry, hurry, throw them! These are all money!"

Li Cheng was ecstatic, dumping items out like a wholesale warehouse.

"Money?!"

Gray Rain, who had been uninterested until now, perked up at the word "money," immediately joining in the throwing.

As he tossed, he muttered, "USDollar!"

The golden energy flow and rolling heat waves were unmistakably manifestations of the time anomaly; anything struck by them aged rapidly.

Could this be turned into a way to get rich?

For example, turn this year's Maotai into a century-old vintage, turn last year's Lafite into a 1982 vintage—flip them and make hundreds of thousands.

Eventually, Li Cheng grew unsatisfied with just tossing wine—he began hurling redwood furniture, Pu'er tea, aged tangerine peel, ceramics, calligraphy, paintings, bronze artifacts…

All items that appreciate with time.

Midnight Howl and the others nearby stared in shock, gradually falling into numb stillness.

They didn't know whether to be stunned by Master Pi Fu's rapid shift in thinking, or by how his storage space contained absolutely everything.

Are you running an antique market or a wholesale warehouse?!

The Crimson Driver couldn't help whispering: "Uh… Master Pi Fu, bronze artifacts can't be faked, right…?"

Li Cheng replied confidently: "Don't look at the shape—look at the patina. Could anything outside the Shang or Zhou dynasties form such thick, pure rust?"

"But even the Shang and Zhou dynasties didn't have Gundam robots or Hatsune Miku!!"

The Crimson Driver winced, utterly unable to imagine what kind of god could have created such things.

At this moment, the heat wind of the time anomaly gradually faded; after waiting a while, Midnight Howl cautiously poked her head out from behind the shield wall.

The energy leak from the right pipe had returned to its original rate.

The mission battery installed on the left pipe had automatically ejected from its recess, its remaining charge restored to 60%.

"Fuxk."

Midnight Howl couldn't help cursing—this Kill Zone system was truly messing with people's minds; the mission goal was right there, yet impossible to complete.

"Looks like the battery's charge is insufficient?"

The Crimson Driver hesitated: "Most of the energy input into the left pipe is leaking out through the right pipe,

leaving insufficient power at the terminal."

Midnight Howl frowned, "The problem is, the battery's energy is being swallowed and absorbed by this patch of grass!"

It dropped from 100% to 60%—do you expect the grass to spit it back out?"

"There are two other possibilities,"

Li Cheng, satisfied, put away the many items worn by time, and said seriously, "First, the left pipe has two notches, meaning we must find two batteries and insert them to reach 100% charge."

"Second, the right leaking pipe has a valve—we must shut it to stop the leak."

"Then, even if the final charge doesn't reach 100%, we can still complete the mission objective."

"..."

Everyone fell silent at these words; neither option was feasible—let alone the fact that they hadn't seen a single so-called No. 2 battery along the way,

go shut the valve on the right pipe? Didn't they see how much stronger the temporal currents became the closer they got to the leak?

They'd probably turn to dust before they even reached it.

"My telekinesis can't penetrate that stream of energy either,"

Zhao Zijing, having regained her composure, said grimly. To test it, she pulled out a brand-new steel bar and hurled it toward the valve on the right pipe.

"Shhh—"

The steel bar rusted and disintegrated barely within twenty meters, unable to advance another inch.

The golden energy stream, like a wall of sighs, rejected every probing attempt.