There were no shoes beside the reed mat, so Qi Jun had no choice but to stand barefoot. His head felt faintly dizzy, and he raised a hand to his forehead. “Hiss…” The scar was scorching hot beneath his fingers, yet the surrounding skin felt completely normal. Could the stone from his dream really have drilled into his head? Or was he still dreaming? Or… had something gone wrong with the wound, causing this frightening reaction?
“What the hell is this place?” Looking at the crude bamboo furniture and the reed mat spread directly on the floor as a bed, he sincerely thought, I want to go back! No matter how unfamiliar the beast world was, its standard of living had to be better than this.
Unexpectedly, the moment he said those words, his vision went black. When light returned, he discovered that he was standing on top of his dormitory bed.
A chill ran down Qi Jun’s spine, raising goosebumps all over his body. His thoughts spun rapidly as he tried to understand the series of events that had just happened. A moment later, he jumped off the bed and rushed into the bathroom. Staring closely at his face in the mirror, he was stunned to discover that the scar on his forehead had truly turned red. When he touched it, it was still burning. “My god!!!”
He turned on the tap and rinsed his forehead with cool water for quite a while, but the scar remained scorching hot. If his mind had not been completely clear, he would have thought he ought to go straight to the school clinic. But… hadn’t that little stone been something he found in his previous life? Wait. He had hit his head against the lost-and-found counter, which meant… the blood on the stone should have been his. And then his soul had crossed into Qi Jun’s body… Could that little stone have caused it?
His thoughts gradually opened up. Suddenly, he remembered several boys’ love stories Zhao Jia had made him read. One of them involved a portable space. Could it be… that he had somehow gotten unbelievably lucky and obtained a portable space of his own?
At the thought, Qi Jun said, “Enter!”
And then he was once again standing inside the crude little room from before.
After going in and out more than a dozen times, pinching his thigh and twisting his cheek along the way, Qi Jun finally confirmed it: he truly possessed a miraculous portable space!
So what came next? Naturally, he had to explore his space. Surely it could not consist of only one shabby little room.
Of course it did not.
The moment he pushed open the room’s door, the view outside made Qi Jun’s mouth fall open. Such a vast stretch of land—this was incredible!
He ran out of the hut and stared at the black soil before him, drawing in a deep breath. The fragrance of fresh earth nearly moved him to tears. In his old life, it was a smell he usually noticed only when it rained. In the beast world’s cities, there was basically no exposed soil at all. The scent made him feel as though he had returned home. Safe. Grounded in the most literal sense.
The land was enormous by his standards, perhaps the size of five or six football fields. It had been divided neatly into… one, two, three, four, five… thirty plots! Ten had already been planted, and the crops were either fruiting or fully mature.
Corn, sorghum, soybeans, Chinese cabbage, radishes, tomatoes, and green peppers—those he recognized. Of the three remaining crops, one had drooping grain heads growing in flooded paddies. If he guessed correctly, that had to be rice. Another bore golden ears and should be wheat. The last one made him run closer for a careful look. He saw a tuber bulging from the soil, brushed away the dirt, and discovered that it was actually his favorite food: potatoes!
“Thank heaven!! I can finally eat food meant for human beings!!!” Qi Jun shouted from the middle of the fields. His yell startled a flock of chickens, ducks, and geese that had been hiding among the crops.
His first thought at the sight was, I finally have normal meat to eat!
Then his eyes suddenly lit up. He realized that meant he should have all kinds of eggs in the future too!
Qi Jun plucked a fist-sized tomato from the vine, rubbed it on his clothes, and immediately took a bite. Sweet, tart, and overflowing with juice, it nearly moved him to tears after so many days of eating things that barely qualified as food. If only he had known earlier—he would never have bought those two expensive, bizarre things that afternoon!
That was right! From now on, he would not need to waste money on food at all. This was absolutely cause for celebration!
Once the initial ecstasy of discovering food settled down, Qi Jun began examining the space again.
The other twenty plots had already been plowed, but no seedlings had emerged, so they were probably empty. A circular river surrounded all thirty fields along with the thatched huts, a grassy area roughly the size of a football field, and more than a dozen large, leafy trees. Four wooden bridges connected this central area to the land beyond the river.
