While Li Xingye was on the road, Chi Wan had already set out for the city.
Having just gotten her driver's license, her father, Chi Yuanshan, refused to let her drive on her own for anything. She ended up having to transfer three times just to get to the city.
Instead of going to a supermarket, Chi Wan headed straight for a wholesale market.
Li Xingye had given her a lot of gold, but it would be a hassle to bring out too much at once. When she had just entered her space to grab some gold bars, she discovered that he had, at some point, found another huge pile of things for her.
Not just gold bars of various weights, but also gold and diamond jewelry, Jade, and more... She even saw an emerald Jade Token nearly half the size of her palm!!
Chi Wan had a strong suspicion that if she sold all of this, she would immediately be investigated for possessing a huge sum of money from an unknown source.
'After all,' she thought, 'I learned a thing or two from watching my father, Chi Yuanshan, do business. Large assets from an unknown source would easily attract the suspicion of the authorities.'
This was giving her a headache. 'Looks like I can't just dispose of this gold casually. I'll have to find a plausible reason to make it my legal property...'
Taking a deep breath, she calmed the frantic excitement of suddenly becoming a rich woman who couldn't even use her money. She chose a single 100g gold bar and went straight to a pawnshop next to the wholesale market.
The owner wasn't too old. He wore a pair of tinted glasses and had a laid-back air about him. He didn't try to take advantage of Chi Wan's youth by lowballing her too badly.
He bought the gold at a price five yuan lower per gram than the market rate, and just like that, Chi Wan had over 50,000 yuan in her account.
Considering she might want to trade some smaller pieces of gold jewelry later, Chi Wan asked the owner for his contact information and had him draw up a receipt.
Outside the small shop, she glanced at the name on the business card: Zhou Huai'an.
'What a coincidence. His name is similar to the young man who helped me today.'
Chi Wan smiled, saved his contact information, and then put the matter out of her mind. She still had a ton of things to do today.
She spent 50 yuan to rent a small, nearby warehouse for half a day. It would serve as a staging area for her dimensional space.
Her space had actually awakened a long time ago, but it was small, and she'd never discovered any special abilities—other than its ability to perfectly preserve food.
Chi Wan had even wondered if, should she fail to find a job after college, using the space's preservation feature to run a refrigerated delivery service might be a good option.
Who would have thought that one day, this very space would open a path to the apocalypse.
Marveling at the thought, she switched into hoarding mode.
Considering that Li Xingye probably had many people to feed—and she had no idea if there were children among them—she focused on his request for food with a long shelf life. To start, she bought a hundred cases each of compressed biscuits and instant noodles, plus a hundred cases of purified water for emergencies.
Then she bought another hundred cases each of self-heating hot pots, milk, bread, and all sorts of other instant foods, canned goods, and various types of sausages.
'Fresh fruits and vegetables don't keep well, but if I stock a small amount and leave it in the space, it should be fine as long as they only take out what they're about to eat.'
After having all the supplies delivered to the small warehouse, Chi Wan shut the door and began transferring everything into her space.
But she soon discovered, to her dismay, that her space wasn't big enough.
And to think she had spent the morning carefully moving her other belongings into the corners to make room. After loading all this, the space was already packed to the brim.
'The apocalyptic environment can't preserve food, so it has to be stored in the space...' It was a vicious cycle.
She had never wanted anything more strongly. 'If only the space were bigger.'
Unfortunately, that wasn't something she could change. Seeing that there was barely any room left, Chi Wan stuffed in some small, high-calorie foods like chocolate bars, then bought two potted Fragrant Vines to fill the very last gaps.
As the sun began to set, Chi Wan bought a few last small items and left the wholesale market.
*
Just as Chi Wan finished filling her space, Li Xingye seemed to sense something and took a look inside.
He had struggled to survive in the apocalypse for so many years that he considered himself imperturbable, his heart as calm as still water. Yet, the moment he saw the cases upon cases of food, a wave of heat surged from his chest, so powerful it nearly brought him to tears!
If he had felt a shred of apprehension about his arrangement with Chi Wan before, it was now completely gone. He even felt the urge to howl with excitement and joy, just as Qiangzi had done earlier!
Noticing the strange expression on Li Xingye's face, Qiangzi and the others suppressed their own anxiety and asked cautiously, "Brother Ye, what's wrong? Is... is there a problem with the food...?"
Li Xingye let out a hearty laugh. "Hahaha! I just wanted to ask you guys, are you full? Want some more?"
Cheng Peng reached out to feel Li Xingye's forehead and muttered, "Could he have been hungry for so long that eating two pieces of bread gave him indigestion and made him delirious?"
But Haozi, looking at Li Xingye, suddenly thought of a possibility.
Suppressing his excitement, his voice trembling, he asked, "Brother, is it the gold we offered? Did the Space God spawn food for us?!"
!!!
Of course! How could a couple of pieces of bread make them forget all about that!
As the three men stared at him with unblinking eyes, Li Xingye gave a slight nod. Then, clapping them hard on the shoulders, he could no longer contain his joy. "It's not just us! Everyone at the base has food to eat!! No one has to live in fear of starvation anymore!!"
Hearing Li Xingye's words, all three of them began to shriek like madmen, sounding more like zombies than the zombies themselves.
But no one stopped them. They had been holding it in for far too long.
No one could understand the pressure of carrying the lives of an entire base on their shoulders. Nor could they understand the pain of powerlessly watching those lives slip away.
But now, they would never again have to stand by and watch the people of their base die of hunger!
Before, Li Xingye had been cautious with his words, using "maybe," so the others hadn't dared to pin all their hopes on the Space God.
But Li Xingye's reaction this time told them it was a done deal.
With enough food, not even zombies would pose much of a threat!
They found an empty house and started a fire. Li Xingye tossed each of them a can of luncheon meat, a sausage, and an orange. It was such a luxurious meal that they ate without even looking up.
As for Li Xingye, his mind was on the space, now nearly two-thirds full of food, and a fire burned in his chest.
'This won't do,' he thought. 'I have to ask Chi Wan later if there's anything else she wants besides gold.'
His mind reeling from the sight of all the food, Li Xingye failed to notice that the pile of Zombie Crystal Cores he'd left in a corner of the space had, at some point, vanished without a trace.
Meanwhile, the Fragrant Vines that Chi Wan had bought for decoration had shot up significantly in a very short time.