171: Chapter 171 The Stubborn Residents Who Experienced a Physical Leap

Gu Changan stood at the edge of the deep pit and waved at Zhao Tiezhu above.

"Old man, the first step to Immortal Ascension is fasting."

"You take your time checking in, I'll just watch from below and see if your Immortal Qi is enough to keep you full."

Zhao Tiezhu looked at the 20-meter-deep giant pit beneath his feet, his legs trembling uncontrollably.

The originally flat courtyard was long gone.

The entire homestead, along with that two-story building, was like a bonsai whose base had been hollowed out, hanging alone in mid-air.

Dozens of thick, temporary steel beams crossed each other, supporting the soil at the bottom of the small building.

A dark gold System shield tightly wrapped around the house, making this building, which should have collapsed, stand firm as if defying the laws of physics.

The other houses in Wang Family Village had long been razed to the ground.

On the empty construction site, this suspended small building appeared extremely absurd.

"You people are breaking the law! This is disregarding human life!" Zhao Tiezhu, sprawled on the balcony railing of the second floor, yelled at the top of his lungs.

Gu Changan didn't even look up at him.

He walked to the temporary command tent nearby, pulled over a folding chair, and sat down.

"Chen Xiaobei." Gu Changan called out.

"Here." Chen Xiaobei ran over, clutching a tablet.

"Clear the external environment for the old man." Gu Changan pointed at the black cables connecting the building to the sky.

Those were some old cable TV lines, spare fiber optics, and telephone wires.

Five minutes later, a police helicopter flew over the building with its searchlights on.

The powerful rotor wash blew Zhao Tiezhu around on the balcony, making it impossible for him to open his eyes.

Two Special Police descended from ropes into mid-air, holding one-meter-long insulated hydraulic cutters.

Snap. Snap.

The thick cables were cut clean, with sparks bursting from the cut ends.

The cables, having lost their tension, fell like dead snakes into the deep pit below.

Now, Zhao Tiezhu's home had truly become an isolated island cut off from the world.

No tap water, no AC power, no network signal. Even the last shred of hope for cable television had been severed.

Gu Changan even had people set up high-power frequency jammers around the construction site.

Cell phones were just bricks in this area.

Zhao Tiezhu ran back into the house.

It was pitch black in the living room.

He turned on his phone; the signal bars in the top right corner showed a red cross.

He couldn't even get through to call the police.

"Don't panic, I cannot panic." Zhao Tiezhu panted heavily, staring fixedly at the System panel in his vision.

A line of red warning text was flashing crazily on the panel.

[Environment has undergone severe physical displacement; current house is in a suspended state.]

[System judging... The overall structure of the house has not been damaged, and the host has not left the house range.]

[Check-in continues. Countdown to completion: 8 hours 25 minutes.]

Zhao Tiezhu let out a long breath.

As long as the check-in wasn't interrupted, it would be fine.

Once I become an Earth Immortal and obtain the Godhead, a single thought will be enough to bury all these people in this pit.

He groped his way to the kitchen in the dark and turned on the faucet.

The water pipe made a few hollow "gurgling" sounds, and there wasn't even a drop of water.

He wanted to boil some water to drink, but the gas stove clicked for a long time, and nothing came out except sparks.

The natural gas pipeline had long been cut by an excavator twenty meters underground.

Zhao Tiezhu swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva, rummaged through the cabinets, and found half a bottle of leftover mineral water and two packs of expired Master Kong instant noodles.

This would count as his final tribulation before Ascension.

Time reached the second half of the night.

The temperature at the construction site dropped.

The house, suspended twenty meters in the air, had no shelter, and the night wind whistled into the window cracks, making a sound like ghosts crying and wolves howling.

Zhao Tiezhu wrapped himself in a tattered quilt, curled up on the sofa, and shivered.

Just as he was drowsy and about to fall asleep, an extremely ear-piercing sound suddenly tore through the night sky.

Zzz—Buzz—!

It was the sharp noise of a heavy-duty electric drill hitting concrete, mixed with the harsh grinding sound of a metal cutter slicing through steel bars.

