Chapter 3: Three Seconds Until Time Travel

After putting away her purchases, Li Qingyun hurried to the city’s largest supermarket. She went straight to the manager, handed him a shopping list, and arranged for home delivery. She stocked up on all the daily necessities: shampoo, shower gel, conditioner, toothpaste and toothbrushes, soap and laundry detergent, towels, tissues, sanitary pads—especially the sanitary pads. She also picked out several sets of skincare products like Lancôme, facial cleansers, sunscreen, and at least ten sets of each, along with a few nude-colored lip glosses.

Thinking of the two little ones from her dream, she added ten bottles of baby cream, five Pigeon baby bottles, twenty packs of small-size Daio diapers, thirty medium, and fifty large. She ordered fifty tins each of A2 formula milk for stages one through four, twenty tins of children’s milk powder, and twenty tins of adult nutritional milk powder.

She had the manager pack several of every instant food in the supermarket: roast chicken, roast duck, assorted cold cuts, ten boxes of instant noodles, two boxes of hot dogs, instant seaweed soup, ten boxes each of self-heating hotpot and rice, and dozens of pounds of bread and snacks.

The manager took about twenty minutes to total the bill: eighty-five thousand yuan. The formula was especially expensive, and the diapers weren’t cheap either—such quantities made the sum sky-high. But she couldn’t skimp; children couldn’t grow up well without milk. Gritting her teeth, Li Qingyun made her decision: buy it all.

After half an hour of bargaining, the manager agreed to knock two thousand yuan off the price and threw in a basket of cracked durians and a basket of Hami melons for free.

With eighty-three thousand yuan paid, her little savings now held less than ten thousand. She set the delivery time, then walked heavily out of the supermarket.

Years of hard work, and in a single day, she was back to square one.

That hundred and eighty thousand yuan had been saved with years of scrimping and saving. While others ordered takeout, she woke an hour early each day to cook and bring her own meals, eating alone in a stairwell, yet feeling content—because she believed the hardship was temporary, and perseverance would eventually lead to a new life.

All these years, except for her grandmother, no one had ever truly cared about her feelings. Her parents favored sons over daughters, and she’d had the misfortune to be born during the strict one-child policy era. When they saw she was a girl, they sent her back to the countryside to be raised by her grandmother, who nurtured her spoonful by spoonful with rice porridge and gruel.

Later, she gained a new sibling—a brother—and her parents finally got what they wanted. Her name, Li Qingyun, was one she cherished. Her grandmother had asked a respected elder from the village to choose it, as her heartless parents hadn’t even bothered to name her before sending her away.

When her grandmother passed away, Li Qingyun was already in high school. Only then, unwillingly, did her parents bring her back to the city—a home in name only, filled not with family but with calculations of gain and loss. All they wanted was for her to quit school early and work to support the family. But she excelled in her studies, and the school admitted her, waiving all fees.

The same parents who pleaded poverty, refusing even to pay her school expenses, paid in full for her brother’s house. At that moment, she stopped hoping.

Stumbling along with help from teachers and the school, Li Qingyun was admitted to a top university, completing her studies on student loans. While her classmates happily went home for winter and summer breaks, she worked odd jobs to support herself; no one ever asked how she was, or whether she’d be going home.

Home—she never had one. That’s why her deepest longing was to have a little place of her own.

The melancholy lasted only a heartbeat before Li Qingyun composed herself and reviewed her preparations. She realized she hadn’t bought winter clothes—northern winters could be brutal. She’d also need candles for lighting; kerosene lamps were common in the countryside, but candles were more convenient, so she had to stock up.

She hopped on her electric scooter and spent the rest of her money on ten boxes of candles and six down jackets in various sizes.

Passing through the gourmet street, she packed up a box of imperial pastries, ten fruit cakes, ten boxes of spicy duck neck, ten bowls of Sichuan ice jelly, ten servings of spicy hot pot skewers, red bean cakes, and ten family buckets of fried chicken and fries from KFC. Now, only two thousand yuan remained—untouchable emergency funds.

Back at the warehouse, after checking in the supermarket deliveries, Li Qingyun collapsed in exhaustion onto a chair by the door.

“Twelve-hour countdown,” the mechanical voice intoned once again.

She glanced at the time—it was already eight o’clock. The moon hung high. In a single day, Li Qingyun had transformed her one hundred and eighty thousand yuan in savings into a space filled to the brim with supplies, easing her fear of the unknown.

With this stockpile, no matter where she ended up, she could at least survive comfortably for a while.

She strolled leisurely to the food street and treated herself to a buffet hotpot she had never before allowed herself to enjoy, eating until she was completely stuffed. Then, satisfied, she returned to her rented room, packed her personal belongings, and stored them away.

She fell asleep, content at last.