Chapter 1: Crossing to the Sixties

Zhao Xiulan felt a throbbing pain in her forehead. She woke up to find herself lying in a dilapidated room, with walls smeared with yellow mud, and a gloomy atmosphere.

Next to the bed was a small cabinet, and underneath the wooden bed frame lay a mat of straw. She was covered with a thin cotton quilt that had turned mouldy and black.

There was a strange smell lingering in the air, and her head felt dizzy. Trying to get up, she found herself weak all over.

Where am I?

Suddenly, her head throbbed again, and memories not belonging to her surged into her mind.

She had crossed over! The owner of this body was also named Zhao Xiulan, and it was now the 1960s, a time of nationwide famine.

The original owner lived in an ordinary rural family with a total of five members: father Zhao Weiguo, sister Zhao Xiu Zhu, stepmother Ma Yumei, stepsister Li Lijuan, and another unborn child in the stepmother’s womb.

In this era of scarcity, like most other families, the Zhao family needed to work hard, earn work points, and receive grain allocations from the commune each year. However, since the Great Famine began in 1959, grain yields had sharply declined, and there wasn’t much grain to be distributed each year. Additionally, with the Zhao family’s large population but limited labor force, life was difficult.

The original owner had a very tough life in this family. Her biological father was indifferent, her stepmother mistreated her, making her do chores and often leaving her hungry. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, due to frequent hunger, she looked underdeveloped, thin as a skeleton, with no flesh on her body. Prolonged malnutrition made her complexion waxen, her hair dry, and her head disproportionate to her body, with sunken eyes.

Even so, Zhao Xiulan felt happy because of this crossing.

Compared to the turmoil and hardships of the 60s and 70s, and the suffering, the original owner, endured from being bullied was nothing compared to the despair of the apocalypse she had lived through in her previous life.

In the apocalypse, not only was there a lack of water and food, but one also had to defend against attacks from various zombies. Compared to the constant danger of dying in the apocalypse, at least this era was safe, free from the danger of zombie attacks, and one could sleep peacefully.

Thinking of something suddenly, Zhao Xiulan quickly checked her space.

Thankfully, her space was still intact.

The space had suddenly appeared in her body before the apocalypse arrived. Time inside it stood still, and whatever was put inside remained unchanged, no matter how much time passed.

At that time, there were rumours online about the apocalypse. Faced with the sudden appearance of the space, Zhao Xiulan made preparations in advance, spending six months collecting supplies from all over the country.

The space not only stored various grains enough for twenty people to eat for decades, such as rice, flour, and cornmeal, but also some daily necessities, clothes, quilts, various fruits, vegetables, pickled dishes, and cooked food.

Beef, mutton, pork, chicken, and other meats were also stored in large quantities in the space.

She deliberately purchased tens of thousands of kilograms of rural chicken eggs, and went to coastal cities to purchase tens of thousands of kilograms of fish, shrimp, and seafood.

Afraid that some delicacies would be unavailable in the apocalypse, she stored hundreds or thousands of each, such as barbecue, spicy hot pot, clay pot rice, and fried skewers.

Snacks and milk tea were indispensable, so she bought thousands or tens of thousands of them.

She bought large quantities of cooking oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, tea, daily necessities, and so on, everything that could be thought of, and stored them in the space.

The hygiene environment in the apocalypse was extremely poor, so she also prepared some self-defence tools and medical supplies.

After all this, Zhao Xiulan’s space was basically fully stocked.

(End of Chapter 1)