Let her bloom to the fullest of her abilities!

On the leaden gray sky, one after another "meteor" tore through the firmament, shooting in from beyond the atmosphere.

"Misfires from across the ocean, not just one place—several countries were hit!"

"This time, did it misfire into our country?"

Cars moving forward one by one had people leaning out their windows.

Liuyi glanced at the "meteors" above and quickened her pace, moving away from the crowd in the opposite direction.

The traffic continued to crawl along, with many routes cordoned off ahead by traffic cones. Cars lined up in several queues, and farther on were tricycles, electric scooters, and even groups of people on foot.

She took her phone out of her backpack and, making use of the weak signal, downloaded maps of the surrounding provincial capitals, then the national map.

The surrounding area was mountainous, and a hundred kilometers away, a reservoir held 19.7 billion cubic meters of water. In theory, with proper safety measures, it could withstand a magnitude-ten earthquake. But a major quake causing large-scale landslides would render the dam useless.

Next would come a host of secondary disasters: landslides, mudslides, tsunamis, flooding, epidemics, fires, explosions, toxic gas leaks, the spread of radioactive material...

The Di Shelter was absolutely not a place to linger.

She enlarged the map to study the surroundings.

Extreme heat had already begun, to be followed by glacial melt, rising sea levels, and the coastal cities and both poles were to be excluded from the safe zones.

The western lands would experience tectonic shifts before the east, with tremors nearly erasing them from the map.

The few provincial capitals in the interior that might escape earthquakes would face acid rain, mudslides, insect plagues, hurricanes, severe cold, earthquakes, tsunamis, and intense radiation...

Any one of these natural or man-made catastrophes would be fatal to all living things. Survivors who could avoid such disasters would be rarer than rare.

Survival of the fittest—the only way to live was to become strong.

But before becoming strong, she had to bide her time, find a sparsely populated place where she could scavenge for free and stay alive.

High-rises in the city were out of the question; the very first disaster—an earthquake—would turn them into mounds of dirt.

Alas, she could only flee to rural towns.

But low-lying areas were prone to flooding; higher elevations could avoid floods, but there would be stronger radiation and swarms of insects...

Every notable place she recalled had suffered disaster and heavy casualties, with civilians the worst off.

She dismissed all the shelters and bases marked on the map, finally pausing at Jiushan Peak.

It was two or three hundred kilometers from the Di Shelter, a distance she could drive before the big quake, and she had no memory of any disasters there.

Perhaps it was a little hidden paradise?

Now, she needed to find a car. She remembered many broken-down private vehicles by the roadside; with patience, she’d surely find something usable...

She didn’t know how long she’d walked before the pavement ended, replaced by a dirt road of broken stones, though fortunately it was still fairly even.

She pressed on into the wilderness; fields on either side had been scorched by drought, yellowed crops stretching as far as the eye could see, until she spotted a black funeral car overturned off the road.

Even brought their ancestors to the shelter...

How filial was that?

The back compartment was deformed, the front passenger windshield shattered into a large, round spiderweb, but the tempered film was holding, so it hadn’t collapsed.

Dragging her weary legs forward, Liuyi peered in through the window. The car keys were still in the ignition, and the tank was half full.

She lifted the trunk lid and let it fall with a bang.

What an enormous coffin!

Wait, why was this coffin made of black metal? It looked rather high-end.

With growing boldness, she climbed in to rummage around and even knocked on the coffin.

The sound was muffled; there was definitely something inside, not just empty.

Oh no, her own dirty clothes, stained with blood and mud, left smudges on the immaculate coffin.

But the quality of this coffin! The thickness rivaled her cousin’s shamelessness.

There wasn’t much space left on either side, just a few old clothes, half a box of self-heating rice, a case of drinks, and, crucially, a large medical kit with several boxes of medicines—even syringes.

But all the packaging was marked in Japanese.

She hurriedly sorted through them.

More medicines than food?

Was this hearse meant to provide emergency medical service too?

She didn’t dwell on it. With these rations, even if she died fast, at least she’d die with a full stomach.

"Honored ancestor, pardon me for disturbing your rest. I have met with dire trouble today and must borrow your hearse.

Rest assured, I won’t use it for nothing—once I find the right tools, I’ll bury you in a scenic spot with clear waters and green hills.

Please bless me with a smooth and safe journey~"

While bowing, her eyes lingered on the metal coffin. It was fastened to the car floor with a latch; once removed, there’d be plenty of room.

She didn't have much in the way of supplies yet and didn’t need the space, but when she did, she’d bury the coffin—killing two birds with one stone.

As for worrying about the hearse being unlucky, that was out of the question.

Heh, with the apocalypse looming, who cared if it was a car for the dead?

The trunk lid wouldn’t lock anymore, so she moved everything into the space under the front passenger seat.

The wheels were just stuck in the mud; a little padding would get it out, and she didn’t mind.

She emptied some cardboard boxes, dug up gravel from the road and wedged it under the tires.

Liuyi worked busily, not noticing how her bloody hands left smears on the coffin as she knocked on it.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, she tore open a sterile syringe, her hands trembling with excitement.

Heh, she was about to get her golden finger!

The peak of her life was waving to her.

Alas, trying to keep a low profile was so hard~

She jabbed herself several times before drawing a little fresh blood.

During her time as a near-comatose patient, she’d been so poorly cared for she was almost skin and bones.

She eagerly dripped her blood onto the jade pendant.

But there was no dazzling glow, and the jade didn’t disappear; her blood simply soaked in.

Almost instantly, she could sense a space in her mind.

