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Chapter 353: Chapter 353: Only a Door Apart

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"These are the apartments assigned to you, Liuli, and Miss Honglian." The secretary opened the door for them, then handed over the keys with both hands; her respectful attitude was completely different from before.

"The room is registered under Honglian’s name, right?" Chen Xuan confirmed.

"Yes, that can be verified on the ID card."

"Thanks."

"You’re welcome, please have a good rest."

Before Sasha left she didn’t forget to lower her head in salute to him.

It felt a bit too high‑profile. Chen Xuan let out a soft sigh and turned his head, only to find that aside from Liuli, the others were all looking at him as if he were some kind of monster.

"Uh... that machine probably isn’t very accurate." He coughed twice. "In terms of talent alone, I should be inferior to all of you."

"Liar." Little Pigeon immediately pouted.

"Too much modesty is just arrogance." Even Honglian chimed in. "Anyone can see that 999 is the upper limit of the machine, not your upper limit."

"Chen, I’ve long since seen that you’re no ordinary man." Wang Baihu hooked an arm around his shoulder. "When you make it big, don’t you dare forget me!"

"Can I have your autograph?" Jiang Siqi asked expectantly.

"..." Chen Xuan was speechless.

In the end he decided to change the subject. "Let’s check out the rooms first."

The high‑grade housing lived up to its name: they were given two suites of the same layout, each with three bedrooms, one living room, and one bathroom, just without any furniture. Considering this was a room inside a shelter, that size was already downright "luxurious."

According to the secretary, there were only 50 such refurbished units in the Sha River Station.

The lack of beds and chairs wasn’t a big deal; they’d brought tents, thermal sleeping bags, and other camping gear anyway—setting up camp in a room was better than pitching it outside.

More importantly...it met all the criteria of "rented housing": it had a roof, four walls, and a door.

Chen Xuan had insisted on registering one of the units under Honglian’s name precisely so this would become Honglian’s "latest residence."

And as it turned out, his idea worked perfectly—after teleporting himself back into the shop, he opened Room 206, which belonged to Honglian, and the back door was indeed already connected directly to the shelter suite. From the others’ perspective, it was like a door had appeared out of thin air on the bedroom wall.

But for this kind of unbelievable phenomenon, they’d already seen it before; its impact was far less shocking than his 999 rating.

Now as long as he kept the back door open, Chen Xuan could stay connected to the shop’s network.

Up to this point, they finally had a stable foothold in the future.

But this also stirred a faint unease in his heart.

Why was Lin Qing’s room still connected to that run‑down apartment building? Jiang City had been like this for almost ten years; did she really not have a new place of her own in all that time?

How was her life now...what kind of days was she living?

"We can’t send the people here back to the past, can we?" Honglian’s question suddenly came from behind him.

Chen Xuan turned to see her casually closing the door. For the moment, this cramped bedroom contained only the two of them.

He immediately realized what she truly meant.

Just by walking through that door...people could leave this ruined city behind and go to a human heaven. In 2026, the Authority’s power had yet to emerge, the Evangelical Association was still unknown, the nanobot crisis had not yet broken out—people didn’t have to worry about food and clothing, and could enjoy the comforts of modern civilization.

The number of evacuees in the entire Sha River Station was at most a few thousand. With the resources Chen Xuan currently controlled, feeding these few thousand would be no challenge at all.

All they needed to do was walk through a door.

Once they passed through, it would be salvation.

Yet that was absolutely impossible.

"Yeah." He answered with certainty. "This is their era. They have to stay here if the future is really going to change."

If he sent these refugees to the past and one of them happened to be a key figure, it could push the future in an even worse direction. Or if they altered history in the past, there was a chance they would all vanish, just like Lin Qing.

Besides, the Sha River Shelter contained only a small portion of the survivors; there were still many human enclaves across the Earth. It was impossible for him to relocate everyone to the past or to other worlds.

Honglian nodded, her eyes lowered, looking somewhat dejected, but she didn’t say anything more.

Clearly, she understood how grave the issue was.

