After her parents passed away, Zhang Yanyan rekindled her desire to travel. This time, however, she had another consideration in mind. While she was still in good health, she wanted to see every corner of the world—and stockpile all kinds of supplies for the minor worlds she might one day visit.
This time, she did not rush from place to place. Instead, she traveled at a leisurely pace, staying for several months whenever she found somewhere she liked. While taking in the scenery, she systematically accumulated supplies. The journey lasted a full twenty years.
Her first destination was Country A, a land rich in resources and one of the places where hard currency circulated most freely in the world. Since she planned to acquire precious metals and weapons, safety was her top priority. The moment she arrived, Zhang Yanyan sought out one of the finest local mercenary teams.
She selected twenty agile, experienced mercenaries and signed them to long-term contracts. They would protect her around the clock and help handle all sorts of miscellaneous tasks related to purchasing supplies. She offered them far more generous compensation than the industry standard, so the mercenaries naturally devoted themselves wholeheartedly to their duties.
Only after arranging her bodyguards did Zhang Yanyan contact local precious-metal dealers and begin purchasing gold and silver bullion in bulk.
From standard gold bars and silver bars to commemorative gold ingots and industrial-grade silver bars, she bought anything with sufficient purity and good quality. In the end, she acquired a full ten tons of gold bullion and fifty tons of silver bullion. The mercenaries transported the metals in batches to designated locations, and after Zhang Yanyan confirmed that everything was secure, she stored it all in the warehouses within her space.
Precious metals were hard currency in any minor world. Whether for trade or for exchanging for supplies, they would always prove extremely useful.
Afterward, accompanied by her mercenaries, she contacted a local arms dealer to purchase a batch of weapons and equipment.
At first, the arms dealer saw that she was an Eastern woman and considered robbing her, intending to swallow her money. But the moment he saw the twenty burly mercenaries with sharp, intimidating gazes standing behind Zhang Yanyan, he immediately abandoned the idea and obediently prepared the weapons according to her specifications.
Zhang Yanyan wanted an extremely comprehensive selection of weapons, ranging from all kinds of pistols, rifles, and sniper rifles to submachine guns and light machine guns, as well as grenades, land mines, and rocket launchers.
She even purchased several small drones and portable surface-to-air missiles. Everything was bought to the highest specifications, with tens of thousands of rounds of matching ammunition, artillery shells, and missiles fully stocked.
In addition, she selected a large assortment of melee weapons: Tang swords, Japanese swords, daggers, machetes, and all kinds of concealed weapons for self-defense. Every piece of equipment was sorted by category and stored in the designated weapons section of her space.
As long as the money was there, these people really would sell anything.
After leaving Country A, Zhang Yanyan took the mercenaries to Country B, where daily necessities and household goods were varied and reasonably priced.
She first visited every home-furnishings market in the area and purchased all kinds of clothing, from cotton underwear and thermal underwear to windbreakers and outdoor jackets.
She bought everything from high-end custom-made formalwear to durable work clothes, from children’s clothing to warm garments for the elderly. Altogether, she acquired tens of thousands of sets.
She also made a point of stocking up on large quantities of ultra-warm down jackets, cashmere coats, thick thermal bedding, and sleeping bags suitable for extremely cold weather. The warm clothing alone filled three enormous warehouses in her space.
She did not neglect household goods, either. She purchased all kinds of kitchenware, tableware, furniture, and appliances.
There were kitchen knives and cookware, sofas, tables and chairs for the living room, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, and water heaters. She even bought large quantities of stationery, office supplies, outdoor tents, sleeping pads, and more.
She also stocked up on cleaning and personal-care products, from laundry detergent and soap to shampoo and skincare products, and from toothpaste and toothbrushes to toilet paper and wet wipes. Anything that might be useful in daily life was purchased in bulk.
Although her space could automatically replenish supplies, it still consumed energy to do so. It was always better to have these items stored away in advance—they might come in handy someday.
