4: Keep picking up "gold coins"

Ai Yue carried the rough stones out of the trading market and returned to the car. The car was fitted with one-way film, so people outside could not see inside.

She entered the space with the two rough stones. She felt the rough stones in her hands lighten, and the entire space shook and instantly expanded by forty square meters.

Ai Yue was overjoyed. She realized the space could distinguish between 'food' through her touch.

A weight lifted from her heart. That was great; this way, she wouldn't be afraid of buying fakes.

She disguised herself inside the space, ensuring anyone who had seen her before wouldn't recognize her.

Ai Yue pulled down her hat and strode purposefully into the trading market, ready to make a big haul.

Ai Yue touched every piece of jade at every stall. There were indeed many good items, and several made her heart pound fiercely.

The jade that the space had 'identified' as good was already known to the stall owners as valuable. Each piece was a prized possession, leaving no chance to pick up a bargain.

Ai Yue finally spent a painful two hundred thousand on a pair of bangles with excellent water content, only to find that the two-hundred-thousand-yuan bangles only increased the space by ten square meters—less than the rough stones she bought casually for four hundred yuan.

She realized she couldn't buy finished pieces anymore; they were not only expensive but also added little space, making them impractical!

Ai Yue set her sights on rough stones. There were also quite a few stalls selling them.

Excluding the first stall she visited, she checked all the others and collected five rough stones. She also learned from a young vendor that there was an abandoned old mine thirty li west of the city.

The local government had turned it into a popular spot for treasure hunting check-ins, especially favored by young couples. Truly lucky people could indeed dig up good things. Most importantly, the entrance fee was only eighty, and you could pick up anything.

Ai Yue was delighted. Others went there relying on luck; for her, wasn't it essentially a zero-cost acquisition? After all, she had the space as a cheat device.

Ai Yue stopped wandering the trading market and drove straight to the treasure hunting spot the young vendor mentioned.

She paid the entrance fee readily and walked in. 'Whoa,' it was a huge pit, with many slightly smaller pits nearby.

Because it was January and the weather was cold, it was the off-season. Only a few scattered people were bent over, searching. No one paid attention to what anyone else was doing, so Ai Yue joined them.

There were too many round stones in the pit; even shoveling out a truckload wouldn't noticeably decrease the amount. Ai Yue touched every stone one by one. As long as her heart pounded, the stone under her hand would disappear. There were so many stones that from a distance,

there was no abnormality in her area.

Ai Yue was too excited. This place was practically her paradise. Big, small, ugly, flat, or round—as long as it was a stone, she didn't let a single one go. She touched them all one by one, and if she felt her heart accelerate, she immediately put it into the space.

This feeling of picking up gold scattered everywhere was incredibly satisfying.

Unknowingly, the sky gradually darkened. The old man guarding the gate, wrapped in a military greatcoat and puffing on a pipe, shouted up at the pit, telling the traveler who had been busy all day to hurry up and leave because they were closing.

Only then did Ai Yue reluctantly straighten up. She glanced around and found she was the only one left. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and casually picked up a stone from the ground before walking out.

The old man following behind muttered, "Child, why are you so focused on getting rich at such a young age? Digging here all day, you're really something!"

"Listen to the old man's advice. A person's fortune in life is fixed. Don't always think about getting something for nothing. Do you think a pie from the sky will fall on your head so luckily? Besides, why was this old mine abandoned? It's because there's no jade left. Aren't the professionals better at judging than you? If there were good things, would this pit have been abandoned..."

Ai Yue was in a good mood and ignored the rambling old man. She calculated in her mind that if she came back tomorrow, she could cover about half of it. One more day, and she would definitely be able to go through all the pits.

Ai Yue happily drove back to the hotel, took a good shower in the bathroom to wash away the fatigue of digging stones all day, and ordered takeout for a big meal. Only after starving all day did she feel truly alive.

She checked around the room to make sure everything was fine, then confidently flashed into the space. She had been eagerly anticipating how much the space had expanded.

As expected, the space had expanded to the size of half a soccer field. Ai Yue's mouth nearly split into a grin looking at the vast area. If she had to buy jade to achieve this size, it would have cost tens of billions.

The worry that had been hanging over Ai Yue's heart finally eased slightly. With a solid plan in mind, her eyes shone as she started formally hoarding goods online. All delivery addresses were set to the warehouse rented by Li Shilan. In about two more days, Cai City would mostly be settled, and she could return.

According to the sequence of natural disasters in her previous life, first came extreme heat, then heavy rain, followed by extreme cold... During the extreme heat, she would need to go out, so sun protection was indispensable. She hoarded one hundred items each of sun hats, sun umbrellas, and arm guards, and five thousand bottles of sunscreen, which was an extremely consumable item.

These items alone cost two hundred thousand.

Thinking about how wonderful it would be to have a sip of a delightfully cold beverage during the intense heat, it would be absolutely exhilarating.

Ai Yue immediately searched online, found the manufacturer's phone number, and called without hesitation. She ordered one thousand cases of her favorite cold drinks in various flavors, and coincidentally ordered ten thousand cases of mineral water.

Just buying the water cost another four hundred and ninety thousand.

Ai Yue looked at the items in her shopping cart and was too excited to sleep. This feeling of buying, buying, buying was truly mesmerizing.

She then recalled that during the extreme heat, there would be cases of heatstroke. In her previous life, she suffered from heatstroke, but there were no heat-relief items at home at that time.

The pharmacies outside had long been closed. Her parents were anxiously running around. Han Xiao had not yet revealed his ugly side then.

Seeing Ai Yue feeling unwell, he pretended to be very anxious and said he would borrow medicine from neighbors. Who knew he only stayed outside the door for a moment before returning, saying that the neighbors were too busy looking after themselves to lend any heatstroke medicine.

Fortunately, her mother remembered that she had heard the older generation say that strong tea could relieve heatstroke. She forced a mug of strong tea down Ai Yue's throat and used white liquor to rub on her body to dissipate heat, which saved Ai Yue's life.

Thinking of this, Ai Yue hoarded some Huoxiang Zhengqi Water, Ten Drops Water, saline solution, and tea leaves. Fortunately, all these could be bought online.

After buying these, her energy waned. Unconsciously, she lay on the sofa holding her laptop and fell asleep. There were still many things she hadn't bought; she could only deal with them when she got back.

The next morning, Ai Yue, who had been sleeping on the sofa, suddenly bolted upright, drenched in sweat, as if she had just been pulled out of water, with a trace of lingering terror on her face.

She had a nightmare. She dreamt that those man-eating demons had captured her again, their faces ferocious as they drew knives and sliced off her flesh piece by piece, putting it directly into their mouths to eat.

Ai Yue snapped back to reality. Looking at the white wall, she couldn't help but cover her face and weep. The scene of being eaten alive was too terrifying.

After venting her emotions, Ai Yue pulled herself together. She still had many things to do. Moreover, this life was different; she and her parents would definitely not meet the same end as last time.

With the space as her cheat device, having food, drink, and weapons, she firmly believed that she and her family could live very well through the Apocalypse.

Ai Yue quickly rinsed off, ate breakfast, and drove off to continue searching for stones.

The old man was not at the entrance when she arrived, which made Ai Yue breathe a sigh of relief. The old man was too talkative, and she hated people nagging in her ear the most.

Ai Yue looked at the pit full of stones as if it were a mountain of gold, her eyes shining brightly. Impatient, she ran down and continued to dig through the stones, picking up "gold coins."