In a simple yet elegant studio apartment, a young woman was lying on the bed. Her features were exquisite, her skin as white as a porcelain doll, and her long black hair cascaded around her like seaweed, giving her an ethereal look. However, at that moment, the woman was drenched in sweat.
Her expression was one of great pain, as if she were enduring intense torment. Suddenly, she sat up abruptly, clutching the blanket and gasping for breath. Big beads of sweat rolled down her porcelain cheeks, slid down her slender neck and disappeared into her collar.
After a while, Liu Ruyan stared blankly at a certain spot, and her eyes finally started to move. Looking around her surroundings, she felt confused. Where was this? Could it be that someone had saved her? But who would rescue her? And who could save her?
The acid rain had come suddenly, pouring down from the sky like a deluge. Not only her, but everyone outside was corroded by the acid rain, without even having the chance to escape. Even if someone had actually saved her, where in the apocalyptic world could there be such a clean and tidy room? The blanket she held even emitted a warm scent from being sun-dried.
Wait a minute! Liu Ruyan's eyes suddenly widened as she looked around in disbelief. Wasn't this the apartment she had lived in before the apocalypse? Realizing this, Liu Ruyan's heart began to race, almost jumping out of her throat.
She threw off the blanket and fumbled on the bed, finally finding her phone under the pillow. The screen clearly showed that it was May 20th, 2210!
Seeing this date, Liu Ruyan burst into tears immediately. She had come back! She had truly come back! After struggling for ten years in the apocalypse and ultimately being unable to escape a tragic fate, she had returned to three months before the apocalypse began!
Liu Ruyan didn't care about wiping her tears. In a panic, she opened her phone with her right thumb and accessed her banking app. When she saw the balance of two billion in her account, she let out a huge sigh of relief.
In her previous life, the apocalypse had come without warning. By the time everyone realized something was wrong, money had lost its original value. Liu Ruyan had plenty of money, but it couldn't buy supplies at all. All that money had turned into useless numbers.
This time, she would not let that money go to waste. She would spend it all! Turn it all into supplies! But where would she put so many supplies?
"If only I had a space..."
The moment she said this, Liu Ruyan remembered something. When she was little, her mother had given her a jade necklace to wear close to her body. The jade was emerald, square-shaped, without any design, but her mother had said it was a family heirloom.
In her previous life, she had always worn that necklace until the world became increasingly chaotic and she no longer dared to wear it around her neck for fear of attracting attention, so she kept it close. However, she eventually lost it without knowing when and had been sad for a long time afterward. After all, it was the only keepsake her mother had left her!
But now, that necklace was still safely around her neck! Liu Ruyan thought to herself as she took off the necklace. Looking at the jade in her palm, a bold idea began to form in her mind.
"Novels often say that family heirlooms usually have space; I wonder if my family heirloom has one..."
Saying this, Liu Ruyan got off the bed, slipped on her slippers, and went to the kitchen. She picked up a fruit knife without hesitation and made a small cut on her fingertip.
Her delicate, fair finger was instantly cut, and blood began to flow, but Liu Ruyan didn't even frown as she placed the jade on top of it.
Miraculous things happened! When the blood came into contact with the jade, it was absorbed. The color of the jade gradually deepened, quickly changing from emerald green to dark red.
Until the jade turned blood red, a flash of red light appeared before Liu Ruyan's eyes, and the jade disappeared without a trace. Along with it vanished the wound. If it weren't for the blood on the fruit knife, Liu Ruyan would have almost thought everything that had happened was just her imagination.
At that moment, a picture appeared in Liu Ruyan's mind. It was a gray space, completely empty. Liu Ruyan couldn't enter it herself, but she could sense the size of the space and every position within it.
The space was ten meters high and roughly the size of a basketball court. Liu Ruyan glanced at the fruit knife in her hand, silently thinking "store," and the knife instantly disappeared.
In the corner of the space, however, lay a fruit knife. Liu Ruyan, unable to contain her excitement, repeated the process, silently thinking "retrieve," and the knife reappeared in her hand.
After several back-and-forth attempts, Liu Ruyan gradually calmed down. Her mother hadn't lied to her! This was indeed a family heirloom! The novels hadn't deceived her! There really was space in the family heirloom!
Earlier, she had worried about where to store the supplies she would buy, but now she was only concerned about whether her money could buy enough items to fill this space.
Liu Ruyan set down the fruit knife and walked to the refrigerator, opening it. The double-door refrigerator was packed full of various ingredients. Fruits, vegetables, bread, yogurt, eggs.
In the freezer below, there were various meats. Liu Ruyan reached in and grabbed bread, yogurt, and fruit, hugging them to her chest. She used her elbow to close the refrigerator door and carried the pile of food into the living room, sitting directly on the carpet.
With everything placed in front of her, Liu Ruyan began to unwrap and devour the food. After struggling to survive for ten years in the apocalypse, even eating plain food had been a luxury.
In those years, to stay alive, Liu Ruyan had chewed on tree bark, eaten grass roots, and even consumed dirt.
Now, eating soft bread, creamy yogurt, and crunchy sweet fruit, Liu Ruyan felt so happy that she wanted to cry. Taking a deep breath, she held back her tears.
She couldn't cry! She still had many things to do! She had to eat quickly; not a second or minute could be wasted!
Only when she was stuffed did Liu Ruyan finally stop. Looking at the yogurt that was down to just two sips, she had a thought and simply stored it in the space.
She wanted to test whether the space had any preservation effect so she could better determine what to stock up on.
Of course, Liu Ruyan didn't just sit idle after eating and drinking. After satisfying her hunger, she returned to the bedroom and opened her computer.
Opening a blank document, Liu Ruyan began planning what supplies she needed to buy. It was May 20th, and summer hadn't officially begun yet; the temperature was very pleasant.
But starting from today, the temperature would gradually heat up. At first, the gradually rising temperatures didn't attract anyone's attention. After all, summer was just getting warmer day by day.
It wasn't until late August, when the heat continued and temperatures reached forty-five degrees, that people began to notice something was wrong.
It was also by that time that many finally realized it hadn't rained in a month. No rain, combined with rising temperatures, made people anxious, and they began to rush to buy supplies. The talk of the apocalypse also began at that time.