After visiting five different shops, Xu Qinghe finally arranged custom orders for every part she needed.
She wanted to make three flintlock-style firearms.
As one of the earliest forms of firearms, flintlocks had many shortcomings compared to modern weapons, but they were still firearms. Their destructive power was on an entirely different level from cold weapons.
As for gunpowder, she had already ordered plenty of the materials mentioned in a traditional formula she had found.
(The original novel includes a disclaimer here stating that this is fictional plot content, that manufacturing weapons is illegal, and that readers should not imitate it.)
After placing the custom orders, Xu Qinghe once again arrived at the parcel station right before closing time to pick up her deliveries.
Faced with the courier’s increasingly resentful gaze, she felt a little embarrassed.
Showing up at the last minute three times in a row would make anyone wonder whether she was doing it on purpose.
She hurried through the pickup process, hoping to keep the poor guy from working overtime any longer than necessary.
Back home, she transferred more than a thousand packs of sanitary pads into her space.
Fortunately, because she had ordered such a huge quantity, the seller had shipped everything in large cartons—seven or eight big boxes in total—saving her the trouble of reorganizing them.
As for the newly arrived down liners and fleece jackets, she quickly hand-washed them and hung them inside the space to dry.
After a quick dinner, Xu Qinghe checked the paper cups containing her lettuce seedlings.
The seeds had already sprouted.
Carefully separating the seedlings, she transplanted them into the vegetable plots inside her space.
She wasn’t sure whether it was her imagination, but after planting them, the seedlings somehow looked even more vibrant.
She glanced at the vegetable garden and then at the livestock area.
The feeling wasn’t just in her head.
The animals seemed relaxed and content.
Fresh green grass had already begun sprouting across the pasture.
The cattle, sheep, and donkeys quietly grazed.
Groups of chickens and ducks wandered around pecking earthworms from the ground.
The piglets lounged lazily in the grass.
The different species didn’t bother one another at all.
Each went about its business peacefully, far calmer than the animals she had seen at the farm.
Perhaps the space truly possessed some kind of magic.
After planting the vegetables, Xu Qinghe returned to her routine of digging the reservoir and downloading information from the internet.
The next morning, she sat at her desk, yawning as she calculated her remaining funds.
Of the ninety thousand yuan she had left earlier, less than thirty thousand remained after buying livestock, weapon parts, sanitary products, and other supplies.
Reviewing her stockpiling checklist, she found that most of the tasks were already complete.
The only major items left were:
Thirty thousand yuan would be enough for fish fry and some appliances.
Solar power equipment, however, was completely out of reach.
But without solar power generation, electrical appliances would be useless.
Buying them only to leave them unusable would be a waste.
Therefore, she decided to spend most of the remaining money on aquatic livestock and use whatever was left to fill gaps in her preparations.
As for appliances and power systems—
She would think about them only if her lottery ticket actually won.
As the lottery redemption date approached, Xu Qinghe took out the picture of the God of Wealth and bowed reverently three times.
While her computer continued downloading materials in the background, she went out to purchase the day’s medicine supplies before returning home to focus on digging the reservoir.
Everything on her stockpiling list that could be purchased had already been purchased.
The only things left were those she couldn’t afford or couldn’t buy yet.
Her lottery ticket still had five days before it could be redeemed.
With nothing else pressing to do, she decided to spend the time properly organizing her space.
The reservoir inside the space was already more than four meters deep.
She planned to dig another six meters before filling it with water from a nearby reservoir.
Perhaps because she had spent so many days working inside the space, her efficiency had improved considerably.
She estimated the remaining six meters could be finished within two days.
During the following days, Xu Qinghe stayed in her apartment.
She dug the reservoir, cooked meals, and planted potatoes and sweet potatoes in the feed-production area.
She also went out periodically to collect medicines, completed cotton clothing and quilts, and picked up the custom-made firearm parts.
Three days later, the reservoir was finally finished.
Xu Qinghe found a reservoir outside the city and, while no one was around, transferred enough water into her space to fill it.
After completing the reservoir, she looked around her space and felt deeply satisfied.
The little ranch she had imagined was gradually becoming reality.
Over the past few days, she had also discovered another benefit of the space:
Neither the livestock nor the crops seemed to require water.
She had discovered this entirely by accident.
At first, she had completely forgotten that animals needed drinking water and crops required irrigation.
By the time she remembered, several days had already passed.
The animals and plants had gone without water the entire time.
Yet not only were they unharmed—
They were thriving.
This ability saved her an enormous amount of trouble.
First, farming and animal husbandry became dramatically easier.
Second, if she really ended up in ancient times, she wouldn’t have to worry about droughts.
With the space handling both agriculture and livestock,
it was practically farming on easy mode.
Over the next two days, she dug a one-meter-deep pond inside the livestock area.
She also planted rice for the ducks around the pond.
When the rice matured, the grains would fall into the water and become snacks for the ducks.
While constructing the pond, she completely filled the staple crop area, fruit and vegetable area, and medicinal herb area with crops.
Every corner of the planting space was utilized.
The day before cashing in the lottery ticket, she visited an aquaculture supplier and purchased:
She wasn’t sure whether all three species would fight each other when raised together.
Still, she had absolute confidence in the space.
With the space’s abilities, aquaculture seemed effortless.
She also released some of the crab and crayfish juveniles into the duck pond.
Those would serve as future snacks for the ducks.
Since the rice seedlings and aquatic stock were still small, she used leftover fencing to enclose the pond.
The ducks paced anxiously around the fence but never crossed it.
After buying the aquatic stock, she still had money left.
She purchased more than twenty fruit trees and pagoda tree saplings.
Planting them along the borders between different sections of the space served two purposes:
The pagoda trees were planted beside the reservoir.
She also placed several beehives nearby.
Once the trees bloomed, she would be able to harvest pagoda flower honey.
The fallen blossoms could also feed the aquatic creatures in the reservoir.
Pleased with the idea of using trees as natural boundaries, Xu Qinghe planted sugarcane along many of the remaining borders as well.
Once mature, the sugarcane could be processed into brown sugar.
On the day she was finally allowed to redeem the lottery ticket, Xu Qinghe once again opened the picture of the God of Wealth.
After bowing several times with utmost sincerity, she picked up the ticket and headed out the door.