Chapter 281: Chapter 271: Approaching the Truth

This wasn’t a shopping mall like the ones Tang Mo was familiar with. Compared to the bustling street outside, this mall seemed exceptionally empty. Tang Mo scanned her surroundings but didn’t see a single person.

What was even stranger was that there were not only no customers, but also no salesclerks at any of the counters.

Tang Mo casually walked over to a fashion counter. It was only after she stepped inside that she realized, forget salesclerks, there weren’t even any clothes on display for sale.

In their place were enormous touch-screen LCDs, all displaying images of various fashion items.

Tang Mo casually tapped one with her finger, and an image of herself wearing that outfit appeared on the LCD screen.

"This advanced?"

’Such advanced technology... Tang Mo had indeed heard of it before, but back then, it was still just theoretical. She never expected it to have actually been realized in this parallel era.’

But the pretty clothes didn’t spark much interest in her. After all, having spent so long in an apocalyptic environment, what clothes you wore was no longer important.

Leaving the fashion counter, Tang Mo continued to wander around with Jingjing.

The empty mall felt a bit dull to Tang Mo, so after a little while, she went back out onto the street.

「Meanwhile, at the tunnel exit.」

"That girl has been down there for so long. How come there’s been no word from her?"

The group waiting at the tunnel entrance was getting antsy. Zhang Chao looked at Qin Fen and asked, since Qin Fen was the only one here who could contact Tang Mo. As for the others, they didn’t even know her name.

’Could it be that Qin Fen received some news and didn’t tell everyone?’

’After all, the fact that he followed them to a place like the Apocalypse Garbage Dump was already suspicious. Could it be that he also knew about the treasure here?’

Seeing the suspicion in Zhang Chao’s eyes, Qin Fen felt extremely annoyed. He was also anxiously waiting for news, after all.

’But after waiting this long, if nothing has happened to Tang Mo, then she most likely never intended to share any information she found down there with them.’

’Considering Tang Mo’s current position on the rankings, he had to admit that this was a strong possibility.’

’With that unknown treasure still down there, the longer Tang Mo stayed, the more likely she was to find it first.’

At this thought, Qin Fen finally lost his patience.

"Waiting around like this is not a solution. Let’s go down."

The sky was beginning to darken again, and another day was about to pass. No one wanted to waste it for nothing.

In the end, they had no other choice. The group reordered themselves: Zhang Chao’s men took the lead, Qin Fen and Wenqing were in the middle, and the recruited members brought up the rear. One by one, they jumped down into the tunnel.

Meanwhile, Tang Mo had been wandering the street for a long time.

"Momo, look! There’s a small sapling here."

Jingjing leaped out of Tang Mo’s backpack and excitedly ran toward a splash of green.

It was the first plant they had seen in this world.

Tang Mo went over as well, crouching down to carefully observe the little sapling.

It was a small Life that had forced its way up through a narrow, stone-paved path at the very edge of the road.

There was no telling where the seed had drifted from, or how long it had lain dormant here. But it had finally burst forth with vitality from the thin soil beneath the stones.

The sapling’s stem was slender, yet robust and strong, as if it had been accumulating Strength for a long time, finally carving out a place for itself between heaven and earth.

For some reason, in this world so full of modernization, the sight of this out-of-place splash of green moved her.

"Make way, make way."

Just as Tang Mo and Jingjing were admiring this little life form, a voice suddenly came from behind them. Several people in yellow work uniforms, wearing hats and gloves and holding shovels, shoved Tang Mo aside.

"What are you doing?"

Caught off guard, Tang Mo nearly fell to the ground. But she didn’t bother arguing about that; instead, her eyes were fixed on the shovels in their hands.

Their target was clear: the green sapling. They wanted to uproot it.

Seeing a shovel about to come down, Tang Mo snatched it away and stood in front of the sapling.

"It’s just growing by the roadside. Why do you want to pull it out?"

"It’ll grow into a tree later. Of course we have to clear it out ahead of time." The men, their shovel now gone, looked at Tang Mo in bewilderment.

"What’s wrong with a tree? Isn’t it good for it to grow? The streets are all bare right now. In the summer, people won’t even have a place for shade. And all the carbon dioxide from cars can’t be absorbed. Don’t you know how serious the environmental pollution is?"

Tang Mo had long been annoyed by this barren world, and now she finally had a chance to voice all her dissatisfaction.

However, the men in work uniforms just stared at Tang Mo as if she were insane.

"This is the age of high-tech new energy. There’s a Protective Shield above the city to keep the sun from directly hitting people’s skin. Cars have long been using new energy materials, so where would any carbon dioxide come from? Did you time-travel here from the last century or something? Who even uses old-fashioned words like that anymore?"

The men mocked Tang Mo, unknowingly hitting on the truth.

The sun was blocked by the Protective Shield, the polluting carbon dioxide was gone, and this world no longer needed trees.

While Tang Mo was still in a daze, the man in the lead reached down and yanked the sapling out of the ground. The Life, whose roots were shallow and had only just arrived in this world, was now held dangling in the man’s hand.

"Plant it back! Even if these plants are useless, people walking on the street still need scenery, not a cold, sterile world."

"Walking on the street? You think everyone is like you, running around outside instead of staying home and enjoying the conveniences of technology? Besides you, who else is on this street?"

???

’The man’s words startled Tang Mo. Was she going crazy, or was this man blind? Wasn’t this street bustling with people?’

She looked up and scanned the surrounding streets, only to see them as empty as the man had said.

It was as if all the people on the street had vanished the moment these men appeared.

The bizarre scene made Tang Mo suddenly feel uneasy.

"Just now, I saw some kids chasing and hitting a small dog. I couldn’t have been mistaken."

"That was just a 5D projection on the street. A dog? The state exterminated useless creatures like that decades ago."

Jingjing had jumped into Tang Mo’s backpack the moment the men appeared, so none of them had seen her.

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