After waiting a moment, she carefully loosened the bandage of tissue and glanced cautiously to check whether the wound was still bleeding.
Seeing that it had stopped, she slowly pulled the tissue away.
No sooner had she done so than a sharp, searing pain shot through the cut, followed instantly by a wave of dizziness.
When the faintness passed, Lu Jinxia realized something new had appeared in her mind. Damn it, she thought. If only I hadn’t been so stingy with money today—I should’ve gone for that checkup.
Just as she’d feared, there really was something wrong with her head!
Something had grown inside her mind!
Lu Jinxia’s heart clenched in terror, and she grabbed the kitchen counter to steady herself.
Her fingertips were still stained with fresh blood as she stared, dazed, at a hazy, gray square of space that had materialized out of thin air before her eyes.
“???”
“!!!”
What… This was exactly like the descriptions of a storage space she’d read in novels!
So—could this be… a space?
:0 :0 :0
Lu Jinxia’s spirits soared; the dizziness vanished completely.
Stifling a surge of excitement, she focused her mind on the scene before her.
It was roughly ten square meters in size, with smooth, even ground.
A thin mist swirled around the edges, and at the moment, it stood entirely empty.
It really was a space!
Oh my goodness! She’d hit the jackpot!
She couldn’t help but let out a little laugh. Even the throbbing in her injured finger faded from notice.
Lu Jinxia tried whispering silently in her mind: Enter.
She remained exactly where she stood.
Lu Jinxia: ???
Hmm… That wasn’t quite how it worked in the novels.
She picked up a bowl instead, and with a thought, commanded: Store!
The bowl vanished instantly.
Lu Jinxia turned her attention to the space in her mind—and sure enough, there sat the bowl, exactly the one she’d held.
A grin spread across her face, impossible to suppress no matter how hard she tried. ~(￣▽￣)~
She pinched herself sharply on the back of her hand. “Ow!”
It hurt!
This was no dream—it was real!
She poured half a cup of hot water and sent it into the space, too. She wanted to test whether time passed inside. If it flowed normally, the water would be cold by tomorrow.
She cooked, ate, washed up, browsed her phone for a while, and eventually drifted off to sleep.
“When will you be back? It’s time you came home… When…”
Lu Jinxia jolted awake, pressing a hand to her chest. That dream again.
Thinking of it filled her with an urgent, restless feeling. And now this space had appeared… It felt as though the dream had been foretelling something.
She knew then: she should stock the space with supplies—better safe than sorry.
Her thoughts turned to the cup of water. She fixed it in her mind and commanded: Retrieve!
The cup reappeared in her hand—still steaming hot.
Time stood still inside the space! That meant anything she stored would never spoil or expire.
Tomorrow was Friday. She opened her phone and booked a ticket home to her hometown county for that evening.
Stockpiling would be far more cost-effective there—prices were much lower, and she knew every corner of the place. She knew exactly where to find quality goods at bargain rates. It was the perfect choice.
Lu Jinxia had been raised by her grandparents. Her parents had divorced, remarried, and started new families with other children—and they would have preferred never to hear from her again. Lu Jinxia, for her part, had never reached out to them either.
Since high school, she’d worked every holiday to support herself through school, all the way to university graduation. Not long after she finished college, her grandparents passed away one after another. There was nothing left for her in that county—only the low prices made the long trip worthwhile.
During her lunch break on Friday, she made a detailed list of everything she intended to buy. She’d rent a van and head straight for the wholesale market.
As soon as work ended, she boarded the bus back home. Upon arriving, she checked into a hotel for the night.
At dawn the next day, she rented a van and drove to the wholesale market.
First came staple foods. She bought fifty sacks of rice, each weighing 20 jin (approx. 10 kg), and thirty sacks of flour, also 20 jin each. She took just two sacks of millet, since she rarely ate it.
Then she thought of the dream—the girl’s clothes looked like styles from the 1960s or 70s. Pausing, she added five sacks of cornmeal and two large bundles of dried noodles (20 individual packs per bundle). She wasn’t fond of dried noodles, so she kept the quantity small.
Next: thirty large jugs of cooking oil, plus salt, soy sauce (light and dark), thirteen-spice powder, star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, and every other seasoning she could think of—one full case of each. She took three cases of salt, just to be safe. And 80 jin of old-fashioned brown sugar. She also ordered oiled paper wrappers online for storing it.
Since the space was limited, she needed to organize efficiently. She bought eight metal storage shelves—the shopkeeper left them unassembled for transport and showed her how to put them together.
She loaded the rice and flour into the van. It was a seven-seater with the rear seats removed, designed specifically for cargo like this.
Once loaded, she told the shopkeeper she’d drop the goods at a warehouse before returning for more. She drove to a quiet, camera-free stretch on the town’s outskirts—and shifted everything into her space.
Returning to the market, she loaded the shelves and remaining goods, then repeated the process: drive to a secluded spot, camera-free, and store everything safely away.
Next she went for eggs and meat. Ten large baskets of fresh eggs, plus five baskets of salted duck eggs. She ordered two whole pigs, butchered and portioned. Eighty chickens, plucked and fully dressed. From the butcher she took 50 jin of beef and 50 jin of lamb, all cut into manageable chunks and packaged. Plus 50 jin of cured sausages.
Then: ten cases of instant noodles, ten cases of sausages, twenty cases of bread. Toilet paper she kept modest—ten large packs, since she assumed such things would exist in the era of her dream. Sanitary pads: twenty cases, mixed day and night-use.
She found a fabric merchant selling old-style cloth and bought three bolts. Then she placed orders: 500 steamed buns (half pork, half vegetable), 500 fried dough sticks, and 500 pan-fried buns. She paid deposits and arranged to collect them all the following morning.
That took her through the morning. After a quick meal, she headed to the clothing wholesale district—but specifically the section selling older-fashioned garments. Modern trendy styles would stand out too much in the era from her dream. She bought full sets suitable for every season: winter padded jackets and trousers, spring lightweight tops, summer shirts, and autumn wool sweaters and trousers.