Chapter 91: Puzzle and Correction -1

Yang Zicang did not bring bread but a true feast instead.
“This is so lavish, with boiled pork slices and fried chicken?”
“Wow, beer—I haven’t seen this stuff in ages.”
On the long table assembled from folding tables, an oil lamp emitted a warm orange glow, exuding charm in the night breeze.
“I hope this isn’t a breakup meal.” Xu Xiuchuan chuckled as he voiced their hidden concern. The others cast him an ambiguous glare.
After setting out the dishes, famished Lyu Zhi sighed, “So, can we start yet?”
Yang Zicang had just washed his hands and was about to nod when a streak of light shot in—it was Zuo Feixian.
{Brother Jiazi, I tried contacting you several times this afternoon but couldn’t get through. That other hand said he’d talk to you in person; did you see him?}
“……”
So it was that in the dream. Yang Zicang hadn’t expected that “other hand” would bother with such trivial matters.
He raised a hand to make a stopping gesture to the other men watching from a distance.
“He even spoke in your voice, saying you’d come. Where are you?”
{How should I describe where I am? Anyway, I’m about thirty-some li to the left front of the gathering area.}
Yang Zicang had already spotted the familiar terrain in his sensory vision.
……
Zuo Feixian’s stomach was grumbling, and he still had to hurry along. The seven of them had covered dozens of li in just an afternoon—that’s a day’s journey for an ordinary person.
Fortunately, Yang Zicang had started sleeping a few hours ago, or else he felt like his legs would have fallen off from walking.
Just a few minutes after the connection was severed, a whistling wind sounded ahead. Zuo Xianfei stopped, looking around warily as the wind suddenly grew closer, an abrupt gust swirling around him.
“What was that!”
Zuo Xianfei was startled, almost turning to run away on the spot.
A hovering train figure materialized in the empty space before him.
“Ah!” The door opened in front of him. Yang Zicang grabbed the door frame with his right hand, while extending his other arm downward. “Get on.”
Zuo Xianfei’s face was full of an expression like he’d seen a deity.
……
After the meal, everyone was patting their bellies, full and satisfied. A scrawny young man who barely spoke suddenly crouched on the ground, sobbing.
“What’s wrong, Qin Meng?”
“I… it’s been so long since I felt such warmth.” He wiped away his tears.
The group fell into a brief silence.
A filament-like crease shot from the void toward his chest.
{Zicang, can you hear me?}
The girl’s voice reached his mind.
{Xiaoyu, still not asleep yet?}
Yang Zicang silently thought to himself.
Although it was only relayed through Liang Xi, the two had become accustomed to it over the past couple of days and didn’t treat the boy as an outsider.
After chatting for a while, Mu Xiaoyu ended the mental link. Liang Xi poked his head in from outside and said, “Sister Xiaoyu, I’m off to sleep now.”
“Mm-hmm, good night.”
Silence once again settled over the room.
Mu Xiaoyu sat quietly for a while, then lay down on the bed, waited a bit, curled up on her side, and pulled the blanket over herself.
A few minutes later, she whispered, “Xiaoyu, do you actually like him, or are you just afraid of this world?”
……
Out on the wilderness, Yang Zicang looked at the few people around the small table a dozen meters away, wolfing down their food. Qin Meng seemed to have opened a floodgate of chatter, talking to them. With the addition of Master Zuo, the group burst into laughter from time to time.
{Hello there.}
A small ball of light suddenly appeared in front of him.
Yang Zicang waved his hand in front of it. The light ball had some substance; he could push it.
{Don’t push Lili ya, oh—Lili is a reporter. What are you eating?}
A little girl dressed in a pretty small dress materialized inside the light ball.
Yang Zicang looked at the sudden phantom of the little elf before him, raised his head, and asked, “Hey, can’t you all see this?”
“What?”
“A strange ball of light?”
Just as the group finished speaking, they saw a terrifying phantom giant insect emerge behind Yang Zicang.
……
In front of a small wooden door of a gray stone building.
A man in a dark cloak, wearing a black mask that revealed only his chin and lips, showed an iron tag allowing entry and exit here to the person at the door.
“Alright, go in.” The man, who served as both waiter and guard, pushed the wooden door open for him.
The clamor of noise instantly burst out.
The man adjusted his gray cloth cap, patched up at the top, climbed the steps, and walked inside.
“Selling or buying?” Under the dim candlelight, a woman in an old red cashmere sweater walked over holding a registration book.
The man with an eye mask took a cloth pouch from his waist, tossed it to her, and shook his iron badge: “Auction for someone else.”
