At first glance, Jing Shu looked like a coward, someone overly cautious about even the smallest risks. But who could blame her? She had already died once, feeling her life slip away in a cold, dark reality. After finally getting a second chance at life and gaining the Cube Space, she wasn't about to throw it all away on a whim. Now she really understood why people said the richer you are, the more afraid you become of dying. It wasn't just the wealth; it was the sheer weight of what she had to lose.
Weapons were non-negotiable for the upcoming journey. She had to bring everything she could carry: grenades, high explosives, pistols, and even a heavy-duty crossbow for silent kills.
That about covered the combat gear. She could always add more if she thought of something later while checking her inventories. As for food, she needed plenty of variety and volume. Sure, when no one was around she could secretly whip up something better from her hot-stash, but everyone already knew about her ridiculous appetite. She wasn't about to starve herself just to appear normal. High-calorie, protein-packed food that was easy to carry and slow to spoil all had to go into her travel stash.
She regretted not buying more treats before the apocalypse. Back then, she had bought a huge box of Snickers, thinking they were too sweet to eat often and would just serve as emergency treats during the end of the world. Now, barely two years in, she had nibbled away at them during late-night watches until only half a box was left. Forget it; she would just bring the rest along and savor every bite.
Compressed biscuits that felt like bricks, self-heating rice packs, naan, flatbreads, and dried veggies... all of it went onto the growing pile in the center of the room.
Everyday essentials were included too: tissues, sanitary pads, and plenty of spare underwear. Before she realized it, the pile looked like she was moving house. And that was without adding the seventy-plus kilos of battle armor she planned to wear, not to mention the stash she had secretly tucked into the Cube Space as her ultimate backup.
She worried for days about how to actually carry it all without looking like a pack mule, then she just let it be. There would be a way to manage it when the time came to board the transport.
Having lived once before through the grime and the hunger, she couldn't stomach the hardships of the apocalypse anymore. Especially not her. She demanded a standard of living others wouldn't even dream of in this dying world. Even when she went to America, she would make sure to eat well, stay warm, and live comfortably in whatever shelter she found.
"Last time Yang Yang went, he hauled so much stuff. There must be plenty of storage places on those specialized ships. If he could do it, bringing this much shouldn't be a problem for me. Worst case, I will compress and pack everything tight until it fits." She couldn't risk storing anything that left an official trail inside the Cube Space, lest someone wonder why her bags were empty while she lived like a queen.
Her preparations wrapped up soon enough. Since coming back from her Eldest Aunt's place in the countryside, she had been spinning like a top, busy from the moment she woke until she collapsed at night.
Most important of all, she wanted the Cube Space to level up before heading across the ocean. She cut her sleep down to a meager four hours a night and spent every spare moment practicing with the cube, her fingers moving in a blur of colored plastic.
After just ten days of this grueling schedule, she realized that using the Cube Space's illusions really did strengthen her ability, even if the progress felt painfully slow. Controlling two people at once was still a huge strain that made her vision swim, but the biggest improvement was that the roaring in her ears wasn't as agonizing as the first time. The frequency has shifted. She could even faintly hear the sounds of the villa again through the buzz.
People said the first time was always the worst, and it would get better afterward as the body adapted. Maybe her brain's development worked the same way, carving out new neural pathways to handle the data.
The rest of her time was split between her duties at the Medicinal Herb Association and tending to the ecosystems within her Cube Space. As vice president, her position was so cushy that even Zhou Bapi looked down on her for her apparent laziness.
If not for her past efforts getting Wu City into the preliminaries, she would have been kicked out of the association long ago. The retest was scheduled for next April or May, giving everyone half a year to grow their entries. So she had to clock in and plant rare herbs for the contest now and then to keep up appearances.
She also needed to diversify her storage. She couldn't bring all her stock to America. First, the Cube Space wasn't that big, and freeing up room meant she could haul back even more loot from the ruins of the West. If she failed to advance the space's size, making the trip would have been a wasted opportunity.
Second, she had learned a bitter lesson from her past life. Back then she had put all her eggs in one basket, and when she died, it all vanished with her. Not this time. No matter what happened, she would stash some things at home. If something happened to her in the States, her family would still have enough supplies to survive the next seven years comfortably.
After thinking it through, she buried the massive stone cones in the back mountain, freeing up twenty-five cubic meters of prime space.
Gasoline and diesel took up too much room in their smaller containers too, so she transferred them into two giant, reinforced water tanks. As for food and other supplies, she would move them into her portable inventory right before leaving, just to keep them fresh and organized. Her goal was simple: leave with an empty space, and return with a space bursting at the seams.
The checklist was long, but she crossed items off one by one with a black marker. Time slipped away so fast she barely noticed the days passing. She even caught herself thinking, "Just a few more days and this endless rain will finally stop."
And then, on one quiet morning, the drumming on the roof finally ceased.
Like always, she synced her mind with the cube, ate a hearty breakfast of steamed buns and eggs, then went out to the yard to feed the leeches, red nematodes, and pond fish.
But this time, no raindrops fell on her head. The air was heavy and still.
Jing Shu pushed open the front gate and stretched out her hand. Nothing. Not a single drop of water hit her palm. Xiao Dou paced nervously around the yard, the bald patches on its skin looking pink in the grey light. The bird let out a sharper, more haunting cry than usual, its head jerking from side to side. Lately, it's been like this every single day. At night, it would even sleep by her bed just to stay calm.
Her heart clenched with a sudden, sharp realization. She bolted back inside, her boots thudding on the floor, and pushed open the small room where Grandma Jing sat with a hot water bottle while Zijin worked on altering a pair of trousers.
"What day is it today?" Jing Shu asked, her voice breathless and tight.
Grandma Jing adjusted her reading glasses on the bridge of her nose and said calmly, "December thirty-first. New Year's Eve. What do you want to eat for the big dinner? I will make it for you."
"Shit!" Jing Shu slammed the door shut and rushed off toward the garage.
How could she have forgotten something this important?
She had been too busy, her mind consumed by the minutiae of travel and armor. Even though she had been counting down the days in her head for months, somewhere along the way she had messed up the tally. And now, here it was.
Today. The arrival of the first great earthquake.
She didn't know the exact time the ground would heave, but she remembered one key thing from her past life: in the third year, the epicenters were scattered across the map. That meant within the same city, multiple quakes would strike in different spots. Some areas would only shake lightly, while others would be torn apart as if the earth itself has flipped over.
That was why she has often heard those endless rolling booms at night in her memories. It was all the quakes hitting nearby districts!
In her past life, the Banana Community has endured hundreds of tremors, but the buildings never collapsed because they were built on solid foundations. There wasn't a major epicenter directly under it. Still, she remembered clearly that frequent quakes has caused part of the river levee to collapse, and whole sections of the community has vanished into the rising water.
And that wasn't even the worst of the disaster.
Because starting today, the floodwaters in Wu City's downtown would begin vanishing at a speed visible to the naked eye. People had no idea where the water went as it drained into the new fissures, but Jing Shu knew. That sudden disappearance was what triggered the deadly mudslides the following year.
She checked the digital watch on her wrist, muttering to herself, "I should still make it in time."