Zhao Tiezhu sat up abruptly and covered his ears.

This sound was ridiculously loud, shaking his heart so that it followed along with a wild thumping.

The glass windows buzzed from the sound waves.

He ran to the window to look down.

Gu Changan had people bring over four military-grade directional acoustic devices.

This equipment, originally used to disperse rioters, was now aimed squarely at the house in mid-air.

Not only that, but a circle of tall soundproof metal plates had been erected around the deep pit.

These plates were parabolic in shape, reflecting and focusing all the noise of the machinery below, blasting it directly at the isolated island in the sky.

"Old man, the night is long, I'm afraid you'll be bored alone."

Gu Changan's voice, holding a megaphone, pierced through the noise and came up.

"This heavy industrial symphony was specially ordered for you, to refresh your spirits."

Zhao Tiezhu cursed furiously, but he couldn't even hear his own voice.

The sound of drills, cutting, and wall-smashing played on a loop at maximum decibels.

It bored into his ears from three hundred and sixty degrees without any blind spots.

Zhao Tiezhu covered his head with the quilt and stuffed two wads of toilet paper into his ears, but it was useless.

That kind of low-frequency vibration traveled directly into his brain along his bones.

He paced around the room like a headless fly, his head aching as if it were about to explode.

His blood pressure soared, and his eyes were bloodshot.

This extreme psychological torture lasted until noon the next day.

The sun rose to the center of the sky.

The temperature began to rise.

Zhao Tiezhu was tortured until his eyes were sunken and his lips were cracked and peeling.

He had long finished that half bottle of water, and he couldn't even urinate.

He had eaten half of those two packs of expired instant noodles and choked until his eyes rolled back.

The System's countdown had only a few hours left.

The electric drill noise outside suddenly stopped.

The world fell into a brief dead silence.

Zhao Tiezhu collapsed on the floor, panting heavily, feeling as if his ears were full of hundreds of flies buzzing.

Before he could catch his breath, a rich aroma of meat wafted in through the window.

Cumin, chili powder, mixed with the charred fragrance of golden, crispy lamb fat dripping onto charcoal.

This scent drilled directly into Zhao Tiezhu's empty, shriveled stomach, causing a wave of crazy spasms.

He scrambled and lunged to the windowsill.

On the construction site below, a giant barbecue grill had been set up at some point.

A whole fat lamb, peeled clean, was being roasted over charcoal.

Golden grease sizzled out.

A chef in a white uniform was holding a brush, continuously brushing on secret sauce.

Gu Changan sat on the folding chair nearby, holding a freshly grilled lamb skewer, eating until his mouth was oily.

Chen Xiaobei brought over a huge industrial blower.

The large fan whirred, blowing the thick aroma rising from the grill, without missing a drop, straight toward the two-story building in mid-air.

The aroma was too overbearing.

For someone who had been hungry for a day and a night, having eaten only half a pack of expired instant noodles, this was simply the most lethal poison.

Tears instantly streamed down Zhao Tiezhu's face.

He swallowed saliva frantically, and his stomach made a huge gurgling sound, roaring like thunder.

"Gulp." Zhao Tiezhu watched the people below tearing into the roasted lamb leg, feeling like he was going crazy.

"You Gu bastard! You won't die a good death!" He sprawled on the railing, roaring desperately.

Gu Changan bit off a piece of lamb, looked up at him, and picked up the megaphone.

"Old Man Zhao, this lamb leg is cooked to perfection, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. If you come down now, I'll call the shots, this whole lamb belongs to you."

Zhao Tiezhu gritted his teeth hard, squeezing the railing until it creaked.

He glanced at the System panel.

[Countdown: 50 minutes.]

"I won't eat it! I'm about to become a living god, and I'll be able to eat any delicacy I want then!"

Zhao Tiezhu retreated abruptly back into the room, slammed the window shut, and covered his head with the quilt.

But in the face of absolute hunger, the quilt couldn't block the smell of roasted meat drifting in through the door cracks.

Time ticked away second by second.

These last few dozen minutes were longer than a century to Zhao Tiezhu.

Mentally exhausted, physically starved, his consciousness had already begun to blur.