The sweet and tangy tomato broth had been filled with a huge handful of crisp, fresh lettuce and spinach. On the other side, shrimp paste and slices of fatty beef rolled and bobbed inside the bright red spicy broth.
Cheng Zhi held her bowl while biting on her chopsticks, staring fixedly at the pot as if she were afraid it would suddenly grow legs and run away.
“Waaah… five hundred years… this old Sun can finally eat hotpot again. I’m so touched!”
The words were a little exaggerated, but Xiao Feiran was genuinely close to tears. Before they died in their previous life, things had become so difficult that eating hotpot had truly become an impossible luxury.
Outside, the wind howled and rain poured relentlessly. Inside Dorm 806, the hotpot meal was lively and full of energy.
Perhaps they had prepared a little too much food, because after finishing the very last leaf of vegetable, all five girls slumped back into their chairs, stuffed beyond belief.
As someone who had once experienced eating dirt, Cheng Zhi stared at the remaining broth and rubbed her stomach.
“We need to eat more carefully. Don’t throw away the tomato broth. We can use it to cook noodles tomorrow at lunch.”
Chen Siyu, sitting nearby and equally stuffed, stretched on the open floor space beside them.
“Don’t throw out the spicy broth either. We can boil some meatballs in it tomorrow and that’s another meal.”
“Okay! Then I’ll put it away in the fridge. We’ll eat it one more time tomorrow before dumping it.”
Huang Yiyi nodded and carried the pot into the space.
The others also stood up and started cleaning the dishes.
The five girls quickly finished cleaning up and began washing up.
The wind and rain outside were truly violent. The bathroom door shook loudly from the impacts. If Cheng Zhi had not braced it with water filled buckets, there was a chance the door might have burst open halfway through bathing and left someone running around naked.
After finishing her shower, Cheng Zhi flashed back into the dorm through the glass door while drying her hair.
“Guys, maybe you should shower inside the space instead. The wind outside is insane. Feels like the water buckets aren’t going to hold the door much longer.”
The remaining four opened the door and felt the wind for themselves.
After a brief discussion, they unanimously decided to keep showering in the dorm.
After all, they still had no idea whether the space’s water and electricity supply were infinite. If there was a limit and they used everything up ahead of time, it would be a terrible loss.
The reasoning made sense, so Cheng Zhi did not argue further.
Returning to her seat, she still felt extremely full.
So she grabbed the yoga mat that had long since gathered dust in the corner and opened a women’s self defense tutorial video.
If anyone dared touch her in this life, she would beat them senseless.
No one would ever lay a finger on her again.
After Xiao Feiran and Chen Siyu finished washing up, they also had nothing to do and joined Cheng Zhi in training.
Meanwhile, Zheng Wan and Huang Yiyi were not idle either. The two gathered together and attempted to study medicine. They turned on online courses at 1.5x speed while their pens flew across notebooks.
Half an hour later, both groups simultaneously gave up and surrendered.
Xiao Feiran gasped heavily.
“I’m useless. I almost lost my life before the warmup exercises even finished.”
Huang Yiyi had completely lost hope and let out two bitter laughs.
“Thank god my college entrance score wasn’t high enough for medical school. Otherwise I wouldn’t need the apocalypse to kill me. Finals would’ve done the job first.”
Cheng Zhi finally caught her breath and scrambled up from the floor.
“Friends, I’m heading out. Next time for sure.”
She shut off her screen and climbed into bed.
Everyone else gradually followed and returned to their beds to loaf around.
Although they called it loafing around, no one was actually resting.
Cheng Zhi watched farming videos.
Across from her, Xiao Feiran browsed the campus second hand marketplace, still trying to find useful items.
Chen Siyu watched organization hacks, wanting to tidy up the supplies inside the space even more.
Zheng Wan asked her grandmother for advice on making pickled vegetables and dried foods.
Meanwhile, Huang Yiyi browsed all kinds of “Apocalypse Survival Guides” on Zhihu and even started taking notes.
Time passed quickly.
Before they knew it, it was already eleven o’clock.
