“The sky doesn’t look right…”
Qin Sang said this and shouted over to Fa Ge: “Fa Ge, gather everyone and head back to the village. Something’s wrong with the sky…”
Fa Ge also looked up at the sky—it was pitch black. If he hadn’t experienced it himself, he wouldn’t have believed that just a minute ago it had been cloudless and blazing with sunlight.
Seeing Fa Ge go off to help organize everyone, Qin Sang felt uneasy. She quickly called her parents. After that, she sent a message to Xu Lin.
Xu Lin had been working diligently at his job this whole time. Although his work didn’t involve direct combat, it was still very important.
The message was sent, and a reply came back quickly.
Qin Sang had just opened the message, without even reading it yet, when her phone received an official alert.
“Air humidity has spiked dramatically—real-time humidity has reached 99%…”
Reading this, Qin Sang suddenly realized the air had indeed become extremely damp. After months of scorching heat and blazing sun, the air had long since turned bone-dry. If the oceans hadn’t completely dried up yet, the humidity might have dropped to zero.
“Is it going to rain?”
Fa Ge came running over, out of breath, followed by the people he’d gathered. He was staring at his phone as he ran.
Qin Sang: “The authorities just issued a warning. It should be about right…”
As she spoke, Qin Sang looked up at the increasingly oppressive sky. The dark clouds seemed ready to press down on them. Such thick cloud cover had completely obscured even the spatial fissures.
Given the scale of it, this rain was certainly not going to be simple.
“Move it, now.” Qin Sang said, pulling several electric scooters out of her spatial storage.
“Hurry up—everyone get back to the village as fast as you can.”
It wasn’t just them. Others who had been out fighting also rushed home after receiving the official warning. Having been through so many disasters, everyone took official alerts very seriously.
——
“Boom… Boom…”
The thunder came abruptly, lightning splitting the heavy clouds to reveal the still-terrifying spatial fissures beneath. Wind began to pick up on the ground.
After months of sweltering heat, the sudden appearance of wind made several young people howl with joy.
But Qin Sang’s heart sank further. She shouted: “Full speed—hurry…”
The moment the words left her mouth, thunder seemed to explode right in their ears. Countless bolts of lightning filled the sky. The black clouds were already hanging unusually low. With the lightning added to it, the scene looked straight out of an apocalyptic movie.
What was even more unnerving was that just as they reached the village entrance, they ran straight into several interstellar insects.
Qin Sang cursed under her breath. Without hesitation, she summoned Little Gold to engage the enemy. Fa Ge and the others also called out their own spirit beast insects.
Another back-and-forth battle ensued.
Though they ultimately won, the earlier breeze had already turned into strong winds. And because of the months of high temperatures, the ground was bare, with exposed sand and dirt everywhere. The wind swept it all up, pelting their bodies and faces.
Hearing the young men behind her wincing and hissing, Qin Sang silently thanked herself for always wearing a helmet out of habit when killing insects. Still, the hand she had on the scooter was stung painfully by the flying grit. She had no choice but to channel her energy, forming a protective barrier over her body.
No one else knew how to do this. The young men didn’t notice anything. Only Fa Ge, having trained properly, sensed the change on Qin Sang’s side. He tried to imitate her method, and although he wasn’t entirely successful, he managed to get some effect.
Qin Sang ignored all that and kept racing home. She made it through the door just before the next rumble of thunder struck.
And the very next second after she stepped inside, thunderclaps erupted one after another, as if trying to shatter the entire planet.
Communications went down. Municipal power was cut.
Qin Sang’s house used solar power, but there was no sun now. Still, the panels had stored plenty of electricity, so life in her home wasn’t badly affected. But many households in the village had lost power.
That wasn’t even the worst part.
After the terrifying thunder subsided, the wind howled, sweeping all sorts of debris through the air. The balcony glass, which had already been replaced once, was smashed in several places by rocks carried in the gale.
Qin Sang: …
“Sang Sang, should we take shelter in the basement?”
Mother Qin looked at the scene outside that looked no different from the end of the world and couldn’t help speaking up.
