Chapter 2: Whatever You Wish For Appears

It was already nine in the evening—far too late to go out shopping, and besides, Lin Buwan’s mind was still in a haze. She needed to organize her thoughts and make a systematic plan. She found pen and paper and began scribbling down a list of supplies she would need to stockpile.

She had just started when her phone, tossed carelessly on the sofa, began to vibrate. Annoyed, she grabbed it anyway. Two words appeared on the screen: You Yue.

It was her mother.

Ever since her grandmother passed away, Lin Buwan had felt more like an orphan. Her parents were divorced and each had remarried, forming new families that had no room for her. When her grandmother died, she was only twelve, and that was when her life in boarding schools began. During holidays, she rotated between her parents’ homes, never truly welcomed by either. If she could, Lin Buwan would have preferred to be a true orphan; at least then she wouldn’t have to deal with all this unpleasantness.

She hesitated for a moment, then pressed the answer key. You Yue’s voice came through the phone.

“Xiao Wan, are you resting?”

Lin Buwan’s voice was flat and tinged with coldness. “What is it?”

“What kind of attitude is this? Can’t even call your mother? You have no manners,” You Yue complained, then continued, “Here’s the thing—your brother needs to go to Baicheng for his internship. You’ll pick him up tomorrow and help arrange a place for him to stay.”

“I don’t have time,” Lin Buwan replied bluntly.

“What’s with that attitude? He’s your own brother!” You Yue sounded dissatisfied. “You’re just like your father—”

Lin Buwan cut off her mother’s endless tirade. “What attitude do you want? The child you had with someone else has nothing to do with me.” With that, she hung up without the slightest ripple of emotion and picked up her pen to continue her planning.

She wrote for three or four pages, filling them with lists of supplies: medicines, food, daily necessities, seeds, first-aid items, and various tools. The more she wrote, the more she realized how much she was lacking. The apartment was small, with limited space for storage. If only she had somewhere she could store more supplies, she thought. Suddenly, inspiration struck—she thought of the pendant her grandmother had left her, and of Qin Wei.

Two seemingly unrelated facts suddenly connected in her mind.

She walked to the bedroom and fished out a deep red jewelry box from the drawer. Inside lay a jade pendant shaped like an ancient coin—a deep green piece, not particularly exquisite, but simple and imbued with an air of antiquity.

She picked it up carefully, pinching the pendant between her fingers and peering through its center.

What?

Instead of seeing her apartment, she saw only darkness.

How could this be?

She brought the pendant closer, peering through the jade coin again. This time, her view was of her apartment’s interior—but from a strange, bird’s-eye angle. From where she was standing, it was impossible to see the apartment from above.

The more indistinct it became, the more she wanted to see clearly. Suddenly, she felt a pull, a flash of white light—and found herself standing in a space that was both strange and familiar: her apartment, with the same layout, but utterly empty.

The jade coin had disappeared from her fingers. With a single thought, she found herself back in her own room.

Lin Buwan was stunned.

No wonder, in her previous life, after Qin Wei got the jade pendant, the supplies in the apartment began to dwindle rapidly—she must have discovered the secret hidden within the pendant! But how had she known?

It didn’t matter how Qin Wei had discovered it. In this life, she would never get the chance again!

Lin Buwan experimented with storing and retrieving items from the space, repeating the process over and over. It was seamless.

The area of the storage space was the same as her real apartment—about fifty square meters. Not huge, but if she stacked the supplies, it could hold a great deal.

With storage sorted, now all she lacked was money.

She had only been working for a year, and even with what she’d saved from her part-time jobs at school, she had just thirty thousand yuan—barely enough to buy much of anything. Adding together all her available credit lines, she could scrape together perhaps two hundred thousand. She decided to prioritize the most essential supplies first. After the super typhoon hit in three days, she would look for opportunities to “shop for free.”

There was no time to waste. Lin Buwan began frantically adding supplies to her shopping carts—choosing sellers in the same province when possible, neighboring provinces for the rest, as most could deliver in a day. She didn’t skip the delivery platforms either, piling on order after order, all scheduled for delivery between nine and ten the next morning.

She kept at it past three in the morning, spending over a hundred thousand yuan. Lying on her bed with her phone in hand, she drifted off without realizing it, only to be woken by a call.

It was a delivery driver. Her building didn’t allow deliveries upstairs, so she had to fetch them herself. Rubbing her face, she hurried downstairs, finding four or five delivery men already waiting outside.

They brought medicines, rice, bottled water, frozen goods—a chaotic heap of dozens of items, far more than one person could carry by herself. She tipped them for their help, and they loaded everything into the elevator; she only needed to get it from the elevator to her apartment.

Luckily, it was after the morning rush, and most residents had gone to work, so the elevators weren’t busy. But just her luck—when she went back down for another load, she ran into Ji Dong and Qin Wei.

As the elevator doors opened, she saw the two of them arm in arm, speaking intimately. When Qin Wei noticed her, she stiffened, looking guilty, and quickly let go of Ji Dong’s hand, forcing a smile. “Xiao Wan, you’re not working today?”

Lin Buwan couldn’t be bothered to reply. She pressed the close button, and the doors slid shut.

Qin Wei was truly something else. After everything that happened yesterday, she could still smile like nothing had happened. What a thick-skinned woman.

“Ji Dong, you remember what you promised me?” Qin Wei said once the door was closed.

“You want that pendant so much?” Ji Dong asked. “If you really like it, I’ll buy you one just like it.”

“That’s not the same,” Qin Wei objected. “Xiao Wan’s pendant looks just like the one my grandmother left me. It’s special.” She took Ji Dong’s hand. “Just talk to Xiao Wan nicely. She likes you so much—she’ll definitely give it to you.”

After Qin Wei’s persistent coaxing, Ji Dong finally agreed, though after last night’s events, he really didn’t want to have anything to do with that crazy woman.

Lin Buwan had no idea what they discussed. If she did, she’d want to stab each of them—how shameless could they be?

She used to think Ji Dong was clean-cut and handsome, but now she found him utterly repulsive. In her previous life, she’d pursued him, deceived by his appearance. In truth, Ji Dong was rotten to his core—a pretty shell, and nothing more.