Seeing the look on Old Father Si’s face, Si Jiuyue shuddered.
A jolt went through her body.
She woke from her dream with a start.
She brushed her eyes, where tears still lingered.
Gritting her teeth, she vowed that if she were to travel through time, she would definitely change things.
Once she had steadied her nerves, she picked up the Invisibility Cloak, turned, and ran out of the small wooden cabin, leaving the Dimension behind.
She returned to her rented apartment.
An hour had already passed.
She looked at the Invisibility Cloak before her. It was truly cool and beautiful; if she wore it and had the Tianling Snow Bracelet on her wrist, she would surely be the most stunning person in the world!
Si Jiuyue loved it to death! She carelessly ate a couple of bites of yesterday’s leftovers, then opened the novel, only to find the book had disappeared.
Si Jiuyue was speechless.
But there was nothing she could do.
She had only bought a tiny bit of supplies and had already spent most of her money. It seemed she would have to think of other ways.
She rested a while longer and had lunch.
The time was now six in the evening.
She got up, picked up the Invisibility Cloak, and put it on.
In an instant, Si Jiuyue had vanished from sight.
After wearing it for a while, she put it back.
She picked up a pen and started scribbling on a piece of paper. She was indeed out of money now, but when she turned on the television, she saw a major internet celebrity in the city. The woman’s mother had embezzled hundreds of millions and left it to her; the state had told her that if she returned the money, her mother’s sentence could be reduced, but she simply refused.
She was living a life of luxury in Maple Leaf Country.
Every day, she was either slandering China or pretending to do charity work.
But word was that she had returned to A-City yesterday.
Fine.
That would be her.
Today, she would act for heaven.
Si Jiuyue first took a taxi to the neighborhood, then put on the Invisibility Cloak. It was a stroke of luck—she happened to run into the woman coming down to take out the trash. She followed her quietly back to her home.
It was as opulent as could be; the house was at least three hundred square meters, and the walk-in closet was filled with high-end luxury goods.
There was even a room full of cash.
There was so much money she couldn’t even count it. It was all the money her mother had embezzled, which explained why she didn’t dare put it in a bank.
A song was playing in the living room.
"Without a shred of defense,
Without a hint of worry,
You just appeared in my world like this,
Bringing me surprises I can't control,
Yet you choose to be this way."
She looked at the elegant, wealthy woman in the room and gave a cold snort. She proceeded to clear out every cent of cash from the woman’s secret room. The next moment, she didn’t spare the luxury goods either, even taking away the tables, chairs, benches, and television from the living room.
The celebrity was terrified out of her mind.
The items in the room were vanishing into thin air.
Her face turned paper-white, and she curled up in a corner, shivering and screaming, "No, no..."
Si Jiuyue didn’t make a sound.
She only used her lipstick to write the words "Heaven’s Punishment" on the wall.
When the singer saw the words appearing out of thin air, she fainted from fright.
The time was now eight o'clock in the evening.
The supermarket hadn't closed yet.
She walked to the nearest supermarket, RT-Mart.
She carried a suitcase full of cash.
Once inside, the shelves were packed with an dazzling array of goods.
She went to the seasoning section first. She knew that in ancient times, these seasonings didn't exist, and they would be essential during her journey into exile. She started grabbing everything row by row.
Additive-free soy sauce, Baoning vinegar, all kinds of yellow rice wine, cooking wine, broad bean paste, bags of brown sugar, white sugar, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, fermented black beans—she took as much as she could get her hands on, buying every single one.
Seeing her struggling to move them, a supermarket employee asked if she needed help.
Si Jiuyue nodded eagerly.
She said she desperately needed their help, so the salesperson began pushing various products. She didn’t refuse, smiling instead:
"I’ll take them all. How about you go get your manager?"
"Yes, yes, yes! I'll go call them right away, right away!"
The salesperson, who was usually rejected when trying to make sales, was thrilled.
The girl had just said she wanted everything, as much as they had.