Next, Zhang Yanyan traveled to Country C, which had abundant energy reserves. There, she focused on stockpiling various forms of energy.
First, she purchased large quantities of solar panels, wind turbines, and small hydroelectric generators. From portable miniature devices to large-scale energy-storage systems, she gathered everything and stored it in her space.
She also acquired tens of thousands of batteries of all kinds, including dry-cell batteries, lithium batteries, solar rechargeable batteries, phone batteries, and car batteries. She even stocked up on backup power supplies and emergency power banks.
In addition, she purchased vast quantities of gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, charcoal, and lumber. She stored more than a thousand tons of fuel and over ten thousand tons of coal alone—enough to support life and production for years in a minor world plagued by energy shortages.
Besides energy supplies, Country C also had abundant medical resources. Zhang Yanyan purchased large quantities of medicine, from common cold remedies and anti-inflammatory drugs to emergency blood-clotting agents and antibiotics.
She acquired medication for chronic illnesses, all kinds of vaccines, surgical instruments, medical equipment, and first-aid kits—dozens of cases in total. Everything was sorted by category and placed in the medical room within her space.
After that, Zhang Yanyan visited Countries D, E, and F, along with many others. Wherever she went, she stocked up on supplies according to local specialties and the situations she might encounter in future minor worlds.
In Country D, she purchased all kinds of seeds: grain, vegetables, fruits, flowers, and even seeds for industrial raw materials. Altogether, she acquired tens of thousands of pounds.
In Country E, she purchased every kind of tool imaginable, from hoes and sickles to chainsaws and drilling machines, along with both hand tools and power tools. She also bought various construction materials, including cement, steel reinforcement bars, bricks, and lumber, as well as all kinds of machinery and equipment.
In Country F, she purchased luxury goods—jewelry, accessories, watches, handbags, antiques, and paintings. These items… well, they would at least serve to please the eye.
She even traveled to remote regions to acquire all kinds of rare metals and mineral resources, as well as food and drinking water. Compressed biscuits, canned goods, chocolate, bottled water—she stockpiled more than ten thousand cases in total.
Whether she would ever need them or not, it was better to prepare them in advance.
Over the course of those twenty years of travel, Zhang Yanyan’s footsteps carried her across dozens of countries around the globe. At every stop, she accumulated and added to her stockpile little by little, according to the storage capacity of her space and the needs she might face in the future.
She divided the stationary area of her space into clearly defined sections: precious metals, weapons, energy, daily necessities, medical supplies, seeds and tools, luxury goods, and extreme-weather supplies. Every section was meticulously organized. Although the supplies were piled as high as mountains, everything remained orderly, and she could find whatever she needed at a glance.
During this time, she encountered quite a few minor troubles. Local thugs sometimes tried to block her path and cause trouble, while greedy merchants occasionally attempted to inflate their prices and cheat her.
Fortunately, she was fairly skilled herself. After cultivating the Soul Refinement Art, her spiritual sense had grown powerful, and she also had her space to rely on.
Besides, she had hired a mercenary team to accompany her from the very beginning. Every problem was dealt with easily, and she made it through without danger.
Those who had initially intended to target her completely abandoned their schemes after seeing the mercenary team behind her. None of them dared to provoke her again.
Zhang Yanyan looked at the supplies filling her space more and more, and felt especially reassured. She thought that even if she went to a small world with any kind of extreme environment in the future, these supplies would give her a solid foundation, allowing her to live safely and comfortably without ever having to worry about survival again.
When she felt there was little left in this world worth clinging to, she called both of her children, along with her grandsons, granddaughters, grandsons and granddaughters from her daughters’ families, to the old family home.
She took out part of her collection from the Yunhua Space and distributed it among them. Seeing the deep reluctance on the younger generation’s faces, Zhang Yanyan closed her eyes.
“Eighteen, let’s go.”
