Ton after ton of rice, flour, grain, and cooking oil was stacked neatly inside the warehouse.
Standing among it all, Mo Fei felt as insignificant as a single grain of sand in the vast ocean.
She had a vague feeling that the amount of grain in front of her was far more than what ¥200,000 should have bought.
But the mountain of supplies before her was overwhelming. She was a chef, not a farmer, so she had no idea exactly how much extra there was.
Perhaps Luo Chao had thrown in a little more because she was his senior.
Thinking that, Mo Fei quickly got to work, moving the grain into her space one load at a time.
Meanwhile, inside the office building of Luo Grain and Oil Processing Factory, Luo Chao sat at his desk signing documents.
The calm and steady demeanour he wore now was completely different from the lively side he showed whenever he was with Mo Fei.
The sales manager, who was also one of his business partners, burst straight into the office. “Boss, grain prices have been rising lately. We were already selling to your senior at cost price, and I didn’t say a word about that. But then you secretly added another ¥100,000 worth of goods. Did she save your life or something? You can’t run a business at a loss like this.”
“The difference comes out of my account. You won’t lose a penny,” Luo Chao replied without even looking up, cutting off his friend’s endless complaints.
His friend looked utterly exasperated. “If you’re treating her so well, at least let her know! What era are we living in? Don’t go acting like some silent, self-sacrificing second male lead.”
“…”
Luo Chao was just about to fire back when his eyes suddenly froze.
He and his friend exchanged a glance, each seeing the exact same shock reflected in the other’s eyes.
The message his secretary had just forwarded contained the latest official emergency release of the Regulations on Grain Circulation Management.
[In order to ensure the stable operation of the grain market, market monitoring and early warning measures will be strengthened with immediate effect, while procurement conditions will be closely tracked.]
The government’s newly introduced policy not only restricted grain exports, but also imposed grain purchase limits on the people of Huaguo themselves. It was as though the authorities intended to centralize control over the country’s existing grain reserves.
Huaguo was one of Blue Star’s largest grain-producing nations. Once it prohibited grain exports, the international grain trade would effectively collapse. Global grain supply chains would be severed, and countless countries would inevitably face famine.
In the past several decades, Huaguo had never introduced such a policy.
Yet now that it had, it came without the slightest warning, swift and overwhelming.
There was no need to imagine how chaotic the international markets and public opinion must have become at this very moment.
After standing there in stunned silence for quite a while, his friend suddenly exclaimed, “Holy crap. Does your senior have some kind of insider information or what? She just bought all that grain, and then this happens? Think about it. She’s from Bai City, and right next to Bai City is Huang City, one of the biggest grain-producing cities in the south. But instead of buying there, she came all the way to Hei City. Was she afraid buying too much over there would attract attention? Here, nobody knows her except you, and there’s no way you’d covet such a small amount of grain.” He had unknowingly hit the nail right on the head.
After reading through the regulations once more, Luo Chao suddenly remembered what Mo Fei had said over dinner the previous day.
She had openly admitted that she kept having nightmares about natural disasters. In those dreams, the weather became hotter and hotter, so hot that crop yields plummeted and food rotted at an alarming rate. She said she was frightened, frightened that she would starve to death, and frightened that her family would starve as well.
If someone had one bad dream, or an occasional nightmare, it could simply be called a nightmare.
But if the same dream appeared over and over again, could it be a warning sent from above?
If it had been anyone else, they might have dismissed Mo Fei as another fanatic spreading and believing doomsday conspiracy theories.
But Luo Chao would not.
Instead, he took every single word Mo Fei said to heart and carefully considered it.
“Gather the senior management team for a meeting. I’m going out,” Luo Chao said as he rushed out the door.
His partner shouted after him, “Why don’t you ask your senior? Insider information…”
Mo Fei’s flight was scheduled for that evening. It was only two in the afternoon, so she should still be at the warehouse he had rented to her.
Completely focused on transferring grain into her space, Mo Fei had no idea what had happened at the grain processing factory, nor was she aware of Huaguo’s newly issued regulations.
As sack after sack of rice, flour, soybeans, and corn disappeared into her space, the 2,000 cubic meter storage area became so full that there was not a single bit of room left.
The only thing inside the entire 2,000 cubic meters that remained completely unaffected was the little stream flowing quietly across the ground.
The instant the space reached full capacity, the familiar voice sounded once more.
[Upgrade conditions have been met. Space upgrade commencing now. Estimated upgrade time: 30 minutes.]
Thirty minutes passed quickly, and the upgrade was complete.
Space Level: Level 4.
Storage Capacity: 20,000 cubic meters.
Basic Functions: Permanent preservation, temperature retention. Automatic categorisation by item type, multiple storage shelves. Soil and water source.
New Functions: Planting function activated. Livestock raising function activated.
The supplies that had previously packed the space to bursting now occupied only a tiny corner of it.
At the same time, the little stream that had originally been only one meter wide had become a small river. Several hundred meters away from the river, land had appeared.
It was genuine black soil, the most fertile black soil in the world, just like the farmland Mo Fei had seen during this trip to Hei City.
“Planting and livestock raising?” Mo Fei exclaimed in delight. She immediately fetched some corn seeds, planted them, and watered them using water from the river.
