When Qiao Xin regained consciousness, she was still lying on the floor of the cabin. She now understood that she was inside a spatial dimension, not that she had actually transmigrated.
This was a space crafted by an ancient, powerful master for his beloved, housed within a jade bracelet that Qiao Xin had accidentally activated. It was filled with cultivation techniques, medicinal pills, treasures, weapons, and armor. Unfortunately, because Qiao Xin was merely an ordinary person, she could only access the space’s initial state. The treasures of the immortal cultivation world were beyond her reach—she couldn’t even see them, as they were automatically cordoned off by the space’s restrictions. Perhaps one day they would be revealed, or perhaps never.
Isn’t this just bullying an honest person? she thought. If a cultivator got this, it would be a supreme treasure, a resource hoard rivaling a great sect. But for me? It’s just a portable storage unit for farming and stockpiling. Hmph, talk about unequal treatment!
But then she reconsidered. Forget it. Being able to obtain this jade bracelet at all is a stroke of incredible luck. I shouldn’t be greedy. Besides, for someone like me, this space is an absolute godsend for home, travel, and—if I really am going to transmigrate—the ultimate survival tool.
Ever since she had bonded with the space, she had been plagued by an urgent, restless feeling. Combined with the dreams she’d been having, she felt strongly that she was on the brink of crossing over to another world.
Her intuition told her that time was running out. She stepped out of the cabin to explore. Of the two other rooms, one was meant for everyday items—though it was currently completely empty. The other was an infinite warehouse; anything placed inside would be automatically sorted, kept fresh, and protected by isolation arrays that prevented scents from mingling.
Behind the houses lay a wall of thick, impassable mist. Directly in front, however, was the patch of black soil she had seen upon arrival. There were ten acres in total. Crops planted here grew at an accelerated rate, depending on their natural cycle; for instance, fast-growing leafy greens could likely be harvested in just three to five days.
Furthermore, once a crop reached maturity, it would stay at its peak freshness for ten days. If the owner still hadn’t harvested it after that time, it would continue to grow until it produced seeds. After seeding, it would remain in that state for another ten days, and if still untouched, the seeds would drop, triggering a new growth cycle.
For medicinal herbs and spiritual plants, one month in the space was equivalent to a year in the outside world, while ordinary plants grew even faster. In short, the space was perfectly suited for all kinds of flora, and consuming the produce would have the added benefit of improving one’s physical health.
The stream flowing at the foot of the mountain looked ordinary, and in truth, it really was—just plain water used for irrigation. However, after being nourished by the spiritual energy of the space for thousands of years, the water was not only sweet and refreshing, but long-term consumption would slowly refine and strengthen a person’s constitution.
As for the rolling mountain range in the distance, Qiao Xin experimented and found she could only access the two hills closest to the stream; the others were off-limits. According to the information from the jade slip, those inaccessible mountains contained spiritual veins, and the plants growing there were rich with spiritual energy unsuitable for an ordinary person to consume, so the space had automatically restricted access.
How frustrating, she grumbled.
However, the barrier only blocked her physical presence; it didn’t obstruct the flow of spiritual energy. If it did, the space would lose the energy required to maintain its arrays and would effectively become a dead, hollow storage box. This worked in Qiao Xin’s favor: as long as she was inside the space, her body was constantly being nourished by spiritual energy, which would undoubtedly lead to many benefits over time.
She observed the plants on the accessible hills. Though they were ordinary, they were bursting with vitality; even the wild grass looked lush and tender. In the future, she could raise livestock on the hills and plant plenty of fruit trees. With the produce and animals raised in space, even minor illnesses would be a thing of the past.
She tried using her mind to control the soil—plowing, planting, watering—and it worked perfectly. The only issue was that it was incredibly taxing on her mental energy. She could only perform five actions at a time. Five actions for a field this big? Are you kidding me?
She would have to practice to see if her mental capacity would grow. Otherwise, wanting to eat rice grown in space would mean having to do all the manual labor herself, which was a pretty miserable prospect.
I’d better hurry up and transmigrate, and let Lin Qing do the heavy lifting. He’s more durable, anyway. Yes, that’s the perfect plan.
After staying in the space for so long, the heavy, stifling gloom that had been weighing on her chest for days seemed to dissipate, leaving her feeling physically and mentally refreshed.
With a single thought, she appeared back on her living room sofa. She raised her right wrist—the jade bracelet was gone, leaving only a faint white mark that was invisible unless one looked very closely. It had fully bonded with her, becoming one with her body.
She lit up her phone screen: June 20th, 2:35 PM. She had arrived home around 1:40 PM, spent twenty minutes showering, and sat down just after 2:00 PM. Although she didn’t know exactly how long she had been unconscious in the space, she was certain it had been longer than an hour.
If her guess was correct, the flow of time inside the space was significantly faster than in the outside world. Qiao Xin was thrilled; this meant she effectively had much more time than everyone else.
After a moment’s thought, she pulled out the phone Lin Qing used to use and synced its time to the exact second with her own. Holding her own phone, she silently whispered, “Enter.” Instantly, she was back in the space, this time without any of the initial dizziness or nausea.
She waited for ten minutes before flashing back out. She hurriedly checked Lin Qing’s phone—only three minutes had passed in the outside world. Fantastic, she thought. I’ll never complain about the space being stingy again. This is a total, certified cheating device.
Suppressing her excitement, she channeled that restless, urgent impulse to “do something” into immediate action.
She opened her laptop to draft a detailed plan. Since she was headed to an ancient world, and the scenes she’d glimpsed in her dreams were so barren, it had to be a year of disaster. Even without reading novels, she knew exactly what that meant. Both she and Lin Qing had experienced hardship; the hunger and reverence for food were carved into their very bones. They knew exactly what it felt like to starve. Now that she had the space, she was going to stockpile everything.
Food came first. She didn’t need an excess of any one thing, but the variety had to be complete—especially seeds. Once the space became self-sufficient after a transition period, they would eat exclusively from its harvests.
She needed to stockpile a massive amount of seasonings, toiletries, and cleaning supplies—enough to last them a lifetime. Perhaps there would be children in the future; the two of them had always been very relaxed about that. If a child came, they would welcome them; if not, they would simply lean on each other for the rest of their days. They were both orphans with no family estate to pass down, and having struggled to make ends meet themselves, they hadn’t wanted to bring a child into a life of suffering. That was why they had been using contraception throughout their marriage.
After years together, they felt that a life without anyone else intervening was truly wonderful—being good only to themselves, good only to each other, with no need to divert their energy to care for anyone else.
But if a child did decide to join their small family, they would be happy to welcome them. So, she decided to stock up on some infant supplies, just in case.
Clothing, shoes, socks, bedding, kitchenware, hardware, lighting, transportation gear, fuel—she had listed five full pages before she was finally finished.
Tomorrow morning, she decided to head to the largest wholesale market in C-City.