Back home, Qin Sang washed up briefly and went straight to sleep. She’d been busy all night and needed to catch up on rest. Whatever earth-shattering events were happening could wait until she woke up.
She slept until past six in the evening. The sun hadn’t set yet, and the orange-gold sky looked warm and almost inviting. But when she opened the window, a blast of heat hit her face, scorching her skin.
“Ah… I wonder what the real high-temperature disaster will be like.” Qin Sang felt the heat wave, knowing she would have to adapt sooner or later.
According to the many precognitive dreams compiled by the authorities, widespread power outages were likely during the high-temperature disaster. Her family had prepared solar generators and plenty of solar panels. But whether their air conditioners would actually be able to withstand the extreme heat was another question.
The air conditioners in the house now were custom-made for high temperatures. Whether these beasts would hold up would only be verified once the disaster struck.
“Time to eat! Why is the window open? You’ll die of heat!”
Qin Sang’s mother pushed open the door and saw her standing in front of the wide-open window. She rushed over and closed it for her.
“I was just checking how hot it is outside.”
“Oh, you haven’t been home for a couple of days, so you don’t know. The temperature has gone up quite a bit. Before, people would still go out around three or four in the afternoon. Now look downstairs—before seven or eight at night, almost no one is out.”
Qin Sang had noticed the same thing. She sighed. “With the sun-protective suits, heat-insulating shoes, and cooling patches, we’ll get through it.”
Speaking of which, Qin Sang remembered that the heat-insulating shoes she’d grabbed seemed to have arrived.
“What are you two doing in here? Da Linzi is here. Come out and eat!” Qin Sang’s father, still wearing his apron, came to the doorway and called them.
At the dinner table, Qin Sang’s father asked about their experiences in Chaonan City. Xu Lin picked a few things he could share and briefly recounted them. Qin Sang occasionally added a sentence or two. Both of them consciously avoided mentioning Chen Longji. Her second uncle and second aunt had followed him to Chaonan City. Now that Chen Longji had been arrested, they would likely be taken in for questioning too. What punishment they would receive depended on how many misdeeds they had committed.
—
After the meal, Da Linzi went home to sort through his space supplies. Qin Sang, meanwhile, needed to go to the community office to register that she now had a space.
“Wait… Didn’t you say that having the roasted goose space prevents you from awakening a jade space?” After seeing Da Linzi off, Qin Sang’s father came back inside and heard his daughter’s plan. His eyes widened in surprise.
Qin Sang’s mother was equally astonished.
Qin Sang didn’t explain—it was hard to put into words. Instead, she simply looked at her parents.
Under the influence of her mental energy, both her parents appeared to have something like a magnetic field around them. She couldn’t see the exact shape of the field, but the energy radiating from that power was unmistakable under her mental perception.
Then, Qin Sang began using her mental energy to mobilize the energy stored in her body. Ten minutes later, she had perfectly replicated a spatial energy field.
Qin Sang’s parents waited right where they were for ten minutes. Then, suddenly, they saw her take out the detection compass their family had exchanged from her space.
The small compass, only the size of a palm, now had a needle spinning erratically—pointing at Qin Sang one moment, at her father the next, then at her mother.
See, this was how the space detection compass worked. Its accuracy was high, but when multiple space owners were present, it would spin like crazy.
“Sang Sang, how did you do that?” Her father marveled at the sight.
Qin Sang smiled. “After the energy in my space increased, the energy in my body accumulated more too. Then I suddenly knew how.”
She had discovered this while practicing mental energy. This was the real reason she wanted to acquire more jade. Setting everything else aside, the mere ability to accumulate energy in her body was extremely important.
This type of energy had begun appearing in the outside air too. But the levels were abysmally low. For now, she could only increase her space’s energy to continue cultivating.
Of course, this accidental discovery made Qin Sang even more certain that the roasted goose space, the jade spaces, and the upcoming apocalyptic disaster were all closely connected.
Unfortunately, there was too little usable information. For now, all she knew was that this energy was very important.
—
After simulating her space, Qin Sang walked downstairs to the community office with a light heart.
Ever since the authorities announced the disaster, all public offices had switched to a 24-hour rotating shift system. Still, more people went to the community office at night. Along the way, Qin Sang ran into quite a few people. Everyone exchanged greetings. There were smiles on their faces, but no one seemed as vibrant as before.
When she reached the main road near the community office, Qin Sang noticed it had completely changed.
The street used to be lined with shops. At some point, those shops had all been knocked through. Now, she could see a wide open space. Inside, people were using machinery to dig downward. It looked like they were excavating basements.
And they were nearly done.
It seemed a heat-relief center was being built in this area around the community office.
That was good. These past two days on the road, Qin Sang had been observing infrastructure progress in various cities and noticed it was advancing remarkably fast. Many low-rise buildings like stadiums, schools, libraries, and museums were being directly converted. Those were likely being used as temporary urban shelters.
Several villagers from her own village who had been assigned to work as cement mixers on the outskirts—that group was reportedly building shelter bases. Qin Sang hadn’t gotten a good look when she passed by.
—
“Qin Sang, is that you?” Just as Qin Sang was thinking about this infrastructure progress, a community office staff member asked her directly what she had come for.
Qin Sang snapped back to attention. “Yes, I’m Qin Sang. I’m here to pick up a package from the Survival app mall.”
The staff member nodded and motioned for Qin Sang to open her app and scan it on the large screen nearby. Only then did Qin Sang notice that a large screen had been set up next to the service counter. It looked similar to a hospital registration kiosk, with a large QR code on it.
