“M—my heavens!”
Li Shulan covered her mouth. Her legs went weak, and she nearly slipped off the chair.
Staggering forward, she rushed to Lin Wan and grabbed her cold hand tightly. Her voice trembled uncontrollably.
“Wanwan… Wanwan! Is it real? What you just… just did… was that… real? You really…”
The enormous fear and the unbelievable shock overwhelmed her mind, leaving her unable to form a coherent sentence.
Lin Yang, on the other hand, sprang up as if he had been burned. In two quick steps he rushed onto the balcony, his eyes wide with the reckless curiosity unique to a teenager. He reached out and touched the sack of rice that had vanished and then reappeared.
The rough burlap texture pressed firmly against his fingertips, and the heavy weight sank into his palm.
“Sis! Sis!”
He suddenly turned around, his voice cracking.
“How did you do that? That’s amazing! You can do magic?! No… wait…”
Then he suddenly remembered what she had just said. The excitement on his face froze instantly, replaced by confusion and a faint creeping fear.
“Reborn? What does that mean, Sis?”
Lin Jianguo did not move.
His tall figure stood beside the dining table like a silent statue, only his chest rising and falling violently.
His gaze was fixed on the piles of rice, flour, oil, and supplies stacked on the balcony as if he could burn through them with his eyes.
After nearly half a minute, he finally began to walk forward slowly, step by heavy step.
The sound of his footsteps echoed clearly in the suddenly silent apartment.
He circled the pile of supplies once.
His rough fingers reached out and pressed firmly against the cool, smooth packaging of a box of bottled water, leaving a clear fingerprint.
Then he bent down and lifted the corner of a sack of rice, weighing the heavy, unmistakable solidity of it.
Finally, he suddenly turned around.
His bloodshot eyes stared directly at Lin Wan.
The storm of shock within them had settled. What remained was something almost tragic in its determination—firm and immovable like stone.
He did not ask how she had been reborn.
He did not question what the Space Dimension was.
As if those strange questions had lost all meaning in the face of survival.
“Wanwan,”
he said at last.
His voice was hoarse, but each word fell like iron hammered in fire.
“That ‘apocalypse’ you talked about… when is it coming? And when it does… what will happen?”
His sharp gaze locked tightly onto his daughter’s eyes.
Lin Wan felt a stabbing pain in her chest under that gaze. Her throat felt as if it were stuffed with a ball of sour, soaked cotton.
Images from her previous life flooded her mind all at once—scorching heat, rotting farmland, foul and muddy rivers, streets littered with starving corpses, the despair in her loved ones’ eyes…
Her eyes reddened instantly, and her voice trembled uncontrollably.
“Starting from now… at most… one week.”
She sniffed hard, trying to suppress the bloody memories surging through her mind.
“First comes the extreme heat. Temperatures will reach over fifty degrees and last for more than two weeks. Crops in the fields will wither and die. Rivers will dry up. Fish and shrimp will rot. Water and electricity will be cut off.”
“After that… there will be torrential rain day and night for three months straight. Floods will drown the cities. Even our apartment building won’t escape it. There will be shortages of food and clothing. Cities will lose basic order… people will start dying…”
Finally, she forced out the last words with difficulty. Each one weighed like a thousand pounds.
“In the end… food and water will run out. Many, many people… will starve to death. And then…”
Her voice broke. She could not continue.
“Wuu…”
Li Shulan could no longer hold it in. A suppressed wail escaped her throat.
Her whole body collapsed, sliding down against the cold wall until she sat on the floor. Her hands covered her face tightly while her thin shoulders trembled violently.
Despairing tears streamed through the gaps between her fingers.
Lin Yang was completely stunned as well. The curiosity and excitement from earlier had been crushed into dust by overwhelming fear.
He stared blankly at the supplies filling the balcony, then at his mother crying uncontrollably, then at his father with a face as heavy as iron, and finally at his pale sister whose face was wet with tears.
Unconsciously, he clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug into his palms, leaving crescent-shaped red marks.
He opened his mouth, but not a single word came out.
He simply bit his lower lip hard, his face pale as paper.
Lin Jianguo did not look at any of them.
Like an old wolf cornered to the edge of survival—its ferocity fully awakened—he began pacing back and forth in the small living room.
His heavy footsteps struck the floor with dull thuds that pounded against everyone’s hearts.
After two rounds, he suddenly stopped.
His large calloused hand slammed down hard on the greasy dining table with a loud bang, making the bowls and dishes rattle violently. Half a bowl of cold porridge splashed out.
“Shulan!”
he barked.
His voice was decisive and fierce, instantly overpowering his wife’s sobbing.
“Stop crying! What good does crying do? Listen to me!”
Li Shulan jolted from the shout. Through tear-filled eyes, she looked at her husband in confusion and fear.
“You! Call Old Zhang at the agency right now!”
Lin Jianguo’s finger almost jabbed into her face as he spoke in an unquestionable tone.
“Put this apartment up for sale immediately! Right now! As for the price? Even ten or twenty thousand below market value is fine! As long as it’s fast! The faster the better! It must be sold today or tomorrow!”
“Old Lin! This house…”
Li Shulan jerked as if pricked by a needle, her voice sharp with pain.
“This is what we saved our whole lives for!”
This small two-bedroom apartment had been built with half a lifetime of their sweat and blood. Every brick in it was precious to her.
“A house means nothing!”
Lin Jianguo cut her off fiercely.
The veins on his neck bulged as his eyes flashed with frightening intensity, yet there was also a desperate clarity in them.
“If the house is gone, the land is still there! But if the people are gone, then everything is gone!”
“Now that we know it’s going to be flooded later, what’s the point of keeping it? We might as well sell it and use the money to buy more supplies!”
He pointed forcefully toward the balcony piled with provisions, then heavily patted Lin Wan on the shoulder. The force made her stagger slightly.
“With Wanwan’s ‘immortal pocket,’” he said.
“With this life-saving food, our family can survive! We can all survive together!”
He turned sharply toward Lin Wan again, his gaze blazing.
“Wanwan, that ‘pocket’ of yours… how much can it hold? How much stuff can it carry?”
Before Lin Wan could answer, he had already grabbed an old newspaper from the table and snatched a ballpoint pen.
His fingers trembled slightly with excitement.
“Our family savings total six hundred and eighty thousand yuan. If we sell the house, we can get about 1.3 million. I originally planned to gamble in the stock market when it opened today, but forget it. We’ll use everything to stockpile food and supplies first.”
“Lin Yang, come here!”
he shouted.
“I’ll talk, you write down the list! Start now!”
“Food! Rice, flour, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar! Meat that can be stored—canned meat, canned fish!”
“Drinks! Water! As much clean water as possible!”
“Medicine! Cold medicine, fever medicine, diarrhea medicine, anti-inflammatory drugs, hemostatic supplies!”
“Toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, toilet paper!”
“And… and generators! Gasoline! Coal!”
“Buy as much as we can!”
“Write down everything you can think of!”