Shen Cong didn’t know how long she had been asleep; she was woken by a crackling noise in her head.
At first, the sound was faint, like someone snapping a string of small firecrackers in the distance.
But soon, it grew louder and louder, until it became a shocking explosion!
With it came an indescribable tearing sensation, as if a pair of giant hands were ripping her body in two from the middle.
Shen Cong’s whole body went limp as she lay on the sleeping bag, unable to move, feeling as if even breathing was an effort.
Fortunately, the ordeal didn’t last long.
Before she felt like she would suffocate, the sound and the tearing sensation finally stopped.
Then—
Shen Cong realized that her space had expanded again!
This time, the expansion was somewhat exaggerated.
It looked like it was as large as a school playground!
Her heart pounded with excitement, and she felt like she was dreaming.
The last time her space had upgraded, it had grown from twenty square meters to two hundred, ten times larger.
Back then, she had imagined, thinking, “Next time, will it become two thousand?”
The thought made her chuckle to herself, feeling it was a little greedy.
But now—
Shen Cong jumped up, ran over in a few steps to the pile of supplies she had just taken out, and rummaged through it to find a large tape measure.
The tape measure had been bought specially to double-check land measurements when the family purchased property; it was a hundred meters long.
At the time, she never imagined she would one day use it to measure her space!
The measurements were quickly taken: fifty meters long, forty meters wide, and seven meters high.
It really had expanded tenfold.
Now the space measured exactly two thousand square meters, not including the previous 220 square meters.
Shen Cong spun around the warehouse.
She couldn’t contain her joy and shouted three times at the top of her lungs!
Fortunately, it was noon and the warehouse was empty, or anyone passing by would have thought something extraordinary had happened.
With such a huge space, what was even the point of the warehouse anymore?
Shen Cong felt like she was floating.
In just a few moments, she transferred all the stored supplies into the new space, even remembering to remove the installed water purifier.
Despite putting so much in, it only occupied a tiny fraction of the space; not even a single corner was full.
This gave Shen Cong a feeling of confidence and abundance!
The storage problems that had troubled her for so long were finally solved.
Who wouldn’t want to buy more delicious food?
Who wouldn’t want to stock up on favorite items while there was still time, to make the difficult days ahead a little more bearable?
Before, with such limited space, Shen Cong couldn’t even entertain such wishes.
Forget gourmet food, she didn’t even dare buy too many fresh vegetables or fruits.
The limited space had to be reserved for the most essential items: seeds, seedlings, drinking water, and medicines.
Those fried chicken, fries, soda, ice cream… she could only dream about them and never actually order.
But now it was different!
The more Shen Cong thought about it, the more excited she became. She didn’t want to stay a minute longer, after finishing organizing, she planned to head straight to the city’s largest storage supermarket.
It had everything, was well-stocked, and reasonably priced, a perfect place to stock up.
Fortunately, a sliver of rationality remained. Before driving off, she remembered to send Gu Kai a message:
“Honey, my #＃ has expanded again!!!”
Although she didn’t spell it out, she knew Gu Kai would understand perfectly.
To show her excitement at that moment, she added three exclamation marks in a row.
Unfortunately, Gu Kai didn’t seem to be on the same wavelength, after waiting a long time, there was still no reply.
Shen Cong knew he had gone out today with her grandfather to pick up some medicine, there was a batch of anti-inflammatory drugs with purchase limits, and connections were needed to get them.
Not replying clearly meant he was busy.
Unwilling to wait, she sent another message: “You definitely can’t guess how much it expanded this time.”
She even added a smug emoji at the end.
Logging out of WeChat, Shen Cong opened the local group-buying app and started her first round of frenzied shopping according to her planned route.
She first tapped into the nearest coffee shop and, following the menu order without any consideration, placed her order straight through:
Americano extra strong, coconut latte, Ori White (iced/hot, 20 cups each): 17.5×60 = 1050 yuan;
Flash Orange, coconut cold brew (20 cups each): 16×40 = 640 yuan;
Total: 1690 yuan.
She even added a note: “Urgent, self-pickup,” before decisively placing the order.
After the coffee, Shen Cong went to the nearest fried chicken shop mini-program.
This time she made it even simpler, ordering directly: 20 family buckets, 20 kids’ meals: 160×20 + 35×20 = 3900 yuan.
Again, she added the note: “Urgent, self-pickup.”
In this way, Shen Cong bought two hundred cups of assorted cold drinks, two hundred soft-serve ice creams in one go; she also ordered fried yogurt, cheesecake, cream puffs, various sushi, rice skin noodles, cold skin noodles, hand-rolled noodles…
She still wanted to buy various classic snacks, but unfortunately, the ones she liked were not on the same route, so she would have to wait for another day.
By the time Shen Cong drove to the supermarket after all this buying and picking up, it was almost three o’clock.
Remembering her mother’s instructions to get home early, she immediately sprinted inside at top speed.
Shen Cong first went to the fresh produce section.
