Only three days remained before the apocalypse.
The sky had turned a murky, earthy yellow, and the air carried a sulfuric stench. News reports were filled with volcanic eruptions and tsunami warnings from all over.
Small-scale riots had begun in the city.
Supermarket shelves were being emptied, and long lines formed outside pharmacies.
Shen Xingdu sat at home, going over her supply list one final time.
“Clothes, food, shelter, energy, weapons, medicine… basically everything’s ready.”
“Wait a minute.”
Her gaze paused at a corner of her space.
It was the planting and pasture zones she unlocked after leveling up to LV2.
Right now, the pasture had only Tiechui living there, looking empty. The planting area had just a few baby cabbages she had thrown in earlier.
“Teaching someone to fish is better than giving them fish. No matter how many supplies I stockpile, one day they’ll run out. Sustainable production is key.”
She had to secure seeds and soil.
The land outside would soon be destroyed by acid rain and extreme heat, making planting impossible. She needed to bring clean soil into her space.
Shen Xingdu immediately drove to an ecological agricultural technology park in the suburbs.
It had the best organic black soil and a variety of improved seeds.
The park was in chaos; many employees had gone home to seek shelter. Shen Xingdu found the manager who remained.
“I want to buy soil. Rich, humus-filled black soil—10,000 cubic meters.”
“And seeds. Rice, wheat, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes… all staple crops.”
“Vegetable seeds too. Leafy greens, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers…”
“Fruit saplings: apples, pears, peaches, cherries, grapes…”
The manager looked at her. “At a time like this, you still care about farming?”
“Exactly because it’s chaos, I need to grow and store food.” Shen Xingdu threw down a stack of cash.
“Enough talk. Do you have them?”
“Yes, yes, yes!”
Shen Xingdu not only bought up all the seeds, but also used the system’s recycling feature to strip a large swath of fertile black soil from the park’s back hill, storing it directly in her space.
She also collected several hundred breeding chickens and ducks, two breeding pigs, and a pond full of fish fry.
Back at home, her consciousness dove into the space.
She spread the black soil in the planting area, irrigated it with spiritual spring water, and sowed the seeds.
With the system’s time acceleration and the spring’s magic, the seeds sprouted immediately, full of life.
In the pasture, the chickens and ducks frolicked, and the piglets rooted through the soil.
Looking at this thriving miniature world, Shen Xingdu exhaled deeply.
Now, she didn’t just have an impenetrable fortress—she had a logistics base capable of endlessly producing food.
Everything was ready; all that remained was the east wind.
The next day, Shen Xingdu sat in her fully reinforced penthouse, staring at her laptop screen flickering with countless lines of green code.
She was hacking into the security system of the Shen family’s old mansion.
Although the police had come by to inquire about her recent heists, there was no evidence—the surveillance had been hacked, and no one could prove it.
Even after emptying the Shen Group’s warehouses and Shen Hongwei’s winery, it still wasn’t enough for her.
The true wealth of the Shen family wasn’t in the company—it was in the old mansion halfway up the mountain.
There was a private museum closed to outsiders, containing antiques, calligraphy, gold, silver, and jade collected over generations.
In her previous life, Shen Hongwei relied on a few rare treasures to survive and maintain influence in the late apocalypse, even after losing the company.
“Ancient antiques in times of peace, gold in times of chaos.”
That old saying was true in the early apocalypse; antiques weren’t worth as much as a pack of instant noodles.
But—
Shen Xingdu glanced at the system panel’s newly refreshed prompt:
【Beep! System alert: High-concentration historical energy detected near host.】
【Description: Antiques and cultural artifacts contain energy accumulated over history. Recycling them grants high survival points and carries a very small chance to drop special items (e.g., space talismans, mental enhancement tools, etc.).】
Her eyes lit up instantly.
“So antiques actually have a use!”
She had been worrying that although she had many survival points, she still fell short of the points needed to buy the sky-high [Fully Automated Mechanical Defense Watchtower] in the system mall.
If she could empty the Shen family museum…
Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
The mansion’s security system layout gradually appeared on her screen.
“Hah, still the same system from five years ago. Shen Hongwei really hasn’t improved a bit.”
As a former dutiful daughter who had self-taught hacking to please her father and even maintained the family’s network, Shen Xingdu knew all the backdoors of this system.
Beep—Infiltration successful.
The screen switched to live surveillance feeds from inside the mansion.
It was already deep night. Shen Hongwei, exhausted by his company’s mess, was asleep. Zhao Yalan and Lin Wan’er had also gone to their rooms.
The entire mansion was silent, with only a few night-guard bodyguards napping in the yard.
Shen Xingdu closed her laptop, a cold, cruel smile curling on her lips.
“Since you’re all sleeping so soundly, don’t blame me for being ruthless.”
She stood, changing into a black, tight-fitting night ops suit. Exchanged from the system mall, it was a nano-invisibility combat suit—lightweight, durable, and capable of bending light to reduce detection.
Two Glock pistols hung on her waist, a military knife on her thigh, and she wore silent tactical boots.
“Tiechui, guard the house.” She patted the sleeping honey badger on the sofa.
Tiechui groggily lifted its head, snorted twice, and rolled over.
Shen Xingdu slung a huge black tactical backpack, pushed open the blast-proof door, and disappeared into the night.
Shen family old mansion, I’m coming.
This time, she would show them what it truly means to have an empty home.