Jing Shu exercised while closing her eyes, her body going through the familiar motions of a simple stretching routine as her consciousness entered the Cube Space. She picked out the seeds she'd need for making pickled and preserved vegetables before the apocalypse arrived, the varieties that stored well, and began planting them in the six dark soil fields.
The fields in the Cube Space required no seedlings, watering, or pollination. They were perfect, self-contained environments. Still, Jing Shu decided that when the time and space were right, she'd raise bees in the fields. Honey was good for beauty, skincare, and even face masks, a luxury she remembered from another life.
After some careful thought, Jing Shu made her arrangements, allocating the precious soil like a general deploying troops. She planted twelve square meters with red chili peppers. With the Spirit Spring's support, she could harvest a vibrant crop every five to six days, continuously, a cycle of spicy abundance.
She planted six square meters with mustard stems, which would be ready in seven to eight days. Jing Shu's grandmother had been a master of pickling all kinds of vegetables and sauces, and the memory guided her choices.
Another six square meters went to cabbage, harvestable every five to six days. Dishes like spicy kimchi, crunchy pickled cabbage, and sour cabbage not only stored for ages but also were humble foods that wouldn't easily attract greedy attention in the desperate times of the apocalypse.
Three square meters were dedicated to white radish, ready in just five days. Pickled radish side dishes and preserved radish prepared this way could last one or two years easily, a reliable staple.
Two square meters were for spring bamboo shoots, harvestable every five to six days. Spicy pickled shoots and preserved bamboo shoots were a particular delicacy she had missed terribly.
Another two square meters were planted with yardlong beans, to be picked every seven to eight days. Sour pickled beans were the perfect, tangy companion to a bowl of plain instant noodles, elevating a simple meal.
Finally, two square meters were reserved for garlic, ready in six days. Sweet pickled garlic and preserved garlic cloves were dishes that Jing Shu could eat by the plateful. Anything grown in the Cube Space was guaranteed to be top quality, bursting with flavor. The garlic here would be different from the cheap, sometimes chemical-tasting stuff sold outside. And since she also planned to cultivate garlic sprouts later, she couldn't treat this planting carelessly.
Jing Shu scattered the seeds densely over the rich soil and covered them with a thin, even layer. In the Cube Space, there were no problems like poor nutrients or uneven sunlight. Every condition was ideal.
Back in the real world, things moved quickly on the sales front. On 58.com, Jing Shu's father, Jing Ba, had already received several serious calls and had arranged for a few potential buyers to view the shop the next day. He had even asked his boss for half a day off work to handle it.
Jing Shu didn't join the bustle. Though she had no money left, she couldn't afford to waste time either. She asked her parents for their medical insurance cards. Tomorrow she'd head to the large pharmaceutical wholesale center next to Wu City Tumor Hospital. The medicines there were not only cheap but also available in unlimited quantity, likely stocked to meet the massive, ongoing demand from the big hospital. In her previous life, Jing Shu had visited that wholesale center every six months to buy medicine for her aunts and uncles, so she knew the drill.
After the apocalypse began, insurance cards were quickly limited to only 100 yuan per day. Not long after, they couldn't be used at all. It was a pity that the tens of thousands of yuan left on Jing Shu's mother's card had gone to waste in that timeline. Jing Shu's father and her grandmother both had high blood pressure, and after the apocalypse, medicine was nearly impossible to find. Her grandparents had died in the very first year, a loss that had haunted her. This time, she refused to let the tragedy repeat.
Jing Shu also asked Jing Ba for the original architectural plans of the villa. She intended to revise the layout herself, planning secret storage and security features, so that when workers came to remodel, she wouldn't be caught unprepared and could direct them precisely.
After organizing her plans for the day, Jing Shu returned to her room, opened her laptop, and began the tedious but vital work of copying down information from Baidu: encyclopedic entries on survival, detailed offline maps of China, thousands of recipes for preserving food, practical medical knowledge. She also downloaded an app called "Library" that allowed offline access to a vast collection of texts.
While the computer downloaded and compiled data, Jing Shu studied a video tutorial on solving the 5x5 Rubik's Cube, her fingers moving over a physical model, beginning to practice the new, more complex algorithms.
The villa would be safe for the first two years of the apocalypse, she calculated, but later, as society fractured further, it wouldn't remain secure. Eventually, they'd have to flee with the larger groups. Right now, the Cube Space was still too small for everything they'd need. Jing Shu had to upgrade it quickly, and there were still so many things she needed to prepare.
…
Boom, boom, boom!
The sound jolted her awake the next morning. "Today's morning news," a broadcaster's voice announced from the living room TV.
The soymilk blender on the kitchen counter let out an irregular, grating rumbling, like distant shellfire. It mixed with the steady, rapid rhythm of her mother chopping vegetables on a board, the grumbling complaints of Jing Shu's mother about the messy kitchen, the defensive mutters of Jing Shu's father, and the steady broadcast of the national news from the television.