Because the family’s major assets had already been liquidated, and her sister had also transferred 150,000 euros, under Mrs. Cheng’s coordination, although a lot had been spent, the remaining funds were still substantial.
At least the twenty-some thousand in Shen Cong’s account had barely been touched.
So this big shopping spree was the most satisfying one Shen Cong had ever had in her memory, because—
There was absolutely no need to look at prices!
If she liked it, she could just toss it into the cart!
Shrimp, abalone, oysters, scallops;
Black tiger shrimp, grilled eel;
Yellow croaker, salmon, octopus;
Fish maw chicken, Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, fresh sea cucumber…
By the time she finished one round, the shopping cart was overflowing.
She pushed the cart to checkout, then loaded everything into the car.
Once in the car, she quickly transferred all the items into her space and went back inside.
Various steaks;
Roast chicken, baked chicken, salt-baked chicken;
Tangyuan (sweet rice balls), siu mai, glutinous rice cakes…
Grapes, mangosteen, lychee, dragon fruit;
Kiwi, peaches, mangoes, lemons, bayberries;
And the Hami melon her mother loved…
It was summer, the season with the widest variety of fruits and vegetables.
Shen Cong felt utterly satisfied.
At first, she had reminded herself to stay low-key, but as she kept picking items, she got completely carried away.
Plus, it was a weekday, so there weren’t many people in the supermarket anyway, trying not to draw attention was practically impossible.
By the time she had gotten this far, Shen Cong didn’t even need to lift a finger.
The supermarket manager treated her like a VIP customer and directly assigned two sales assistants to follow her around.
Not only that, the two sales assistants were also pushing a large flat cart used for stocking.
Whenever Shen Cong picked something, she just had to point, and someone would grab it for her while pushing the cart behind.
Fortunately, with Madam Cheng’s “expert” guidance in her mind, Shen Cong knew that if she bought too much and brought it all home, she would get scolded.
So even though she picked a wide variety of items, she kept the quantities just under the limit that would make her mother angry.
Having the supermarket staff help carry everything to the parking lot, watching the load almost burst the car, Shen Cong silently thought, “That was close!”
She was glad she had stayed relatively calm.
After the staff left and she quickly stored everything in her space, Shen Cong finally left, still feeling exhilarated.
The haul that afternoon was massive, every single one of the specially ordered shelves she had set up was now completely full.
And yet the balance on her bank card had only gone down by half.
After calling her mother to confirm that her sister and the kids hadn’t returned yet, Shen Cong decided there was no rush to go home.
It was already July 6th, less than ten days before the predicted disaster on the 15th, and every minute had become precious.
Shen Cong ran through all the restaurants and eateries her family and she usually liked to visit, then searched online for their contact information.
Her parents’ favorite morning and evening tea spots, the Hunan restaurant she and Gu Kai liked, the rice noodles her sister had loved since childhood, the beef ramen Tongtong had recently become obsessed with;
Grandpa’s favorite braised pork knuckle, the hotpot place her colleagues frequented…
For those places that could deliver immediately, she placed orders straight away; for the ones that couldn’t, she paid deposits and scheduled pickup times.
By the time she finished, her warehouse was stocked with yet another huge batch of steaming, aromatic food. Only then did she head home feeling completely satisfied.
ᘻᘿᓍᘺ
Shen Xi and the others didn’t return until midnight.
Gu Zhengchu, with his regular routine, had gone to bed early, while Shen Cong and her husband waited with Cheng Ru in the living room.
When they heard the car arrive, they went out to greet them.
It was clear from Shen Xi’s exhausted and dazed expression that Shen Jianyi had already filled her in on the recent events during the drive.
Actually, this was to be expected.
After all, she had rushed back in a panic just to see her critically ill father. After going through so many obstacles to finally return home, not only was her father fine, he even brought her the terrifying news that “the end of the world is coming.”
Who could process that all at once?
The family worked together to settle the two children, already fast asleep, and all the luggage, then returned to the living room.
Cheng Ru hugged her daughter with concern and asked, “Xixi, are you tired? Do you want to sleep first and talk tomorrow?”
Shen Xi shook her head. “Let’s talk now. If I don’t get this clear, I won’t be able to sleep anyway!”
After several consecutive days of stress, she was already close to her limit, physically and mentally exhausted, feeling as if she might collapse at any moment.
But no matter how tired she was, it couldn’t compare to the shocks she faced today. Shen Xi had to get things clarified.
Seeing her sister’s fatigue, Shen Cong didn’t beat around the bush. She explained as simply as possible everything that had happened in her previous life.
Of course, she couldn’t resist “performing a little trick” again, showing her space.
This time, in front of everyone, she produced a steaming bowl of mushroom and beef rice noodles and placed it in front of Shen Xi.
“Sis, I specifically got this for you today. Try it, doesn’t it taste like it used to?”
Shen Xi stared at the bowl of noodles that had appeared out of nowhere, steaming as if freshly cooked, her expression a mixture of disbelief and awe.
If she had still had doubts when her father told her on the way home that the apocalypse was imminent, now it was impossible not to believe.