Chapter 28

Su Jing sat on a folding chair in the villa's living room, closed her eyes, and concentrated her mind. The next second, she sank into a space the size of a football field. The intelligent automatic sorting function had already arranged the supplies in an orderly manner. Her consciousness floated in mid-air, checking each area one by one:

On the left, in the "Edible Plants Area," 30,000 kilograms of giant plants were neatly stacked: golden giant wheat flour was packed in sealed bags, piled into 150 square stacks at 1 kg/bag ratio; pale yellow sweet grass roots were bundled into 10 kg/bundles and placed next to the stacks; grayish-white giant mushrooms were vacuum-packed and placed in wooden crates, with handwritten "Shelf life 180 days" labels affixed to the outside; orange-yellow honey berries were also vacuum-sealed and placed side by side with the mushroom crates. Su Jing's consciousness swept over each pile of supplies, confirming that they were not damp or damaged, before turning to the "Energy Area" in the middle—two gasoline generators stood on metal supports, their bodies polished to a shine, next to which 50 barrels of gasoline (20 liters each) were neatly arranged, mouths facing upwards, valves tightly closed; 200 bags of anthracite coal were piled into a small mountain, the words "High Calories" printed on the black woven bags; the connection wires of the roof solar panels had been connected to the space's backup inverter to ensure a stable power supply to the villa during the instance.

“It’s time to adjust the easily accessible layer.” Su Jing’s consciousness landed on the “easily accessible layer” in the center of the space—this was the “quick access area” newly added by the intelligent classification function, located at the entrance of the space, which could store 100 commonly used supplies and could be retrieved with a thought. She first moved in the tools that might be needed in the dungeon: entrenching tool, folding shovel, climbing rope (500 kg load capacity), laser gun (15 energy bullets remaining), stun baton, arranged in the order of “defense → digging → escape”; then she put in high-energy food: 20 100g chocolate bars, 10 small packages of 500g giant wheat flour, and 30 packs of compressed biscuits, for quick energy replenishment in the dungeon; finally, she left 10 empty slots for the medical supplies that would be replenished later.

Exiting the online space, Su Jing picked up her phone and opened the anonymously registered shopping app. To avoid revealing her identity, she had registered five accounts with different phone numbers. This time, to buy medical supplies, she chose "same-city express delivery" and filled in Warehouse No. 12, Area A, Suburban Logistics Park as the delivery address (a warehouse previously used to collect villa parts, now emptied, with only surveillance cameras remaining). She searched for "cold medicine," prioritizing Compound Paracetamol and Amantadine Capsules (suitable for influenza and the common cold, shelf life 3 years), and directly ordered 500 boxes, noting "unpacked and loose, avoid whole-box delivery." Then she searched for "antibiotics," selecting Amoxicillin Capsules (broad-spectrum antibacterial), Cefixime Dispersible Tablets (for respiratory infections), and Levofloxacin Tablets (for urinary tract infections), 167 boxes of each, totaling 500 boxes, again noting "loose delivery."

"Select anonymous payment as the payment method, and choose 2 PM today for delivery. I'll call you after delivery; no signature required." After filling out the order, Su Jing clicked to pay, and a "Payment Successful" message popped up on her phone screen. She put down her phone, walked to the window, and watched the patrolling robot in the yard—its silver-gray body moving along the outer edge of the trench, its red scanning lights rotating 360 degrees, pausing the scan at the slightest disturbance, and resuming only after confirming there was no threat. The monitoring app showed "No abnormalities within 50 meters of the villa," the solar panels were generating a stable 750W (the morning sunlight was slightly weaker), the generator was in normal standby mode, and the heating equipment was connected to the backup circuit.

At 1:30 PM, her phone rang with a call from an unknown number. It was the deliveryman: "Hello, your order has arrived at the warehouse door. There are 10 large cardboard boxes in total. Would it be convenient for you to come and pick them up?" "Just leave them at the door. I'll pick them up myself in a bit. No need to wait." Su Jing hung up the phone and drove to the warehouse—to avoid revealing the location of her villa, she always took a detour when picking up deliveries. This time was no different. She drove towards the city center for 20 minutes first, then turned around and went to the warehouse to make sure no one was following her.

At the warehouse entrance, ten cardboard boxes were piled up under the surveillance camera; the deliveryman had already left. Su Jing opened the boxes to check: cold medicine and antibiotics were scattered inside the boxes according to the notes, without any whole-box labels. Each box was intact, and the expiration dates were all over two years. She closed the car door, confirmed that no one was around, and focused her mind: "Put all the medicines into the 'medical area' of my space, and arrange them according to the categories of 'cold medicine → amoxicillin → cephalosporin → levofloxacin. Move the 20 boxes of commonly used cold medicine and 10 boxes of amoxicillin to the easily accessible shelf."

Upon re-entering the space, the "medical area" had automatically been divided into sections: 500 boxes of cold medicine were piled on the left shelf, three types of antibiotics were arranged by type on the right, and in the easily accessible shelf, 20 boxes of cold medicine and 10 boxes of amoxicillin were neatly arranged. Next to them were 100 bottles of iodine, 50 rolls of gauze, and 30 tourniquets, all medical supplies commonly used in the apocalypse and dungeons. Su Jing's consciousness swept across the entire space—the edible plant area occupied 1/5, the energy area 1/10, the tool area 1/10, the warmth area (10 down jackets and 1000 hand warmers) 1/20, the medical area 1/20, the easily accessible shelf only 1/50, and the remaining 3/5 was still reserved, enough to store dungeon supplies later.

“It’s time to charge the robots.” Su Jing exited the spatial dimension and walked into the yard. Two robots were patrolling at the gate. She pressed the “charge” button on the robot’s body, and the robotic arm automatically took out 1 kilogram of coal from the spatial dimension and stuffed it into the charging port—the coal was instantly sucked in, and the indicator light on the body changed from green to red (charging). The screen displayed “Estimated charging time: 2 hours; full charge provides 12 hours of battery life.” She then opened the robot’s control panel and confirmed the “Villa Automatic Patrol” mode: patrol range of 50 meters, scanning once every 30 minutes, and if a threat is encountered (moving object exceeding 0.5 meters), an electric shock deterrent will be issued first. If the deterrent is ineffective, the villa alarm will be triggered and the location and real-time video will be sent to her phone.

After finishing these tasks, Su Jing leaned against the villa's doorframe and picked up her phone to browse the news. A headline popped up on the homepage: "China Issues Recall Order for Overseas Citizens," urging overseas Chinese citizens to return to China within 15 days, offering free airfare and quarantine benefits. In the comments section, US and EU media outlets questioned whether this was related to an unknown threat, but there had been no official response. Su Jing didn't pay much attention; she was more concerned about the system notification that the "Cyber ​​World instance will open in 10 days." She retrieved her previously stockpiled anti-radiation suit (a military-grade model purchased online), laptop (fully charged), and 10 power banks (all fully charged) from her storage space, moving them to an easily accessible shelf. She also checked the laser gun's energy bullets, confirming they were sufficient.

As evening fell, the robot finished charging and resumed its patrol; the electricity generated by the solar panels had been stored in the space's backup batteries (10 batteries, each with a capacity of 10,000mAh); the heating system tested normal, and the villa's room temperature remained stable at 22°C. Su Jing went into the living room, connected her phone to the villa's monitoring system to ensure she could remotely view the footage during the dungeon session, then sat down in a folding chair, closed her eyes, and once again entered the space.