"Mother, I'm so hungry."
In her single apartment, Lin Qinghe opened her eyes from her bed, staring blankly. After awhile she sighed resignedly.
Glancing at the time on her phone by the bed, it was only half past five in the morning. It was May on the lunar calendar, so it was already dawn outside.
Lin Qinghe silently put down her mobile phone, and then an amazing thing happened - a cup of water appeared out of thin air in her hand!
Lin Qinghe looked at this cup of hot water still steaming, identical to the one she’d left there last night.
Concealing the strange look in her eyes, Lin Qinghe didn't hesitate anymore and went straight to wash herself.
She was just an ordinary office employee, albeit a quite successful one who was now the sales department manager. Though her career was ordinary but what had been happening to her lately was definitely not.
Brushing her teeth and looking at the dark circles under her eyes in the mirror, Lin Qinghe shook her head and sighed again. Despite the turmoil she was feeling, she didn't forget to put on makeup.
No one would believe her even if she talked about what was happening in her heart. She had been having the same dream for three nights in a row. A child was constantly tugging at her, calling her 'Mother,' and begging for food. The dream was so vivid, it almost terrified her.
At first she thought it was because she was too exhausted. She had been working late hours at her job so she didn't take it seriously.
But the second night she had the exact same dream. Accompanying the dream, there was a ten-square-foot space inside her body - almost the same size as her apartment.
Of course, that scared her.
But because she was used to reading novels, her acceptance of the situation was quite strong. Of course, this also had something to do with her fearlessness.
Either way, she accepted her new reality rather quickly.
This personal space inside her could be accessed from her palm. With a thought, she could see it. The space was like a storage box. Last night she put a cup of hot water in it to test. When she took it out in the morning, it was still exactly the same, it hadn't cooled down at all.
This sufficiently proved that the space doesn't change - whatever you put inside is exactly how it will remain when you take it back out.
Just now, that child had entered her dream again, calling her "Mother" and saying he was hungry, which startled her awake.
But this time, she didn't hesitate. A strong sense of unease in her heart gave her an intuition that something extraordinary would happen, and she had to make some preparations.
Because she saw in her 'dream' that place was extremely impoverished. She didn't know if it was the end of the world era, but goods and food were exceedingly scarce. The faces of the people she saw were blurry, but without exception, they were all thin and pale from starvation.
Even though her own childhood was tough, compared to the environment she 'saw’ in her dream, her life, nurtured under the five-star red flag and bathed in the wind of reform and opening-up, was at least sustainable. She could not imagine surviving in such conditions.
However, she hadn't read her novels in vain, now that she had an inventory space. If she didn't do something, there might come a day when she unknowingly crossed over into the doomsday era and starved to death!
Quickly, Lin Qinghe finished cleaning up. She brought out a pen and paper to start listing the materials she needed to buy. Among the seven items - firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea - beside firewood and tea, she needed to prepare for everything else.
Among them, rice and oil were priorities!
Lin Qinghe replaced firewood and tea with brown sugar and rock sugar. White sugar could be excluded, as rock sugar could take its place, and she added the word 'eggs' to her list.
In the 'dream', eggs were definitely hard currency.
In addition to eggs, she would also need meat, regardless of what kind, as long as she had some.
Medicine was also required – for emergencies like cold, fever, stomach bloating and diarrhea. She also needed to buy some headache and cooling oil.
These items would all fit into a box, and it wouldn't take up too much space.
Finishing this list, Lin Qinghe felt that her food supplies were more or less enough.
Next, she started writing down essentials. She wasn't sure if it was cold there, but warm quilts and mattresses were necessary. They were all required to be grey, not brightly colored, because she saw in her 'dream' that the place was colorless, without a hint of color to speak of.
Thinking of these, even Lin Qinghe, who was naturally optimistic, let out a somewhat heavy sigh.
Next, she began to add more supplies and some of her personal items. Even though the supplies were crucial, she also wanted to keep some personal space for herself to purchase some female personal items, which were equally important to her.
She filled several pages with the list of supplies, double and triple-checking to make sure she didn't leave anything out before finally breathing a sigh of relief.
Then, she began to tally her savings.
After several calculations, she realized that her total savings only amounted to fifty thousand yuan.
Although this might seem less for her who became a department manager in a few short years after graduation, she couldn't do anything about it. After all, her daily expenses hadn't been small.
Skincare products were a necessity, and she often goes shopping and dining with her friends every now and then. Which of these activities didn't require money?
It was clear that she's nowhere near the person she was in the past.
She had been an orphan abandoned by her parents and raised by her grandmother in the rural area. Her grandmother passed away when she attended her sophomore year in college, and since then, she had been supporting herself until her graduation and starting a job.
Life hadn't been easy, but she managed to hold on, and she was doing quite well now.
Initially, she planned to save up for a down payment and then support the purchase of a house. This would also compel her to spend less and avoid living paycheck to paycheck.
In addition to the fifty thousand yuan bank balance, she also had about two thousand yuan in change.
She went online and rented a van.
She got her driving license when she was working part-time during college. At that time, she thought about becoming a designated driver to earn some money, but later she dismissed the thought as the pay was small and the work was burdensome.
The young man who rented out the van needed to go home for a few days so he decided to rent it out. Although he just put it up as a trial, he didn’t expect someone to actually rent it.
After contacting Lin Qinghe, I heard that she was in a rush, so I drove over. It wasn't too far, I arrived downstairs in just over ten minutes.
Lin Qinghe had made a deposit online, so there was no need to pay more. I tried driving it for a bit, although I hadn't driven for a while, it felt pretty smooth.
And even though this van was a bit old, there was only one row of seats behind the driver's seat. The last row had been removed, turning it into a cargo van, which suited Lin Qinghe's needs quite well.
After dismissing the young car owner who was trying to hit on her, she got in the car with her bag and hit the road right away.
She hadn't had breakfast yet, it was necessary to have something to eat before getting into the fray.
This breakfast place was a ten-minute drive from her apartment. The journey was quite long, and even though Lin Qinghe considered herself a foodie, she couldn't make it here often, as it was out of the way from her workplace.