A bare room stood empty, but its walls were lined with rows of cabinets.
After carefully fumbling around inside for a while, she finally worked up the courage to pull open one of the cabinets. Staring at the empty space within, Jin Qianqian almost laughed in frustration. 'All this mystery, and for what? There's nothing here at all.'
She shut the door and tried a few others. The result was the same—they were all completely empty.
'Greed breeds sorrow; greed breeds fear. Without greed, what is there to worry about or fear?' she silently recited a Buddhist saying. 'Just having this incredible opportunity is a huge win. I can't get greedy.'
She had read plenty of web novels about magical spaces, and some of them were far lamer than this. 'I should be content,' she thought.
When she reappeared in her living room, Jin Qianqian's heart began to pound. 'In the novels, anyone who gets an opportunity like this either ends up in the apocalypse or gets transmigrated,' she thought. 'If that's true, I really need to get ready.'
First, however, Jin Qianqian decided to run an experiment. She placed a cup of boiling water into the space, along with a carton of ice cream from her freezer.
She placed a sample in both the red room and the circular hall outside.
While she waited, she didn't stay idle. She grabbed a pen and began to take stock of all her assets.
Two houses from her parents. About seven million in savings and compensation funds. An old family home in her hometown, but that was left by her grandfather—her roots were there, so that was untouchable.
In the three years since she graduated, she hadn't spent extravagantly, aside from social obligations. Between bonuses and commissions, she had another seven or eight hundred thousand in her bank account.
Oh, right. The most significant asset came from her great-aunt: a nine-figure sum that had just been deposited into her account, along with a manor overseas and some company stocks. She could deal with those as she saw fit.
'It's a good thing I majored in economics,' she thought. She had dabbled in the stock market before, so it wouldn't be too difficult to handle.
The manor abroad, however, would require a trip. She wanted to see the place where her great-aunt had lived and pay her respects at her grave.
With such a massive net worth, her worry shifted. Now she was concerned the space might not be big enough. Even if she filled every cabinet and stacked goods on all the empty floor space, she would have to calculate everything meticulously.
She pushed open the door to her parents' old room. It held a pain she dared not touch. Normally, aside from cleaning, it took all her courage just to step inside.
Tilting her head back to stop the tears from falling, Jin Qianqian lifted the dust cover from the bed. The once-pristine bed frame was now peeling in several places after years of disuse.
Jin Qianqian closed her eyes and willed the bed into the space. Next, she began to clear out the clothes and quilts from the wardrobe.
Finally, she entered the space, clutching the jewelry box her mother had left her.
She reverently placed the jewelry box into the first cabinet she had opened. But as she did, it suddenly shrank, landing at the bottom of the cabinet like a tiny grain of rice.
Jin Qianqian's eyes narrowed. She quickly retrieved the jewelry box. As it returned to its normal size in her hands, she finally understood. These were pocket dimensions, their storage capacity far greater than she could have imagined.
Her earlier worries about storage space vanished. She lifted her wrist to check her watch and discovered its hands were completely still. 'Is time frozen in here?'
She hurried over to check on the hot and cold items she'd brought in. It was completely unscientific. The cup of water was still boiling hot, yet not a wisp of steam rose from it.
She looked at the ice cream. The frost crystals on its surface were identical to when she'd put it in; even the fingerprint she'd left on top was perfectly preserved.
'It's been at least an hour or two since I put these in here,' she realized. 'This place is a natural preservation chamber!'
Qian Qianqian sat in the living room, laughing to herself for what felt like ages, until the shrill ring of her phone broke the silence.
"Jin Qianqian! You said you were taking half the day off this morning to handle some personal matters, but it's already three in the afternoon! Why aren't you at the office yet?" her manager, Li Tian'ai, who was also her senior from college, roared from the other end of the line.
Jin Qianqian glanced at her watch, which was now ticking again, and finally realized what she had forgotten.
"Manager Li, I still have some things I need to take care of. I'm afraid I'll have to take the rest of the day off," Jin Qianqian said apologetically, completely forgetting that her expression was invisible over the phone.
Li Tian'ai had always looked out for her back in school, and she was the one who had helped her get her current job. Without her, a fresh graduate like her would never have been able to gain a foothold in a foreign-owned enterprise so quickly.
"Is it serious?" Li Tian'ai immediately sounded concerned. "You said it would only take half a day, but it sounds like you're still tied up. Do you need me to come over?"
"No, no, it's fine," Jin Qianqian quickly refused. "You're already so busy at work. Don't go out of your way for me.
Besides, I've almost got things handled here. I'll tell you all about it when I see you tomorrow."
Li Tian'ai didn't press the issue. She offered a few more words of concern before hanging up. In that short span of time, several other people were already waiting for her attention.
Jin Qianqian stared blankly at the ceiling, running through the list of things she needed to do over the next few days. She also started doing some research on stockpiling supplies.
The next day, she went to the office and submitted her resignation. After reassuring a very concerned Li Tian'ai, who had always been so good to her, she launched into a flurry of activity, so busy she barely had a moment to breathe.
She rented an entire floor in a new real estate development, announcing that she was preparing to open a new supermarket there.
This way, if the apocalypse or transmigration she envisioned never happened, she could use the supermarket to rotate her stock of supplies and always keep a safety net.
With a legitimate cover story, she began relentlessly searching online for manufacturers, both domestic and international, planning to stock up on a fifty-fifty split of each.
Clothing for all four seasons, of every type, from loungewear to outdoor gear—she prepared it all.
Toiletries. As a self-proclaimed germaphobe, she couldn't bear the thought of a future without them. They were an absolute must.
Rice and white flour arrived by the truckload. She also made sure not to forget a wide variety of other grains.
'As for going directly to the source to buy things? They must think I'm an idiot.' If huge quantities of goods suddenly vanished from some remote location, it would definitely raise suspicions.
With the supermarket as a front, people would just assume she was stocking up in advance.
She ordered all kinds of snacks, welcoming everything whether she had tried it before or not. She placed a large order for every single one.
Large items, small items, household goods, kitchenware—from furniture down to toothpicks, she left nothing out.
When she ran low on cash, she sold some stocks. As soon as the money came through, she began purchasing a wide assortment of blades, even paying extra to have various machetes professionally sharpened. This, of course, was all done discreetly.
In addition, she bought electronic products, medical supplies, hygiene products, and much more.