Following the philosophy of sleeping early and waking early for good health, Dorm 806 turned out the lights early.
In the darkness, Cheng Zhi continued scrolling through news about typhoon closures, suspended businesses, and accident reports.
Eventually she turned off her phone and drifted into sleep.
The next morning around seven or eight, everyone gradually woke up.
Outside, the wind and rain still raged.
Dorm 806 no longer bothered crowding around the door to watch.
Still half asleep, Zheng Wan opened the cabinet door and entered the space to make breakfast.
But the moment she walked toward the balcony and saw the green sprouts in the vegetable field, she froze.
She slapped herself twice and widened her eyes with all her strength.
The green sprouts were still there.
This was not an illusion.
“What is this? Magical land? Seeds sprouting overnight? This makes absolutely no sense!”
Huang Yiyi adjusted her glasses, her emotions wildly excited.
Cheng Zhi squatted beside the soil and touched the tiny green sprouts. Her voice remained calm.
“Big sister, is it possible that the existence of this space already doesn’t make any sense?”
Meanwhile, Xiao Feiran and Chen Siyu were so happy they had already grabbed hands and started singing and dancing.
“Today is a good day~ Everything we wish for will come true~”
Zheng Wan carefully examined the crops and looked through the beginner gardening guides on her phone while calculating things on her tablet.
Only leafy vegetables had sprouted.
Normally, vegetables took around ten days to sprout, but in the space they had sprouted in only one day.
That meant time inside the space moved roughly ten times faster.
Huang Yiyi’s eyes immediately lit up.
Excitement practically overflowed from her voice.
“Doesn’t that mean we can harvest sweet potatoes in just one month?! We’re not going to starve to death!”
Still crouched beside the soil, Cheng Zhi did not look particularly excited.
Her tone remained calm.
“Harvesting would definitely be good, but let’s not forget we’re beginners. This is our first time growing vegetables. It’s easy for everything to die or end up with no harvest at all.”
Those words immediately pulled everyone back down from their excitement.
Xiao Feiran, who had been getting water to irrigate the crops, gently patted her roommates’ shoulders.
“Zhizhi’s right, but you don’t need to act like disaster’s already here. We stocked enough supplies to last three or four months easily. Calm down. Instead of worrying, we should hurry up and water things and spend more time figuring out how to grow stuff properly.”
Zheng Wan nodded in agreement.
“While we still have internet, I’ll ask my friends in the agriculture department and learn more.”
Suddenly Cheng Zhi remembered something and swallowed.
“Do you guys remember those sweet potatoes we dug up behind the sports field last semester? Those things grew wild and still turned out super sweet. I wonder if we can grow them.”
“…”
Zheng Wan’s hand froze right before pressing the call button.
“You guys dug up the sweet potatoes behind the sports field last semester?”
Chen Siyu nodded while tying up her hair.
“Yeah. During finals review week last semester, the four of us went for a walk at night and saw them, so we dug up five. You were at the library studying that night, but you ate some too. You forgot?”
“Friends… is there a possibility that those sweet potatoes weren’t wild? What if they were an agriculture student’s carefully cultivated final project?”
“…”
Silence.
Long, endless silence.
The four guilty parties froze completely.
Cheng Zhi still tried to struggle a little.
“We only dug up five. There’s no way they only grew five, right…? They probably didn’t fail the class… right?”
“Very unfortunately, exactly five grew. You dug up every single one. Failing the class was literally the only outcome.”
Zheng Wan felt her head buzzing.
She was too embarrassed to even call the victim now.
Huang Yiyi let out a long sigh, removed her glasses, and solemnly smacked her own forehead.
“What a sin, what a sin. As the saying goes, better to break up ten times than fail one class! At this point, we can’t do anything about it. Hurry and ask them how they grew them. If fate lets us meet again someday, we’ll grow sweet potatoes and pay them back.”
“The logic makes sense, but that saying definitely isn’t right.”
“I know what you want to say, but don’t.”
Huang Yiyi: “…Waaah, you guys are bullying me.”