To upgrade from level three to level four, Ji He needed specimens from 10,000 different plant and animal species. The requirement could be fulfilled with partial or complete specimens.

Staring at the words “10,000 different plant and animal specimens,” Ji He felt her heart tighten. Space, you really don’t understand your owner’s financial situation.

This would only make her already struggling household even worse!

Was this trying to force her onto a path of no return?

With her current resources, where was she supposed to find 10,000 plant and animal specimens?

She decided to ignore it for now, skipping over the requirement and continuing to read.

Her level three space now allowed her to stay inside for three hours per day, which immediately lifted her spirits.

The storage space had also expanded significantly, several times larger than before. Compared to the vast emptiness, the few leftover buns from lunch looked rather pitiful inside.

Feeling happy, Ji He walked with a spring in her step. On her way, she ate the leftover buns—they were still warm, and she enjoyed them immensely.

Thinking back, in her previous life, she hadn’t eaten buns often. Life as an orphan had been tough—she had to save for both tuition and living expenses. Most of the time, she survived on mantou paired with the free soup from the cafeteria.

Her classmates weren’t bad to her. They never looked down on her and often invited her to gatherings.

Although the outings were split evenly, after a few times, she simply couldn’t afford it anymore. Eventually, she started refusing, and after enough refusals, her classmates stopped inviting her.

Ji He boarded the subway straight to the train station, catching the night train back to the original owner’s city, H City.

By the time she arrived in H City, it was already past 3 a.m., and the outside was pitch black.

The darkness always made things unsafe. Ji He didn’t want to take any risks. Since there were only a few hours until dawn, she decided to stay put and get some sleep at the train station.

But her sleep was restless—any time someone passed by, she would wake up in alarm.

After struggling through the night, it was finally 6 a.m. She washed her face and, on a whim, tried storing water into her space. To her surprise, the water automatically formed into a ball and didn’t spill.

That saved her from having to buy water storage containers!

Leaving the train station, Ji He went straight to a vehicle rental shop. She had a lot of shopping to do in the next few days, and it would be inconvenient without a vehicle.

After some bargaining—along with playing the pity card—she managed to rent a rickety old three-wheeled vehicle with a cargo box for a deposit of 2,000 yuan and a daily rental fee of 80 yuan.

Although the paint was peeling, she tested it, and it still worked fine. Good enough.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to rent a car, but the original owner had just turned 18 and hadn’t even gotten a driver’s license yet. She didn’t want to risk getting pulled over shortly after hitting the road.

Ji He hopped on the three-wheeler and rode straight to the largest wholesale farmers’ market nearby. Her space could grow vegetables, but she still needed to eat while waiting for them to grow.

At the wholesale market, she headed directly to the vegetable section.

Even in the early morning, the place was packed with people, shoulder to shoulder, everyone buying in bulk. Compared to them, Ji He’s purchases were nothing.

She didn’t go overboard, only picking out everyday vegetables: leafy greens, lettuce, spinach, bok choy, water spinach, winter melon, pumpkin, lotus root, potatoes, sweet potatoes, green onions, ginger, garlic, and various types of radishes—30 pounds of each. She wanted to buy enough to last until her own crops started growing.

She bought at least one of everything available at the market, spending a total of 1,500 yuan.

There were many vegetables she had never seen before. Curious, she asked the vendors for samples, and they generously gave her one of each.

Without counting her actual purchases, she had already gathered over a dozen varieties just from the vendors’ freebies.

After buying the vegetables, Ji He left the market, found a secluded spot, and stored them in her space before returning.

Passing by the fruit section, she spent 1,000 yuan on some fruit.

Fruits were much more expensive than vegetables. Even at wholesale prices, 1,000 yuan only bought her about a dozen boxes—and that was for the more affordable options.

After that, she headed straight to the grain section.

The grain market was crowded, so she didn’t rush in. Instead, she observed how others bought their supplies before settling on a vendor who seemed honest.

She purchased ten 50-pound sacks of rice and ten 50-pound sacks of flour. She also got 100 pounds each of various dried noodles, rice noodles, and vermicelli. As for beans—red beans, mung beans, peanuts, black beans, black rice, glutinous rice, soybeans—she bought 50 pounds of each.

For cooking oil, she bought 70 barrels each of peanut oil, corn oil, and soybean oil.

Since her space allowed her to grow rice and beans, she didn’t buy excessive amounts. But extracting oil herself was too much trouble, so she stocked up on extra.

The total cost came to about 25,000 yuan, mostly due to the expensive oil.

After bargaining with the vendor, she didn’t get a discount, but they threw in two large bags of millet and one bag of yellow millet for free.

While waiting for the vendor to pack her order, Ji He went to the seasoning section.

The moment she stepped inside, the air was filled with the aroma of various spices, and she saw large clay jars lined up on the floor.

Not knowing much about spices, she chose to enter one of the bigger stores.

“Hello, boss, how much for soy sauce and vinegar?”

The busy shop owner barely looked up and responded, “Prices are labeled. Minimum purchase is 2,000 yuan, no bargaining.”

Then, she turned to the back and shouted, “Where is everyone? Hurry up and deliver those orders! Baile Supermarket has been pushing us for hours!”

“On it now!”

Seeing how busy the store was, Ji He browsed on her own. The prices were indeed cheap—only about a third of supermarket prices—but bulk purchases were required.

They sold aged vinegar, rice vinegar, salt, soy sauce, cooking wine, oyster sauce, sugar, rock sugar, cumin, peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, and many other spices she had never seen before.

Each item had different quality levels. The cheapest aged vinegar was only a little over 2 yuan per 500ml bottle.

Since this was for her own use, Ji He didn’t go for the lowest quality but chose mid-range options instead. After browsing, she called out to the shop owner,

“I’ll take 500 pounds each of soy sauce, cooking wine, vinegar, and baijiu. I also want 300 pounds each of brown sugar, rock sugar, white sugar, and yellow sugar. For chicken essence, oyster sauce, five-spice powder, ground pepper, chili powder, star anise, cinnamon, whole peppercorns, bay leaves, cumin, baking soda, and sesame oil, I’ll take 10 pounds each. And 1,600 pounds of salt.”

Ji He calculated that this amount would last her a lifetime—even if no disaster struck, she’d eventually use it all. No risk of waste.

The shop owner quickly jotted everything down while still trying to make more sales. “Need any chili sauce, stinky tofu, or fermented bean curd? They’re popular items.”

“I’ll take 20 bottles of each, plus some doubanjiang.”

After finalizing the order, the owner handed Ji He the total, which she double-checked before transferring the payment—18,000 yuan in total.

Since Ji He was a new customer, the owner wanted to build rapport. “I’ll throw in a box of curry cubes and a box of dipping sauce. If you like them, come back next time.”

“Great, thanks! Since your store has so many seasonings, could you throw in some samples of the ones I didn’t buy?”