The always joking and familiar Shang Jianyao didn't stand on ceremony at all. He raised his right hand and waved:

“Hey, where are your two friends?”

The other person was a Greytowner, so he didn't bother to switch languages.

The man with a black mole at the end of his right eyebrow turned his body to look at this guy and mumbled casually:

“Still in the restaurant, hiccup…”

As soon as he finished speaking, his eyes widened:

“It’s you, kid!

“Do you think I have Alzheimer’s? I was just tricked by you yesterday, and I’ve already forgotten you today?”

As he spoke, the man stepped forward and raised his fist.

Shang Jianyao was not angry but happy. He looked down at the other person.

At the same time, he bent his right arm, causing the clothes on his arm to be stretched out.

Compared to when he had just graduated from college, when he was relatively thin and didn't have much muscle, he had gained more than a little weight since joining the Old Task Force, and his strength had increased accordingly.

Looking at the other person's height and the clearly visible muscles under his clothes, the man with the black mole at the end of his eyebrow silently retracted his hand and started moving to the side while yelling, "I'm not going to argue with you."

Currently, he was alone. A wise man submits to circumstances!

Moreover, at this distance, even if he wanted to draw his gun, it was estimated that he wouldn't be faster than the other person's fist.

After watching the man walk away, Shang Jianyao raised his hand and rubbed his chin:

“Time hasn’t stopped, but the flow rate is inconsistent with reality.”

He hadn't entered this psychological shadow for many days, but only one night had passed here.

And after dawn, the chaotic and crazy state of most humans seemed to have disappeared.

After extracting the key points, Shang Jianyao touched his stomach and muttered to himself:

“Restaurant?”

He walked in the direction the man with the black mole on his eyebrow had come from, looking at the rooms on both sides as he walked.

After arriving at the end of the aisle, he saw a buffet restaurant. Many of the people who had chased him and intercepted him last night were holding plates and eating enthusiastically.

Shang Jianyao walked straight in, and no one checked whether he was qualified.

“Well, everyone on the ship must have bought a 'ticket' or be a staff member…” Shang Jianyao picked up the largest plate and carefully inspected what food was available.

The staple foods were mainly rice and oat porridge, with more water than substance.

Besides them, there were also boiled potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, and other coarse grains.

There were five dishes in total: braised taro, stir-fried wild vegetables, grilled fish, fried meat of unknown species, and braised fish chunks.

The portions of all five dishes were very generous, but two of them were fish, which inevitably gave people a feeling of living off the sea. Moreover, whether grilled or braised, they clearly lacked spices and seemed very rough.

“Since there aren’t that many seasonings, why not choose the simplest steamed fish? Could it be that these fish have been polluted and taste strange, requiring heavier cooking methods to suppress it?” Shang Jianyao looked at the grilled and braised fish chunks, which could no longer be restored to their original appearance, and rubbed his chin.

“It’s good enough to have something to eat. Why are you concerned about these things?” A cruise ship passenger next to him retorted.

“That’s right.” Shang Jianyao sincerely acknowledged his mistake.

Then, he scooped a large piece of grilled fish and two pieces of braised fish onto his plate.

——Inside Pangu Biology, there weren’t many opportunities to eat fish, so Shang Jianyao naturally wanted to try more.

He also put a lot of wild vegetables, taro, sweet potatoes, and potatoes on his plate and took a bowl of oat porridge.

Holding the full "midnight snack", he found a place to sit down and swallowed.

He first tasted the braised fish chunks. As he ate, his expression suddenly became strange.

“Cough, cough, um, um…” It felt like something had lodged in his throat, and he couldn't get it out no matter what.

He was choked by a fish bone!

Finally, Shang Jianyao couldn't bear it any longer and chose to return to reality.

His figure disappeared from the cruise ship buffet restaurant.

In the darkness, Shang Jianyao opened his eyes, sat up abruptly, bent over, and coughed several times in a row.

“What’s wrong?” Jiang Baimian asked with concern.

She casually turned on the desk lamp.

Shang Jianyao recovered and replied with a look of relief:

“Almost died!”

“Didn’t I tell you not to try too much and just confirm the current state of the cruise ship?” Jiang Baimian couldn't help but say, "What happened?"

Shang Jianyao cleared his throat again, confirming that nothing extra was there.

Then, he said truthfully:

“I choked on a fish bone!”

“…” Jiang Baimian subconsciously raised her hand, wanting to confirm that her biological cochlea was still there.

She had imagined many strange scenarios when she asked, but she still overestimated herself and underestimated Shang Jianyao.

Choking on a fish bone? What kind of operation was this?

Wasn't he exploring someone else's psychological shadow?

Could it be that the room's owner had been choked before?

“In detail.” Jiang Baimian gave up thinking and directly let Shang Jianyao tell her what exactly happened.

