However, things did not go as planned. The old master discovered the situation, and his attitude at the time was rather strange. He strongly insisted that Bai Ling carry the child to term, even promising that no matter how much of the family’s wealth remained, half of it would belong to this child.
Bai Ling was tempted. Although the Cheng family had donated away most of their fortune, even the small remainder was still an enormous sum. In the end, she agreed.
Everyone in the Cheng family was furious and demanded to know why the old master would do such a thing. He offered no explanation whatsoever, instead assigning dedicated staff to attend to Bai Ling, insisting that the child must be born safely.
With the old master’s protection, Cheng Junyi was born safely, but Bai Ling suffered a massive hemorrhage during childbirth. The old master did not order anyone to save her, and Bai Ling died.
After her birth, Cheng Junyi received all of the old master’s affection, while simultaneously earning the hatred of everyone else in the Cheng family.
This was also one of the reasons why everyone in the Cheng family abandoned the old master and her to flee the country illegally.
This memory—no, rather, all of this had been told to the original body by the old master later on. After all, the original body had not yet been born at the time, so it was impossible for her to have any memories of these events.
In the memory, the original body had asked the old master why he hadn’t saved her mother.
The old master merely replied indifferently: “She didn’t deserve it. She never wanted you from the start. She agreed later only because she was greedy, wanting the half of the family fortune I promised.”
The original body had never met her mother. From birth to age seventeen, she had lived with her grandfather. Moreover, she was cold by nature—even knowing that her grandfather had not saved her mother, she felt no resentment whatsoever.
The old master had passed away a week ago. The original body had been dealt a considerable blow by her grandfather’s death, and she had forced herself to stay strong to handle the funeral arrangements. Last night, she had gone to sleep and never woke up.
What woke up instead was Cheng Junyi from another world.
Based on her understanding, the original body was probably not dead—perhaps she had gone to another world, or more likely, they had swapped bodies with each other.
These were all just guesses, nothing certain. But no matter what had happened, Cheng Junyi had a clear conscience. She hadn’t deliberately taken over this body, and this world was clearly not as good as her own.
She felt quite wronged inside.
She slowly rose and headed toward the basement. Since she was going to the countryside, she would need to take all the valuables with her.
The basement was not where the valuables were stored. Beneath the basement lay another level—that was where the true treasures were kept.
Following the original body’s memories, she successfully entered the level where the valuables were stored.
Her eyes nearly blinded—there was only one type of treasure: gold, all in the form of gold bricks.
She couldn’t tell how large the underground space was, because after coming down, there was only enough room for two people to stand. Everywhere else was blocked by walls of gold bricks, stacked all the way to the ceiling with not a single gap.
She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling like it was hard to breathe. Not wanting to linger, she gently placed her fair, jade-like hand against the gold brick wall, and all the gold bricks were absorbed into the Spatial Dimension.
Once the space was cleared, she could finally see that the underground chamber was roughly twenty square meters with a ceiling height of three meters. However, a single chest remained on the floor. She knew what was inside.
In her memory, the old master had told the original body that the keys to all the treasures were in this chest.
Cheng Junyi collected the chest and left the basement, then returned to her room to sort through the cash and ration tickets on hand.
In this era, tickets and vouchers were extremely important.
She counted all the money and tickets—there was 6,732 yuan in cash, along with many vouchers. She set aside the ones nearing expiration, planning to use them tomorrow.
She didn’t plan to go out today. She would stay in the spatial dimension to cultivate. Although this body and this world weren’t suited for cultivation, with enough effort, reaching the second or third level of Qi Refining was still achievable.
With Qi Refining at the second or third level, surviving in this world shouldn’t be difficult.
After sorting out the money and tickets, she entered the spatial dimension.
This spatial dimension was something she had obtained by chance in a Secret Realm. It was a small world that integrated planting, breeding, and storage, covering an area of about five thousand mu.
Plants didn’t grow faster here, but she could control sowing and harvesting with her mind, which was quite convenient. Apart from the cleared living area and the hill, all other land had been cultivated for planting, while the hill was used for raising livestock.
Originally, everything planted was Spirit Plants. Though called Spirit Plants, they were the same species as those before the apocalypse—it was just that the world had undergone transformation, gaining Spiritual Qi, and the plants absorbed it as they grew.
Because the spatial dimension had limited Spiritual Qi, the grains, herbs, fruits, and vegetables grown here were only slightly better and healthier than ordinary ingredients.
This was what her parents had told her, since she had never tasted pre-apocalypse fruits.
The most useful part was the warehouse. It was a huge cave with infinite space inside, and stored items never spoiled no matter how long they were kept—truly convenient.
Since the spatial dimension only had a trace of Spiritual Qi, it wasn’t suitable for cultivation. She only planned to cultivate to the second or third level of Qi Refining, mainly because she feared that excessive Spiritual Qi consumption from cultivation might cause the spatial dimension to collapse.
Time was tight—there were only seven days until she went to the countryside. Within these seven days, she also needed to retrieve a treasure.
The treasure’s location wasn’t hard to find—it was in a small mountain fifty kilometers away. From her memory, the old man had said that a mechanism needed to be activated to open the treasure chamber. Though she didn’t know if the mechanism would be easy to operate, she needed to have some strength first, at least reaching Qi Induction.
Walking to an open area, she sat cross-legged and began cultivating.
With her memories of past cultivation, Qi Induction was easily achieved.
Cheng Junyi opened her eyes and checked the time—it was one in the morning.
Dawn was still far off. She went to take a bath, washing away the impurities that had emerged after Qi Induction, then headed to the warehouse to take stock of what she had stored before.
There weren’t many true treasures, because she had excellent cultivation aptitude and rarely needed heavenly materials or earthly treasures—all the good things she obtained, she had given to her parents.
What remained now were some Magic Treasures, Spirit Stones, and some food her mother had made.
There were quite a lot of Spirit Stones. She had once encountered a Spirit Vein and originally wanted to collect the entire vein into the spatial dimension, but it wasn’t possible. In the end, she could only secretly mine it with her parents for three years.
She kept a small portion here, while the majority was with her parents.
Even the small portion was a massive amount.
With these Spirit Stones, she should be able to raise her cultivation level a bit higher.
After checking the warehouse, she harvested the ripe fruits and vegetables in the spatial dimension, finishing at 4:30.
It was August now, and at 4:30 in the morning, the sky was already beginning to lighten.
The supply and marketing cooperative and the department store wouldn’t open until eight. Cheng Junyi decided to go out for a stroll to properly observe the outside environment.
She walked to the wardrobe and picked out a blue-and-white plaid dress to put on. Looking at the person in the mirror, she couldn’t help but admire—truly beautiful. Compared to her original appearance, this face was far more attractive.
Her large, phoenix-shaped eyes, cherry-like small mouth, fair skin, and glossy black hair were styled in the typical student cut of that era, though slightly longer than a true student hairstyle, falling to her neck.
At the entrance, she chose a pair of cream-white thick-heeled sandals, picked up a beige handbag, and stepped out the door.
Her outfit was simple and clean, paired with that face and hairstyle, making her a pure and beautiful woman, her temperament exuding tranquility and elegance.
Though dawn had not yet broken, there were already quite a few pedestrians on the road. Cheng Junyi wandered aimlessly.
Her attire clearly marked her as a young lady from a distinguished family, and passersby were curious—why would someone like her be strolling the streets so early?
And because she was so attractive, everyone who saw her couldn’t help but let their gaze follow her.