If it were true, her commission next month would skyrocket.
She waited for the salesperson to bring the store manager over.
Si Jiuyue saw he was empty-handed and told him to go grab a recorder, because she needed a great many things.
She would be spending at least a million or two, but she would pay a deposit first and the balance once the delivery arrived.
The manager looked at her unremarkable appearance and thought, *Have I run into a shopaholic today?*
If it were true!
He would love to have ten thousand customers like her!
Once the RT-Mart manager arrived with the recorder, Si Jiuyue entered "buy everything" mode.
"This... this... and this, I want all of them. I want a thousand bags of this salt."
She knew that salt was a very precious commodity in ancient times, so she bought as much as she could.
She looked at the rock sugar and brown sugar piled outside in large chunks, and without thinking, she told the manager she wanted at least thirty thousand yuan's worth.
The manager nodded repeatedly.
The two then moved to the seasoning section, which had many hot pot bases, soup bases, mushroom soup bases, and seasonings for Hongshaorou and Mapo Tofu.
She raised her hand and pointed:
"I want a hundred thousand worth of goods here."
"Sure, sure!"
Once that was settled, she went to the bulk goods section for Szechuan peppercorns, angelica, cinnamon, galangal, amomum, white cardamom, fennel, dried ginger, licorice, cloves, black pepper, grass fruit, nutmeg, and more.
"I want these too. Don't worry about which is which; if it’s a seasoning, I want it all. I want a hundred thousand of this section."
"Yes, yes, no problem. You're the boss!"
The manager was overjoyed.
Of course, she bought as much five-spice powder and thirteen-spice as they had.
On the shelves were also bottles of Lao Gan Ma, pickled vegetables, spicy sauces, broad bean paste, sweet bean paste, and dry pot sauce.
She bought them all; when she opened a restaurant in ancient times, she’d make a fortune.
Thinking of this, she couldn't help but laugh happily. Besides, RT-Mart also had dried shiitake mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, white fungus, and kelp. She couldn't miss these either, as they would be great for eating during exile or while fleeing famine. She also bought red beans, mung beans, and Eight-Treasure porridge ingredients.
There were several hundred pounds of these.
She bought them all.
There were also bulk red dates, raisins, pistachios, sunflower seeds, watermelon seeds, and so on—great for snacking on later.
Especially the sunflower seeds, which came in so many flavors: caramel, green tea, matcha... it would be wonderful to snack on them.
After confirming one batch of goods, she and the manager continued recording. The manager kept thinking, "Wow, wow, wow," to himself. This was truly a big buyer—she was buying so much at once—but he was also extremely curious.
It wasn't like the apocalypse was coming; why buy so much stuff?
Was she one of those legendary transmigrators?
No...
Impossible.
He figured he must have been reading too many novels and was going crazy.
Then, Si Jiuyue saw various types of sausages. Before she could speak, the manager jumped in excitedly: "You want all of these too?"
Si Jiuyue gave a heavy nod.
She also wanted all the steamed buns, meat buns, roast ducks, and roasted chickens from the deli section.
In the freezer were tangyuan, dumplings, siu mai, and steaks. She didn't even look at them and told the manager she wanted those as well.
RT-Mart also sold clothing.
Down jackets, thermal gear, base layers in every size, pajamas, underwear—she bought the entire stock.
"Wow, this girl is truly generous!"
The night-shift clerk couldn't stop smiling. It was her first day on the job, and she’d run into such a huge buyer; her performance bonus this month would be amazing.
So happy!
Si Jiuyue gave her an address. Since this wasn't part of the supermarket itself but an outsourced stand, she settled it in cash.
It cost nearly 180,000 yuan.
The clerk was stunned to see so much cash.
But she didn't say a word; she just cared about making the sale.
The manager was also stunned. He hadn't expected the suitcase to really be filled with cash.
Amazing!
In this age of QR codes, there was still someone using cash.
They moved on to the fruit section.