"Bang bang!" Someone knocked on the door, and then Little Pigeon poked her head in. "Brother Xuan! Sister Honglian! You’ve got visitors!"

When the two of them came into the living room, they saw that the "visitor" she mentioned was Zhuang Yu.

With the heavy protective suit taken off, her slight figure was fully revealed; she was almost the same height as Little Pigeon.

The seams at the joints of her arms made it clear that this body had undergone quite extensive augmentation.

"Congratulations on getting housing... and high‑grade housing at that!" Zhuang Yu clapped with a grin. "This is something many people chase for their whole lives!"

Her cheerful expression made Chen Xuan chuckle. "Is it really that big of a deal?"

"Of course! Think about it...we can never leave Jiang City in our entire lives, so what else can we pursue? A spacious place to live, someone you like, and having a kid, right?" Zhuang Yu’s eyes sparkled. "You guys cleared the first step so easily; it’s just too enviable!"

"Thanks. How’s your partner’s injury?"

"He’s undergoing treatment—basically fine, he’ll be fully recovered in at most a week." As she spoke, she took a few cards from her pocket and handed them out. "These are your ID cards, I brought them for you. The leader even gave me half a month off so I can show you around and help you get used to things here."

"Yeah? That’s great." Chen Xuan took a card and examined it carefully in his hand—it was about the same size as a 21st‑century ID card, with a metal frame and backing and a small LCD screen embedded in the center, so light it was almost weightless. When he ran his fingers over the screen, it lit up automatically. From the function menu, it was somewhat like a personal terminal.

A phone as thin as a coin had been more of a stunt in the last century, yet in a 22nd‑century shelter it had become reality.

"Your Credit Points are already stored on there; the number in the upper‑right corner is your balance. You can use it to buy basic supplies or to trade privately with other people," Zhuang Yu explained. "Like hiring residents who are good with their hands to make furniture for you, decorate your rooms and so on...about a thousand points should cover everything."

Chen Xuan glanced at the upper‑right corner of the card.

The number shown was 99,900.

And Honglian’s was 19,800.

Roughly the ability score times one hundred in bonus points.

He even deliberately checked Liuli’s card; she’d been given 1,000 Credit Points as well—presumably the base was giving her that much for his sake.

"How many points for a pack of instant noodles?" Wang Baihu asked.

"Three." She replied.

"So that’s about the same purchasing power as money?"

"Exactly!" Zhuang Yu nodded. "We set it up this way to match what everyone’s used to. But the rarer the resource, the higher the price. On the other hand, hiring people to work for you is relatively cheap."

Chen Xuan didn’t think much of this preferential treatment; since he could exchange supplies for Credit Points, his balance was essentially inexhaustible. After all, his main line of work was running a shop.

"Why is there a vault storing gold in a subway station?" He voiced the question that everyone was puzzled about.

"Oh, that... I heard it was a supporting measure for wartime risk management." Zhuang Yu thought for a moment. "Once the war ended, gold could be used as a hard currency. Nobody expected a Sky Patrol to show up and turn Jiang City into a city you can only enter but never leave, so that stuff’s just sitting there now. It’s not like we can just throw it away, right?"

"Fair point." Chen Xuan nodded. "What about your leader? Is he some exceptional figure? Or is the position of leader hereditary?"

To be honest, in every aspect Du Pingzhang hadn’t given him the aura that someone in power ought to have.

"Hereditary? How would that work?" Zhuang Yu couldn’t help laughing. "This base has been operating for not even ten years; no one’s even thought about how to replace the leader yet. As for why Mr. Du became the first leader... it’s because he was the stationmaster of Sha River Station before all this!"

"Just the stationmaster?" Honglian was quite surprised as well.

She had assumed that in chaotic times, anyone who became a leader would have to be a strong‑armed figure with real capabilities.

"All we wanted was to survive, and Mr. Du is very fair in dealing with people and knows the subway station inside out, so we voted for him to be the leader." Zhuang Yu waved a hand. "Ah, this stuff isn’t really important; what matters is having a full stomach every day... It’s almost mealtime now, so let me take you to the cafeteria for a look!"