The woman opened the pouch and took a look inside.
She walked over to a small table behind her and handed it to a middle-aged man wearing a red armband, on which were written the words “Worry-Free Cargo Team.”
The man glanced at it, let out an “Oh,” and immediately stood up and hurried over.
“This engine is pretty good. Our Worry-Free can just buy it directly. Want to sell? We can trade right now—materials, goods, engines, or even time-credits.”
“I told you, this is for auction.”
“Tch, fine. Who’s the seller? Register it.”
“Unit Jia Zi, or rather, call it Yang Zicang.”
The man with the half mask pointed to himself with a smile: “I’m his assistant.”
……
After working late into the night and transporting back the tent prepared by headquarters along with two other sets of engine-making materials, it was already dawn with brighter light.
Everyone was crowded together sleeping, except for Qin Meng and Lyu Zhi standing guard outside.
Seeing that Yang Zicang was finally free, Qin Meng stood up and walked over to the young man about to enter the tent to sleep.
“Brother Zicang, hello.”
“You haven’t rested yet? Wake up two of them to replace you, and go get some rest quickly.”
“No need.” Qin Meng glanced at the few people in the temporary tent, a satisfied smile spreading across his face.
“Thank you, Brother Zicang. These past few days, I’ve finally felt like a human being again.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“It’s true, and everyone else too. Seeing Lyu Zhi, who wants to protect everyone, seeing Fan Xiuyun, who dares to yell at a crowd no matter how many people are facing him, and Brother Feixian, who chose to join us—even though he has little practical ability, he still forces himself to work hard for the shelter’s construction. I know he’s suffered too many snubs in recent months.”
As he spoke, he hung his head.
Yang Zicang said, “Actually, everyone wants to lend a hand and make some achievements.”
“Yes, but we really don’t have any strong points.”
“Don’t overthink it. Slowly things will get better. I know some experts, and I’ll invite them here to teach everyone later.”
Qin Meng’s expression carried a sense of relief: “I hope that day comes soon. I believe you can do it.”
Yang Zicang sensed that his state was a bit off.
“Qin Meng, is something the matter with you?”
The young man instinctively reached for his dry nose bridge, but found nothing there—evidently he used to wear glasses.
“Well, Brother Yang, I wanted to give you a gift. Only you have the ability to receive it, and only by giving it to you can I rest assured.”
He looked around, took two steps back, and said, “This place has decent terrain. Hey, Brother Zicang, don’t make that face. Just listen to me.”
A jagged line pattern materialized on his chest—the same two lines as Liang Xi’s.
The ground around them trembled, like a mild earthquake.
A small patch of golden wheat fields spread from under Qin Meng’s feet like a tide as he spread his arms and inhaled the scent of the grain.
Yang Zicang noticed he was a bit farther away from him, with a wheat field of about ten meters appearing between the two.
“What are you trying to do? Stop!”
The White Shadow Thought-Dragon emerged, but the young man opposite raised his open hands, indicating he had no malice.
“My ability is ‘Puzzle Storage’—a very, very weak ability.
“As a puzzle custodian, I can only store or unfold items that carry the concept of ‘puzzle.’ At first, when I came here, I couldn’t understand what I could do. I tried storing the toy puzzles I found into the void, but beyond that, I couldn’t find any use for my ability.”
Yang Zicang immediately understood the greatest potential of this ability.
“It wasn’t until I entered the Intertwined Land and saw the scene landscape that I realized what I could truly preserve. But in the city, I was still useless.”
Qin Meng’s figure kept receding into the distance, and all around him faded away as well, because the ground beneath his feet expanded more and more. In the blink of an eye, it had already spread into the river over a hundred meters away.
“So the ground beneath you is the Intertwined landscape you’ve preserved? That’s a very strong ability, Qin Meng.”
Yang Zicang took a few steps forward and shouted, “You’ll play a great role here. You’ll become someone powerful. Come over.”
He could see the bleak despair in the young man’s eyes.
“Puzzle pieces… there’s always one piece missing.”
Qin Meng sighed and looked up at the blue sky, where a crescent shadow of the moon had appeared. He turned his gaze flatly toward Yang Zicang and said, “Stop, Brother Yang. There’s no overlapping scene here at all. I have no use anymore except for the pieces I’ve collected before.”
“You can concentrate the out-of-sync scenes, and you’ll become someone extraordinary. Here, you’ll be a hundred times more useful than I am.”
The few people in the tent, awakened by the earthquake, staggered to their feet in shock, trying to get out, only to find that the tent had appeared in a strange place.
“Where is this?” the disoriented group asked.