Same world, same mom. A morning without her venting her emotions or making enough noise to wake up the whole building just wouldn't feel normal.
"Ahhh! This is my first day after rebirth and I just want to sleep in!" Jing Shu mumbled into her pillow, tossing and turning in bed. In her previous life, before the apocalypse came, no matter how noisy it was outside she could sleep soundly, even mumbling answers to her mother's shouted questions about whether she wanted fried eggs or boiled ones.
After the apocalypse, Jing Shu had developed severe insomnia, her nerves worn raw. She was easily startled awake by any sound, terrified that the next moment might bring an earthquake, a flood, or a silent tide of corpses surging into their shelter.
With dark circles under her eyes, Jing Shu finally gave up and washed up. By the time she was dressed, Jing Shu's father and Jing Shu's mother had already left for work.
The soymilk was still steaming in the pot. Jing Shu stirred in a spoonful of sugar and drank it as she ate. An egg pancake wrapped around a greasy sausage disappeared into her stomach in a few bites, followed by a few mouthfuls of cool cucumber salad. She grabbed the last steamed sweet potato from the plate, bit into it skin and all, chewing until the sweet, soft flesh and the slightly chewy skin filled her mouth. Swallowing it down brought her an immense sense of satisfaction.
The soymilk was the finale. She drained the cup, its rich, beany fragrance and faint sweetness flowing from her tongue down her throat. The warm liquid spread through her body, leaving her comfortable and content from the inside out.
It was true what people said. Of all three meals, Jing Shu's mother made breakfast the best, precisely because it required almost no real culinary skill. Everything was half-prepared or ready-made. Just reheat and cook. Once she had money, Jing Shu would definitely stockpile mountains of frozen foods, the ultimate convenient breakfast.
After finishing breakfast and cleaning up, Jing Shu hailed a taxi straight to the pharmacy wholesale center. She also brought along her own unused credit card, which had a 40,000 yuan limit. It was time to use it.
The wholesale center wasn't huge, only slightly larger than a regular chain pharmacy. As soon as Jing Shu entered the cool, clinical air conditioning, a sales clerk carrying a basket immediately greeted her with a bright, professional smile.
"Hello, what do you need today?"
That look in her eyes, it was the knowing smile of someone who had spotted a big sale, of someone who saw money walking in the door.
"Hello, I'm here to buy medicine for my grandparents and some other relatives back in the countryside. It's hard for them to get to the city." Jing Shu spoke smoothly, handing over a small stack of documents. "Here are hospital prescription copies and ID photos for eleven people." Some medicines, especially controlled ones for chronic conditions, couldn't be purchased in bulk without proof.
The sales clerk's smile deepened, becoming genuinely helpful. "I see. This hypertension medicine here has government subsidies. You'll need to register each person for it."
"I want to buy a two-year supply for each of them at once," Jing Shu explained. "Otherwise, it's too troublesome to bring them medicine every few months. Can I pay for all of it using these insurance cards?" She laid the cards on the counter.
"No problem at all," the clerk said, her efficiency clear. "Just leave the cards with us. Our branch stores will rotate the swipes to maximize the coverage. Once we finish all the billing, we'll call you to come pick everything up." The clerk was clearly experienced in this, sparing Jing Shu the trouble of running around to multiple stores herself.
Jing Shu then showed the clerk the detailed list of medicines her grandmother and the others needed. Everything went smoothly after that. With eleven people to account for, and each one buying a two-year supply, the volume was massive, filling cart after cart.
With over 10,000 yuan still left on the insurance cards after the chronic medicines, Jing Shu moved on to other common, vital medicines: heat-relief pills, medical alcohol, saline solution for irrigation, cooling balms, herbal digestive water, Yunnan Baiyao powder. In the apocalypse, these could all save lives, prevent infection, or treat minor ailments that could otherwise become fatal.
When the clerk heard that Jing Shu wanted a whole, unopened box of cooling balm, her expression grew a little odd, a flicker of amusement and disbelief. She'd heard rumors that some young people liked to apply it to private areas for a stimulating sensation, but she wisely said nothing.
Leaving the cards and their PIN numbers behind with the trusted clerk, Jing Shu registered the rural relatives' information and paid an extra 200 yuan for delivery. Everything would be sent directly to her home in two days.
Once the delivery man left later that week, Jing Shu would stack the medicine boxes in the living room temporarily. She'd already come up with a reasonable excuse for buying so much medicine, tying it to her food influencer persona and claiming it was for a "charity drive for rural elderly." After checking off the medicines in her phone list, she glanced at the clock. It was only 11 a.m. Without wasting time, she headed out again, taking a taxi across the city to Wu City's main livestock breeding base.
Jing Shu urgently needed to raise some animals. Making dried meat and smoked meat was only a secondary reason. The real, urgent purpose was to run an experiment: she needed to test how much the Spirit Spring water could be diluted while still strengthening the human body, and to see whether drinking the Spirit Spring undiluted would accelerate aging.