While Ru Jiao was collecting supplies at the factory, Tian Ling’er had already set out for Ru Jiao’s home.
She placed the jade bangle she had purchased the previous night into her bag. Ru Jiao’s home wasn’t very far from hers, only three subway stops away.
Tian Ling’er stood outside the door and pressed the doorbell.
“Ding dong…”
After waiting for two minutes, she heard hurried footsteps from inside. A woman who looked to be around thirty opened the door.
“Who is it?”
Tian Ling’er froze for a moment before quickly saying, “Hello, I’m here to see Ru Jiao. We were university roommates.”
“Ru Jiao…” The woman repeated the name under her breath, eyeing Tian Ling’er warily. “I’ve never heard of that name. I don’t know anyone by that name. You must have the wrong address!”
“How could that be?” Tian Linger’s expression darkened, though she forced a smile. “She lives right here. Could you please think about it carefully?”
The woman impatiently brushed her off. Just then, a man came out from inside. Seeing her standing at the door, he hurriedly asked what was going on.
Tian Ling’er quickly explained her purpose again.
The man thought for a moment before suddenly clapping his hands.
“Oh, you’re asking about the previous owner of this house! She sold it to me, and she moved out a long time ago.”
“She moved out!” Tian Ling’er could no longer remain calm. “Do you know where she went?”
“I have no idea. I only moved in today myself. You should contact her and ask.” With that, the man closed the door.
Tian Ling’er stood outside, gripping her bag so tightly that she nearly crushed it.
Taking a deep breath, she turned and headed downstairs. She took out her phone and called Ru Jiao, but the call wouldn’t go through.
She then opened WeChat and tried calling and sending messages, but received no response.
Frowning, Tian Ling’er boarded the subway. She had originally thought that obtaining the spatial jade bangle from Ru Jiao would be the easiest task, but things had already gone wrong before she could even get started…
She secretly cursed Ru Jiao for choosing this particular moment to move. Why couldn’t she have moved at any other time? Could she have found out about something?
No… That was impossible. She had only transmigrated into this world a few days ago. There was no way Ru Jiao could know about her plans, especially since the original owner of her body hadn’t been in frequent contact with her. Could her transmigration somehow have altered the original storyline?
No matter how furious and conflicted Tian Ling’er felt, she had no choice but to temporarily give up on finding Ru Jiao and obtaining the jade bangle.
Although she had been an assassin in her previous life, the technology in this world was far more advanced than what she had known. Surveillance cameras were practically everywhere. No matter how many tricks she had up her sleeve, she couldn’t put them to use while social order was still intact.
Forget it. She would start stockpiling supplies first and look for a way to obtain the female protagonist’s special ability later.
Having achieved nothing, Tian Ling’er could only leave in frustration.
Meanwhile, at the factory, Ru Jiao checked the time, figuring that Tian Ling’er must have already visited her home. Just imagining the look on her face when she returned empty-handed filled Ru Jiao with satisfaction. Although she hadn’t witnessed it herself, the thought of Tian Ling’er leaving in such a miserable state was enough to make her feel that she had finally gotten even.
After resting briefly at the factory, Ru Jiao checked the delivery updates on her phone. Most of her online orders would gradually arrive over the next two or three days.
She then opened her notes app and reviewed her shopping list, deciding that she could still buy more padded clothes and quilts. Since her space could preserve food, she could also stock up on more of her favorite vegetables.
With that in mind, Ru Jiao drove back to the city center and visited several restaurants she liked. She placed advance orders for hundreds of portions of prepared dishes, arranging specific pickup times for each order.
She visited more than ten restaurants in total, scheduling a pickup time with each one. Afterward, she went to her favorite milk tea shops and ordered a hundred cups of each of her preferred flavors, arranging to collect them herself as well.
Fortunately, although her car was small, the items could be packed separately and fit into the trunk and several seats. The windows had been fitted with one-way privacy film, so once the staff had loaded everything into the car and left, she could simply store all the items in her space.
