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The space maintained a constant temperature, with the only downside being the absence of night; the sun hung in the sky for twenty-four hours a day.
Li Yan helped Li Ming tuck in his blanket. Last night, he couldn't resist and ended up waking the child several times, nearly exhausting him to tears as he kept shouting, "Brother is a bad guy."
Li Ming sniffled and turned over, sleeping soundly, his fair little legs exposed. Li Yan had to cover him again, feeling quite pleased as he left the room. After some tidying up, the small wooden house was well-equipped; it had three rooms, two of which Li Yan converted into storage rooms and one into a bedroom.
Over the past few days, he discovered that this space had preservation effects. For instance, he tested putting steamed buns inside, and when he checked the storage room three to five days later, they were still warm. Additionally, the crops here grew remarkably well; the rice seeds he planted a few days ago had already sprouted. All Li Yan did was water the crops.
Having read many novels online that described how magical the water in such spaces could be, he tried bathing in it and even drank it for a week. However, it wasn't as miraculous as described in those stories. Still, he felt that his heat resistance had significantly improved; even on hot days while walking outside, he didn't feel out of breath.
After drinking the space's water for a week, Li Ming's little face appeared even fairer. The sunburned skin from exam day had returned to normal, which relieved Li Yan greatly.
Since it was still the experimental phase, Li Yan didn't use any fertilizers or similar products. Given the uniqueness of this space, he decided to observe for now.
Looking at his watch, which showed it was seven in the morning, Li Yan exited the space intending to make breakfast for Li Ming. With Aunt Wang gone, it wouldn't be safe for Li Ming to stay home alone; the only solution was to take him to work with him.
Once outside the space, Li Yan found it difficult to adapt to the air outside. After living for twenty-eight years, it was his first time noticing an unpleasant smell in reality's air. He couldn't quite describe it but felt there was a significant difference compared to the air inside the space; perhaps it was because he had slept in there all night.
The morning temperature was considerably lower than last night. When Li Yan walked into the kitchen and checked the thermometer, it read thirty-two degrees—still not low. Upon opening the refrigerator, he was utterly speechless; he had no idea when the power went out, but all the food inside had spoiled and emitted a foul odor. He thought that from now on, he'd better keep things in the space; if there were another power outage like this one, he'd starve.
"Brother," Li Ming said lazily as he rubbed his eyes while coming out of the space. Dressed in Winnie the Pooh pajamas made him look even more adorable and innocent, giving Li Yan a fleeting sense of guilt about "persecuting" a minor. "Where's breakfast?"
"It'll be ready soon," Li Yan replied as he took some eggs and buns from the space. Cooking in hot weather was quicker than in winter. He poured a glass of milk for Li Ming and started eating himself.
"Brother, the milk is spoiled," Li Ming frowned and lifted his cup to show Li Yan. "It's not clean; it'll upset my stomach."
Li Yan hadn't paid close attention until now; upon looking closely at the milk, he noticed several floating particles. It shouldn't be possible; he had just checked its expiration date—it was only produced a week ago.
He took another can from the space and opened it to pour into a cup; surprisingly, there were still floating particles. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. Just as he was about to call and complain about it, he noticed a mosquito flying from the living room towards Li Ming; its buzzing wings were audible. Just as he intended to warn Li Ming, Li Ming accurately swatted the mosquito before it could strike.
Standing in the kitchen on his phone call with at least fifteen meters between himself and the mosquito, Li Yan recalled that he had two hundred degrees of nearsightedness—when did his eyesight become so "excellent"? Moreover, due to his cognitive challenges affecting coordination skills, hadn't he just killed that mosquito?
He decided against making that call; perhaps that milk wasn't dirty after all but rather indicated that both his and Li Ming's bodies had undergone changes. Calming down, he filled a cup with tap water and clearly saw various floating particles gathering in it. He then ran to check from the balcony where Li Ming was also peeking over excitedly.
"Brother, can we pick some flowers? I want yellow ones," Li Ming pleaded while pointing at several unknown flowers in the greenbelt.
Their house was on the twenty-sixth floor, and looking down... Li Yan completely understood, but there was still some uncertainty about whether it was the space that changed their physical condition or the water they drank inside. It could be a combination of both; in any case, the change in physical condition was considered a good thing. Li Yan looked at Li Ming with concern, wondering how to trick the child into eating the food that had "something" in it. This was indeed a difficult problem.
In the end, Li Yan deceived Li Ming by saying that the floating objects were relatives of milk. Although Li Ming didn't believe it, he still reluctantly ate the milk and eggs with tears in his eyes. He absolutely refused to eat the buns, so Li Yan had no choice but to boil another egg and coax him into eating it.
On their way down, they happened to see a young girl living on the twentieth floor, looking haggard as she entered the elevator with a bag of things. This girl’s family name was Tian; her father ran a small-scale e-commerce company, and they had collaborated with Li Yan a few times. They lived in the same building and got to know each other after meeting several times.
"Sister Tian," Li Ming politely called out.
Tian Xin hadn’t slept all night and looked unwell. Usually appearing somewhat spoiled, she now seemed too weak to even speak. "Have you two been staying at home?" Tian Xin looked at them suspiciously, noticing they seemed in good spirits.
