"Boss, the sun is so strong outside, remember to cover up!" Tang Guo quickly called out as Tang Li walked so casually into the sunlight.
Tang Li waved her hand without looking back. Compared to the sun during the extreme heat season, this level of sunshine was nothing. Exposing herself to the sun now would help her adapt better when the extreme heat season of the disaster arrived.
Getting into the car, Tang Li stepped on the accelerator. With a "hum," the car drifted out of its parking space and sped away. Tang Guo watched this scene from inside the supermarket, her mouth agape in surprise. "What's gotten into Lily...?"
Unaware of Tang Guo's astonishment, Tang Li quickly returned to her own home. Looking at the familiar furnishings, Tang Li was filled with nostalgia. Her parents had been gone for five years. But for these five years, Tang Li had carefully maintained the home's appearance, leaving everything unchanged. In her previous life, the disaster had struck so quickly that Tang Li was trapped in the supermarket and couldn't return home. By the time the floodwaters receded, her home had already been ransacked. Although she had only left home this morning in this life, counting her time in the apocalypse, it had been four years since she had seen her home in its original state.
Putting aside sentimentality, Tang Li hurried to her parents' bedroom and, with practiced ease, found a jade pendant. This was an ancestral jade pendant from Tang's mother's family, originally intended to be given to Tang Li on her eighteenth birthday, but they had met their end before that could happen. During Tang Li's final year of high school, they went on a trip to the southwest and were caught in a mudslide, never to return. Tang Li was deeply affected by this, fell seriously ill, didn't perform well on her college entrance exams, and hastily attended university. After graduation, she returned home to take over the supermarket left by her parents. For the past five years, Tang Li had been consumed by grief over her parents' death, never truly moving past it. It was only in the apocalypse, through the struggle for survival and witnessing life and death, that Tang Li finally overcame this sorrow.
Thinking back, even before the global disaster, natural disasters were already occurring. The mudslide that took Tang Li's parents, wasn't that also a natural disaster? However, these natural disasters were sporadic and similar to what had happened before, not a continuous onslaught like during the disaster period that overwhelmed people. In her previous life, it wasn't until the fourth year of the apocalypse that Tang Li accidentally activated the space hidden within the jade pendant. This space was slightly different from the descriptions in novels Tang Li had read before the apocalypse. It wasn't that she could only retrieve as much as she put in; rather, any item placed inside could be retrieved repeatedly without any limit on the number of times. In other words, once an item was stored, it could be duplicated infinitely! However, by the fourth year of the apocalypse, the variety of goods in human society was already quite limited, and Tang Li couldn't collect much. Thus, in her previous life, this space didn't play a significant role in Tang Li's hands. But in this life, she would definitely not waste the space's capabilities!
Holding the jade pendant, Tang Li went to the kitchen and found a fruit knife. She extended her slender index finger and lightly drew it across the blade, a drop of bright red blood appearing on her fingertip. Tang Li quickly pressed the wound onto the jade pendant. The flawless white jade and her fair, tender skin touched, as if they were one. After absorbing the blood, the jade pendant flashed a few times and then vanished. Simultaneously, Tang Li felt her consciousness connect to a space. The space was not large, only about 1000 cubic meters, the same size as when she first activated the space in her previous life. However, Tang Li knew that as time accumulated, the space's size would slowly expand. But if she replicated too much of the same item in a short period, the space's expansion would slow down or even pause for a while. If replicated items were used and then returned to the space, the space's expansion speed would recover, even if only partially. Replicated items, when returned to the space, would not take up additional space but would merge back with their original source. These were conclusions Tang Li had drawn from prolonged use of the space in her previous life. As for whether the space's size would shrink, Tang Li didn't know yet. This was because in her previous life, there was no safe place where she could replicate items infinitely at will. But this was not a major issue. As long as she collected enough goods, Tang Li would have no need to replicate any single item in large quantities in a short time, thus eliminating any possibility of the space shrinking.
The current space was only about 1000 cubic meters, with limited storage capacity, so she couldn't just put everything inside. Therefore, Tang Li had to plan carefully. Upon connecting her consciousness to the space, Tang Li immediately stored the fruit knife in her hand. Without hesitation, she also placed all the knives in the kitchen into the space. These knives could be used as weapons; it was never too many, the more the merrier. Of course, relying solely on these knives as weapons would not be enough in the apocalypse. Tang Li needed to find some more powerful weapons. As for the other items in the house, Tang Li wasn't in a hurry to take them. With preparation in this life, she would not let her home be ruined by others again. At least until the great earthquake, she would stay at home and get through one extreme heat season and one extreme cold season. She could gradually collect the other household items into the space later. Moreover, items like oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and toiletries were already partially used, and their bottles were not full, so there was no need to put them in the space to take up room. She could get new ones from her supermarket. Normal daily necessities, from cooking ingredients to cookware, toiletries, and various sundries, were all available at her family's supermarket.
Now, Tang Li needed to think about what supplies she needed to collect that were not available at her family's supermarket. Opening her computer, Tang Li intended to first list all the items needed in the apocalypse based on her memories of the past four years, compiling an apocalypse supply list. Then, considering the space's size, she would decide how much of each item to collect. As for money, Tang Li was not lacking. Tang Li's parents had run the supermarket for over a decade. After deducting expenses, they had saved 800,000 yuan by the time of their death. The life insurance paid out 3 million yuan after their accidental deaths. In addition, they left behind several properties that could be rented out. Tang Li's living expenses during university came from these rental incomes. However, when her parents passed away, Tang Li lacked experience in managing a supermarket, and she was also in school, unable to devote much energy to managing it. So, she selected a few reliable and experienced staff from the supermarket at that time, signed profit-sharing agreements with them, and handed over the management of the supermarket to them, giving them most of the profits. When Tang Li graduated from university, they taught her the experience of managing the supermarket, and then, taking their four years of dividends, they went to open their own supermarkets. Therefore, after her parents passed away, Tang Li only saved a little over 200,000 yuan after expenses. Currently, she personally had a total of 4 million yuan in savings. Besides her personal funds, the supermarket's accounts also had some working capital, which could be used to purchase the supplies she needed. With this money and the supplies in the supermarket, she had enough to fill her space. If it was still not enough, she would replicate some gold from the space, which could also be exchanged for money. Even replicating cash was not out of the question. After all, after the apocalypse, all this money would turn into waste paper, and in just four days, no one would notice that the serial numbers on these banknotes were the same.
After listing the apocalypse supplies, Tang Li realized there were indeed some daily necessities that would be needed in the apocalypse but were not available at her family's supermarket. For example, portable toilets. In modern society, everyone was accustomed to flushing toilets, and few people bought portable ones, so the supermarket didn't stock them. But in the apocalypse, after the disaster struck, not only would water and electricity be cut off, but the sewage system would also be blocked by floods or extreme cold temperatures, making the toilets installed in homes unusable. In the future apocalypse, finding a toilet would not be as easy as it is now. Although one could simply find a place to relieve oneself, since she could have a portable toilet, Tang Li didn't mind spending a few hundred yuan to buy one. Another example, ingredients like fruits, vegetables, eggs, and pork, as well as clothes, shoes, and socks... Although the supermarket had them, they were not complete.