Jian Xingyi rolled his eyes and said, “Think about it—if that air wall really connects to the ‘real world’—even if it’s not the actual reality, it still has real things in it. Doesn’t that mean… we can get resources from the real world?”

Shanhai pondered for a moment. “Hmm.”

“I think next time we have a chance, we should go back in and see if there’s anything good! Instead of just potato chips and soda,” Jian Xingyi said. “But I need to think of something that would actually help our current situation… Otherwise, maybe we should figure out how to bring a nuclear bomb back?”

Shanhai: “……”

Shanhai said, “We’ll see where the air wall connects to next time.”

Actually, what Jian Xingyi suggested might just work. “Lu Yan” was originally in the military; he could teach Jian Xingyi how to acquire weapons. However, if they passed through the Peace Mountain air wall next time and ended up in the same place, that would mean it’s fixed. To get better resources, they might have to go through a different air wall.

In any case, now that Jian Xingyi had the Spirit Warrior Talisman, if they went to a more difficult air wall and had the Spirit Warrior work with him, they should be able to get through.

After they emerged, the two headed straight back to the guild.

With all that going on, twelve hours had passed. After returning, Jian Xingyi rode on Shanhai’s motorcycle back to the base at Grapevine Peak.

The “Long Live for A Hundred Years” base had now been relocated to the area adjacent to Grapevine Peak, though it wasn’t too far from its original location.

Upon arrival, Jian Xingyi gazed at the two gates—separated by only a short distance, yet connected by the base boundary line reserved for the perimeter wall—and found the sight utterly vast.

Now that they were neighbors, one of the guild’s walls and gates had vanished, replaced by the Golden Circle.

After the bases were connected, the system adopted a new layout—perhaps to facilitate communication and management among guild leaders—with both guilds sharing the same artificial lake: one side of the lake belonged to Grapevine Peak’s Golden Circle, and the other to Long Live for A Hundred Years.

With no barriers in place, players from the “Long Live for A Hundred Years” faction could cross the small bridge by the lake and pass through the woods to enter the territory of Grapevine Peak, and vice versa. However, for the time being, both sides were acting with restraint, not crossing that line, but simply observing their surroundings and familiarizing themselves with the environment within their respective territories.

Meanwhile, the people from Grapevine Peak are quietly gathering by the lake, pretending to casually observe Jian Xingyi’s imposing mansion.

“Wow…”

“It’s obvious—that’s definitely Xinghe’s place. It’s insane…!”

“No wonder he’s the resource king…”

They were all left speechless.

After the two returned to the guild, they stood on the Golden Circle and suddenly… fell silent.

Jian Xingyi paused, looked up, and glanced at Shanhai, then whispered, “Um… should I head back?”

Shanhai was silent for a moment before replying, “Alright.”

Jian Xingyi turned and walked away.

Shanhai stood where he was, watching him leave.

Once Jian Xingyi was gone, the few people on Grapevine Peak immediately surrounded Shanhai.

“You little… you little!!”

“Brother Hai, when did you start dating someone? It happened so quietly—turns out that person on the general chat was you!”

“Wow, I can’t believe Brother Hai is actually someone’s sidekick! That’s so shocking—when did you two start dating??”

“……” Shanhai whispered, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Huh??”

“Huh?????”

“You two aren’t together?”

Shanhai paused for a moment before answering, “Not yet.”

“Oh—!” Everyone let out a meaningful sigh.

Cola chuckled, “Getting to see Shanhai pining for someone like this in this lifetime—it’s been worth it.”

Shanhai looked up at Cola. “Teach me how to chase after someone.”

Cola: “……Huh?”

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

Meanwhile, upon returning to the guild, Jian Xingyi found that artificial wooden fences had been erected all around his house to protect his farming and breeding areas.

Jian Xingyi was overjoyed; combined with the system’s built-in fences, this provided double protection.

Jian Xingyi then headed to the guild’s back door, where Heiye, Baizhou, and many others had gathered, chatting and laughing as they built the walls.

Even though there were only nine days left until the second zombie wave—and with its difficulty unknown and everyone’s fate uncertain—it was still incredibly satisfying to finally put the materials everyone had saved up for so long to use and see the walls go up.

“Xinghe is back…!”

“Xinghe, Xinghe! When did you start dating Shanhai? Holy crap… you’re actually dating Shanhai! He’s a super-duper big shot!! How did you two end up together?”

“When did you two start dating?”

Faced with everyone’s barrage of questions, Jian Xingyi felt completely overwhelmed.

He took a couple of steps back and laughed nervously, “W-we’re not together…”

“Huh??”

“Huh??????”

“You’re not together?”

Jian Xingyi scratched his head and whispered, “I’m not ready yet.”

It had originally just been a cyber romance—he’d treated it like playing an eroge—but after discovering that Shanhai was a real, living person… he wasn’t sure if he could accept being with Shanhai, embarking on a new relationship for the first time in his life, and especially in the midst of the apocalypse.

Lone Wolf blinked and asked, “Th-then when will you be ready?”

Does this kind of thing require paperwork? Is there a loading screen or something?

“I don’t know…”

Jian Xingyi glanced at the wall and said, “Let’s not talk about me… Let’s look at the wall?”

Their current supplies were enough to build half of one side of the wall. After discussing the three sides with Grapevine Peak, both sides decided to start with the back gates—at least freeing up the farthest back gate and side gate. As for the front gate, they could still work together with Grapevine Peak to defend it.

