The Tower's existence held immense significance for the entire Floating Continent; Yang Ying didn't know its specific function, but he felt intuitively that without the Tower, there would be no "Star in the Palm."

"Good or bad?" Yang Ying asked cautiously.

Bal took a deep breath and exclaimed loudly, "Congratulations, Master! Congratulations, Master, the change in the Tower appears to be a good thing!" (All expressions and actions simulated via mental transmission; please interpret similarly for all future occurrences.)

"Be more specific," Yang Ying demanded, his gaze fixed intently on the central air conditioning building.

"The light on the Tower's base has illuminated another one! And that's not all—the Continent's area has doubled!"

Bal's voice was brimming with suppressed excitement because this news was intrinsically linked to the future of the three races. The Continent's size was directly proportional to its resource capacity, meaning this expansion signaled the potential for larger populations for the three races.

For Yang Ying, this was the best news imaginable. Once the population cap was no longer a constraint, resources became the biggest limiting factor for the three races' development. If lighting a lamp on the Tower brought expansion, perhaps once all eighty-one lamps were lit, the Star in the Palm could develop into an unimpeded, supreme logistics hub. How many troops could it supply then? Planet-level? Galaxy-level? Perhaps even Universe-level?

"Why would the second lamp light up?"

The origin of the Star in the Palm was deeply mysterious; Yang Ying knew almost nothing about it, save that the possessed miraculous power.

Bal, naturally, launched into praise, "Of course, it was lit by your radiance, Master! Your light shines upon the entire Continent!"

Though it was flattery, Yang Ying gleaned an important hypothesis from it.

He bore the symbol on the back of his right hand, and the Tower's peak was also crowned with a , positioned precisely at the Continent's center, its light seemingly illuminating everything. All these connections pointed clearly to him. If the Tower underwent any anomaly, it was overwhelmingly likely to be related to him!

Yang Ying mused, "Bal, you can return now. If the third lamp lights up, you must notify me immediately!" Due to the scarcity of information, he could only postpone further investigation into this matter.

"As you command, infinitely radiant Master!"

Yang Ying continued observing from the window for several more minutes. No figures appeared in the central air conditioning building, nor were there any signs of enemies.

Seeing that the immediate danger had passed, he gradually relaxed, closed the window, and entered the villa's living room.

The living room was sumptuously decorated. The wine cabinet lining the wall displayed dozens of high-value bottles. Yang Ying recognized few of them, but he knew that the cumulative price of just the wines he could identify exceeded the lifetime earnings of the body's original owner!

Yang Ying settled onto the sofa and entered the meditative state of Shenyou (Spirit Roaming); he needed to confirm the Tower's anomaly himself.

Indeed, the Floating Continent's area had doubled. Surrounding the original landmass was a new ring of earth, and the mineral density in this newly added territory seemed comparable to the old one.

He descended beneath the Tower and saw that two lights were now illuminated on its lowest tier—the second one positioned to the left of the first.

Yang Ying considered the situation and summoned a CV, instructing it to use a flame cutter to ignite the third lamp. The attempt failed; no matter how high the flame's temperature, it could not ignite any of the Tower's lamps, forcing him to abandon the effort.

Returning to the real world, Yang Ying was not disheartened. He hadn't held much hope for such a shortcut anyway. Since the second lamp was lit, the third couldn't be far off. Now, the priority was celebrating the lighting of the second lamp and the doubling of the Continent's size.

He casually picked up a bottle of champagne from the cabinet, gripping the neck lightly, and shook it, watching the liquid swirl inside. He mused aloud, "The main component of wine is ethanol, which has a very low freezing point. High-proof liquor won't freeze even at minus forty or fifty degrees Celsius. These wines look magnificent. Presumably, the villa's owner won't live to drink them, and I can't remove my mask to enjoy them. Ultimately, these wines can only wait here for their fate. Wait... perhaps I can smuggle them to the Floating Continent."

No sooner said than done, he tried to absorb the champagne into his palm with a thought, but the result was disappointing; the champagne remained unchanged in his hand.

