Chapter 16: Dad, why don't you go pick some vegetables?

Every passing second was an agony, like a death row inmate waiting for the end.

Someone must have set an alarm, because the moment the clock struck 5:59 PM, the sound echoed through the entire building, startling everyone. In the ensuing panic, people scrambled for their phones, but the darkness swallowed the light from their screens. The moment their hands touched their devices, the ringing ceased, the tremors in the floor vanished, and a profound silence descended upon everything.

Just as she opened her mouth to speak, her head buzzed, and she sank into a deep, unconscious slumber.

Qin Xiaoyu kept her eyes wide open, waiting. The ticking of the mechanical clock passed six o'clock and continued for several minutes, yet she still had not fallen asleep. She raised her hand to look, but could see nothing at all. She clicked on a high-powered flashlight, but the beam flickered once and vanished, taking all sound with it. The mechanical clock seemed to have stopped; it emitted no sound, and even when she tapped her slippers against the bed frame, she heard nothing.

Shouldn't Earth have entered the black hole by now? Why was she still awake?

After waiting a while longer, she could no longer bear to lie still. She groped her way toward the balcony. The surroundings were pitch black and deathly silent; she could neither hear a sound nor see a glimmer of light. She opened her mouth to shout, but her voice seemed to be swallowed up, and she couldn't even hear herself.

They must be traveling through space, but why was she still conscious? Qin Xiaoyu was utterly bewildered, staring fixedly into the sky, trying to discern something.

Darkness breeds evil. In that moment, Qin Xiaoyu failed to notice the changes occurring in her own body. Roots began to sprout from her skin. As time passed, her limbs took on the appearance of gnarled roots, and tender buds emerged from the top of her head, sprouting into branches and leaves.

Suddenly, something collided with her leg. Qin Xiaoyu snapped out of her trance; the roots on her body instantly retracted, and the budding branches on her head vanished. She reached down to touch it and felt the head of a goose.

Qin Xiaoyu: "Why are you awake, too?"

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, so she patted the goose's head, trying to convey something through movement. Then she realized something was wrong—the goose's head felt heavy. She shook it.

Huh? Was it asleep?

She lifted one of its feet to check, but there was no reaction. It was truly unconscious.

Qin Xiaoyu: "..."

Perhaps it wasn't as she had thought. At the moment Earth crossed over, all living things fell into a deep sleep, but there must have been a slight time lag. She reached up to touch the back of her head—perhaps she was just superior, and thus fell asleep later? She waited a while longer, but instead of feeling sleepy, she felt increasingly energetic.

Should she go back to bed? With that thought, she grabbed the goose by the neck and dragged it along, groping her way back toward the room. As she walked slowly, a sudden pain struck the back of her head, and she collapsed.

*Thump!*

In her dream, Earth was constantly shuttling through the gloom. The atmosphere acted like a thick barrier, protecting everything within. In the darkness, countless blades seemed to be perpetually attacking this barrier, wearing it thinner and thinner. Just as it was about to break through the darkness, it was struck by an unimaginably powerful blade.

Earth was instantly split in two. One half fell onto a massive, green planet, while the other vanished into the vast sea of stars. The green planet was immense; to it, half of the Earth was like a fly landing on a watermelon—unobtrusive yet jarring. As if displeased, a dark cloud drifted over and rained for several days until the "fly" turned as green as the planet itself, at which point the rain stopped.

The planet easily accepted everything from Earth, except for the humans and animals. These excluded beings quickly perished in a war against the flora. Within a century, all animals were extinct. Without natural predators, the plants grew larger and larger over time, their roots digging deeper as they absorbed the planet’s star energy, growing ever more powerful. The stronger they became, the longer they lived, as if they possessed immortality.

Qin Xiaoyu followed a blood ginseng plant like a ghost, watching it act like a monster—instead of just rooting and absorbing star energy, it spent all day picking fights with other alien plants. If it won, it would dig out the crystals from the opponent; if it lost, it would run away, only to return and fight again once its wounds had healed.

This scene felt strangely familiar.

In a daze, she didn't know how many years had passed. The vegetation grew at an alarming rate, and the roots reaching into the planet's core had almost drained all its star energy, leaving the planet struggling to survive. Qin Xiaoyu stood with hands on her hips, sighing, "Is it all finally coming to an end?"

But just as the blood ginseng was about to be torn in two, time seemed to freeze. A profound silence fell. Then, as if an invisible hand had flickered, she saw time reverse. Rivers flowed backward, and the half-Earth flew back to merge with its other half before vanishing into a black hole.

She suddenly realized something was wrong: why was the blood ginseng still here, exactly as it was before the reversal, its wounds unchanged? It was standing there with its hands on its hips, in the exact same pose as her.

She suddenly remembered something: during the time reversal, everything else was as it should be, but her own figure had disappeared.

She suddenly slapped herself in the face.

*Hey, it doesn't hurt!*

It was definitely a dream; otherwise, she wouldn't be seeing such absurd things.

[Huh?]

A sound of surprise and confusion echoed in the air. Before Qin Xiaoyu could turn around to see what it was, something struck her on the head. At the same time, she saw the blood ginseng swatted away by an invisible hand, spinning rapidly toward the black hole, dragging her along with it.

She saw the date on Earth stop at June 1st, Friday, at exactly twelve o'clock noon.

As she fell from the sky and landed on her bed without resistance, time resumed its flow.

"Honk!"

A startled cry exploded in her ear. Qin Xiaoyu jerked her eyes open and sat bolt upright, reaching back to touch the nape of her neck.

*Oh, it's still round.*

She was fine; nothing had happened at all.

"My goodness, why is it raining so hard?"

"The sky is leaking!"

"Look over there! That Chinese hackberry tree has become a monster. It was dug up by the roots and even chopped down, yet it's sprouting new buds in the rain. Not just by the roots, but the upper part has grown too, and it's popping out new roots everywhere."

"It's really turning into a demon!"

The tree looked truly terrifying. Qin Bainian ran out into the rain, dragged the broken tree under the eaves, and chopped it into countless pieces with a knife. Only when he saw no signs of it growing further did he let out a sigh of relief.

Qin Xiaoyu poked her father and urged, "Dad, why don't you head out into the rain and pick some vegetables? If you don't pick them now, it'll be hard to get them once the rain stops."

Qin Baisong looked at the pouring rain outside, remembering how his older brother had looked, completely bewildered by the downpour, and had no desire to go out.

"The umbrella probably won't hold up. If you really want to go, I'll lend you a frying pan."