Mangoes, apples, strawberries, honeydew melons, cherries, watermelons, grapes, kiwis, and most importantly, durians—she planned to buy them all.
Of course, bananas, plums, and pears were not to be missed.
There were also jackfruit, cherry tomatoes, canned yellow peaches, and mixed fruit cocktail.
RT-Mart also had raw pork, beef, chicken feet, chicken, duck, and so on.
She pointed her finger.
Buy, buy, buy!
She didn't even look at the prices.
She also planned to buy all the toilet paper, eggs, duck eggs, and the like into her Dimension.
As for the seafood section, she thought about the lake in her Dimension. That was surely no ordinary place; perhaps these fish, shrimp, and crabs, when raised in that lake water, would grow massive. Just like the fruit in the fantasy movies she watched—the fruit was huge, and a banana could be used as a boat once peeled.
Whether it would work or not, she couldn't be sure.
In addition, she wanted all the sports equipment, books, and beverages from RT-Mart, including soda, Sprite, beer, and fruit wine.
In the end, she paid one million in cash. Every customer present was stunned, as were all the staff members. Someone even secretly filmed it for TikTok, triggering a national discussion.
After finishing at RT-Mart, she took a taxi to the vicinity of Sam's Club.
The process was the same.
Once inside, the store felt very much like an IKEA, with extra-high ceilings—at least three meters—and massive shelves. There were even guitars and pianos.
She didn't buy those.
Because she couldn't play any of them.
There was also a lot of high-tech gear, but she figured, since there was no electricity or internet in ancient times, she’d pass.
She would, at most, buy appliances that could be charged by solar power.
As soon as she walked in, the Sam's Club floor manager walked over.
He approached her with an excited look on his face.
"Ms. Si, I heard you want to buy a lot of things? May I be of service to you?"
Si Jiuyue was stunned. "You know me??"
The floor manager leaned in and whispered:
"Ms. Si, someone posted your actions at RT-Mart on TikTok, so of course I know you! Tell me what you need, and I'll prepare the stock for you immediately. Also...
I'll ask quietly, the netizens are saying you might be about to travel through time?
Is it true?"
"If it is, can you take me with you? I also want to live like a lord in ancient times, instead of being a miserable beast of burden here!!!"
The manager looked at her with longing.
Si Jiuyue frowned slightly. "I can't take anyone. I really can't. Where on earth would there be time travel? How is that possible? You should stop looking at your phone so much. I'm just shopping like normal."
Hearing this, the floor manager was very disappointed.
But he quickly perked up; if they could sell out their entire inventory at Sam’s, that would be a huge commission.
"Let's go, let's go. I'll take you to see."
"All right, all right!"
She had heard the desserts at Sam's Club were delicious, so she pointed at the shelves and said grandly:
"Here... I want it all."
The durian mille-feuille, 128 yuan each—she didn't care at all. It was dirty money anyway.
Additionally, she bought every pack of instant noodles, ramen, and dry-mix noodles in Sam's.
She also bought all the sliced bread.
Then there were the live shrimp, hairy crabs, sea cucumbers, abalone, oysters, shrimp paste, salmon, king crabs, tiger crabs, emperor crabs, butter crabs, Australian lobsters, blue lobsters, crystal crabs, bread crabs, and lake crabs.
She bought them all out.
She walked in front, just pointing with her finger.
Black Forest cake, tiramisu, mousse cake, chiffon cake, opera cake, praline cake, Basque cheesecake, osmanthus cake, mung bean cake, water chestnut cake, pineapple cake, pea cake, tuckahoe cake, crabapple cake, victory cake.
These were convenient and easy to store.
In the end, the deposit alone came to two million.
Si Jiuyue didn't have enough money in her suitcase, so she only gave one million for now.
Before leaving, the floor manager still wouldn't give up and said:
"Sister, if you really are going through time, take me with you. It wouldn't affect you if I went; we could just develop our own paths..."