“Sang Sang, are you ready? Your dad and I are about to leave.”
Qin Sang was changing clothes in her room. Hearing her mother’s voice, she quickly replied, “Wait a minute.” She hurriedly pulled on her sun-protective suit.
This wasn’t one of those suits on the market that only marketed themselves but had no real effect.
This suit reportedly used the latest high-tech materials and could genuinely reduce UV damage and lower skin temperature by 5–10 degrees.
The suits had been sent to Brother Fa through Da Linzi’s connections, and then delivered to her. There were only three—one for each member of the family. They looked similar to traditional sun-protective clothing: long-sleeved, long-length, with a front zipper.
Once she put it on, she felt a slight chill even inside the air-conditioned room.
She came out in the suit to find her parents waiting for her at the entryway, wearing matching outfits.
“First, the meeting. After that, we need to fix the doors.”
Thinking about the six pried-open doors gave Qin Sang’s father a headache. They were supposed to be doors that not even a cannon could break—yet someone had jimmied them open. Although the police later said the locksmith from last night was a notorious figure in the criminal underworld known as the “Lock God,” Qin Sang’s father was still furious.
Luckily, that trashy Lock God hadn’t destroyed the doors. They just needed new lock cylinders, and they’d be usable again.
One look at her father’s face told Qin Sang exactly what he was thinking.
“It’s okay. At least the yard gate is fine.”
The yard gate was the sturdiest of all. Leaving aside the materials used for that gate, it had four locks on it. Probably for that reason, the intruders hadn’t bothered trying to pick it and had climbed over the wall instead.
Qin Sang decided that after the meeting, she would install spike strips—like the ones on a mace—on top of the already-raised wall. And then add an electric fence on top of that.
Hmph. Let’s see anyone get through that next time. If they dared try, they’d end up electrocuted.
—
The family of three went downstairs and walked onto the village path, running into quite a few people along the way.
The sun was blazing during the day, and the temperature had already surpassed fifty degrees. Everyone wore grim expressions. It wasn’t just because of the heat—it was more because of last night’s invasion.
Twelve households had been broken into the night before. All of them had space owners. From that, it was clear what the intruders were after.
They were hunting space owners.
No space owners had been killed, but eight were injured. One ordinary person had died: the mother of high school student Qin Yonghua.
Arriving at the village office, Qin Sang quickly learned the aftermath of the previous night’s incident.
That day’s village assembly had been called precisely to address it.
Seeing that most of the villagers had arrived, the village chief didn’t waste any time. Standing under the scorching sun, he began announcing the details of the invasion.
—
The situations in the invaded households were largely similar. All were self-built houses with stairwell doors between floors. However, her family’s doors were the sturdiest of all. Moreover, other households had only one intruder each, while hers had two.
That meant her family had been specifically targeted.
Qin Sang quietly extracted the information she needed from the village chief’s speech.
After finishing the report on the invasions, the village chief continued:
“The person who died last night was Qin Yonghua’s mother. Qin Yonghua himself was seriously injured and is being treated at the hospital. Everyone knows his family’s situation. Of the three of them, only Yonghua is capable. His father can’t handle anything. So the village will help arrange the funeral. The weather is too hot right now—the cost of preserving the body is high. Yonghua’s father wants to cremate her quickly. The village will help with the rest…”
Qin Sang had no objection to this. The village collective company was owned by all the villagers and had the function of helping with funerals.
But several of Qin Yonghua’s neighbors were muttering on the sidelines.
They weren’t against helping with the funeral—the dead deserved that much respect. But they felt Yonghua’s mother had brought it on herself.
Qin Sang pricked up her ears and listened carefully. That was when she learned the full story.
When the intruders arrived at their house late last night, they hadn’t pried the door open. They’d knocked. Their excuse was that they were offering a high price to hire Qin Yonghua to use his space to transport goods. Although Qin Yonghua was only a high school student, he wasn’t stupid. He sensed something off about someone showing up at midnight with a good deal and refused.
But Qin Yonghua’s mother, greedy for the supposed high reward, welcomed the intruders right in.
Once inside, they killed her first.
Qin Yonghua, who had remained on guard, hadn’t even processed his mother’s death before a gun was aimed at him. On pure instinct, he started dropping construction stone slabs from his space in front of himself as shields. That move saved his life.
But the intruders weren’t pushovers either. They fired multiple shots.
However, Qin Yonghua wasn’t hospitalized because of bullet wounds—he was crushed by falling objects.
Because when the intruders saw that their guns were useless, they copied Qin Yonghua’s tactic and started throwing heavy objects at him. Two space owners flinging things at each other. In the end, Qin Yonghua won.
The reason was simple: Qin Yonghua’s space didn’t have many supplies, so he had stored a lot of stone slabs. The intruder’s space only had vacuum-packed bags of rice as heavy objects.
So in the end, Qin Yonghua confiscated quite a bit of rice. If his mother hadn’t died, he probably would have been thrilled.
Qin Sang was stunned listening to the neighbors’ description.
She hadn’t thought anyone could use a space so skillfully.
Qin Sang didn’t have a jade space herself, but she had asked her parents in detail how theirs worked. She knew that storing items was simple for them. All they had to do was look at the item and think about it, and it would be sucked into their space. However, the maximum amount they could store at one time was about the size of a small car.
That sounded like a small amount. But unlike in novels, the process didn’t tire them out. As long as there was room in the space, they could keep storing things indefinitely.
