Chapter Eight: She Vandalizes Public Property
674 Words
Awu didn’t know how to respond to her naïveté. “Fang Qing, this is a thousand years in the past. Are you planning to send a distress signal to aliens?”
“Then how am I supposed to get back?” Fang Qing plopped back down on the ground. She didn’t seem particularly worried. Maybe her mind was too open, or maybe she was just used to wandering around and stumbling into trouble. She wasn’t panicking or losing her mind.
“I don’t know. The program can’t figure it out,” Awu said, shaking its head. This was an unsolvable problem.
Fang Qing felt drained, her energy completely spent. Why did all the weird things happen to her? She ended up in a world a thousand years in the past with no way to return. Propping her face in her hands, she zoned out, lost in thought—or maybe just spacing out. That was one thing about her: she always kept a calm mindset. Rich or poor, it didn’t matter. In her world, everyone was an independent individual, used to living alone.
Suddenly, her eyes lit up as she stared at the soil beneath her feet.
“Wow! I’ve struck gold!” Her excited shout startled Awu so much that it almost fell over. If robots could sweat, Awu would be drenched in cold sweat by now.
Fang Qing grabbed a handful of soil, her smile so wide it almost disappeared into her face. “This is energy for my kitchen space! How much of this can I store? If I collect enough, I’ll have a lifetime supply! No more buying energy! I’ll save so much money. I can finally buy a smart functional robot. Maybe even one that can transform into a spaceship! My good days are just around the corner!”
“Come on, Awu, help me dig! Quick!” She kept scooping up soil and tossing it into her kitchen space. Awu stared at her, tempted to give her a swift kick. How could she be thinking about this right now? Didn’t she realize they might never get back home?
But Fang Qing wasn’t worried about that. Her mind was filled with visions of soil and free energy. In their world, this stuff was precious. Here, it was everywhere, free for the taking. Only a fool would pass up this opportunity.
Not everyone got the chance to visit Earth from a thousand years ago.
She kept digging, and before long, she had turned someone’s flower garden into a sizable pit. But it wasn’t enough. She mentally connected with her kitchen space and saw that, while the crops in her space looked slightly healthier, it still wasn’t sufficient. Her kitchen was a bottomless pit of energy consumption. But that was fine! There was plenty of free energy here, and she intended to take it all.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
A voice interrupted her thoughts. She spun around to see a woman in a thick winter coat standing behind her. The woman’s eyes swept over Fang Qing, taking in her exposed arms and legs, the dirt-stained hands, and the massive hole in the flower garden.
“You’re destroying public property, do you know that?” The woman—probably an auntie, given her age—looked angry. Who in their right mind dug holes in public gardens?
Fang Qing blinked. “Destroying public property? I thought the soil here was free.”
“This is a greenbelt! Don’t you know you’re not supposed to dig it up?”
Fang Qing shook her head. She genuinely didn’t know. In her world, there were no greenbelts. No soil, either.
“Get out. Now!” The auntie’s voice grew louder. One look at Fang Qing’s outfit convinced her this girl was trouble. Who else would wander around in the dead of winter with bare arms and legs?
“You’re coming with me to the police station.”
“Me?” Fang Qing pointed at herself, eyes wide with disbelief.
- Writer
