Countdown Day 23, Morning
The entire city was still wrapped in a thin layer of morning mist, not yet fully awakened into the noise of rush hour.
Lin Qi had already driven the black Porsche Cayenne out of the city, heading straight toward the northern suburban border where heavy industry met agriculture and livestock production.
The air here no longer carried the refined scent of coffee or exhaust fumes from the city center. Instead, it was filled with a raw, pungent mix of disinfectant and the faint metallic smell of fresh blood.
The Cayenne stopped in front of an enormous industrial complex. Above the gate were bold red characters:
“Hongfa Meat Processing Group.”
This was the largest modern slaughter and meat processing base in the entire southern region. Over sixty percent of the province’s fresh meat supply was processed here before being shipped via cold chain logistics to markets and supermarkets.
Lin Qi stepped out of the car in black Martin boots, her outfit still minimalist and sharp, a duckbill cap pulled low.
As she approached the outer perimeter of the facility, the thick scent of blood hit her face, accompanied by the distant roar of industrial machinery.
For ordinary people, this would be a nightmare.
For Lin Qi, who had crawled out of an apocalyptic world of extreme cold and starvation, this smell was the most comforting thing in existence.
Anyone who had never starved at minus sixty degrees would never understand the primal craving humans had for fat and meat.
In the later stages of her previous life, mutated beasts were covered in tumors and parasites and were inedible. Survivors had even resorted to digging up frozen rotten rats just for protein.
And now—
A complete provincial “meat vault” stood right before her.
Lin Qi took a deep breath of the blood-tinged cold air, her gaze instantly sharpening like a wolf’s. She strode into the administration building.
Five Minutes Later — Director’s Office
The chairman of Hongfa Group, Zheng Dahai, sat in a massive leather chair with an exaggerated beer belly, holding a cup of goji berry tea.
Before he could take a sip—
Bang.
The door opened.
A young woman in black walked in.
“Who are you?! How did you get in? Security!” Zheng Dahai frowned.
Lin Qi said nothing. She closed the door behind her and walked straight to the desk.
Then she placed three bundles of crisp 100-yuan bills onto the table.
Thud.
“I’m here to bring you money,” she said calmly. “But I wonder if your appetite is big enough.”
Zheng Dahai’s anger instantly vanished. His eyes narrowed.
“A deal?”
Lin Qi’s lips curled slightly.
“I want all of Hongfa Meat Processing Group’s production capacity for the next half month.”
Pfft—!
Zheng Dahai spat out his tea.
“Half a month of full capacity?! Do you know how many pigs we slaughter in a day?!”
“I don’t care how many,” Lin Qi said coldly, leaning forward. “Fifty thousand free-range black pigs. Twenty thousand grass-fed sheep from Inner Mongolia. Ten thousand cattle.”
“All of them processed into halves and ribs.”
Then she added—
“And I want them fresh.”
Zheng Dahai froze. “Fresh?”
“No cold chain. No aging. No freezing,” she continued. “I want them straight off the production line—recently slaughtered, still warm.”
“That’s impossible!” Zheng Dahai shot up. “Fresh meat spoils in hours if not chilled!”
“That’s your problem,” Lin Qi said flatly.
“I have a world-class ultra-low temperature liquid nitrogen cold-chain transport system waiting at the logistics park. You only need to deliver the freshly slaughtered meat immediately.”
“Everything else—I handle.”
In this collapsing world, Lin Qi’s “absolute stasis space” was the ultimate preservation system.
What she wanted wasn’t frozen meat—but meat at its peak freshness, frozen in time at the moment of slaughter.
After a long silence, Zheng Dahai swallowed hard.
“How much… are we talking?”
Lin Qi replied without hesitation:
“Eight billion.”
“Twenty percent above market price. Full payment upfront.”
The room went silent.
Zheng Dahai’s breathing grew heavy.
Eight billion. Upfront.
No risk. No debt. Pure profit that could equal years of business.
“Deal!” he roared.
Afternoon — Logistics Park
By 5 PM, 200 large transport trucks rolled into the abandoned logistics yard like a white steel dragon.
When the first truck opened—
Hoo—
A wave of warm, blood-tinged steam poured out.
Inside were neatly processed black pork half-carcasses—fresh, red, still radiating heat from recent slaughter.
Not frozen.
Not chilled.
Alive with residual warmth.
“First batch—ten thousand pigs!” the factory supervisor shouted.
Lin Qi nodded.
“Unload the trailers. Take the truck heads away. Come back tomorrow for the empty shells.”
Half an hour later—
Two hundred cargo containers filled with steaming fresh meat stood in perfect formation under the fading sun.
The workers had all left.
Silence returned.
Night fell.
Lin Qi stood before the first row of containers.
She pressed her palm against the cold metal.
“Absorb.”
Whoosh—!!!
Two hundred massive containers vanished simultaneously, as if swallowed by a black hole.
The ground was instantly empty.
Inside the infinite space—
A new formation appeared.
A vast “meat forest.”
Tens of thousands of black pork halves floated perfectly in place, suspended in a pure white void.
And then—
The miracle began.
All heat loss stopped.
All spoilage halted.
Even the faint steam rising from the flesh was frozen mid-air like glass sculpture.
Every fiber, every drop of blood, every sheen of fat was locked at the exact moment of perfection.
In one hundred years—
This meat would taste exactly as it did now.
Lin Qi opened her eyes.
A wild, satisfied light burned within them.
“Perfect.”
With this—
Pork, beef, and lamb supply was secured.
But this was only the beginning.
Her gaze turned toward the southern coastline.
Tomorrow—
The ocean port.
Frozen king crabs. Norwegian salmon. Australian M9 Wagyu snow beef.
The ultimate feast was just getting started.
She smiled coldly.
“Are you ready to enter my storage space?”