Because she did not sleep well last night, and also because of the space incident, Bai Tian felt a little listless today.
She heated up some buns in the morning but did not eat them, instead she searched for news online while waiting for the bus, reading about all kinds of disasters happening on Earth.
There were forest fires, wars, volcanic eruptions and cold waves in foreign countries, with different parts of the world exhibiting different disasters. The global economy was also in a downturn.
Wen Qian could feel the economic downturn, but she only learned about the other events through the internet, things that she had previously thought were very distant suddenly felt closer due to her dream.
Yes, we live on the same planet after all, those things I dreamt about have happened before in the past.
It's just that for most of my life so far, things have been relatively peaceful.
Wen Qian grew up in a mountain village. Since she could remember, she had experienced blizzards, floods and lockdowns.
She was very young during the blizzard and only felt cold. There was plenty of firewood in the countryside, so they kept warm by the fire.
Most rural areas would stock up on grain, so there was never a situation where they had to scramble for food or had nothing to eat. This was the older generation's habit since they had suffered from hunger before.
She encountered the flood when she was in school in Ancheng. The school dorms on the first floor were flooded because the nearby lake overflowed from heavy rains that didn't stop.
At that time the waters were static, there was just a power outage. The school still sent food over and later transported students out of the dorms so things were fine.
In contrast, the small river street in her hometown which was built alongside the river was surrounded by flood waters. The villagers were trapped for a whole day and night before being rescued, amidst the thunderous sound of the rushing waters.
A few old houses were washed away by the waters, without a trace afterwards. An 80 year old at the time said he had never seen such major flooding in his memory.
As for the lockdown, it was when Wen Qian was working a winter break job in Ancheng during school. She didn't fall sick then, she just stayed in her room like everyone else.
Being locked down in the city was different from the countryside. The countryside had fields and land, they could still find food, but everything in the cities required distribution.
After this incident, like many other migrant workers, Wen Qian felt that her rural family home must be preserved properly.
It was hard to imagine cities losing electricity or water for days, with the dense populations, everything requiring large scale centralized supply and distribution networks. If the supply was disrupted, things would turn scary.
But the countryside was different, it could survive independently from the cities, be self-sufficient.
During the severe lockdowns in An province, even if the whole province fell silent, lockdown in the rural countryside was still different from the cities.
After the lockdowns, many people in Wen Qian's hometown went back to repair their old houses.
People who previously thought their old village houses were useless since they owned properties in the city, now felt the rural homes were a good backup plan.
In the year after the lockdowns, prices of bricks, tiles and some building materials in the villages rose, even labor costs went up. But even then, demand exceeded supply.
Before she passed away, Wen Qian's grandma had the roof of their house replaced with good quality, large red tiles. The existing house was still the old red brick house, very sturdy.
Although old, it was still a good home.
At least for now, Wen Qian didn't need to spend more money on the old house back home.
Their house was the only one in the gorge, not very tall but located high up in hilly terrain. Walk further up the hill behind Wen Qian's house and you reach the highest point of their village area.
Due to the hills, the slopes here were very gentle. Geologic disasters were also less common. Even the lowest lying areas were just the winding river in the distance, its banks and surrounding fields would be partially submerged during floods.
Because of the lockdowns, these areas felt far removed from modern life, but also far from lockdowns and disasters.
Wen Qian recalled the doomsday survival fiction books and movies she had previously read/watched, all pessimistically imagining the future, and depicting people struggling to survive.
The news made Wen Qian feel her dream may not be that far removed from reality.
Because of the dream, anxious Wen Qian felt that she could at least return home if she found city life too tough in the future.
The reason the dream had such great impact on Wen Qian was because of the space.
If it was just a normal dream, she would have brushed it off as such.
But having had the space and confirming it still existed after she woke up, Wen Qian felt the two must be connected. She worried her dream might come true, since the space was real.
Maybe she should stock up her space with food supplies and move back to her rural hometown?
But on second thoughts, while the villagers lived quite spread out, news traveled even faster than the wind, getting more distorted as it went.
Returning home single without good reason would not be seen positively. Plus she was still single.
The rural hometown was not very friendly to single adult females. They felt adult women should not remain single.
Because in the hundred years of the village's history, they had only heard of bachelor men, never spinster women.
But if her dream really came true, the rural hometown would still be more conducive to survival.
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After a full day's work, tired Wen Qian simply boiled some noodles and added lots of side dishes.
Only after eating her fill did Wen Qian remember the stuff she put in her space for experiments.
She discovered the frozen meat she put in was still frozen solid, while the cup of hot water she took out still burnt her hands with its scalding temperature.
Wen Qian realized stuff she put in would remain in their original state so this space could definitely function as a thermal locker.
Wen Qian guessed time should be static inside the space. So she tried to put in a small pot of mint she bought, but it wouldn't go in.
"Living things can't enter?" Wen Qian put down the mint, snapped a small stem and found she could put it inside.
So indeed, living things were not allowed.
Wen Qian also wrapped her leftover food in cling wrap and put it inside to observe it after some time.
By now, Wen Qian wasn't concerned about returning home anymore. She decided to first buy more things for her space.
The disasters in her dreams were mostly natural ones. She felt other than food, she should also stock up on a lot of daily essentials.
The first thing Wen Qian thought of were actually sanitary pads, what could be more important right?
So she started checking her browsing history on PinPin online mall. She regularly used this reasonably priced domestic brand with guaranteed quality.
After adding everything to cart, Wen Qian did not immediately check out.
She then searched her order history for stuff she previously purchased. As long as the shops still existed and prices were reasonable, she added them to cart.
Wen Qian exited the shopping app and started searching online for information regarding "natural disasters", "doomsday", and "stocking up".
After searching on a few apps, Wen Qian discovered a forum called Survival Mania.
