Chapter 1: Nightmare

“Huff… huff…” On the bed, Xue Miaoyun suddenly opened her eyes, gasping for breath. It took a long while before she gradually came back to her senses.

She pulled off the thin blanket covering her and sat up. Reaching for her phone on the bedside table, she glanced at the time—6:30. It was already bright outside, typical of summer mornings.

“Ugh.” Xue Miaoyun let out a sigh. She didn’t know why, but recently she had been dreaming every night about falling into water. That suffocating feeling was absolutely terrifying.

She walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and poured herself a glass of water.

[Ding. Customer service 006 at your service. Congratulations, you have been selected as a cross-dimensional travel client. Travel dimension ID: 098. The manual has been sent. Your random golden finger has also been delivered.]

“Who’s there?” The sudden voice startled Xue Miaoyun, and she nearly dropped the glass in her hand.

But no one responded to her. Just as she started wondering if she was hallucinating, a massive wave of information exploded in her mind.

Half an hour later…

Xue Miaoyun stepped out of the bathroom, her legs still a bit wobbly. All the sweat from earlier had already been washed away.

She threw herself into the lazy couch, trying to process the information she had just received.

According to what had been implanted in her mind, she only had three days left to live. If she accepted the invitation to travel to another world, her consciousness would transfer to a new world at the very last second of her life—where she could continue living. If she declined, she would simply die.

Xue Miaoyun had no idea why she would die so young. There had been no signs of illness—maybe it was an accident? Still, she didn’t think that strange system-like entity had any reason to lie to her. After all, something capable of interdimensional travel wouldn’t need to deceive an ordinary person like her. Even if it did, doubting it wouldn’t help anyway.

So, Xue Miaoyun decisively accepted the invitation.

The contract was long, but the gist of it was simple: as long as she lived properly in the new world, the other party wouldn’t interfere with her life. They would just use her as an anchor point to collect some data. Her life wouldn’t be affected at all.

She would also receive a “golden finger”—a random cheat ability. Its usefulness would depend on her luck.

The new world’s background had also been explained. It resembled her own world’s 1960s to 1970s—some kind of parallel timeline.

Xue Miaoyun liked reading web novels and guessed it would be similar to those period-era stories. Not quite as advanced as the modern world, but definitely better than ancient times where women had no rights and lives were treated as worthless.

Time was running out. Having accepted the invitation, she immediately opened the golden finger treasure box.

[Ding. Congratulations, you have received the golden finger: ‘Jiao Spirit Essence’. Would you like to fuse it with your soul?]

What the heck?

Xue Miaoyun stared in confusion. What was Jiao Spirit Essence, anyway?

[Ding. The golden finger must be explored by the user personally. Congratulations, you have received the golden finger: ‘Jiao Spirit Essence’. Would you like to fuse it with your soul?]

Somehow, she could actually hear a trace of impatience in the mechanical voice.

Well, whatever. A golden finger was a golden finger—she wasn’t about to refuse a free gift.

“Fuse.”

A sharp pain shot through her head, and then she lost all awareness.

When Xue Miaoyun woke up again, the world outside the window was already lit up with lights.

“Hiss… It’s already six in the evening? That golden finger… actually took the whole day to fuse.”

Xue Miaoyun held her head and tried to sense if there was anything different about herself—but there wasn’t, not really.

“Ah! This… this is…” She suddenly found her consciousness inside a softly glowing white space. The information in her mind told her this was her Jiao Pearl Space.

It was one of the powers that came with the fusion of the Jiao Spirit Essence—a spatial dimension twelve meters in length, width, and height.

“So I’ve got a personal space now!” Her eyes lit up. This golden finger was powerful.

Life in the sixties or seventies couldn’t compare to modern times. Even though Xue Miaoyun was an orphan, she’d been raised under the state’s care and never really suffered much. After entering the workforce, she had lived a stable, middle-class life as a city office worker—occasionally even splurging on name-brand handbags and little luxuries.

