As Song Pinxuan and his party arrived at the F City base, Tang Li came to G City alone.
The G City shelter had long since collapsed.
After an earthquake, even if people remained in the shelter and did not leave, they would be unable to survive the extreme heat season if they were not crushed by the ruins.
When Tang Li arrived, it was already a ruin, devoid of any human presence.
Not just devoid of human presence.
It was eerily silent, with not even plants or animals in sight, as if it were a dead land.
Only the scorching sunlight shone on the cracked earth.
Tang Li squatted down, picked up a clump of soil, and rubbed it in her hand, instantly grinding it into fine sand.
A gentle breeze blew, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"The surface conditions have become this bad after only a year since the apocalypse began. We definitely have to go into the underground city, there's no other choice. But..."
Tang Li looked at the barrenness and muttered to herself.
Tang Li could figure out what that researcher could.
The F City base, with its abundant resources, would certainly attract people from other places with scarce resources.
Even the government, whose resources were gradually depleting, might set their sights on the F City base.
This was unavoidable, even if Tang Li could provide the elixir of immortality.
Tang Li would eventually have to enter the underground city, and the underground city was under government control. Tang Li could not afford to alienate the government.
However, asking her, or rather, the "universal merchant" who disguised her, to explain the source of these supplies would be impossible.
Furthermore, once she entered the underground city, she could not continue to produce supplies endlessly.
The entire underground city was under government control, and she had no way to explain the source of these supplies.
After all that had happened, Tang Li had no intention of revealing her replication space to anyone, including the government.
Because she knew that the government was not a monolithic entity.
There might be other secret organizations lurking within the government, similar to the Holy Light organization, or it might be divided into interest groups such as the Song, Xue, and You families.
If she revealed her replication space to the government, it would be equivalent to revealing it to all of them.
Moreover, Song Pinxuan, who had already revealed his "precognitive dreams," served as a cautionary tale.
Even if the government did not harm her, what about the interest groups behind them? What about these crazy individuals who acted recklessly in a fit of rage?
These people were not afraid of death, and the government could do nothing about them.
Today, they went into a frenzy due to the "Dragon Cult" rumors fabricated by the Holy Light organization and besieged Song Pinxuan, who had "precognitive dreams." Who knew if tomorrow they would besiege herself, "the owner of the replication space," due to other rumors?
This made Tang Li more resolute in her decision not to reveal her cheat.
Now, on the surface, Song Pinxuan could still fly out.
But in the underground city, if the entrance and exit were blocked, it would be difficult to escape even with wings.
As for letting the "universal merchant" disappear and stop providing supplies...
Although Tang Li did not mind living a low-key life as an ordinary person in the government's underground city and living out her life in peace.
After all, the points she had accumulated, as well as the supplies and energy accumulated in her space, were more than enough.
Even if she stopped earning points and collecting old items to expand her space, she could live the rest of her life without worrying about food and clothing.
Then Tang Li still had the same concerns as before.
If she lived in the government's underground city, when these insane people appeared, the government would not be able to do anything to them.
If she stopped replicating supplies from her space, people would receive fewer supplies, their living standards would be lower, and the probability of madness would be higher.
And if she survived in the government's underground city as an ordinary person, she would have weaker resistance when encountering such situations.
Although with her combat power, she could kill all of them.
But she had only heard of "the law does not punish the multitude," never "the law does not punish the individual."
In the government's underground city, if the crowd went mad and caused destruction, the government could not punish all of them. However, if she fought back against these insane people, the government could punish her.
In the apocalypse, she might not be able to withstand such punishment.
She almost forgot about the afterlife concerns she had before.
After the incident of eating corpses, Tang Li had considered cooperating with the government, allowing them to hand over the corpses to her for conversion into space energy, so that she could replicate food for people to eat, thus making the corpses disappear and providing people with enough food.
If she did not reveal her replication space, she could not cooperate with the government in this way.
And according to Song Pinxuan, in the previous life, the rules of the underground city were that after death, corpses would be used to raise rice worms.
If she lived in the government's underground city as an ordinary person, then after her death, her corpse would also be handled in this way.
Even, due to the mysterious substances in her body, it would be used for other purposes.
Tang Li's trip away from the F City base was also to think about what solutions could be found for these matters, and what her future should be.
As she pondered, she arrived in G City.