Repeating this process over and over, she spent several hours collecting supplies. By six in the evening, she had finally finished gathering all the food and drinks. Altogether, she had spent only 500,000 yuan.
With approximately another million yuan remaining, Ru Jiao decided to purchase a vehicle with better performance. She had also considered getting some suitable weapons, but under the current circumstances, weapons were difficult to buy, so she had no choice but to abandon that idea.
Instead, she bought several sharp kitchen knives, pointed knives, and fruit knives. She also went to a hardware market and purchased some steel rods. Once the apocalypse began, she could visit various shops and search for useful items. There might even be some unexpected finds.
Buying a new car went smoothly. She visited a dealership and purchased the best-equipped SUV within her budget, then sold her secondhand Chery at a low price.
By the time she finished, Ru Jiao had only 50,000 yuan left.
She planned to use that money to enroll in a fifty-day fitness training program, where professional trainers could help improve her physical abilities.
She also decided not to stay at the hotel any longer. Instead, she rented a two-bedroom apartment in an older residential complex in S City for two months. Once her fitness classes were over, she would stay inside the apartment and wait for the apocalypse to arrive.
Ru Jiao quickly found a suitable gym and selected her training courses. After paying, she returned to the rented apartment. It was already furnished, so she simply took her own bedding out of her space and arranged her sleeping area.
The residential complex was mostly occupied by elderly residents, and there were no surveillance cameras, making it very convenient for Ru Jiao to use her space without attracting attention.
The night passed peacefully.
The following morning, Ru Jiao went out for a run at six o’clock. Her fitness instructor had also recommended running as the simplest and most effective form of exercise.
Since it was her first morning run, she didn’t set her expectations too high. She jogged slowly for a little over half an hour before finally stopping when she could no longer keep going.
After returning to the apartment, she washed up and had breakfast at a small shop near the entrance of the residential complex.
Deliveries began arriving at the factory one after another. Since her fitness classes were scheduled from one to five every afternoon, she decided to spend the morning collecting another batch of supplies.
When she arrived at the factory, the delivery workers were already waiting nearby. Ru Jiao quickly opened the factory gates and watched as they unloaded the goods. Once they had finished and left, she closed the gates and stored the entire batch in her space.
She contacted the remaining delivery workers and arranged for them to bring everything together at ten the morning after next. That way, she could collect it all in one go without having to make repeated trips.
Over the following days, Ru Jiao continued attending her fitness classes and occasionally went to collect deliveries.
Before she knew it, August 11 arrived, and her fitness course came to an end.
Although fifty days of training hadn’t turned her into an expert, her physical fitness had improved tremendously. She could now jog for two hours before becoming completely exhausted. If she encountered a zombie horde and needed to escape, she would have a much easier time than she had in her previous life.
There were still nine days until the apocalypse broke out, just as it had in her previous life.
Ru Jiao didn’t waste those nine days. She occasionally walked around the residential complex to familiarize herself with the layout. She also memorized the routes to nearby supermarkets, hospitals, and hardware stores.
She planned to visit shopping malls as soon as the apocalypse began to collect food that required refrigeration or freezing. She would also raid hospitals for medical equipment and hardware stores for steel materials. If possible, the wholesale markets she had visited before might prove to be particularly rewarding.
When only six days remained before the apocalypse, Ru Jiao stopped going outside altogether. She exercised at home while browsing the news online, but there were no noticeable reports of anything unusual.
With no other options, she could only wait patiently.
In her previous life, she hadn’t possessed any special abilities. She had heard that people awakened abilities for various reasons, but most ability users had been exposed to the strange orange light that appeared on the day before the apocalypse for an extended period.
Ru Jiao couldn’t determine whether the rumors were true, but she decided to wait on her balcony when the time came. She would set up a reclining chair and remain there. Fortunately, it was summer, so she wouldn’t have to worry about getting cold at night.
With five days left before the apocalypse, Ru Jiao suddenly remembered that she would need hot water for washing after the apocalypse. She also couldn’t afford to waste bottled mineral water on everyday household needs.