Qin Sang’s own roasted goose space, however, was more like the spaces commonly seen in post-apocalyptic novels. To store items, she didn’t need to touch them or even look at them, and there was no volume limit—but it required mental energy.
To put it simply, she had to shape her mental energy into something like a net, scoop it over the items she wanted to store, and then they’d go into her space.
How much she could store depended on the strength of her mental energy.
Fortunately, Qin Sang’s mental energy was very strong. Ever since she inherited the roasted goose space at age five, she had been training her mental energy. Her ancestors had passed down a set of mental cultivation techniques that could only be practiced by someone who had inherited the roasted goose space.
Thinking of this, Qin Sang suddenly looked at her parents.
Her parents had tried those cultivation techniques before, but probably because they didn’t have a space, they hadn’t been able to practice them. Now that both had spaces, could they try again?
—
After finishing the account of Qin Yonghua’s family, the village chief also mentioned some recent government actions, including the distribution of minimum subsistence supplies and the launch of the survival app’s mall.
“I hear the mall will be stocking supplies to help withstand the disaster. Everyone should keep an eye on the mall for new arrivals.”
The village chief wasn’t an internet expert, but thanks to reminders from acquaintances, he understood how important this app was.
Qin Sang noticed that quite a few people had come to the meeting today, but her dear second uncle and second aunt were nowhere to be seen.
How strange.
Yesterday, Qin Wenbang and Qin Wenqiang had been arrested for murder. Her fourth uncle and fourth aunt, who had been doing hard labor at a construction site, had rushed back to find the village chief and Brother Fa to help them visit their son at the police station.
She had expected her second uncle and second aunt to come to her family’s house. But they hadn’t shown up all night, and they weren’t here now. That was very strange.
Qin Sang decided to check on her second uncle’s place after the meeting. Her intuition told her this wasn’t simple.
—
“It’s all your eldest brother’s fault for refusing to use his space to help transport supplies. Otherwise, Bangzi would never have thought of killing to get a space. All he wanted was a space to help the family. And because of that, our good son is gone!”
On an empty road, two middle-aged people sped along in a car. The driver was drenched in sweat, terrified the vehicle would explode in the extreme heat.
The passenger kept complaining, cursing, and berating the driver.
“Enough, enough. You think I don’t know that? If it weren’t for Bangzi, would we be risking our lives driving right now?”
The driver was none other than Qin Sang’s second uncle. The woman in the passenger seat was his wife. They were now more than two hundred kilometers away from Xinling Village.
As Qin Second Uncle spoke, the venom in his eyes didn’t diminish one bit. If it weren’t for eldest brother’s family being so heartless, his son would never have taken that murderous step.
The moment the incident happened, he knew his son wouldn’t be coming out. If it weren’t for the fact that he still had a grandson, their line would have ended. But he couldn’t swallow that anger.
If eldest brother’s family hadn’t been so cruel and refused to help, Bangzi definitely wouldn’t have killed. Their family had so many supplies—there was no need to take such an irreversible step.
Now that his son was arrested, he and his wife would live a hard life for the rest of their days. They’d spent years raising a son to care for them in old age. Now that their son was gone, they’d have to raise their grandson instead.
Qin Second Uncle had nowhere to vent this resentment. Adding to that, he had heard certain things before. So he decided to take all his family’s supplies and go pledge allegiance to a big shot in the underworld.
That big shot had promised to help their family get revenge.
So he didn’t hesitate. He told the big shot everything about every household in Xinling Village. As for what the big shot would do with that information? Heh. Qin Second Uncle said he didn’t care.
He hoped all those people would die.
They’d only lose their lives—he had lost a son!
“Stop complaining. Once we get there, the big shot won’t treat us badly.” Qin Second Uncle’s heart ached at the thought of all his family’s supplies being taken away by the space user the big shot had sent. He could only pray that eldest brother’s family would die to the last person, so he could finally vent his anger.
—
Back in Xinling Village, Qin Sang had guessed that her second uncle and aunt had fled. So when she arrived at their house and saw the mess inside, she wasn’t surprised at all.
It meant they had left in a hurry. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have left behind so many small odds and ends.
“Auntie, did you hear anything from second uncle’s house yesterday?”
Qin Sang went straight to the next-door neighbor and asked the middle-aged woman who had just returned. The woman nodded. “Around eight or nine last night, someone came by car…”
Before she could finish, the middle-aged man beside her stopped her. He pulled the woman back and shook his head, his eyes shifting. “We don’t know anything. We went to bed early.”
Then he shut the door.
Seeing this, Qin Sang knew something had definitely happened. But this family didn’t want to get involved in trouble. From this, she could guess that her second uncle had gotten entangled with people from the underworld.
Qin Sang didn’t blame them. After all, the world was already chaotic. All kinds of monsters and demons were crawling out of the woodwork. Offending underworld figures right now wasn’t wise.
Still, she went to a few other households to ask around.
Everyone told her they didn’t know anything. Qin Sang shrugged, then pulled a few cans of beef from the bag she was carrying. She stopped asking relatives and started asking non-relatives who lived nearby.
Her relatives were also her second uncle’s relatives—they might side with him out of family loyalty. But non-relatives didn’t have that concern.
Qin Sang’s reasoning was correct. She chose the right people and greased the wheels with beef cans. Soon, she got the information she wanted.
It turned out that around nine o’clock last night, a car had come to pick up her second uncle and second aunt. Someone got out of the car and went into their house. After a series of clattering sounds, the two of them got into the car empty-handed and drove away.
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