Jian Xingyi crouched down too, picked up a brick, and joined everyone in stacking them like a game of Jenga.

Following the blueprints drawn by Cangshui and Wu Yun, they stacked the bricks neatly, then bound them together with vines hardened by a special potion. The process was somewhat complicated, but many hands make light work. Those who had stayed behind at the guild had already built quite a bit, and after everyone worked together for half a day, they finally finished… half a wall!

Jian Xingyi stood up and brushed the dust off his hands.

Phew… A small victory!

Heiye said, “Everyone, we have just over a week left! We need to gather all the supplies within these remaining nine days!”

The next day, except for a few members who stayed behind at the guild, everyone set out on their journey once more.

As previously discussed, members from Grapevine Peak and the Long Live for A Hundred Years Club would form 10 teams, each consisting of about 10 people, to head to different locations to run dungeons and chop down trees for a final all-out push.

After discussing it with Shanhai, Jian Xingyi decided to join one of the teams heading to Fire God’s Belly in Lava Volcano.

Fire God’s Belly had few players but plenty of trees and zombies, making it an excellent spot for farming resources. However, since the destination was Fire God’s Belly, this team was comprised of high-powered members from Grapevine Peak and a select few top-tier members from Long Live for A Hundred Years.

Jian Xingyi chose the Fire God’s Belly simply to test the air walls one more time.

This time, he had already prepared the Unity Anchor. Once inside, he would summon Shanhai as well, and then they could determine whether the world behind each air wall was the same. If it wasn’t, they might be able to find even better resources to harvest.

On other maps, without the help of Spirit Heroes, Shanhai couldn’t guarantee Jian Xingyi’s safety and wouldn’t dare to lead him so recklessly. However, the Lava Volcano’s difficulty was second only to Peace Mountain, and Shanhai was confident he could handle the sea of corpses there.

Before setting off, Jian Xingyi once again handled transactions and fulfilled orders.

Ever since launching the vines and spending a small sum to enable the auto-restock feature in the marketplace, Jian Xingyi has seen new income every day. This is an essential item for preparing for the second zombie tide—every guild needs to buy it. When Jian Xingyi checked the details, he found he’d actually made an extra profit of…

One hundred million?!

Are you kidding me??

But upon closer inspection of the details, it became clear this was already the absolute limit.

With only eight days left until the zombie tide, everyone had finished their purchases. After leaving a certain quantity of vines in the mall, Jian Xingyi turned off the auto-restock feature.

He couldn’t rely on the vines anymore, but he still had a trump card…!

Jian Xingyi opened the backend—the Snow Lotus was ready for harvest!!

Jian Xingyi happily clicked to harvest them one by one.

Jian Xingyi had planted Snow Lotus on 5 plots of his own land, 10 Grade A plots on Snow Mountain, and 65 Grade B plots in front of the air wall on Peace Mountain. This time, he harvested a total of 1,500 blooms.

After synthesizing them and listing them for sale, the 1,500 bottles of Hardening Potions sold out in an instant, and 9 million credits were immediately credited to Jian Xingyi’s account.

It seems supply still can’t keep up with demand…

Jian Xingyi was a bit troubled.

He still needed more fields to grow snow lotus.

In addition to snow lotus, Jian Xingyi, as always, listed food items and fulfilled guild orders, earning 25 million.

But besides these, Jian Xingyi had a new food item this time.

—His loaches were finally ready for harvest!!

The chat was stunned.

【Wow, Xinghe seems to have listed new food again!】

【Huh?? Loaches???】

【Goodness… how could it be loaches! That’s so weird, but… it smells so good! Isn’t this just a budget version of seafood…?】

With the addition of loaches and more meat, Jian Xingyi’s earnings jumped from 25 million to 27 million. Add to that 100 million from vines and 9 million from potions… Jian Xingyi earned a total of 140 million.

Meanwhile, Heiye and the others were also working hard to sell weapons and upgrade materials to earn dawn coins. Everyone kept chopping down trees and hunting zombies. As of now, the supplies for “Long Live for A Hundred Years” are:

370 million / 750 million dawn coins

591,000 / 750,000 wood

46,000 / 150,000 zombie kills

The battle situation is looking quite good.

After tending to the fields, Jian Xingyi hopped onto Shanhai’s motorcycle… and off they went!

The group rode their motorcycles through the lava-spewing volcano to reach the Fire God’s Belly, gathering wood in the forest as they ventured deeper and deeper.

“Eeek—”

Just as the group reached the depths of the Fire God’s Belly, Jian Xingyi noticed… they were once again surrounded by three Dodo beasts.

Sitting in front of Shanhai’s motorcycle, Jian Xingyi swallowed hard and asked, “Is this… the same as what we encountered last time?”

Shanhai: “…Maybe.”

Oh boy.

History repeating itself?

Shanhai raised an eyebrow and chuckled, “Hold on tight—we’re heading straight underground.”

—The Air Wall was located underground, right where they’d encountered the volcanic eruption earlier.

“Huh??”

Shanhai addressed the team: “We’ll find a way to draw their aggro, lure the Dodo beasts away, and head straight down. You guys keep gathering resources here.”

—But how exactly were they going to draw their aggro?

Just as Shanhai was about to pull out an item, the three Dodo beasts suddenly let out furious roars… and charged toward them.

As if they held a blood feud against them.

Jian Xingyi: “……”

Alright, just as I thought—it’s exactly the same as last time.

They still remember us even after the reset.