She immediately went out and purchased twenty large water tanks, each with a capacity of 200 liters. She also bought five hundred large bottles of drinking water, paying for everything with her credit card.
Fortunately, the apartment she had rented came with a natural gas water heater. As long as she kept the hot water running continuously, there would always be a supply of hot water.
Thankfully, the water pressure in the residential complex was strong enough. Ru Jiao filled the twenty tanks day and night, and finally managed to fill them all two days before the apocalypse.
After storing all the collected hot water in her space, Ru Jiao went inside to tidy things up. Looking at the spiritual spring water inside, she finally remembered that she hadn’t yet tested its effects.
She had spent the past two months focusing on physical training and gathering supplies, leaving her no time to investigate the spring water!
With that thought, Ru Jiao left her space and poured herself a cup of the spring water.
Since the space was part of her family’s inheritance, she assumed the spiritual spring water inside couldn’t possibly be harmful.
She took a tentative sip and discovered that it tasted even sweeter and more refreshing than ordinary bottled mineral water.
Draining the entire cup in one go, she immediately felt a pleasant sense of comfort spreading throughout her body.
Ru Jiao was still marveling at how delicious the spiritual spring water tasted when black impurities suddenly began emerging from her arm. In less than a minute, the filth had spread across her entire body, accompanied by a terrible stench!
Startled, Ru Jiao hurriedly went to take a shower. After washing herself thoroughly, the impurities finally stopped appearing.
Only then did she relax. However, while drying her hair in front of the mirror, she noticed that her skin seemed to have improved.
She had spent the past two months exercising and gathering supplies, leaving her with no time to take care of her skin. It had become noticeably darker from spending time outdoors, but she hadn’t particularly minded.
Unexpectedly, after her shower, her skin had become incredibly smooth and delicate, like a freshly peeled egg. It was also considerably fairer than before.
Ru Jiao quickly left the bathroom. She could feel that her body was much lighter, and an incredible amount of strength seemed to surge through her.
Previously, she could manage a maximum of two hours of slow jogging. Now, she felt that she could run for at least five hours!
Ru Jiao tried throwing a punch and was surprised by how fast and accurate it was.
She glanced around the room before walking over to the coffee table and lifting it.
The table was three meters long, one meter high, and one meter wide. Made of glass and wood, it must have weighed at least eighty or ninety kilograms. Yet she lifted it effortlessly!
Ru Jiao was overjoyed. The spiritual spring water had actually improved her physical abilities so dramatically!
What if she drank more of it or even soaked in it?
As soon as the thought occurred to her, she immediately put it into action.
She took out another large glass of spring water, this time containing 500 milliliters, and drank it in several portions.
Each time she drank some, a small amount of impurities seeped out of her body. However, after she had consumed half of the water, no more impurities appeared.
Ru Jiao realized that she had reached the limit of the spiritual spring water’s effects on her body.
She wasn’t disappointed. The benefits she had already gained were tremendous. Her physical abilities were now more than ten times greater than those of an Olympic champion.
If she encountered low-level zombies during the early stages of the apocalypse, she was confident she could escape easily even if surrounded by fifty of them.
After finishing the spiritual spring water, she spent some time testing her abilities and getting cleaned up. By the time she was done, it was already eleven at night.
The old residential complex had long since gone dark, with nearly everyone asleep.
Ru Jiao quietly stepped onto the balcony, placed a reclining chair there, covered herself with a blanket, and lay down.
The night was no different from any other. Yet the sleeping residents and the people still working in the distance had no idea how cruel the world would become the following day.
Ru Jiao slowly drifted off to sleep, but she had set an alarm for four thirty in the morning. She planned to start watching for the strange orange light from sunrise onward.
When the alarm rang at four thirty, Ru Jiao immediately woke up. A faint glow had already begun appearing along the horizon.
She took some food out of her space and ate while browsing the news on her phone.
By five thirty, the sky was already bright. Some elderly residents who liked to get up early had gone outside for walks and exercise, while Ru Jiao continued waiting quietly.
