The night wind was biting, yet the open-air parking lot in the suburbs carried no trace of cold.
Instead, the air was saturated with a scent so intense it could drive any carbon-based lifeform into madness.
Thousands of portions of steaming Supreme Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, crispy-skinned golden roast goose, bubbling spicy Sichuan-style blood tripe stew, along with mountains of fried chicken, burgers, and Peking duck… dozens of refrigerated trucks and box trucks stood silently under the night sky, like treasure vaults filled with the essence of human cuisine.
Lin Qi stood before the first heavy truck loaded with signature dishes from Tianxiang Tower. Beneath her duckbill cap, her eyes gleamed with extreme excitement.
“Absorb!”
With a low command in her mind, the ancestral jade pendant hanging on her chest emitted a faint glow.
Whoosh—!
In an instant, thousands of dishes sealed in premium purple clay stew pots and high-grade insulated containers vanished into thin air!
Even the rich aroma of broth in the air was completely stripped away.
Without pausing, Lin Qi moved like a shadow through the dozens of trucks. Every time her palm touched the cold metal of a cargo compartment, tons of gourmet food disappeared in an instant.
“Whoosh!”
“Whoosh!”
“Whoosh!”
Sichuan cuisine, Japanese sashimi, Xinjiang grilled skewers, Cantonese dim sum, fast food…
In less than ten minutes, every single truck in the parking lot was emptied. Tens of thousands of top-tier dishes representing the city’s highest culinary standards were completely absorbed into her space.
Lin Qi exhaled deeply and walked back to the 50,000-square-meter warehouse she had rented.
After locking the heavy shutter door and cutting the power, she sat down in a clean spot in the darkness and pulled out a folding chair from her space.
Then she closed her eyes and sank her consciousness into the infinite storage space.
At that moment—even Lin Qi, who had survived mountains of corpses and seas of blood in the apocalypse—was deeply shaken.
Inside the boundless white-gray static dimension, the materials had already been perfectly categorized.
On the left were vast mountain ranges: 20,000 tons of premium Wuchang rice, 30,000 tons of flour, and towering walls of grains and oils stretching beyond sight.
On the right, a brand-new section floated an astonishing “food matrix.”
Lin Qi’s breathing quickened as her gaze swept across it.
The “absolute stasis” rule of the space created a terrifying miracle.
The bubbling red oil in Sichuan blood tripe stew was frozen at the exact moment before a bubble burst.
The golden roast goose skin from Tianxiang Tower was locked forever in the state of oil about to drip but never falling.
Even the iced fruit teas from last night’s night market still held crystal-clear water droplets clinging to the cup walls—never sliding, never melting.
Time itself had been completely killed here.
No matter whether outside passed one day, one year, or a century, everything would remain in the exact state it was when stored.
“Gulp…”
Seeing this feast-like scene, Lin Qi’s stomach growled loudly in protest.
She hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since morning, and hunger was now burning through her stomach.
“It’s time to test the real results.”
She opened her eyes, swallowed, and with a thought, a high-end foil food container appeared in her hand, along with a bowl of pristine white rice.
Inside the container was a dish she had purchased earlier from a renowned century-old Lu cuisine restaurant:
—Stir-Fried Pork Kidney
Anyone who knew food understood how difficult this dish was. Pork kidney must be flash-fried over blazing oil for only seconds—any delay turns it tough, fishy, and inedible. It was considered the “absolute forbidden zone” of takeaway food.
This was exactly why Lin Qi chose it as a test.
She opened the container.
Boom—!
A wave of scorching steam exploded upward like a volcano eruption. The aroma of garlic, vinegar, and rich sauce hit her face instantly.
It was the peak wok-hei aroma only found in high-end restaurant kitchens at the perfect second of stir-frying.
“Too hot!”
The bottom of the container was unbelievably hot—like burning charcoal.
Without hesitation, she picked up a piece with chopsticks and put it straight into her mouth.
Crunch—!
A crisp snap echoed in her mouth.
No softness. No gaminess.
Instead, an unbelievably crunchy tenderness burst apart, releasing a flood of spicy, savory, and numbing flavors that exploded across her tongue.
“Too good… it’s too good…”
Tears welled up in Lin Qi’s eyes uncontrollably.
She shoveled rice into her mouth, the warmth spreading through her body like a river of heat, thawing her frozen nerves and bones.
Memories of the previous life flooded her mind—the freezing apocalypse, minus sixty degrees, starving, beaten for a moldy piece of bread…
Back then, even rotten food mixed with dirt felt like salvation.
And now—
She was eating hot, perfectly preserved, never-cooling gourmet food inside a silent warehouse, while her space held tens of thousands of identical meals.
“I survived… I really survived…”
She laughed through tears, eating ravenously.
This wasn’t weakness—it was the collapse of five years of fear and starvation.
After five minutes, the entire meal was gone.
She leaned back in satisfaction and pulled out an iced grape cheese drink from the night market.
Slurp—
Cold sweetness washed away the heat.
“Perfect.”
She checked her phone.
Countdown to apocalypse: 23 days, 10 hours.
Her funds had already dropped by nearly sixty billion.
Lin Qi smiled faintly. Even a hundred and fifty billion wouldn’t last long in this level of consumption.
But it was worth it.
Because food alone wasn’t enough.
What she truly needed next… was meat.
Tons of fresh, raw, high-fat meat.
In the later stages of the apocalypse, vegetables mutated, animals went berserk, and even clean protein became priceless.
“No processed food anymore,” she murmured.
“It’s time to stock the real hard currency.”
She stood up, eyes sharpening like a predator’s.
Tomorrow—the city’s three largest pig slaughterhouses, and the coastal cold-chain port monopolizing premium seafood imports.
Black pork, M9 Wagyu, live king crabs…
Lin Qi opened the car door, a bloodthirsty curve forming on her lips.
“Prepare for the ultimate feast of carnivores.”