Shang Jianyao perked up and first recited all the dishes and staple foods in the cruise ship buffet restaurant.

Then, he said that he had discovered that the abnormality on the cruise ship had disappeared and that everyone had returned to their original appearance.

“So, you just started eating in the restaurant?” Jiang Baimian felt that this was indeed something Shang Jianyao could do.

Shang Jianyao replied with a serious face:

“You asked me to confirm the cruise ship’s condition, so I naturally had to measure the chefs’ skills.”

Jiang Baimian asked weakly:

“How are their skills?”

“It’s alright. Being able to do this well with bad ingredients and not many seasonings is pretty good. It’s just that the fish they chose had too many bones,” Shang Jianyao said with a regretful expression.

Jiang Baimian confirmed one thing from this:

This guy was really tasting the food.

She thought for a moment and brought the topic back on track:

“Each time you enter, it’s in a different state than before, alternating between normal and chaotic?”

“Possibly,” Shang Jianyao said, eager to try. “I’ll go in again later and take a look.”

“Don’t!” Jiang Baimian was really afraid that this guy would cause trouble again. “After exploring the Second Food Company, try it however you want on the way to Initial City.”

Speaking of this, Jiang Baimian became thoughtful:

“Each time you enter the cruise ship, time moves forward, and it’s quite erratic, going through cycles of day and night.

“If you keep going in and out, making time jump forward constantly, jumping to the day the room owner left the cruise ship, what changes will happen afterward? Will it return to the beginning, or will there be something else, or will you directly ‘clear the level’?”

Shang Jianyao clapped his hands:

“Your way of thinking has a lot of my style.”

I don’t think that’s a compliment… Jiang Baimian said silently.

“Anyway, we’ll try it out when the time comes. Sleep, sleep,” she urged Shang Jianyao and turned off the desk lamp with a snap.

The rational and calm Shang Jianyao chose to obey the order.

The next morning, the Old Task Force went out of the Iron Mountain entrance of the Underground Ark and got into their modified jeep.

“Let’s go!” It was Shang Jianyao’s turn to drive this time, and he was very excited.

From here to the Iron City ruins, there were mountain tunnels and highway bridges in the Old World that could lead directly there. However, many sections of the road had long been blocked, and there were mountain monsters who liked to throw stones down from high places. The relic hunters of today often chose to bypass this mountain range.

This time, Shang Jianyao and the Salvation Army’s Mind Corridor Awakened had tacitly asked the mountain monsters to “help” clear the blocked roads a few days ago, allowing them to reach their destination in just a few hours.

——The Salvation Army had contacted the people from United Industries through Mrs. Teresa. Taking advantage of the fact that the other party still had a week before they could arrive, they had already set off for the Iron City ruins, preparing to conduct an investigation every three to four days.

“Drive carefully. If you fall off the cliff, Old Ge can’t handle it,” Jiang Baimian reminded him.

“I’ll do it,” Bai Chen offered proactively.

Jiang Baimian shook her head:

“Let this guy expend more energy.

“I’m starting to miss his previous injured and depressed state.”

Shang Jianyao didn’t respond. He started the car while turning on the small speaker.

“You carry the load, I ride the horse,
Welcoming the sunrise and sending off the sunset…”

In the open-minded and unrestrained singing, the jeep drove to the other side of the mountain.

…………

Vigilance Church, first underground level.

Chogg, under the guise of visiting old friends, had made a request to the Underground Ark Management Committee to see Bai Chen and the others.

He was essentially there to proselytize.

In his opinion, after the miracle of the Old Task Force's gaze last night, who in the room would not believe in Yougu?

And those who believe in Yougu have three choices. Chogg certainly did not want this extraordinary team to join the other two denominations.

"Chairman Xue and the others have already left." Ulrich did not mention Jiang Baimian and the others' destination.

"Left?" Chogg was very shocked.

After witnessing such a miracle, they just left like that?

Are these people normal?

"Yes." Ulrich would not say more.

Chogg wanted to ask more questions, but was stopped by Archbishop Delro with a look.

Back in the hall of Vigilance Church, Chogg was about to speak when Delro had already said with emotion:

"They weren't scared away.

"Judging from their performance last night, it's not the first time they've encountered a miracle..."

"This..." Chogg couldn't say the rest of the words.

…………

Smooth all the way, interspersed with rests, a little after two o'clock in the afternoon, the Old Task Force arrived at the surrounding area of the Iron City ruins.

Because of the terrain, they could see the entire ruins from a high vantage point.

Unlike the ruins of Redstone Town and others, most of the buildings here had collapsed in the chaotic era and the human "sweeps" in the early New Era, as well as their own battles. Only a few still stood tenaciously.

Under the sunlight, they seemed like signposts in a quiet cemetery.