Mo Fei had originally expected things to work like they did in apocalypse novels, where crops planted inside a magical space would sprout as soon as they saw the light, break through the soil within minutes, and bear fruit within hours. But after waiting patiently again and again, the corn seeds still showed no signs of germinating.
Sure enough, not every miraculous thing would happen to her.
While laughing at herself, Mo Fei suddenly heard the sound of a vehicle stopping outside the warehouse entrance in the distance.
Under normal circumstances, given where she was inside the warehouse, she should never have been able to hear it.
Before she even had time to wonder whether her hearing had improved, she immediately left her space and reappeared beside the warehouse shelving.
Time flowed at half the speed inside the space. Although Mo Fei had spent an hour inside, only thirty minutes had passed in the outside world.
Following the voices coming from the warehouse entrance, Mo Fei walked over.
She had already recognized the voice.
It was Luo Chao.
She instinctively checked the time. She was flying back to Bai City today, and the two of them had arranged to have one last dinner together.
But there were still two hours before they were supposed to meet. Why had he rushed over to find her two hours early?
After opening the door, Mo Fei deliberately stood in the doorway, blocking Luo Chao’s view into the warehouse. After all, all he would see was an empty warehouse.
However, Luo Chao did not even glance inside. He simply looked at Mo Fei and said, “I think your dream might be real. I want to hear more about what happened in it.”
Mo Fei looked at the sweat-soaked Luo Chao in surprise, unable to describe how she felt.
As for her warnings, she had actually posted anonymously on several online forums before. Either the posts disappeared without attracting any attention, or they were deleted by moderators. Naturally, no one believed her. Even when she told Sister Hong from the fruit stall, the woman had simply laughed it off. The only ones who believed her without question were her own children.
Yet Luo Chao, whom she had not seen for eight years, had believed her.
But why hadn’t he believed her at first? Why had he changed his mind after only one day…
Very soon, Mo Fei saw the saved copy of the Regulations that Luo Chao had specifically kept.
Her heart immediately tightened.
The government had taken action.
The nation possessed the world’s most advanced technology and had the ability to monitor all kinds of unusual meteorological and geological changes.
It seemed they had already sensed the approaching crisis from the increasingly frequent disasters, the strange fissures opening in the earth, and the continuously rising temperatures across the country.
Unable to protect everyone in the world, they could only ensure the safety of Huaguo’s own people first.
Mo Fei quietly let out a sigh of relief. Since the government was already monitoring the situation, perhaps things would not become as terrible as she had imagined. Many ordinary people might still have a chance to survive.
But the government’s intervention also meant they must have discovered something truly catastrophic. She needed to return to Bai City and reunite with her family as quickly as possible.
Without hesitation, Mo Fei changed her evening flight to one departing two hours earlier.
Grateful for everything Luo Chao had done for her in Hei City, she told him everything about her warnings except for the existence of her space.
The period of rapid evolution that all life on Blue Star would experience would be nothing less than a devastating catastrophe for humanity.
After that, Mo Fei explained that she had already arranged her own logistics team and that they would transport this shipment of grain back to Bai City for her. Since she had already fabricated the story, she had to carry it through to the end.
“I understand,” Luo Chao said after listening to everything. Those were the only two words he spoke. He did not need Mo Fei to produce any evidence to prove that her claims were true.
He understood in his heart that Mo Fei trusted him, yet at the same time did not fully trust him. Even so, the fact that she was willing to tell him so much already meant he was receiving treatment that no one else had.
The two of them stood together in the shade outside the warehouse entrance, silently gazing toward the horizon with unspoken understanding.
Dark clouds were gathering.
No one knew what this coming rain would bring.
After apologising to Mo Fei, Luo Chao quickly checked the time. “Senior, I’ve already arranged for a driver to take you to the airport. I have to rush back to the factory now. If the natural disasters you described really do happen, I hope we’ll both stay alive… and meet again someday.”
“Mm.” Mo Fei paused for a moment before smiling. “If you can’t stay in Hei City anymore, come to Bai City and join your senior. After buying so much from you, I can at least afford to feed you.”
The two smiled at each other.
Eight years earlier, Mo Fei had disappeared without any warning.
The two of them had never had the chance to say goodbye.
This time, however, that shared smile became their farewell.
Yet somehow, it felt as though they would never meet again.
After Luo Chao drove away, and before the driver sent to pick her up arrived, Mo Fei hurriedly threw the remaining supplies in the warehouse into her space.
She did not know that, while driving back, Luo Chao had cancelled his plane ticket to Bai City.
Nor would she ever know that, if not for this inexplicable age of natural disasters and evolution, he would have followed her back to Bai City to chase after the golden partner he had lost eight years ago.
But now he could no longer leave.
He still had a massive factory, countless employees and their families who depended on him for their livelihoods, and his own parents and relatives.
The plane landed before long. Carrying a large pile of local specialties as a cover, Mo Fei returned to Jinshi Garden Residential Complex looking travel worn.
She had not told her parents or the children that she had changed her flight. She wanted to surprise them.
But when she stepped out of the lift and arrived at her front door, she found two unfamiliar pairs of shoes outside.
One pair belonged to a man.
The other belonged to a woman.
The front door stood wide open, and from inside came the sound of crying and loud arguing.