Qin Sang shook her head. “I’m worried there might be heavy rain later. I don’t know if it’ll flood. Let’s stay here and keep watch. If anything happens, we can hide in the space…”
Mother Qin had been flustered for a moment. Hearing her daughter’s words, she slapped her forehead. With so much going on lately, they’d almost forgotten they could take shelter in the Roast Goose Space.
Father Qin, upon hearing his daughter’s words, immediately asked: “Quite a few villagers are hiding in basements—should we remind them?”
Qin Sang shook her head. “Fa Ge will talk to the village chief.”
On the way back, she’d already mentioned it to Fa Ge. Besides, the authorities would definitely be monitoring the rainfall.
Just as the family was discussing the coming storm, the downpour arrived directly.
It came as abruptly as the dark clouds had appeared. One moment the wind was howling, the next—rain was pouring down in sheets.
“Oh my god! It’s like the sky has been punched full of holes.”
Mother Qin gasped at the intensity of the rain outside.
Qin Sang was equally stunned. They were all in the living room, and the balcony had floor-to-ceiling glass windows, so they could see the sky directly. Though everything outside was pitch black, flashes of lightning illuminated the scene from time to time, revealing what looked like holes everywhere in the sky—and the rain was pouring down through those holes. The volume was staggering.
It was like someone taking a full basin of water and dumping it straight into an anthill.
The sheer impact of it was something no one who hadn’t seen it with their own eyes could truly understand.
“A lot of places are definitely going to flood.” Qin Sang sighed as she watched the scene outside.
She realized just how hard it was for humanity. One challenge after another kept coming. Each time they seemed to solve one crisis, before they could even catch their breath, the next disaster struck. It was as urgent as if a dog were chasing at their heels.
“When every pass is hard, you just cross them one by one. Don’t overthink it.” Suddenly, Father Qin’s calm and steady voice rang out.
Hearing this, Qin Sang nodded firmly.
They’d already survived an interstellar insect invasion—humanity should be able to make it through natural disasters too.
That was a good thought, but reality wasn’t so optimistic.
The heavy rain continued without end. By the time Qin Sang went to bed that night, it still hadn’t let up. The family decided to rest upstairs. Still, they kept their phones at maximum volume, afraid of missing any important news.
However, nothing came through that night. It wasn’t until the next morning that Qin Sang finally received a call from Xu Lin.
“Yesterday’s rainfall has already broken historical records. But because of the months of high temperatures, all the lakes, rivers, and reservoirs across the country had dried up. So for now, there’s no immediate flood crisis. But that’s only temporary—the Academy of Sciences has already calculated that if the rainfall keeps up at this terrifying rate, low-lying areas could become vast oceans within less than a month…”
Hearing this, Qin Sang wasn’t surprised in the least. She calmly began recalling the geography of Huashan City.
She’d studied the county chronicles in high school—Huashan City sat at a higher elevation than the surrounding cities. There was a mountain range called Huashan nearby, and their village was located on a small branch of that range, with relatively high terrain.
For now, they didn’t need to worry about leaving home.
Yes, according to Xu Lin’s information, it might not be long before people in low-lying areas would have to relocate.
Especially because, due to the earlier heat, many people had been living underground. If floods did come, those people would definitely need to evacuate ahead of time.
“It feels like the village is going to be in chaos again…”
Mother Qin sighed after hearing Xu Lin’s news.
Father Qin sighed as well.
But Qin Sang’s gaze shifted to the spatial fissures hidden behind the dark clouds. The last wave of interstellar insects had been mostly dealt with. Strangely, there had been no enraged roars from the insect race beyond the fissures.
Could it be that the interstellar insects were also afraid of thunder and heavy rain?
Qin Sang shook her head—it couldn’t be that simple. She had a feeling that this storm had come too abruptly, and that something was bound to happen.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the spatial fissures, there stretched a long passageway that seemed to have no end. Gathered within this passage were numerous interstellar insects of all shapes and sizes. They were waiting there eagerly, completely unbothered by the thunder and rain.
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