“Why aren’t you using one of those stapler-like suture devices?”
On the fourth floor, inside Qu Meijing’s apartment, Qin Sang had just opened the toolbox she’d brought along—well, to be precise, a medical kit—when Qu Meijing’s shrill voice rang out.
Qin Sang took a deep breath and resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
Anyone frequently injured by gunfire would know that gunshot wounds come in many types. For a through-and-through wound, multiple layers need to be stitched—how many depends on the wound itself. If you just staple it together with a suture device, you’re basically leaving it to fate. Especially with temperatures this high, necrosis and amputation could happen at any moment.
Qin Sang had come up here, first, because she genuinely knew how to treat wounds, and second, because she had brought some energy-infused water from her space.
This energy water didn’t have the miraculous effects of spirit spring water in novels, but it could boost cell activity.
Given how precious this stuff was, Qin Sang felt that asking for one-third of the supplies was already a loss for her.
“I’ll have my mom come up to take the supplies later. For now, lie down and let me look at the wound. Anesthesia, debridement, suturing—there’s a lot of work to do.”
And of course, after administering anesthesia, she’d have her mother come up to collect the supplies.
That was Qin Sang’s plan, and that’s exactly what she told Qu Meijing.
Qu Meijing looked at her suspiciously. “You’re not going to try to hypnotize me or something, are you?”
Qin Sang: … If she had that ability, she wouldn’t have had so much trouble finding a job.
After examining the wound, it was just as she had thought. Moreover, Qu Meijing had been quite lucky. Although it was a through-and-through wound, it had perfectly avoided all major nerves. However, there was one strange thing: the amount of bleeding was surprisingly small.
Although Qin Sang wasn’t a real doctor, her medical knowledge told her this was abnormal. Silently noting this, she began treating the wound.
When they talked about payment, Qin Sang directly asked for all the jewelry and a portion of the food.
“No, I need to keep some gold.” Qu Meijing remembered that in the first year of the apocalypse in her previous life, gold could still be traded for some food and drink.
Qin Sang nodded, thinking that gold wasn’t very useful anyway. What she had been eyeing from the start was the jewelry from Qu’s Jewelry—especially the jade pieces. She wanted to take them all. Simply because jade had a chance of yielding a space.
Although everyone in her family already had a space, that didn’t stop her from collecting more. Qin Sang had a feeling that these jade-derived spaces weren’t that simple. Currently, aside from her own, all the spaces in the world were jade-based. Regardless of the size, style, or material of the original jade piece, once bound to a person, the resulting space was identical in size and shape to everyone else’s.
Don’t you think that’s strange?
Qu Meijing didn’t know any of this. Seeing that Qin Sang wanted the jewelry, she was more than happy to give it away. You couldn’t eat or drink the stuff. After setting aside a portion of gold, she dumped all the remaining jewelry onto Qin Sang. She also gave Qin Sang some of the food she had requested.
After handing over the payment, Qu Meijing still had a lot left. She was very satisfied.
So was Qin Sang.
Looking at the perfectly stitched wound she had just closed, Qin Sang felt she had chosen the wrong major. She should have gone into clinical medicine. But then again, if she had, she’d be doing residency at a hospital right now—which would be even worse. The disaster was coming, and she’d still be paying to work at a hospital!
——
After the sun went down and the outside temperature dropped slightly, Qin Sang went back to being a beast of burden.
The two young men greeted her warmly. After chatting for a bit, they asked her mysteriously if she needed supplies.
“Supplies? Aren’t all supplies being controlled outside now?”
“No, Sang Sang Jie, let me explain. I have a classmate whose family lives right next to a warehouse district. She said last night, a lot of people went to those warehouses for zero-yuan shopping.”
Qin Sang thought, It can’t be that much of a coincidence.
“I heard someone even used a gun.”
Qin Sang quickly asked which warehouse district—and sure enough, it was the same area as the Qu family warehouse.
That meant she wasn’t the only one who got robbed last night. Multiple warehouses in that area had been hit by zero-yuan shoppers. The Qu family was just the one that got reported.
She had also asked Qu Meijing the truth about her injury. Qu Meijing said she had run into someone as she was escaping, and they had shot her.
It seemed the situation outside was even more chaotic than she had imagined.
——
How chaotic, you ask?
The main issue was that these zero-yuan shoppers had spaces. Once they stashed the stolen goods inside, catching them became extremely difficult.
At the Natural Disaster Response Management Bureau, many leaders and officials were heatedly discussing the zero-yuan shopping cases happening across the country.
“We must screen everyone who has a space nationwide. Publish the names of all these people. Let the whole society monitor them!”
“That would violate privacy. And even if you publish the list, how do you know these space holders won’t band together and rob supplies en masse?”
“Just put them under control. Forbid them from going out. Have all supplies ordered online and delivered by the community…”
“That won’t work…”
All kinds of suggestions were put forward, but each had its own drawbacks. There were only about twenty days left until the apocalypse—that was precisely when manpower was needed for infrastructure projects. They couldn’t restrict everything completely.
While the authorities were debating fiercely over the space issue, back in Xinling Village, everyone else was also engaged in an intense discussion about spaces.
“Renting out space?” Qin Sang had just finished hearing about the zero-yuan shopping incidents, and now she overheard Second Aunt and a few other women talking about renting out spaces.
By now, the sky had gone completely dark, and the temperature had dropped to around forty degrees. Still hot, but bearable. So quite a few people were out and about, exchanging information.
One would say there was a place to secretly buy supplies, another would say someone was willing to barter goods.
Qin Sang quite enjoyed this kind of lively atmosphere—it felt like a bit of normalcy. Then she heard a group of elderly women gathered around Second Aunt, discussing renting her space.
Hearing the words “renting space,” the corners of Qin Sang’s mouth twitched. The wisdom of the masses truly knew no bounds.
That morning, they had been envying Second Aunt’s space. By the evening, they had already thought of renting it.
But on second thought, Second Aunt lived alone, and she was known to be trustworthy. Renting her space actually seemed quite feasible.
Qin Sang went over and asked the women why they wanted to rent a space.
It turned out that the secret the two young men had told her about was already known throughout the entire village.
Everyone had heard that warehouses in the provincial capital had been zero-yuan shopped. They were worried that their own supplies stored at home might also be stolen. Their anxiety led them to come up with this ingenious idea.
The big drawback of this idea was that it depended entirely on the space owner’s conscience. If you rented someone’s space, put your supplies in, and then they refused to give them back, what could you do?
As far as anyone knew, once supplies were put into a space, they couldn’t be retrieved without the owner’s consent.
Clearly, these women were aware of this risk. But they were still negotiating with Second Aunt, which showed they trusted her.
And in the end, this actually worked out.
The next day, people in the group chat started discussing it. Space owners, seeing the profit in it, began advertising online that their spaces were available for rent.
Some even tagged Qin Sang’s parents, asking if they would rent out their spaces.
In short, it was a lively spectacle. This topic also spread online, sparking all sorts of further developments.
All in all, the hot topic over these two days had shifted from zero-yuan shopping to renting out spaces.
And it was right in the middle of this atmosphere that the authorities finally announced their plan for managing space holders.
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