"No, we stayed at a hotel last night and came back this morning to change clothes," Li Yan replied with a smile, his cheerful demeanor making it hard for anyone to think he was lying.
"Really? You’re lucky; your hotel didn’t lose power. Last night my parents and I stayed at Hyatt, but we lost power in the middle of the night, and my dad and mom felt so bad they even vomited. What kind of terrible hotel is that? I’m definitely going to complain," Tian Xin said irritably as she cursed under her breath. When the elevator arrived, she stepped in alone.
"Brother, we didn’t stay at a hotel," Li Ming raised his little face and tilted his head to ask.
"From now on, let’s just call that place a hotel, okay?" Li Yan suddenly thought of this; using 'hotel' would make things more convenient.
"Then tonight we’ll stay at a hotel again, but you’re not allowed to bully 'Little Flower' anymore; Little Flower said she doesn’t feel well." After doing too much last night, the child still felt uncomfortable walking now.
"So Little Flower doesn’t like Carrot anymore?" Li Yan smirked as he held his little hand while walking toward the underground garage.
Li Ming pouted and remained silent for a moment before finally saying, "Well, just once."
Li Yan burst into laughter; their little one was truly a source of joy. Just as they drove out of the parking lot, an elderly man in his sixties stopped them. Li Yan had seen this old man a few times in the community. The old man was struggling to support an old lady and pleaded, "Young man, please help me take my wife to the hospital; I beg you."
Li Yan looked at the old lady who had completely lost consciousness; her complexion was unnatural—pale yellow with a hue that living people shouldn’t have. He could sense her breathing was very weak. Ultimately, he agreed and let Li Ming sit in the passenger seat while he casually asked, "Sir, what happened to Aunt?"
"I don’t know either; she said her chest felt tight after last night’s power outage. I took some ice cubes from the fridge that I had prepared earlier, and she felt better afterward. She seemed fine when we got up this morning but suddenly fainted. Kiddo, can you hurry up?" The old man was clearly distraught; at his age, he shouldn’t have to endure such suffering.
The old man's words reminded Li Yan that he should also stock up on ice cubes; keeping them in his space would be no problem. He planned to build a few small wooden houses in his space because otherwise there would be nowhere to store things.
Once they entered the emergency room, Li Yan truly realized what overcrowding meant. The entire emergency room was nearly packed with people; nurses were shouting continuously while darting around like eels. Li Ming curiously wanted to go inside but was pulled back by Li Yan.
Li Yan could clearly feel that among these patients, about ten had weak breathing and symptoms similar to Aunt's condition. His hearing and vision were extraordinary now; he could hear from quite a distance away. He saw a woman wearing a head nurse's cap talking to a doctor and focused intently on trying to listen clearly.
"Director, we need to isolate; another case just appeared."
"Wait a moment, it's not allowed to disclose anything yet..."
After returning from the hospital, Li Yan instinctively washed his car and disinfected it. He wasn't sure if Aunt was one of those "cases," but it was better to be safe than sorry.
When passing by the gas station, Li Yan specifically bought several large barrels of gasoline and stored them in his space when no one was around. He was just an ordinary person, and in the face of uncertainty about what might happen in the future, these actions were purely instinctive self-protection. He thought that if something really did happen, gasoline was a consumable resource. Plus, his vehicle was an SUV, which consumed a lot of fuel.
Once he entered the office, Eva hurriedly followed Li Yan into the office. After coughing a few times in frustration, she noticed that both her boss and his brother had moved about a meter away from her, causing her face to darken. "Boss, is it really that scary?" Eva had been with the company for a while and had always been good friends with Li Yan, as well as good colleagues.
Li Yan awkwardly smiled; he couldn't explain to Eva that her cough had sent droplets flying within that one-meter range. "Is there something going on today?"
"Boss, two more people from the sales department called in sick today. Boss, you don't think this is really the end of the world, do you? I heard that there are already ten people from the company downstairs who have taken sick leave." Eva's gossiping nature kicked in strongly.
"I don't know if it's the end of the world or not; all I know is that you need to go out and work now." Li Yan absolutely recognized Eva's work capabilities; however, her personality matched her work ability—whenever there was even a slight disturbance in the building, she would find out immediately. "Follow up on yesterday's order."
"Boss, I think I might not be able to follow up on that." Eva helplessly handed a fax to Li Yan: "I saw this when I came in this morning. Starting tomorrow, our nearby factories will have a power outage, and we haven't been notified about when it will be restored. But... Boss, our company won't go bankrupt, right? My credit card just got maxed out last month." Eva regretted buying that set of Lancôme products.
Generally speaking, summer is peak electricity usage season; the government prioritizes residential electricity needs before arranging industrial power supply. However, if all factories in the area are experiencing outages without any notice of restoration time, is there really such a severe shortage of electricity? The annual electricity consumption is usually consistent; it shouldn't be this lacking—could it be used elsewhere?
Li Ming was playing Angry Birds on his notebook and seemed quite skilled at it. Just as he was getting into it, he kept hearing ambulance sirens outside. Curiously, he asked, "Brother, are many people getting sick?"
"Minmin, what do you want to eat for lunch?" Li Yan said seriously as he looked out through the glass window. In just one morning, he had already seen five waves of ambulances; even though the sun was filtered through glass and surrounded by cold air inside the room, he could still feel its heat and dominance.
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