Apparently, he had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and noticed that the light in her room was still on.
Still half-asleep, he poked his head through the doorway and happened to see Lin Wan standing with her back to the door, facing empty air while muttering to herself:
“…Mm… the compressed biscuits go in Zone A3, at the very back… the ten new thick cotton quilts… stuff them into the bottom layer of Zone B2…”
Lin Yang jerked violently. All the drowsiness instantly vanished! His eyes widened as round as saucers as he pointed at Lin Wan’s back, his voice rising an octave.
“Sis?! W-who are you talking to?! Are you okay?! Don’t scare me like that!”
Lin Wan’s heart skipped a beat. She immediately pulled her consciousness out of the Space Dimension. The panel before her eyes vanished with a whoosh.
She turned around quickly, forcing an extremely stiff and unnatural smile onto her face.
“Huh? N-no one! I’m just organizing a shopping list! I bought too many things, and it’s all mixed up. I’m afraid I won’t remember where everything is later, so I… I’m just muttering it to myself to help me remember!”
“Oh…”
Lin Yang looked her up and down suspiciously, then leaned his head into the room to glance around the empty space. He yawned widely and muttered,
“You scared me… I thought you were possessed or something… Alright, alright. Hurry up and finish and go to sleep. Don’t stay up too late. If you keep this up and turn into a yellow-faced hag, you won’t get married!”
He waved his hand, dragged his dinosaur-tail slippers behind him, and staggered away.
The door closed, and the sound of his footsteps faded.
Only then did Lin Wan’s tense body collapse like a deflated balloon as she leaned weakly against the desk.
She raised her left hand and looked at the inside of her wrist under the desk lamp’s light.
There, an extremely faint pale mark—almost invisible—was appearing and disappearing on her skin. It was shaped like a jade pendant.
It was exactly where the old man in the gray robe had gripped her yesterday.
She reached out with her right hand and gently covered the mark.
The skin beneath her fingertips still seemed to carry a faint warmth.
She clenched her wrist tightly, as if she were holding the weight of the entire world in her hand—along with the heavy hope that could change everything.
Lin Wan walked to the window and pulled the curtains open with a swift motion.
Outside lay the heavy darkness of night. In the distance, the neon lights of the city continued to flash tirelessly, outlining the vague silhouettes of tall buildings—an illusion of prosperity and noise.
But in Lin Wan’s eyes, those flickering lights looked like the last struggling fishing lamps on the sea before a storm arrived—fragile beyond belief.
Yesterday, when she submitted her resignation, Zhou Qing had tried to stop her. Did Zhou Qing really think she didn’t know? All these years they had supposedly been conducting research together, but in reality Zhou Qing had just been freeloading off her work.
Now, the present Lin Wan did not want to see Zhou Qing’s face even for a single day. Every time she thought of it, she felt an urge to kill her.
The corners of Lin Wan’s mouth slowly curved into a cold arc. Her eyes were sharp like a newly unsheathed blade, carrying a ruthlessness and determination completely out of place with her young face.
In her previous life, she had been a pitiful nobody with nothing at all. She had struggled helplessly in the mud of despair, watching her loved ones die one by one before she herself eventually froze and starved to death.
But in this life?
She now possessed a super warehouse that could hold mountains of gold and silver—and even freeze time itself.
Her mind contained the bloody script of the coming months.
And in her hands, she held the final and most precious advantage—
Time.
Since heaven had given her another chance and placed this “jade pendant” in her hands, then she would not hesitate to flip the table over.
Her resignation from the Botanical Garden had already been submitted. The director had signed it with a heartbroken expression.
Now she was completely free.
Morning sunlight, carrying the laziness of a newly awakened day, slanted through the window.
The bowl of porridge on the table still emitted thin wisps of steam. The warm fragrance of rice filled the air.
Lin Wan held a pair of well-worn bamboo chopsticks, but her fingertips tightened slightly, and her palms felt damp.
She took a deep breath, gathering all her courage.
Her gaze swept across the breakfast table.
Her father, Lin Jianguo, held his bowl and sipped hot porridge in small mouthfuls, making satisfied slurping sounds.
Her mother, Li Shulan, picked up a small portion of pickled vegetables and carefully placed it into Lin Yang’s bowl.
And Lin Yang—his fluffy head nearly buried in his bowl—was wrestling with a golden-brown fried dumpling, his cheeks puffed full.
“Dad, Mom,”
Lin Wan’s voice was not loud, but it was like a pebble suddenly thrown into still water, breaking the calm of breakfast.
“Little Yang, stop for a moment. I have something to tell you.”
She paused, her throat slightly dry.
“I… was reborn from March 2056.”
“Clang!”
The bowl in Li Shulan’s hands slammed heavily against the table. Half a bowl of warm porridge splashed out, spreading across the table and dripping down onto her dark shoes.
But she didn’t notice at all.
Her eyes widened as she stared at Lin Wan, her lips trembling.
“Wanwan? W-what nonsense are you talking about?”
Her voice trembled with disbelief and fear.
“Did you have another nightmare last night? Were you sleep-paralyzed again? Tell Mom!”
Meanwhile, Lin Jianguo’s hand holding the chopsticks suddenly froze. The piece of pickled vegetable he had been picking up fell back into the dish.
His brows instantly twisted into a tight knot.
He set down his chopsticks with his usual calm demeanor, but the veins on the back of his hand bulged faintly, and the shock in his eyes rippled like stones thrown into deep water.
“Lin Wan!”
He barked in a low voice.
“Early in the morning, what nonsense are you stirring up now?”
Lin Yang was even more confused. He forgot to chew the dumpling in his mouth. With his cheeks still puffed, he stared blankly between his sister and their parents, completely clueless about what was happening.
Lin Wan said nothing.
She stood up, the wooden chair legs scraping against the floor with a harsh squeak.
She walked straight toward the small balcony.
Behind her, three pairs of eyes stuck to her back like physical weight—filled with suspicion and fear.
Standing at the balcony door, she looked at the pile of supplies stacked there and took a deep breath of the cool morning air.
Then she closed her eyes.
In her mind, she commanded: Store.
In an instant, the balcony that had been filled to the brim with supplies became completely empty.
Her family gasped sharply.
Then, before their shocked exclamations could even escape, the empty balcony floor suddenly filled again with neatly arranged cardboard boxes as tall as half a person.
There were also rough burlap sacks clearly printed with the red words “Northeast Rice.”
Before anyone could react, another soft pop sounded.
A transparent plastic barrel filled with golden cooking oil appeared beside the rice sacks.
Then came bags of flour.
Then several boxes of bottled mineral water with blue labels stacked themselves one by one out of thin air.
Like a magician performing a trick, the supplies piled up with dull thud, thud sounds. In the blink of an eye, another small mountain of provisions rose up, nearly blocking half the balcony doorway.
The entire process happened unbelievably fast.
Only a faint blue ripple—like a drop of water spreading across a surface—flashed briefly when the Space Dimension opened before vanishing into the morning light.
All that remained were the heavy, very real supplies filling the balcony.
Under the rising sun, the sight dazzled the eyes and made hearts pound in shock.