Yang Ying frowned. "That shouldn't be. When I summoned the CV, I could recall him simply by thinking about it. Why not the wine?"

It then struck Yang Ying that he had been wearing clothes during his Shenyou session, implying that anything physically on him could travel with him to the Floating Continent. He immediately initiated the Shenyou technique again, and sure enough, he brought the champagne along. He descended directly beside the Tower, set the bottle on the ground, and departed.

When he opened his eyes in the real world, the champagne was gone from his hand.

Just as he suspected! Yang Ying rejoiced and swept the entire wine cabinet inventory into the Floating Continent. As he reached for a bottle of red wine, he suddenly felt...

Something was wrong!

Champagne is wine, and wine is low-proof alcohol. None of the low-proof bottles in this cabinet had frozen!

Yang Ying suddenly realized the discrepancy he'd sensed earlier—the problem lay with the temperature!

The villa was permeated with signs of warmth. The thick ice coating the windows demonstrated a significant temperature differential between inside and out. Yang Ying's own temporary quarters had cooled down rapidly, accumulating only a thin layer of frost on the windows.

He checked the thermometer built into his mask; the digits showing the external temperature were displayed near his eye. The negative sign on the left was gone—the outside temperature had reached eighteen degrees Celsius, above freezing!

Yang Ying removed the mask he had worn for so long. Indeed, there was no sensation of cold inside the villa; clearly, the building's air conditioning system was operational.

This meant... could the people inside the villa still be alive?!

He immediately began a search of the residence.

The search led him to a game room on the second floor, where he found a girl unconscious on the floor, looking no older than eight or nine, with golden hair and features as delicate as a porcelain doll.

Yang Ying approached her and felt her heart still beating; she was alive, merely passed out.

In this city-wide deep-freeze catastrophe, this girl was the only living person Yang Ying had seen, the very first living person he had encountered since his transmigration. Everyone else was either frozen to death or torn to shreds.

Though the specifics remained murky, Yang Ying was now certain that the Ape-men were the culprits behind the disaster.

They had used some unknown method to induce widespread unconsciousness, followed by the failure of the central air conditioning, which caused countless people to freeze to death in their sleep. Those who could still walk the streets, like himself, were apparently being eliminated by specific individuals among the Ape-men.

The number of Ape-men assigned to elimination duty must have been small; otherwise, Yang Ying would have encountered reinforcements during the long chase. Although the centipede that appeared later was formidable, Yang Ying felt it was merely an appendage of the one Ape-man, akin to a mount or a pet. The connection between them was likely a form of psychic resonance.

As for the timing of the disaster, it must have been recent, as the external temperature was still slowly dropping, a descent that wouldn't halt until it reached minus one hundred and fifty degrees.

Yang Ying carried the girl to her bedroom and laid her on the bed. Her room was a place reminiscent of a fairy tale world; every surface that could hold something was covered in various cartoons (though the packaging for 26th-century cartoons looked slightly different, they were easily recognizable). The cabinet beside the bed was filled with figurines of fairy tale characters in various poses—like Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and The Little Mermaid—all exclusively female characters; not a single prince was present.

In the center of the dolls was a family portrait, with the villa as the backdrop. The photo showed three people in casual attire: a valiant man, a beautiful woman, and the child held between them, all laughing happily. Scrawled beneath the photo in wobbly handwriting were the words: Dad, Mom, and Windine.

The child's name was Windine.

Yang Ying stood by the bedside, looking down at her exquisite little face, and murmured, "I hope... you can survive this."

Windine lay on the bed, a contented smile on her face, perhaps experiencing a pleasant dream.

Yang Ying knew the child couldn't hear him, nor did he try to wake her. For both his sake and hers, it was best to let her sleep. Yang Ying couldn't operate in the city burdened by a dependent, and waking her wouldn't improve her situation—it would only generate additional memories of terror. Therefore, all Yang Ying could offer was a silent blessing that she might live through this calamity.

Then, he donned his mask again, left the villa, and rode his motorcycle toward the central air conditioning building.