Jiang Linhai recognized her, grabbed her luggage, and said with a beaming face, "Good, good, let's go home first!"
He had come to pick up Jiang Si, but when the plane fell, he got so flustered he completely forgot.
Jiang Si stepped through the gate, her gaze sweeping across the yard.
Insulation panels, bricks, guardrails, and safety nets were piled in a corner. The foundation was only half-raised, and the doors and windows hadn't been replaced yet... The apocalypse had arrived early, but the house was less than ten percent renovated.
She had her space and could hide inside at any time, but her family couldn't!
Gazing at the blood-red sun on the horizon, Jiang Si's anxiety instantly multiplied.
Shen Baoying came out to greet her happily. "Are you hungry? Dinner will be ready soon."
Jiang Si set down her suitcase, her tone grave, as if something terrible had happened.
"Mom, I'm not hungry! Everyone, go to the room. I have something important to tell you."
Jiang Si's expression was more serious than it had been during her college entrance exams. Everyone was worried about her and followed her up to the second floor.
Once in the room, Jiang Si shut the door and windows tight. Her gaze swept over their faces, and her eyes began to well up.
After so many years, she was finally seeing them again.
But more important than the joy of reuniting was the task at hand.
From the moment her daughter walked in, Shen Baoying had sensed she was very different from before. There was a complex weight in her eyes, as if she had been bottling up a great many worries while she was away.
Shen Baoying asked cautiously, "Sisi, what on earth happened?"
Jiang Chengwu also noticed his granddaughter's odd behavior. He had never seen her so tense, as if the world were about to end.
Zhang Qingzhi thought she had been wronged somehow while away. She walked lovingly to Jiang Si's side. "Sisi, don't be afraid. The whole family is here. If you're short on money, Grandma still has her pension. We can find a way to scrape it together for you."
Her family's concern gave Jiang Si infinite strength.
She took a deep breath, steeling herself before she spoke. "Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma, the apocalypse is here! The global blackout is just the beginning. There are even greater disasters coming. We have to rush to prepare while there's still time!"
"The apocalypse?"
Everyone looked baffled. It was just a blackout and a plane crash. How was that the apocalypse?
Guessing they probably wouldn't believe her, Jiang Si stretched out her hand and conjured a washing machine, a refrigerator, a motorcycle, a mountain bike, gold bars... out of her space.
The entire family was stunned speechless.
It was impossible to hide so many things in Jiang Si's room.
And there was no way Jiang Si could perform a magic trick right under their noses.
Jiang Linhai, who had believed in science his whole life, rubbed his eyes. "I'm not dreaming, am I?"
Shen Baoying gave him a hard pinch, making him grimace in pain.
It wasn't a dream!
Jiang Si's gaze was earnest. "Do you know how I got this ability?"
They all shook their heads in unison.
"The me you see now has been reborn. In my past life, our entire family died in the apocalypse!"
"After the global blackout, a drought lasted for nearly half a year, and our family's food was looted." Jiang Si's eyes were red as she turned to Zhang Qingfang. "Grandma, you were swept away by a sandstorm just to pick up a single ear of corn. We watched helplessly, unable to do anything!"
"When there was really no food left, we left Longquan Village to find a way out. Halfway there, a sudden torrential downpour began, and a tsunami hundreds of meters high appeared out of nowhere. The small boat we were on was capsized. I struggled ashore and found Mom and Dad, but Grandpa got separated from us!"
"To survive, Mom, Dad, and I wandered everywhere. We finally made it to a Survivor Base, but because we couldn't pay the two-jin entrance fee of grain, we were blocked outside the fence. Just then, a zombie horde besieged the city... To give Mom and me a chance to be saved, Dad lured the zombies away by himself. He was... he was eaten alive by them..."
"The group that rescued Mom and me didn't have good intentions either. They locked us up like livestock and carved off our flesh."
"I found a chance and escaped with Mom."
