86: Chapter 87: The Gothic Child Successfully Smuggles Himself In, Earth Changes!

"Hum—!"

Space twisted, and light and shadows intertwined.

The crowd at Taichu Holy Land, the towering mountains, and that intoxicating spiritual energy were all pulled into countless rays of light in an instant, then vanished.

Replacing them was a familiar feeling of weightlessness, and...

"Thump!" The feeling of standing on solid ground.

[As I write this, I hope readers remember our domain, Taiwan Novel Website, it's great for entertainment and super smooth.]

Blue Star, Huaxia, Desert Base.

Yellow sand filled the sky, the air was dry, and the breeze, not exactly fresh, was mixed with the smell of diesel and metal.

"Back already?" Academician Li Zhenbang took off his glasses, wiped the sand off them, and looked at the familiar steel facilities around him, as well as the Five-Star Red Flag fluttering in the distance, feeling as if a lifetime had passed.

"We're back!" Old Yang excitedly patted the box behind him (filled with ten-thousand-year-old spiritual ginseng). His wrinkles were filled with sand, but his smile was brighter than the sun.

"We have returned with the hope of all humanity and the wings for the Dragon Kingdom to take flight!"

Inside the base, Lei Keming and countless staff members who had been waiting for a long time saw this massive team appear out of thin air and immediately erupted into deafening cheers.

"Welcome home!"

"Thank you for your hard work, heroes!"

Jiang Chen took a deep breath of the slightly dusty air. Although it didn't smell as good as the spiritual energy in the Taichu Realm, it made him feel incredibly grounded.

"It's still more comfortable to sleep in a bed at home. Although it's not as soft as a spirit stone bed, it feels secure."

Jiang Chen stretched, his joints popping. He immediately regained the dignity of a director and commanded:

"Quick! Move all these boxes into the warehouse! Handle them with care! Any single stone inside could buy all of Wall Street! Any single blade of grass could earn a Nobel Prize in Biology for a hundred years!"

The staff immediately got busy, with forklifts and cranes all working in full swing.

Just as Jiang Chen was preparing to find Lei Keming to report (mostly to show off the results and apply for a bonus), suddenly.

"Crack—" A crisp shattering sound came from the corner of the pile of supplies.

Jiang Chen's footsteps paused, his ears twitching.

"What was that sound?"

Academician Li Zhenbang was also stunned for a moment and turned to look in that direction.

"Could something fragile have broken? That shouldn't be, I packed it very securely; it was tied with a Dragon-Binding Rope."

Everyone looked at that corner.

There sat a huge, specially made alloy box originally used for holding holographic game cabin parts.

This box was extremely heavy; it almost crushed the hydraulic rod of the forklift during transport.

At this moment, the lid of the box was shaking violently, as if a wild beast were trapped inside.

"Bang!" A loud noise.

The heavy alloy lid flew straight into the sky, spun three times in the air, and finally slammed heavily onto the sandy ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Following that, a small, fair hand reached out from the box and gripped the edge.

Then, a small head with messy silver hair, wearing a black gothic dress, slowly poked out.

"Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey!"

Xue Youyou spat out the sand in her mouth, her heterochromatic red and black eyes looking around with disgust.

"So this is Blue Star?"

"Why is it all dirt? And the spiritual energy is so thin? It smells as bad as the armpit of the Old Ancestor that hasn't been washed for thousands of years! How can people live in a place like this?"

She jumped out of the box, brushed the dust off her dress, and then pulled out a dead Switch from her arms, looking very unhappy.

"Hey, Human Pet... oh no, brother."

Xue Youyou looked at Jiang Chen, who was petrified on the spot, and confidently held out her hand.

"I'm hungry. I was stifled in that box for half a day, and I'm almost starved flat. Where's the bubble tea here? I want full sugar, no ice, with boba! And that thing called fried chicken!"

The whole place went dead silent.

The thermos in Lei Keming's hand "clattered" to the ground and rolled to Xue Youyou's feet.

All the scientists widened their eyes, as if they had seen an alien.

Jiang Chen felt like his cerebral vessels were about to burst, his blood pressure instantly skyrocketing to 280.

"You... how are you here?!"

Jiang Chen pointed at Xue Youyou, his fingers trembling.

"I already said no people this time? How did you get through security?! Are you a stowaway?!"

"Security?" Xue Youyou tilted her head, innocently pulling a black piece of paper with a strange talisman stuck to it from under her dress.

"Oh, are you talking about that light gate in the Taichu Realm?"

"The Old Ancestor gave me this Turtle-Breathing Feigned Death Talisman. After sticking it on, my vital signs disappear, and I turn into an object. Look, I'm a box right now, not a person."

Xue Youyou looked triumphant, as if she had done something amazing.

"Then I just stuffed myself into this box. What? I am the spoils of war you personally won; is there a problem with bringing me back? Didn't you say you wanted to empty out the Blood Demon Sect? I am also property of the Blood Demon Sect!"

"Spoils... of war?" Lei Keming turned to look at Jiang Chen, his gaze extremely complex; it was the look one gives a human trafficker.

"Jiang Chen, does this count as cross-dimensional trafficking of a minor? Should we call the police?"

"I'm wronged! I'm even more wronged than Dou E!" Jiang Chen was on the verge of tears:

"She's three thousand years old! She's older than everyone here combined! And she's a Nascent Soul Stage Great Perfection devil! If she throws a tantrum, she could tear this base apart and play with it like building blocks!"

"Three thousand years old? A devil?" Lei Keming looked at the little loli in front of him who was less than 1.5 meters tall, clinging to Jiang Chen's thigh asking for bubble tea, and looked harmless, falling into deep contemplation.

"Forget it." Lei Keming sighed and rubbed his temples.

"What's done is done. As long as she doesn't eat people, we'll keep her. Let's get her a cup of bubble tea first, so she doesn't tear the base apart."

However. Before Jiang Chen could breathe a sigh of relief, rejoicing that he hadn't been arrested on the spot.

Lei Keming's expression suddenly changed, shifting from the previous shock to unprecedented gravity.

That expression was one Jiang Chen had only seen when the country was facing life-or-death survival.

He grabbed Jiang Chen and dragged him directly toward the big screen in the command center.

"Since you're back, there are some things you must know."

"What is it? So serious?" Jiang Chen's heart skipped a beat, "Is it that the funding didn't get approved?"

"It's ten thousand times worse than that." Lei Keming pressed the remote control.

The big screen lit up.

It wasn't good news, but rather shocking war reports and satellite surveillance images.

On the screen, in the Pacific Ocean, several huge warships with sci-fi designs, entirely pitch-black, and hovering fifty meters above the sea surface, were cruising wantonly.

The cannons of those warships were emitting a ghostly blue light.

And in a base in a certain East Asian island country, thousands of exoskeleton mechs, three meters tall, wielding laser swords and carrying thrusters, were marching in formation.

The rows of neat metallic luster were chilling.

"This is..." Jiang Chen's pupils contracted violently, and he gasped.

"This is the current military power of the Eagle Sauce and the Foot Basin Chicken."

Lei Keming's voice was low and oppressive, as if weighed down by a great mountain.

"Jiang Chen, in the few short months you were gone."

"Blue Star has changed."

"Their technology tree, for some reason, suddenly exploded. And this technology doesn't look like a product of Earth at all."