"...Continuing from the previous chapter, the fire burned all day and all night, burning up all the people, cats, dogs, pigs, and all the junk in the house! You know what, Ah Ming is really happy now. He has been wanting to move into a bright and clean house for a long time..."

"Master, let's just stop here. I can walk the rest of the way by myself!"

"Okay, 6 points in total!"

Jiang Ling paid the fare, picked up her shoulder bag, followed the address on the terminal, lightly crossed the two parallel maglev tracks, and then slowly walked towards the No. 5 residential area of ​​the central station.

Since the five-year Earth orbit demilitarization plan ended, the various stations in the metropolitan area have prospered at a visible rate. Walking on the sidewalk, you can see all kinds of handicraft vendors everywhere.

Of course, handicrafts these days aren't the odds and ends of the past. They're usually off-specification items made based on personal interests and hobbies, like oddly shaped household appliances, laptops, foldable self-defense gear, car engines, and their accessories. These items usually have some value, but the site factories no longer produce them. Their holograms are everywhere on the internet, and the only difference is probably the ingenious ideas behind their creation.

The vendors gathered on this sidewalk were mostly dealing in hardware, and the air was filled with the smell of metal cutting fluid. If Jiang Ling remembered correctly, the site's management should have levied an air purification tax on them - what they sold was not even considered merchandise, and business regulations did not apply here.

These vendors were relatively quiet, sitting behind their stalls like shopkeepers. Jiang Ling hadn't noticed any of them making any noise during her walk. Internet reports suggested that loud hawking wasn't allowed in residential areas. The reality was that most of these vendors were neighbors, and no one wanted to break this established rule unless they wanted to leave the neighborhood.

She bought some inexpensive gifts along the way, then turned a corner and climbed the stairs to a row of suites. Her original plan was to go home before leaving for her new job, or to visit her adoptive parents in this world. Since she was going home, how could she go home empty-handed?

The central station was expanded after "that", but the main expansion was on the surface. The underground residential area has "six vertical and six horizontal" divisions, totaling 36 divisions. The strange couple was organized and arranged in suites 05 and 06 on the second floor of a building on row 06, street 16, area 05, which was considered a preferential treatment.

There is a warm current in the stairwell, which is probably the result of the indoor heat source in the circulating water network. The circulating equipment is installed on the roof. The used sewage will exchange heat with the air in the corridor during the pressurized climbing process from bottom to top, but fortunately there will not be any obvious changes in the room.

Jiang Ling once again checked the room number on the terminal screen, then politely knocked on the door. The door to the suite was quickly opened, but it was the one opposite the one she had knocked on.

Jiang Wenwen, sleepy, half-peeked her head through the crack in the door. Rubbing her eyes, she said to her in a slightly hoarse voice, "Huh? Why are you back so early today? Didn't you say you had a training class?"

"Ahem!" Jiang Ling turned around and coughed twice as a reminder.

"Hmm? Hmm!" Jiang Wenwen shuddered, her cheeks flushed. "You, you, you, you—why are you back? Were you fired?"

"How is that possible? I just came back to see you guys. Where did Mom go? What kind of training class did you say she opened?" Jiang Ling touched the doorknob and opened it a little. This cheap dad was wearing a green one-piece dinosaur pajamas and looked like he had just crawled out of bed.

"I think it's called the Shanghai Embroidery Club. Anyway, it's a place that teaches people how to knit sweaters."

"Handicraft? Yeah, I have an idea."

"What are you standing there for? Come in! Hey, what else did you bring? Is it the New Year's gifts from your company? What day is today?" Jiang Wenwen welcomed her "big daughter" home, reached out to take the paper bag she was carrying, and then took out two cardboard boxes with blue and purple bottles painted on them. "Isn't this the blue potato wine? You really understand me!"

"Ah? I bought it on the way. And today is August 1st, which is still a long way from the Chinese New Year!"

"Wait a minute, go sit on the sofa for a while. Your mom won't be back for another nine hours."

"This is......?"

"Oh, you mean that? They're all awards! I've won every video game competition the site has held in recent years, and now I'm planning to get into holographic online games. I heard that Xiaodong, who's in the other four rows, has been playing for a few months."

Jiang Ling sat on the sofa covered with game consoles, looking at the honor certificates hanging on the wall opposite her, feeling a little overwhelmed. To be honest, she really didn't know how her father's retirement life was going, but now she realized that she was overthinking it - she guessed that this guy was relying on his extraordinary nerve reflexes to bully ordinary people in the game area.

"You have a good hobby!" Jiang Ling complimented.

"No, no, after retirement, one has to find something to do! I'm not that great, hahaha!" Jiang Wenwen was probably really suffering from Alzheimer's. She didn't hear the sarcasm in Jiang Ling's words at all.

The two didn't chat for long before going their separate ways. Daddy went back to his doghouse to continue his endless game, while Jiang Ling began to make a token effort to tidy up the room, putting the scattered items back in their proper places. Actually, the suite wasn't filthy; the floor tiles bore the marks of regular sweeping. This was a masterpiece Daddy had won as a prize in a competition—a chubby, bucket-shaped, multi-functional household robot called "Xiao Ai."

"Xiao Ai" may have various appearances, but its core is most likely the open source subroutine that Lin Yi left to the Earth. It is not that complicated and has only a small amount of intelligence, including adaptive learning of tools to complete most simple repetitive tasks.

Relying on his better understanding of Lin Yi, Jiang Ling interacted with the robot several times, and then walked to the windowsill and stared blankly for a while.

There are many more neon lights outside than before, and some creative people have laid flexible screens on the exterior walls, which are now playing some carefully selected videos.

The current atmosphere of the central station is very similar to the cyber world she imagined, but most places have nothing to do with punk. The few years of life at the East China Sea Station made her understand that this world still has faith, at least people are still working towards the direction of everyone becoming a god.

She looked into the distance and saw a girl with dazzling blonde hair smiling at her.