The following night at 10 PM, Shen Hanyin’s arm had mostly stopped hurting.
She put on a hat and mask, wore an oversized outdoor jacket, and entered her space.
The next moment, she appeared inside the largest shopping mall nearby.
This time there was only a slight dizziness in her head.
Sitting on the floor, she closed her eyes and rested until the sensation faded.
When she opened them, darkness surrounded her.
She switched on a flashlight.
She had teleported directly to the fifth floor.
The area was filled with restaurants and food outlets.
She already had more food than she could eat, and her space could grow crops. There was no reason to compete with ordinary people for food supplies.
…
She descended to the fourth floor.
This level contained collectible toy stores, maternity and baby shops, children’s clothing stores, and family-oriented businesses.
Breaking a few display windows, she casually emptied several stores into her space.
She had no immediate use for the items, but they might be valuable for trading with wealthy survivors someday.
The third floor was men’s clothing.
Without bothering to sort anything, Shen Hanyin stored clothing together with the hangers:
T-shirts
Long-sleeved shirts
Coats
Down jackets
Thermal wear
Dress shirts
She swept through eight stores before moving down to the second floor.
The second floor sold women’s clothing.
Floodwater had already begun accumulating there.
Her space already contained enough clothes, but since she was here anyway, she looted a few stores.
After all, what woman would ever complain about having too many clothes?
…
The first floor housed jewelry stores, luxury watches, and accessories.
The entire level was underwater.
Shen Hanyin changed into her diving suit and strapped on an oxygen tank.
She collected merchandise from a few stores at random.
Luxury goods would probably be worthless in the future.
She wasn’t willing to waste too much oxygen on them.
After grabbing a modest amount, she stopped.
…
Returning to her space once more, she selected the coordinates of a nearby hardware store she had visited before.
The location was close to the mall.
This time she didn’t even need to break in.
She teleported directly inside.
The water was murky and visibility was poor.
Rather than searching item by item, she simply stored entire shelves.
The hardware store was large and had high ceilings.
The second floor remained dry.
The first floor was flooded and many metal tools would eventually rust.
Her priority was therefore the second floor and the warehouse upstairs.
After emptying two hardware stores, she moved on.
Next stop: a barbershop.
Again, she returned to her space and selected coordinates.
Inside the salon, she carefully searched through drawers and cabinets.
Finally, she found four professional tool kits.
All of them went into her space.
…
Then came the pharmacies.
Despite all the medicine she had already stockpiled, Shen Hanyin constantly worried that she had overlooked something important.
Most pharmacies had already been flooded.
However, the immersion time hadn’t been very long, and much of the inventory remained sealed inside plastic packaging.
Most of it was still usable.
Fortunately, when she had been stockpiling supplies months ago, she had visited every pharmacy along this street.
Now those earlier visits provided ready-made coordinates.
One by one, she looted eight pharmacies.
By the time she finished, she had used five oxygen tanks.
Only then did she finally feel satisfied.
…
After so many consecutive teleports, the dizziness returned.
She rested for a while and ate something.
Unable to think of anything else she urgently needed, she decided to simply explore the surrounding area.
Perhaps she’d stumble across something useful.
The current moved slowly.
Wearing her diving suit, she drifted past:
A luggage store. No.
A roast duck restaurant. No.
An electric bicycle shop. No.
A bank. Definitely no.
Then she reached a street corner.
A large sign emerged from the floodwater.
Haicheng Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Shen Hanyin’s eyes lit up.
A pleasant surprise.
…
She surfaced.
The water level had already reached the roof of the second floor.
Climbing onto the third floor, she took a cutting machine from her space and sliced through the anti-theft bars covering the windows.
Room by room, she searched.
Every vaccine refrigerator and medical freezer was immediately stored.
To prevent vaccine spoilage, the facility maintained backup power systems dedicated to refrigeration.
The refrigerators on the third and fourth floors remained fully operational.
Eight units in total.
She continued downward.
The refrigerators on the first and second floors had already been submerged.
Six units.
Even so, she collected them separately and marked them as potentially compromised.
The oxygen supply was nearly depleted.
Exhausted, Shen Hanyin returned to the third floor.
