Lying on the cool, damp earthen bed, covered with a greasy, patched cotton quilt, Zhang Hongmei stared at the low roof made of sorghum stalks and black mud for a long time. If it weren't for her heaving chest, she would probably look dead to outsiders.
But Zhang Hongmei is indeed still alive, though she lives a life she cannot accept.
Zhang Hongmei was a 40-year-old single woman living in the 21st century. In the eyes of her parents and friends, she was slim, beautiful, a high-achieving professional, sociable, and popular. How did she end up like a gold-plated saint?
Zhang Hongmei herself was puzzled. During her adolescence, her mother repeatedly warned her not to find a partner too early, but to focus all her energy on her studies, to escape the rural world and strive to become a city dweller. Zhang Hongmei, a dutiful daughter born in the 1980s in a rural area, came from a moderately well-off family. Always taking her mother's words as gospel, she naturally wouldn't disobey, and thus progressed rapidly in her studies, gaining admission to one of the top universities in the country. She continued her studies until completing her doctorate without responding to any men's advances.
She finally graduated and left school as a mature 30-year-old woman, working as the CEO of a foreign company. She was practically perfect in every way, but due to over 20 years of schooling, she had no interest in men. This worried her mother greatly. In the countryside, a 30-year-old unmarried daughter was a well-known problem in the surrounding villages. At night, lying on the kang (heated brick bed), Zhang's mother and father kept regretting that they had been too strict with their daughter, but there was no going back.
In fact, Zhang Hongmei is a rare beauty. She is 168 cm tall, has a C+ bust, and weighs 110 kg. Her face is smooth and tender without makeup, which makes her classmates who frequent beauty salons grit their teeth in envy. Her features are also impeccable: willow-leaf eyebrows, almond-shaped eyes, and cherry-like lips. There must have been a long line of boys pursuing her during her studies, but none of them could make this academic beauty even slightly interested in her.
She remained single, but her parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, childhood friends, and classmates were all against it. Her childhood friends said that a beauty with such a brilliant mind and beautiful face as Zhang Hongmei would be condemned if she didn't have children, as it would be a waste of such a valuable resource. So, every holiday, Zhang Hongmei would return to her hometown from Beijing to attend no fewer than five blind dates a day, but even so, she never found one that moved her heart.
The constant blind dates made Zhang Hongmei miserable. In her only act of rebellion, she stood up the man and wandered around the antique market, where she bought a space that only existed in novels and myths for only 10 yuan.
As Zhang Hongmei lay there, recalling what had happened, she hurriedly searched the area. When she realized the space was still there, she breathed a long sigh of relief. Thank goodness, at least she wouldn't starve to death.
In fact, obtaining this space was exactly as described in the novel. She unintentionally let the bracelet get stained with her own blood, which activated it. Inside, there was a spiritual spring that could strengthen the body and beautify the skin, five acres of fertile land, a warehouse that could keep things still, and a small courtyard. There were no cultivation techniques as described in the legends, but there were still dozens of boxes of ancient books, jewelry, calligraphy and paintings, and gold. The warehouse had very little grain, and it was almost all precious medicinal herbs. This made Zhang Hongmei, an ordinary person, very excited for a long time.
Since gaining access to her personal space, Zhang Hongmei has lost all interest in finding a partner. After her first act of rebellion, she naturally continued to rebel. Despite her mother's numerous phone calls urging her to return home, she instead spent her holidays frantically shopping to fill her personal space.
This was also inspired by a post-apocalyptic novel she had accidentally read, which terrified her. She thought that if such a space that defied the laws of nature had appeared, what if the apocalypse came? At that time, the paper money in her hands would be so worthless that it would be too cheap to even burn, just like in the novel, and she would have no chance to regret it. Therefore, the rational female scientist secretly stored a large amount of living supplies in her space.
During her holiday, Zhang Hongmei ordered 40 tons of rice from Northeast China, along with one ton of rice seeds. She also bought 10 tons of sorghum, plus one ton of seeds. Additionally, she purchased 10 tons of soybeans, 5 tons of red beans, 5 tons of kidney beans, and 40 tons of cornmeal. Zhang Hongmei loaded the goods onto three trucks and unloaded them at a rented warehouse in the suburbs of Beijing. Afterward, she went to Shandong and bought 40 tons of flour and ordered one ton of wheat seeds, as well as two tons of carded cotton—the kind of pre-carded cotton rolls commonly found in rural areas, ready to be used to make quilts. She also went to Shanxi and ordered 20 tons of millet, 5 tons of glutinous millet, and more seeds. All of this depleted Zhang Hongmei's savings. She finally had some peace and quiet for a while, as she usually worked without makeup and used her monthly salary to buy other grains at the Beijing wholesale market.
When the year-end bonus came, she went back to the oil mill in her hometown and bought 10 tons of peanut oil (10 kg per barrel) and 1,000 jin of sesame oil. Seeing that soybean oil was half the price of peanut oil, she bought another 10 tons. By then, she was practically penniless. Zhang's mother, unaware that her daughter had spent all her money, assumed she was just short of cash from her legitimate business and secretly gave Zhang Hongmei 50,000 yuan. This was a godsend. She quickly went to the salt and alkali factory by the sea, spent all the money, and acquired nearly 18 tons of salt and 2 tons of baking soda.
By 2012, Zhang Hongmei felt the time was running out, but she was a well-behaved child who had never had a credit card and had never thought of borrowing money. She had prepared a large amount of food, which was enough for clothing and other necessities. She could save her salary little by little. The Mayan prophecy said that the world might end on December 12, so she had almost 10 months to prepare.
Zhang Hongmei spent 10 months preparing enough clothes to last her 30 years, and ordered a truckload of hygiene products directly from the manufacturer. She also bought a truckload of tissues and wet wipes. However, the predicted end of the world did not come. But Zhang Hongmei did not feel that her efforts were in vain. Instead, she gradually prepared all the supplies she had not prepared.
Now, Zhang Hongmei is actually grateful that she didn't stop filling the space for the next seven years. She's now speechless with resentment about her past as a transmigrated little girl; it's been incredibly tough. Her parents, both soldiers, have died in the war, and she has no other relatives. In Liujiatun, a village of only about 20 households, the village head's family has been helping her since she was five. But just a few days ago, she received news of her parents' deaths, and the little girl couldn't bear it and passed away. This is how Zhang Hongmei ended up in this new world, but she doesn't want to. Although life in this new world is fast-paced and the air and food aren't environmentally friendly, her parents and relatives are there. The compensation and insurance money from her car accident death are enough for her parents' retirement.
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