No matter which direction he looked, the far side of the river was forest. But where the river met the woodland, a barrier hung in the air like a layer of floating white gauze.
Qi Jun crossed one of the wooden bridges and tested it. The white gauze felt soft, yet he could not pass through it. Apparently, it was a barrier. How to break through it… that was another question.
After inspecting every place he could currently reach, Qi Jun was still extremely satisfied. The four thatched huts, however, made him somewhat depressed. They genuinely looked like unsafe buildings ready to collapse. The room where he had first appeared was especially small and low. He had no idea what the other three contained.
Qi Jun walked back to the huts and casually entered the second room from the right. The moment he stepped inside, he froze. From outside, the hut looked barely twenty square meters. How could the interior be this enormous?
Rows upon rows of medicine cabinets dazzled him. He walked over and pulled open a random medicinal drawer. Empty. The label on the drawer was blank too. He opened more than twenty in succession, and every one was the same. Looking around again, he found that only one medicine cabinet in the corner had labeled drawers. Everything else was blank and presumably empty.
He walked over and opened a drawer labeled “star anise.” The instant it slid open, the rich fragrance of star anise drifted out. He carefully examined the labels on the rest of that cabinet and was delighted to discover that all of these medicinal ingredients could also be used as cooking seasonings!
But there were so many empty cabinets he could not even count them. Surely they were not meant to remain empty forever? Could there be seeds somewhere? Thinking of the twenty unused fields, Qi Jun hurried out of the room and rushed into the hut on the left.
It was exactly what he hoped for.
The room was filled with every kind of seed imaginable. Some were wrapped in cloth, some in paper, some stored loose, some placed in drawers, some packed in sacks, and some were even living seedlings. There were so many varieties that he could barely take them all in.
After a rough inspection, Qi Jun found that the overwhelming majority were seeds for traditional Chinese medicinal herbs. A large proportion were also grains and vegetables, many of which possessed considerable medicinal value themselves. There were also fruit trees and rare plants. Fortunately, seeds for the most common crops, vegetables, and fruits had all been placed near the door, with detailed labels that made them easy to identify.
Qi Jun was so excited he wanted to howl a few times. This was not merely timely rain after a drought—it was practically asking for ice and having hail fall from the sky! After seeing these two huts, his curiosity about the last unvisited room became intense.
The final hut did not disappoint him either.
Inside were two adjoining rooms. One contained all kinds of tools for processing food ingredients and medicinal herbs. The other was a study of roughly sixty or seventy square meters. Several rows of bookshelves stood inside, but the books were old-fashioned thread-bound volumes stacked flat. They looked ancient.
Qi Jun casually picked one off a shelf. The cover read Materia Medica for Dietary Therapy. When he opened it, he nearly went cross-eyed. It was written entirely in classical Chinese—and from the look of it, it was handwritten!
Qi Jun was thankful that his foundation in classical Chinese was fairly strong. Reading it took effort, but he could still understand it. He pulled out several more books. Most covered farming, cooking, cultivation of Chinese medicinal herbs, medicinal-diet formulas, and ancient traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions. They matched the contents of the space perfectly.
After putting the books back, Qi Jun returned to the room where he had first appeared. The other three huts had been so astonishing that surely this one could not really be as shabby as it looked.
He searched for a long time and found only a letter inside a bamboo cabinet. Written on the envelope were the words: To the Fated Recipient, to Be Opened Personally.
Since he had obtained the space, that “fated recipient” was presumably him.
Qi Jun opened the envelope. Inside was a long letter written with a calligraphy brush.
The letter mainly explained the origin of the space.
The writer never revealed his identity. He only explained that this place was an independent dimension contained within something called the Salvation Stone. Its creator was the Divine Lord of a Hundred Herbs. The Salvation Stone and the space within it had been refined by that divine lord long ago for cultivating medicinal herbs and making elixirs. The letter did not explain why the Divine Lord of a Hundred Herbs had become separated from the Salvation Stone, and judging from the way this section was written, the letter’s author was definitely not the divine lord himself.
The next portion described the space’s basic functions.