She didn’t want her standard of living to drop too drastically after crossing over.

Now that she had this space, she could stockpile all sorts of daily necessities for herself. This golden finger was absolutely her style.

Without wasting time, she opened her phone. Many items on JD^[1]JD.com (京东, Jingdong) is one of China’s biggest e-commerce platforms, like Amazon. It’s known for fast delivery, reliable product quality, and selling both directly and through third-party … Continue reading could arrive the next day, and she quickly ordered her favorite toiletries: shampoo, facial cleanser, toner, soap, shower gel, sanitary pads, wet wipes, tissues, face towels, bath towels, underwear in various sizes, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and so on. She paid with credit and maxed out her 17,000 yuan limit.

The next morning, Xue Miaoyun got up early. She had already listed out most of the things she needed to buy the night before.

She didn’t have much in savings—only 100,000 yuan. With the help of loans from several platforms, she managed to gather 230,000 yuan in total. Thankfully, she wasn’t heading into an apocalypse, so she didn’t need to prepare for the absolute worst.

First on the list was food. She rented a medium-sized box truck and drove to the grain and oil wholesale market.

After asking around, she found that rice was 3.5 yuan per jin—7,000 yuan per ton. She ordered 3 tons, totaling 21,000 yuan.

Flour was 1.5 yuan per jin—3,000 yuan per ton. She ordered 3 tons as well, costing her another 9,000 yuan.

Then she spent another 30,000 yuan on cornmeal, millet, mung beans, red beans, cooking oil, salt, white sugar, brown sugar, rock sugar, soy sauce, cooking wine, chicken bouillon, MSG, and other pantry essentials.

She also bought 5,000 eggs, 1,000 salted duck eggs, preserved vegetables, fermented tofu, cured meats, sausages, and more.

With the truck fully loaded, she drove away from the wholesale market and, shortly after, stored everything inside her space. She had already tested it—the time inside the space was frozen.

Next, she went to a slaughterhouse in the suburbs and bought twenty freshly butchered pigs for 80,000 yuan. She also bought 150 chickens and 50 ducks for just over 10,000 yuan.

She didn’t bother buying other types of meat—she was never fond of lamb or beef anyway.

By the time all that was done, it was already 5 PM. She headed home and collected the packages that had already arrived.

Just unpacking them took half an hour.

The next morning, she woke up early again and went to the fruit wholesale market, where she spent 20,000 yuan on common fruits like apples, bananas, pears, and peaches. She didn’t have the money for more expensive ones.

Afterward, she headed to the clothing wholesale market.

In the 1960s and 70s, military coats were undoubtedly the most popular clothing item.

Xue Miaoyun found a store that looked decent. Military coats came in a range of prices—cheap ones went for 50 yuan apiece, while the more expensive ones could cost over 200.

After some haggling, she bought 60 coats at 50 yuan each, 30 at 100 yuan, and 10 at 200 yuan. Altogether, she spent 8,000 yuan.

For bedding, she bought 10 sets of full-cotton four-piece bed sets. She also spotted some with outdated floral prints selling at 30 yuan a set and picked up 200 sets. On top of that, she bought five Xinjiang cotton quilts.

All of these could be sold for a good price after the time-travel, so she wasn’t worried about buying too much.

She also picked up some Class A baby-grade pure cotton fabrics and high-grade long-staple cotton from Xinjiang. No matter the era, baby products always made for profitable business.

With 30,000 yuan left in hand, she stopped by a pharmacy on the way home and stocked up on common medications, using up all the funds on her health insurance card.

Passing by a maternity and baby store, she went in on impulse and bought baby formula, bottles, and various baby supplies.

By the time she walked out, she had only 3,000 yuan left in her pocket.

There was a steamed bun shop next to her apartment complex that she really liked. She went in and ordered 800 large meat buns.

Her money was completely spent.

Before going to bed, Xue Miaoyun stored everything from her room into the space.