"A good haul today. That takes care of a good chunk of my food supply. Perfect!" Stella Sterling hummed a little tune, in high spirits.
She had spent several million on all sorts of snacks and delicacies tonight. This stuff alone would be enough to feed her for decades.
She couldn't help but marvel to herself again, 'Ethan Cheney really is a great guy. How did I never realize he could be so kind back in college?'
After their recent interaction, Stella Sterling dredged up a distant memory and recalled who he was. A playboy from a well-off family, he was infamous in college for being a womanizer who had a new girlfriend every other day.
For some reason, he later set his sights on her. He pursued her relentlessly for a time, and after she rejected him, he started holding a grudge and caused her no end of trouble around campus.
Back then, she had found Ethan Cheney utterly detestable.
He was still detestable now, but his generosity tonight made her willing to forgive his past transgressions.
She scanned the dimension with her mind. It had been completely empty before, but now one corner was piled high with her purchases from the day. Time in the dimension's storage area was frozen; items came out looking exactly as they had when they went in, so there was no need to worry about them spoiling.
For the first time since her rebirth, the weight on her heart finally lifted.
In her past life, she had failed to secure food and had lived a wretched existence, constantly fighting and scrambling with others over a single bite. In the process, she had honed some decent combat skills during the apocalypse.
In the seventh year, an insect plague broke out. Plants and animals began to mutate, and humanity's living conditions became even more precarious as they hid amongst the city's ruins.
And it was while she was fighting someone over some uncontaminated wild greens that she was betrayed by Caleb Xavier and ultimately devoured by a swarm of insects.
The memory felt as if it had happened only yesterday. She remembered the agony with crystal clarity, causing the scene before her to blur. The view flickered—one moment, it was the towering skyscrapers and bustling streets of the present; the next, it was endless ruins where she was surrounded by a dense swarm of fist-sized insects, her flesh and blood devoured bit by bit until she died…
Stella Sterling's expression was placid. Even though death was, for her, a very recent event, she could already face the memory with composure.
One second she had been trapped in that despair, and the next, she was reborn in her own 22-year-old body. She had been able to accept such a miraculous event with little fuss; her will had long been forged into something incredibly strong.
She understood, moreover, that this was all related to her portable dimension. Ever since the dimension had bonded with her, she had grown accustomed to the strange and miraculous.
At this thought, she glanced at her exposed wrist, where a faint, cyan mark was visible. She then looked at her face in the rearview mirror. It was still disheveled and dirty, but the swelling and bruises from the earlier beating had faded considerably, making it look less severe.
Her body still ached all over, but the injuries weren't life-threatening.
Her portable dimension was healing her, bit by bit. This was another of its functions, one she had discovered after being injured countless times in her past life.
Whenever she, its master, was injured, the dimension would heal her. And after each time, her physical constitution would become stronger than before.
'It's basically a cheat code!'
The only reason she had died was that she had been trapped in a hopeless situation, unable to escape the tens of thousands of mutated insects and with no opportunity to heal. Otherwise, if she had managed to get away—even if she were reduced to a pile of bones—as long as a single breath remained in her body, she could not die!
Gazing at the familiar yet youthful face in the mirror, she gave herself a slight smile. "It's good to be alive again!"
The smile was gentle, yet tinged with an unsettling eeriness.
...
Following her memory, Stella Sterling found her pre-apocalypse residence in a mid-to-high-end apartment complex. Her unit was on the twenty-eighth floor.
Her parents from the Sterling Family had bought it for her. Even though they disliked their long-lost biological daughter, they wouldn't let her live in squalor. They had to keep up appearances, after all, so the apartment they bought her wasn't half bad.
Although, compared to the Sterling family's mansion, the difference was night and day.
Six months ago, after the Sterling Family found her, she had initially lived in the family home. However, she and the family's adopted daughter were like oil and water. Every time the girl saw her, she would act as if she were about to have a seizure, claiming to feel unwell.
A month ago, Yara Sterling "accidentally" fell down the stairs, muttering that Stella was a jinx. After some discussion, her so-called relatives unanimously decided that, for the sake of their precious adopted daughter's mental and physical health, they would buy Stella an apartment in the Orilon Complex and ask her to move out.
'How utterly ridiculous!'
At the time, she had been resentful. Resentful that her own flesh and blood had, for the sake of an unrelated outsider, kicked their biological daughter out of the family home. They kept the adopted daughter by their side, doting on her endlessly, a perfect, loving family.
'And what about her? What was she to them?!'
'But now...'
Stella Sterling stood at the window, watching the stream of cars below with a sense of satisfaction.
'This floor height is perfect. It's the top floor of the building. When the blizzards hit, the lower floors will be completely buried, and that's when the advantage of being up high will really show.'
It was a pity that in her last life, she'd been beaten half to death by thugs Yara Sterling had hired. She survived, but she was stuck in the hospital for a long time. It wasn't until the apocalypse began and the hospital descended into chaos that she managed to escape and make her way back here. But by then, she found her apartment had been broken into and forcibly occupied by her downstairs neighbors.
They threw her out.
'But things are different now. I have to make good use of this place, turn it into a safe fortress. It will be a huge advantage during the early days of the cataclysm.'
After a shower, she stepped out, naked, and pulled out the first-aid kit. Looking at her bruised, black-and-blue reflection in the mirror, she began to apply ointment to her injuries.
In this life, her injuries weren't as severe as they had been. Plus, she had been reborn with her already-bonded dimension, which had been healing her this whole time. So, she didn't need to be hospitalized like before. All she had to do was treat the superficial wounds herself.
"Right, medicine! All kinds of cold and flu medication... I need to stock up on that too!" After tending to her wounds, she sat at the coffee table and added "medication" to her stockpiling list.
'But it'll be hard to buy large quantities, especially certain prescription drugs that aren't available over-the-counter. For now, I can stock up on common cold and flu remedies. I'll have to figure out another way to get the rest. Even if I don't need them, there will be plenty of people who do!'
Stella Sterling muttered to herself as she jotted things down in her notebook, adding anything that came to mind.
At the same time, she racked her brain, recalling the cataclysms she had experienced over seven years in the apocalypse and what supplies were needed for each. She wrote it all down. Fearing her own knowledge wasn't enough, she also opened her phone and started searching, noting down anything that seemed useful.