The Hundred Herbs Space could expand. According to the letter, its current size was only one percent of what it had been when the Divine Lord of a Hundred Herbs first created it. Countless living things were hidden in the areas blocked by the white “gauze.” To expand the space, the new owner had to level it up. The most important factor in doing so was to cultivate medicinal herbs diligently, transplant rare plants from the outside world, or adopt animals. The space would absorb spiritual energy from these plants and animals, gradually accumulate power, then upgrade and expand. The stronger the spiritual power brought in by the new owner, the faster the space would gather energy.
The seeds in the seed room were not unlimited, but every one of them had a one-hundred-percent survival rate and required no special care. Growth time varied according to species. If a plant was not harvested, it would remain indefinitely in its optimal state until the crop was gathered—even if that meant pulling out the roots.
Medicinal herbs and food did not need to be harvested by hand. The owner of the space could use mental power to collect them. Harvested items would go directly into the compartment cabinets. Anything placed inside those cabinets entered a completely static state. Even meat would remain absolutely fresh forever.
Every drawer in the compartment cabinets had unlimited capacity, but could hold only a single type of item. Once something was stored inside, its name would appear on the label. Even if the contents were completely used up, the name would not disappear, and no different item could ever be placed in that drawer. As the space upgraded, however, the buildings would expand and the number of cabinet compartments would double, so there was no need to worry about running out.
Another important feature lay behind the thatched huts: two wells. Drinking from the well with colorless water would clear the mind and rapidly restore physical strength. The pale-green well was a medicinal spring. Its water could be applied directly to wounds to stop bleeding and reduce swelling. If used to brew medicine, it could double the medicine’s effects.
In addition to all this, the letter included instructions for using the various processing machines. Unfortunately, the explanations were not detailed, so he would have to figure much of it out for himself.
Even with only what the letter described, Qi Jun already felt as though an enormous pie had fallen from heaven and struck him on the head.
He could not take the tools in the space into the outside world, and for now it did not seem he had much opportunity to transplant outside plants into the space, but his life was unquestionably going to get better and better!
When Qi Jun left the space again, the dormitory was still brightly lit. But he had clearly spent a long time inside! He picked up his phone and checked the time. Less than five minutes had passed. He was stunned. The flow of time inside the space was drastically different from the outside world!
To calm his excitement a little, Qi Jun decided he should take a shower first. But when he stood in front of the bathroom mirror again, the scar on his forehead was no longer red. Even the dark mark left from the wound seemed lighter. When he touched it, there was no heat at all. Instead, he felt a faint itch. Could the scar actually be repairing itself? Was that possible??!!
He had not even turned on the hot water yet when his phone rang. Qi Jun hurried back into the bedroom, picked it up, and answered—only to discover that the caller was Father Qi.
Qi Jun’s heart tightened. He could pity the original Qi Jun, but he could not hate on his behalf. “Did you… need something?”
Father Qi fell silent for a moment before speaking. “I transferred two hundred thousand points to you. But… I’m afraid this will be the last two hundred thousand.”
Qi Jun gave a bitter smile. “Thank you for the two hundred thousand. If I become successful someday, I’ll pay it back.” To be fair, two hundred thousand was a great deal of money. The Qi family was not wealthy. So why could he not summon even the slightest feeling of being moved?
Father Qi frowned on the other end. “Xiao-Jun, you may not have been the child I wanted, but still… don’t blame your father for being heartless.”
This time, Qi Jun genuinely smiled. “Why would I blame you? You and Mom did raise me all these years. I understand your situation. I may not have had a happy childhood or a warm, loving family, but I’m still grateful to both of you.”
At the very least, he was grateful they had not strangled the original Qi Jun to death and had therefore given him a chance to be reborn. He was also grateful they had produced such a sweet, kind daughter.
After the call ended, the phone still emitted the same familiar beeping tone he remembered from his previous life. At that moment, none of the exhilaration or surprise Qi Jun had felt after discovering the space remained.
Compared with a comfortable life or an unexpected magical space, what he wanted more was a person—someone who would never abandon him. Relative or lover, either would do. Yet across two lives, he had never had such a person.
In truth… loneliness and solitude were not things any amount of material wealth could drive away.
