After making up her mind, Jiang Ning cleared the supplies on the cruise ship and used her consciousness to load all the containers salvaged from the seabed onto it. 

It was still early, so the three of them, along with their dog, sat down for a spicy hot pot meal. 

It was incredibly spicy—spicy enough to make them sweat all over. 

Yet, no one stopped; their appetites were unusually large. 

By the time they were done, they were soaked in sweat, but it felt like the weight on their hearts had lifted. 

“Home is where you feel at ease,” they thought, “time to start over.” 

Before they knew it, it was 7:30 in the evening. 2688 slowly surfaced and observed the sea through the periscope. 

At around 7:40, after making sure everything was safe and no one was watching, the submarine surfaced. Jiang Ning and Huo Yishen, both in diving suits, jumped into the water. 

After swimming to a safe distance, Jiang Ning took out the cruise ship from the space. 

As the cruise ship entered the sea, a huge wave hit them, pushing the two of them back. 

Huo Yishen grabbed Jiang Ning and avoid it. Once the waves subsided, they swam back to the submarine, and Doudou pulled them up with a rope. 

The submarine sank again, and they used the periscope to check out the ship from the safe distance.  

Around 8:00, bright searchlights started sweeping across the water. 

Jiang Ning stared at the images from the periscope. It was definitely a patrol boat from the base. She finally let out a sigh of relief. 

It was time to leave for good.  

“Captain, there’s an unidentified cruise ship ahead.” 

“Signal with lights to issue a warning.” 

“We’ve warned them three times already, but there’s no response.” 

“Approach while sounding the horn and investigate the situation.” 

As they kept getting closer, a closer look through binoculars revealed what appeared to be containers on the cruise ship. 

The size and appearance of the container were eerily familiar. 

“Captain, those look like our containers.” 

The base’s containers? There has been no mission outside recently, and even if there were, they wouldn’t be at night. 

After several warnings and attempts to communicate with them, there was still no movement on the cruise ship. 

The patrol soldiers prepared their guns and boarded the cruise ship carefully and swiftly with weapons in hand. 

“Reporting in: they are indeed the base’s containers, but there’s no one on board the cruise ship.” 

The captain was stunned and quickly board on the ship himself. 

He shone his flashlight over the containers, and when he saw the serial numbers on them, his eyes nearly popped out. 

How is this even possible!  

These batch of containers had already sunk to the bottom of the sea! 

There was even a meeting where they discussed whether they should try to salvage them, but they had to give up because the necessary salvage technology wasn’t available. 

But now, they just suddenly appeared on this cruise ship. 

This is not something that ordinary people can do. 

The cruise ship is spotless, it doesn’t look like one that’s been traveling the seas for years. 

How did it suddenly appear? Could it be that he was just dreaming?  

Without hesitation, the captain slapped himself three times, so hard that his face became swollen. 

His team tried to stop him, “Captain, don’t do this, don’t… Captain…” 

It hurts, it really hurts. 

This wasn’t a dream; this is indeed a cruise ship that appeared out of nowhere, carrying containers that had sunk to the bottom of the sea. 

This is the island-building tool that the base needs right now. 

People who grew up under the red flag, especially soldiers, don’t believe in ghosts or the supernatural. 

So the patrol boat turned on their searchlights and kept patrolling the dark sea surface, trying to find clues from it.  

The wind is strong, and the waves are rough. 

Other than that, there’s nothing. 

As for Jiang Ning’s submarine, it had already quietly gone down and left once they figured out it was the base’s patrol boat. 

Jiang Ning didn’t just return all the containers; she also gave back a bunch of medical equipment—ultrasound machines, CT scanners, defibrillators, and more. 

These were collected by Jiang Ning when they fled the southern military base before the land sank. They were supposed to be put into the fire seed box to benefit mankind after the natural disaster, but the asteroid hit the earth so suddenly that there was no time to save them. 

Up until now, more than thirty submarines of the same type have arrived at the military base from the south, yet only five fire seed boxes remain intact, while the rest have sunk to various corners of the world. 

After the disaster ends, it will be up to humans to dig and explore to find them. 

None of the five fire seed boxes contain medical supplies. 

So, Jiang Ning decided to give away a third of what she had left and leave the rest for Huacheng Base. 

She trusts that Teacher Ma and his team would put them to good use. 

Out of 3,000 submarines, only over thirty have arrived—where are the others? 

There are warships, aircraft carriers, and supply ships; it’s likely there are still many survivors who haven’t been found. 

Jiang Ning has no doubts about humanity’s survival instincts, especially with her fellow compatriots; they are skilled at self-rescue in times of disaster, rather than waiting for someone to save them. 

She believes that if there’s first Huacheng Base, there will be a second one as well. 

That’s why she didn’t give away all the medical equipment. 

But she hopes that the natural disaster will end here, that the base would succeed in creating land through island-building, and that one day, survivors could return to solid ground. 

Under the cover of darkness, 2688 quietly departed from Huacheng base, where they had lived for several months. 

Now, it had left the base perimeters, venturing once again into the endless ocean. 

The area around the base was filled with many watchful survivors. So 2688 did not waste any time and dived into the deep sea and left quickly. 

Whether it was because foreign survivors had limited survival equipment or because the deep sea was safer at night, 2688 traveled for hours without encountering danger.  

More than 200 nautical miles away from the base, the sky is beginning to brighten. 

The two of them suspended the submarine, washed up, and went back to their room to sleep. 

They wake up in the afternoon, and the three of them and the dog sit by the observation window, eating good food and enjoying the view of the deep sea. 

The three of them were relatively silent and did not talk much. 

The dog sat by the window, tilting its head and staring at its owner, as if wondering, “Why aren’t you leaving yet?” 

“Leaving? We can’t go back to the base anymore.” 

After finishing their meal, Doudou got up to clean up. 

Jiang Ning took out a hot cup of coffee, and Huo Yishen sipped it slowly. “Anning, do you have a place you’d like to go?” 

The Earth turned into a giant water ball, and even if there was a place she wanted to visit, it would have disappeared long ago. 

If she had a choice, she wanted to go back to Fengcheng, where she truly felt at home. 

Unfortunately, Fengcheng no longer exists. 

Jiang Ning thought for a moment. “Let’s just follow the current, wherever it takes us.” 

So 2688 followed the current and began to drift aimlessly. 

Doudou felt down for a couple of days but slowly became more energetic again. 

To avoid feeling stuck underwater, Jiang Ning decided they would spend half an hour in the space every day. 

Doudou, along with the dog, would pick cucumbers and vegetables from the garden, cut fruit, and sometimes take care of the herb garden. 

Twenty acres of land was enough for the two to have fun. 

While Jiang Ning and Huo Yishen, focused on gathering medicinal herbs, harvesting crops that were ready, and planting those that were not. 

Half an hour of work each day helped them both feel better physically and mentally.  

If the weather was nice on the surface; they’d come up for a bit of fresh air.  

However, the weather was getting colder and colder, and the sea breeze blew like a knife; even Coke was shivering with the cold, so they slowly gave up the idea of surfacing on the sea. 

Jiang Ning took out the constant temperature clothes and felt the eternal warmth again. 

The currents were kind of all over the place—sometimes going west, sometimes east, and even south. After floating around for half a month, it was easy to lose track. 

Eventually, the water started moving north. 

The temperature dropped day by day, from above freezing to below.  

On the latest day, it was already around minus ten degrees. 

Doudou asked curiously, “Sister-in-law, where do you think our submarine will end up?”