Her smile froze.

How could it... be the size of a suitcase?

Barely thirty-two inches!

She distinctly remembered Lu Yunshu bragging about a space as far as the eye could see, with endless black earth, infinite spiritual energy in the air, plants growing rapidly, goods never spoiling, and white mist concealing springs and treasures to discover...

Could it be she hadn’t given enough blood?

Thinking of the wound on the back of her head, she rubbed the jade against her hair.

But the wound had healed on its own; no need for treatment.

She gave a self-mocking laugh—her vitality was indeed tenacious.

Gently rubbing the remaining blood did nothing to enlarge the space.

Why? Was it because she wasn’t her cousin, just a minor character?

The jade pendant had been bought by her cousin on a second-hand market online; there was no inherited bloodline at play.

Never mind, having something was better than nothing.

She wondered if living things could be stored.

Was it a bit useless?

She’d have to experiment when she had time.

She tied the burnt cord back into a knot and hung the pendant around her neck.

She started the car, carefully rocking it a few times until the wheels struggled free of the mud.

Navigation still worked, though the signal was weak. She got onto the main road and headed toward the sun.

A thunderous boom exploded in her ears, and the ground suddenly trembled.

The earthquake was early?

Liuyi jumped out of the hearse to take cover, but after only a few steps, she saw a crack open in the dry farmland ahead, white mist billowing out.

Worried that it might be toxic gas, she backed away, but then saw the weeds around the crevice rapidly regain vitality, new green shoots sprouting from their roots.

She craned her neck to look closer.

Tiny crystal stones glittered in the sunlight and swirling mist, like icy jade dew.

A memory flashed of a doctor in the lab complaining while injecting her:

"Don’t move! Do you know how precious this solution is? It’s extracted from energy ore that only emerges from the ground before earthquakes. Later subjects will only get the synthetic version."

Afterward, she’d had a high fever and awakened her power—the wood element, able to accelerate plant growth.

The apocalypse was about to descend, and humanity’s ugliness would be on full display.

If she couldn’t escape this end of days, then she’d bloom to her fullest potential!

Liuyi quickly grabbed at the crystals.

But as she touched them, each lost its luster and crumbled to dust.

Even she herself felt no discomfort or signs of awakening an ability.

Did it require extraction and injection?

No time to lose. She snapped off a stick and tried to collect the crystals without touching them.

"It worked!" The crystals shone brightly in her mental space, unchanged.

Unnoticed by her, a slender vine slithered from the coffin’s vent by the car door, weaving through the weeds. Where the vine touched the crystals, they turned to dust faster than Liuyi could collect them.

It was over in a moment; another violent tremor sealed the crack as if nothing had ever happened.

Heaven’s gift, perhaps.

She checked the area to make sure no crystals were left, then drove off.

Still within the Di Shelter’s sphere, the traffic had taken over both sides of the road.

She was the only one going the opposite way, so she simply drove onto the roadside wasteland; the drainage ditches were useless now, but the hearse’s high chassis could manage.

The farther she went along the national road, the fewer cars she saw. With this lull, she wanted to find a town or village to scavenge, but many people were still holding out in hope.

That made it hard to just take things openly.

But a thief never left empty-handed; she dug through the foul-smelling trash bins and found fruit pits—rusty apple cores, hawthorn, pear seeds, sprouted shriveled potatoes.

There were also rotten tomatoes, kiwifruit, peaches, tangerines, lemons, strawberries, cucumbers...

She didn’t mind what others had thrown away, packed them in a broken plastic bag to use as seeds.

By her past life’s memory, she should be able to awaken powers—a wood ability with tenacious vitality—so she’d be able to foster growth soon.

She sped toward the nearest city.

May the gods favor her and let her find some useful supplies.

As she neared her destination, she emptied her space in advance for ease of access.

By afternoon, she’d reached Jizhou City, the undulating mountains visible at a glance.

What had been a bustling city was now eerily quiet.

Cracked roads, high-rises with peeling walls, billboards creaking dangerously in the wind—ruins everywhere.

She was too late...

There was nothing left to eat in the supermarkets; only a few lonely pots and pans remained on the shelves.

The elevators had stopped; she ran to the upper floors as fast as she could.

Long-sleeved, practical clothes had vanished from the boutiques.

Luxury shops, jewelry stores, fabric merchants, restaurants, bakeries, hotpot places, and out-of-season sales—all that remained were the signs over the door; not even tables, chairs, or machines were left.

With such sweltering weather outside, how could there be no warm supplies left?

Tourist spots were nearby, so there were plenty of shopping districts; she switched to the least-frequented street she remembered.

It had also been ransacked, but a few things had slipped through.

She found some second-hand phones left for repair in a mobile shop.

The wholesale market was stripped clean.

But in the granary, she swept up the grains left scattered on the floor and tried storing them in her space.

It worked—she could do it by thought. Convenient.

In the traditional medicine hall, she found some leftover herbs in the small drawers.

She tried to take the whole cabinet, but her suitcase-sized space refused to cooperate—even the width of a thumb was too much.

She gathered the herbs together and put them in bare; that worked fine.

Time was tight, so she stopped searching the obvious places.

In a nostalgic shop rarely visited, she found a foot-pedaled sewing machine, a radio, an old "28" bicycle, a wind-up watch, army coats, floral cotton-padded jackets and pants, aluminum water bottles, and coarse flower-print cloth...

She took everything she could find.

First, she hauled away the water barrels from the dispensers.

Even half-used soap and large rolls of toilet paper from the restrooms were not spared.