Qin Sang scanned it and saw a long list of pending tasks displayed. She was bewildered!
“You haven’t checked the app in the past couple of days, have you?” the staff member asked with practiced experience. But inwardly, they thought it was strange that such a young person was behaving like an elderly one. Usually, it was older folks who didn’t check their phone notifications and ended up with so many pending items.
Qin Sang could sense the mild shock in the staff member’s eyes. She smiled without saying anything and started reading through the list of pending tasks one by one.
One notification was that her heat-insulating shoes had arrived, telling her to come pick up the package.
The others were all notifications telling her to come collect her daily minimum supply package.
She wanted to say she wouldn’t take it—her family had supplies, so let those who needed it have it. But seeing people at other windows taking theirs one by one, not taking hers would make her stand out.
“Thanks for the reminder. I’ll handle those in a moment. Also, can I register a space here?”
Hearing this, the staff member’s eyes lit up.
Having a space was great! The more people who had spaces, the more people would survive in the future. The higher-ups had all said the days ahead would be hard.
“Yes, yes. Use this compass for testing. If it checks out, you can register and update your info right here, and also pick up the supply subsidy package for space owners.”
Qin Sang had come to pick up a package, but ended up taking home several supply packages. Including the minimum living supply packages for her parents.
—
Back home, Qin Sang told her parents about the changes at the community center. Her mother laughed. “That’s what you get for being away for two days. You have no idea how much has happened.”
Her mother perked up as she talked. “You don’t know, do you? Second Aunt has joined the official space owner team. She’s specially helping transport supplies from the city to the outskirts.”
Qin Sang: She really didn’t know that. Second Aunt was amazing.
“Also, two families in the village got married. No banquet—just handed out a few wedding candies to everyone.”
“Married?” Qin Sang looked at her mother, thinking she’d misheard. The word “marriage” felt a bit out of place in the apocalypse.
Her mother nodded firmly. “That’s right. One family had a space, the other had supplies. And both knew each other’s backgrounds well. So they put their heads together and decided to marry off their younger generation to face the apocalypse together.”
Well, banding together to survive the end of the world was a good approach. She just wondered what would happen to the supplies once they all went into one person’s space.
Her mother’s expression was equally meaningful.
“Also, the village chief pulled a lot of strings to get a jade thumb ring. Finally got a space.”
Qin Sang hadn’t known that either. She’d been planning to set aside some of the jade and have Brother Fa help exchange it for reliable, trustworthy families.
She hadn’t expected the village chief to move so fast!
After listening to a bunch of neighborhood gossip, Qin Sang realized everyone was living quite eventful lives these days.
“Oh, while you were sleeping this afternoon, Da Linzi brought over a batch of supplies—the ones you agreed on earlier. Your father and I didn’t have room in our spaces, so we had him put them in the basement.”
Qin Sang immediately stopped gossiping and hurried down to the basement.
Her formerly empty basement was now piled high with all kinds of supplies. These were the ones she and Xu Lin had agreed on earlier—the supplies he was responsible for purchasing.
Qin Sang didn’t stand on ceremony. She stored them all in her space. Toward the end, she noticed the jade pieces they’d brought back from Chaonan City still piled in a corner.
She quickly went over and separated two boxes of jade, planning to temporarily store them in her mother’s space for possible future use. The rest she placed directly into her roasted goose space to be absorbed.
With a wave of her hand, most of the jade disappeared before her eyes. At the same time, Qin Sang entered her space.
The supplies were a mess—she needed to go in and organize and catalog them.
Her space was as vibrant as ever. The sounds of chickens, ducks, and geese occasionally rang out. In the distance, cows and sheep made sounds from time to time.
Qin Sang didn’t mind these noises—they gave her a sense of peace.
She sat down directly on the grass and first looked at the box of jade.
About a third of the jade she had just put in had already disappeared. The remaining two-thirds were still there.
“It seems it’s hard to say whether any given piece of jade has a space or not,” Qin Sang muttered to herself. Then she began to sense the changes in her space’s energy.
Sure enough, the energy had increased again.
Her space also felt more dynamic. That was a strange way to describe it, but it was the feeling Qin Sang had.
Just as she was about to start organizing the other supplies, she heard a cracking sound. Following the noise, she saw that among the jade pieces in the box, a very low-quality jade ring had suddenly shattered. From inside it fell a small, translucent orb.
It was the ring she had bought at the stall. She had felt it was something special at the time.
She just hadn’t expected something to be hidden inside it.
The little orb was very beautiful, but Qin Sang could tell it wasn’t jade.
She didn’t walk over to it directly. Instead, she opened her phone’s camera, zoomed in, and examined it. Only after confirming that the object posed no threat did she walk over and pick up the small orb.
It was very small—about the size of a sago pearl—and cool to the touch.
And more importantly, it had a faint energy fluctuation.
What…
“Little Sang, what did you put in the space?”
Just then, Grandpa Goose descended from nowhere and landed directly on her head.
Feeling the pressure on her neck, Qin Sang took a deep breath. Before she could say anything, she heard Grandpa Goose exclaim, “Where did you get this?!”
Qin Sang: …
—
At the same time, next door at Xu Lin’s house, he was also organizing his space supplies. Suddenly, the tablet on his desk let out a piercing alarm.
Xu Lin immediately picked up the tablet. Seeing the information the system had captured, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
His fingers flew across the screen as he began tracing the source and destinations of these messages.
Half an hour later, all the locations had been tracked and pinpointed. He sent the coordinates directly to the main office of the Administration. Then he let out a long breath.
“I finally managed to round up all these troublemakers before the disaster struck.”
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