"Later, Mom and I made it into the Northern Base. But while I was out on a mission, Sun Xiu and Shen Fu cut off my mother's entire leg and traded it for twenty jin of millet. When I got back, people told me that Mom didn't want to be a burden... and had killed herself... Of the entire family... I was the only one left."
"Ten years in the apocalypse! If you all hadn't told me to live on, I would have given up long ago!"
"That Superpower Stone everyone was fighting crazily over? I swallowed it, just to end it all!"
"But if I had known that ending it all sooner would have let me see you again, I would have died immediately, without a moment's hesitation!"
"Sisi—" The moment Jiang Si materialized the supplies, they couldn't help but believe her words. Shen Baoying gazed at her daughter's grief-stricken eyes, unable to imagine her enduring so much tragedy all alone. She hugged Jiang Si, patting her back gently like when she was a child. "Don't be afraid, it's all in the past, it's all in the past... We're all still here..."
Jiang Linhai's eyes filled with heartache. He blamed himself for being useless in his past life, for failing to protect everyone and letting Sisi suffer so much.
Jiang Si wiped away the tears from the corners of Shen Baoying's eyes and looked at everyone. "Stop crying, all of you. Heaven has given me a second chance, and I have this space to stockpile supplies. This time, we will definitely survive, safe and sound. So, we can't delay any longer."
"Following the timeline of my past life, after the global blackout, all urban infrastructure will fail. Soon, people from the cities will swarm out looking for food and water. Before that happens, we have to turn our home into an impenetrable fortress!"
"The second and third floors—brick up all the windows except for the ones in the bedrooms. Don't leave any openings that a person could fit through."
Following that, Jiang Si took several rolls of anti-theft barbed wire cages out of her space and said to Jiang Linhai, "Dad, seal all the doors and windows. Get the insulation panels on the roof as soon as possible. Cover the top of the courtyard walls with broken glass and barbed wire cages. We can install the protective netting after the scorching sun period passes. The temperature will be too high, and it'll melt."
"This time, we're preparing supplies and taking precautions in advance. Maybe we won't have to wander everywhere."
Recalling how crazy the villagers got when food was scarce, Jiang Si warned, "No matter who asks, don't reveal anything about the apocalypse! The moment you do, they'll assume our house is fully stocked with supplies."
"And don't meddle in other people's business. That's a fatal mistake!"
Jiang Linhai was now ready to follow all of Jiang Si's instructions. "Alright, let's get to it now!"
Shen Baoying started to panic. "Food! We have to store enough food. We can still harvest a few thousand jin from the early rice, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn at home."
"Oh, and we need to slaughter the pigs quickly and make cured meat. And pickle some vegetables. You get sick without salt, and your body suffers without vegetables. We also need to buy salt and beans. We can sprout the beans and make tofu when there are no other vegetables!"
"Ten years of apocalypse... this won't be enough. No, we still have to go buy more grain!" The more she spoke, the more panicked she became.
Grandma also chimed in anxiously, "And a lifeboat, life jackets, first-aid medicine for injuries, painkillers, and we need to buy more axes and Tang knives for self-defense!"
As they kept talking, they started to get a headache. It would be impossible to buy so many things without attracting attention.
Jiang Si couldn't help but laugh. "Mom, Grandma, you don't have to worry. I can farm in my space; things are already sprouting. Future food supplies aren't a problem. I've already prepared all the other supplies in the city. You guys just tidy up the house, and if there's anything you absolutely must have, give it to me to put in the space."
Shen Baoying and Grandma were overjoyed and amazed. They hadn't expected Jiang Si's space to be so large.
While they went to pack, Jiang Si didn't stay idle either; she ran off to help Jiang Linhai mix cement.
They thought they had at least a few days of transition time, but unexpectedly, at ten o'clock that night, the sky was still as bright as day. The temperature suddenly shot up to forty-five degrees Celsius, and the world seemed to distort under the rolling heatwaves.
Panic over the coming apocalypse began to spread through the village...