Still, today’s haul had been excellent.
…
Back inside her space, she discovered that the second floor of the storage building was now completely full.
After resting for an hour, she finally dared to teleport back to Guli No. 1.
The moment she entered her apartment, she collapsed onto the sofa.
Her head hurt.
She felt nauseous.
Everything spun.
Shen Suisui ran over immediately.
The cat was clearly happy to see her.
Then, sensing her discomfort, it began pacing anxiously around her, repeatedly rubbing its head against her face.
Shen Hanyin gently petted it.
“I’m fine.”
Roughly forty minutes later, her body finally returned to normal.
She checked the time.
7:00 AM.
Entering her space, she took a hot shower and went straight to bed.
…
When Shen Hanyin woke up again, it was already 6 PM.
Outside remained dark and oppressive.
The rain continued falling mercilessly.
At this point, most of the country had lost power.
Even though blackout curtains covered her windows, she only dared use two small emergency lights.
Caution never hurt.
Since the power and internet outage began nine days ago, Shen Hanyin had spent most of her time sleeping or recovering.
She had no information source.
No idea how everyone else was doing.
The disaster had already lasted half a month.
Not particularly long.
Families that cooked regularly should still have enough supplies to survive for another month.
…
December had arrived.
In previous years, temperatures hovered around 5°C.
This year, because of the relentless rain, temperatures had dropped much lower.
At this rate, the rain probably wouldn’t continue much longer.
She decided to wait until it stopped before venturing out again.
There was no one around to bother her anyway.
…
Her apartment had three separate security doors.
The elevator was no longer functional.
She knew people could theoretically enter through the elevator shaft, but she didn’t fully understand the structure and wasn’t willing to experiment.
Even if someone somehow reached her floor through the shaft, there was still her armored security door.
She had spent a fortune custom-ordering it.
No one would breach it quickly.
If necessary, she could always cut the elevator cables later.
…
So Shen Hanyin settled into a quiet routine.
She:
Read books.
Practiced calligraphy.
Watched television dramas.
Trained with her saber.
Practiced with her crossbow.
Trained Shen Suisui.
Whenever she had free time, she cleaned and organized flood-damaged goods inside her space.
The amount of loot she had collected was enormous.
The project was so massive that she couldn’t possibly finish organizing everything anytime soon.
…
Three days later, Shen Hanyin woke up and discovered the rain had finally stopped.
The thermometer showed -2°C.
After washing up inside her space and preparing cat food and canned food for Shen Suisui, she ate breakfast:
Soup dumplings
Soy milk
Boiled eggs
Although temperatures had dropped below freezing, the floodwater had not yet frozen.
The water level remained halfway up the third floor.
She wondered where the man from the third floor was now.
…
Since the rain had stopped, it was time to make an appearance outside and “search for food” like everyone else.
Taking out the electric hair clippers she had stolen from the salon, she adjusted them to a length of 12 millimeters.
She hesitated.
Struggled internally.
Then finally shaved her head.
This had always been the plan.
A woman living alone was inherently more vulnerable.
If she could successfully pass as a man, all the better.
…
She changed into men’s clothing.
Using foundation, she darkened her skin.
She thickened her eyebrows with makeup.
Then she added:
A knitted cap
A face mask
Gloves
Only her eyes and eyebrows remained visible.
The collar of her jacket was pulled up beneath her mouth, concealing her nonexistent Adam’s apple.
She inserted two additional three-centimeter height-increasing insoles into her shoes.
Examining herself in the mirror, she found her appearance difficult to classify as male or female.
Then she tested her voice.
Definitely male.
Perfect.
…
Shen Hanyin took out a simple inflatable rubber boat.
A manually paddled boat was inconvenient, but it was safer.
Motorized boats required gasoline.
Fuel purchases were tightly regulated in China.
She didn’t want to attract attention.
Everything she did was centered around one principle:
Stay low-profile.
An uninflated spare raft went into her backpack.
After the supermarket operation, she had learned her lesson about leaving tools behind.
This time she came prepared.
When needed, she could inflate it on the spot.
Finally, she grabbed a baseball bat and tucked half of it inside her sleeve.
Only then did she open the door and step outside.