The Last 299 Days of Humanity

Chapter 72 The Inescapable Airspace

Yu Qing was more worried about the residents of Yaoling. Many of their ideas were incomprehensible to him.

According to available information, there are almost no recognized laws in Yaoling. The only law is that no one's freedom in Yaoling may be violated.

The strange thing is that this absolute freedom can only be enjoyed within each resident's own exclusive territory, because any freedom outside one's own territory may infringe on the freedom of others.

In Yao Ling, even when shopping, you absolutely cannot go inside the shops; you must conduct business and make transactions outside. This is because the shops are truly private, exclusive property.

Unsuspecting passersby could be at anyone's mercy if they stepped inside, such as being imprisoned or simply killed.

Within the residents' private territory, everything he does is legal; you can't interfere with murder or arson.

There's a story about a child who wandered into his neighbor's house and was locked up and forced into child slavery, while his parents could only watch helplessly from outside. If you dared to go in and rescue him, you'd be in deep trouble yourself.

As for acquiring exclusive land, it's very easy. As long as you apply to become a resident of Yaoling, you can obtain a piece of land free of charge, with an area of ​​about 900 square meters.

It was precisely because of this exclusive territory that Yu Qing hesitated to go to Yaoling. He worried that if Dangui became unruly and was not properly supervised, she would be handed over to someone to be disposed of at will.

But now Angelica has persistent diarrhea, and if it drags on, it could really be life-threatening.

Going back to Jishui now seems too risky, so Yu Qing decided to take a compromise. He, Dang Gui, Yao Dan, and Fu Rong stayed outside after arriving at Yaoling, while Chang'e and the others went inside to prepare the medicine.

So they set off for Yaoling again. At the speed of the car, they would reach Yaoling in about an hour.

However, to their surprise, they flew for three whole hours without even seeing a glimpse of Yaoling.

Could the direction be wrong? Yao Dan repeatedly checked the flight direction and the location of Yaoling, but found no problems. Referring to the clouds in the sky and targets on the ground, he could determine that the flight speed was very fast, which also seemed correct. This was too strange.

Yu Qing realized there was something fishy going on. Flying like this would only waste their energy. But Dangui already looked exhausted; if they delayed any longer, she might lose her life.

Yu Qing asked Chang'e, "Do you know any ancient herbs that can cure angelica's diarrhea?"

Chang'e replied through the Lingxi necklace: "I only have some impressions. I have entered information on that topic before, but I have never put it into practice."

Even so, we still have to give it a try.

Yu Qing hurriedly ordered the carriage to land on a mudflat. Daji took Danggui off the carriage and quickly found water to wash her and change her into new clothes.

During this process, Danggui was extremely uncooperative, kicking and scratching. After finally managing to clean her up, she started having diarrhea.

Seeing that Danggui looked very unwell, Yu Qing urged Chang'e to quickly take Daji and Yan'er to find herbs to help with the emergency.

About an hour later, Chang'e and her companions finally returned carrying a bunch of different kinds of grass.

Yu Qing asked Chang'e in surprise, "Are you planning to stuff all these herbs into Dang Gui's belly? Do you think she's an old cow?" Chang'e scratched her head and said, "I can't help it. The records in the ancient books are full of contradictions. Zhang San says that houttuynia cordata can cure diarrhea, Li Si says that kudzu root works, and Wang Wu says that coptis chinensis..."

"You want to try everything, right?"

"That's the only way, after all, I'm not good at this."

Yu Qing said helplessly, "Then... let's give it a try. Anyway, not trying means certain death. Maybe we'll just stumble upon something by chance."

Getting Danggui to eat so much grass with Chang'e and the others was no easy task. Yu Qing had Daji repeatedly explain to her that it was to save her life, but she just kept her lips tightly pursed and wouldn't let go.

Yu Qing then threatened her, saying, "Then forget it, let's go and not worry about it. We're going to die soon anyway, so let's find a place to bury her first, so that wild animals won't come and gnaw her down to just a few bones when she's half-dead."

After Daji translated Yu Qing's words to her, she finally managed to open her lips a crack. Chang'e quickly stuffed some crushed houttuynia cordata or something similar into her mouth.

Seeing Dang Gui's pained expression, Yu Qing thought to himself, "Who knows what other problems she might encounter on this journey? I'm lucky so far, I haven't had any illnesses, perhaps because I've eaten the Immortal Flower. Otherwise, I might be suffering from all sorts of unknown and strange diseases."

After all, they have been isolated from the outside world for over a hundred years and have no immunity to many external diseases. Who knows how many hardships they will face living in this open environment on Earth in the future?

After Chang'e and the others had been working on it for most of the day, Dang Gui's symptoms seemed to have eased a bit, at least temporarily stabilized. Yu Qing could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

However, he quickly thought of the strange events of the day. They had flown about 1,500 kilometers today, yet they couldn't reach Yaoling, which was only about 500 kilometers away. What could have gone wrong? This question puzzled him greatly.

While Chang'e and the others were treating Danggui, he pulled Yaodan into the car to examine today's flight path, repeatedly confirming whether they had deviated from their course, and the answer was no. So, could it be that the distance in spacetime had been stretched by someone?
While it is true from a relativistic perspective that such a thing could happen when an object moves at a sufficiently high speed, today's speeds are hardly enough to alter the length of spacetime.

At this moment, Yao Dan suddenly remembered a report he had seen decades ago, which said:
"My lord, back then, some scientists successfully conducted several experiments on artificial black holes in a certain space. Although they were far from the real supermassive black holes in the universe, could we have fallen into such a sub-black hole space controlled by strong gravity?"

"Could this strong gravitational field alter spacetime?"

"That's right, time will slow down, and space will stretch out."

"Then another question arises: have we simply stumbled into such a space, or is someone creating this space to control us?"

"There's a strong chance someone is creating this space to secretly control us!"

"Who could it be? And what is his purpose?"

Yu Qing suddenly had a bad feeling. The people collecting water had discovered his little trick and were therefore going to teach them a lesson. If that was the case, they might be in big trouble again.

Thinking of this, his heart, which had just calmed down for a moment, started to pound again.

(End of this chapter)