Finally, at six thirty, the sky suddenly turned a brilliant shade of orange, and the entire world was enveloped in an orange glow.
People in the residential complex occasionally exclaimed in surprise at the unusual sight. However, as the orange light continued shining, those exposed to it began feeling as though their bodies were burning. Intense pain soon followed.
People screamed and desperately searched for shaded places to hide.
Not wanting to attract too much attention, Ru Jiao went indoors. However, she deliberately left a wide gap between the curtains, allowing the orange light to shine through and illuminate her entire body.
The internet had already erupted into chaos over the strange orange light. Countless people had fainted from the pain, and the sound of ambulances could be heard everywhere. Hospitals were overflowing with emergency patients, with countless people collapsing from fever and unbearable pain.
Yet Ru Jiao felt no discomfort while being bathed in the orange light. On the contrary, she found it rather pleasant.
After thinking about it, she suspected that this was because the spiritual spring water had improved her physical condition.
The orange light appeared at six thirty in the morning and didn’t disappear until four thirty in the afternoon, lasting a total of ten hours.
Ru Jiao remained beneath it for the entire ten hours without interruption.
Once the orange light disappeared, she immediately took out some food to satisfy her hunger before closing all the doors and windows and drawing the curtains tightly.
If the ability users from her previous life hadn’t been mistaken, she would develop a high fever throughout the night and awaken with an ability the following morning.
Even after securing the entire apartment, Ru Jiao still didn’t feel entirely at ease.
After thinking it over, she decided to enter her space, fill a wooden bathtub with spiritual spring water, and wait there. Once the fever began, she would get inside and soak in it.
Ru Jiao had barely finished preparing everything inside her space when her entire body suddenly began heating up at an alarming rate.
She could no longer afford to wait. Quickly removing her clothes, she climbed into the bathtub and sat down.
The bathtub had been specially designed with a built-in seat, so she didn’t need to exert much effort to get comfortable. Once seated, the spring water reached just above her shoulders.
By then, however, her fever had become so severe that her consciousness was already growing hazy.
Fortunately, the bathtub had been designed well. The only thing she remembered was tilting her head backward to keep it from slipping underwater before she finally lost consciousness.
After a night had passed, Ru Jiao woke up at seven the following morning.
However, the sight inside the bathtub startled her.
The water was no longer clear. Instead, it had turned a murky mixture of black and red, giving off a foul stench.
Ru Jiao hurried out of her space, bringing the bathtub along with her.
She first went to the bathroom and washed herself thoroughly. Then she emptied the filthy water and cleaned the wooden tub.
Only after everything was taken care of did she finally have the chance to examine the changes in her body.
Closing her eyes, Ru Jiao moved the fingers of her right hand slightly, and a fireball appeared in midair.
Her expression changed with excitement. The next second, a thin vine emerged from between the fingers of her left hand!
She had actually awakened two abilities!
Ru Jiao was overjoyed. She was certain that the spiritual spring water was responsible.
However, she understood only part of the reason.
The spiritual spring water had improved her physical constitution, allowing her to awaken one ability under the orange light. But it should have been impossible for her to awaken two abilities.
The real reason was that she had remained under the orange light throughout the entire ten hours. Then, after developing a fever, she had soaked in the spiritual spring water, allowing the two forces to work together. That was how she had managed to awaken two abilities!
Although her abilities were still relatively weak in the early stages, she could already sense their limits.
She could produce a maximum of fifteen fireballs, while her vines could extend up to ten meters and remain active for ten minutes.
However, once she upgraded her abilities in the future, their potential would undoubtedly be much greater.
Moreover, her physical strength had doubled again after the previous night’s transformation.
If her body had previously been ten times stronger than that of an Olympic champion, she now felt that she could rival Spider-Man.
Even if she encountered a hundred low-level zombies, she could deal with them. As for third-level evolved zombies, she could still fight them using nothing but her physical strength.
Feeling the tremendous power coursing through her body, Ru Jiao thought of her enemy, Tian Ling’er.
In this life, no matter how strong you become, I will make myself even stronger and send you straight to hell!