Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Tempted, Bought Birds

Ling Mo read their posts and felt nothing but irritation. Instead of whining, they should be strengthening themselves.

By afternoon, the temperature finally began to drop. Ling Mo left the gym, showered, changed into clean clothes, stored the pool full of water in her pocket space, and pulled out a new one.

This was the last pool she needed to fill. Once it was done, her water-storage plan could finally pause.

Outside, her community seemed unusually busy. Over a dozen large trucks were moving in and out.

Ling Mo rode closer, puzzled, and saw a neighbor family she’d only met a few times packing up to move.

This community had the best facilities and security around. Even with chaos outside, things inside had stayed orderly and peaceful.

Most people here didn’t lack food or water. Without survival pressure, neighbors naturally got along.

But it wasn’t only one family. Several households near her were moving out.

The discovery made Ling Mo tense instantly. Had her identity been exposed?

But from the start of the game until now, she hadn’t spoken using her player identity. At most, she sold goods in her shop.

As she passed the trucks on her scooter, she scanned the cargo. It was all supplies—no weapons.

That eased her a little.

With things like this, finding a new place was impossible. Going back to the mountain villa was out of the question too.

For one, she’d already sold it. And not long ago, a wildfire had burned through that mountain, scorching the entire slope.

Ling Mo couldn’t help feeling grateful. Good thing she’d gotten out quickly back then.

As for these newly arriving neighbors, as long as they didn’t threaten her, she couldn’t be bothered.

But if they did have bad intentions, Ling Mo narrowed her eyes. She would make them understand she wasn’t easy prey.

At the supermarket, she didn’t rush straight to the food section. She wanted large containers—not to hold water, but to plant in.

The idea had struck her on the way.

Unfortunately, every large container in her pocket space was already dedicated to water storage. She wasn’t about to dump that just to grow vegetables.

Even though she’d always been a plant killer, she still wanted to try. If delicate plants wouldn’t survive, she could at least grow hardy ones—Little Bai greens, sweet potatoes, things like that.

And it would give her a perfectly reasonable excuse to eat vegetables openly. If it didn’t work outside, she could always move the plants into her pocket space.

With that plan in mind, she searched around.

To her surprise, she found exactly what she wanted—huge blue plastic crates used for hauling produce.

Vegetables were scarce now, so the crates were just sitting there. Ling Mo bought all of them, dozens in total.

She left her address and arranged delivery.

Then she rode her scooter toward the flower-and-bird market.

The market that used to be packed was now nearly empty. Even the birds that once chirped nonstop looked listless, heads drooping with barely any energy.

As for flowers, it was worse. Aside from a few heat-resistant varieties, the rest had long since been baked to death.

Ling Mo stared at the cacti displayed outside a shop, temptation stirring.

Should she try keeping one?

Cactus was edible too, right?

But these were probably ornamental varieties. She decided she’d go home and plant dragon fruit seeds instead.

Dragon fruit grew on a cactus anyway. Once it matured, it would even bear fruit.

She found a flower shop and ordered several hundred bags of potting soil, plus fertilizer.

She didn’t buy much fertilizer. She had plenty of manure in her pocket space—she just needed to ferment it.

“Young lady,” the shop owner asked, “are you buying this much soil to grow vegetables at home?”

“Yes, uncle,” Ling Mo said, putting on a troubled expression. “I don’t have much experience, but I want to try. Vegetables are too hard to buy now. Even when you find some, it’s never enough to eat.”

The owner sighed. “Who knows when this damn weather will end. If it keeps going like this, we really won’t survive.”

Ling Mo lowered her head and didn’t reply. She didn’t know what to say.

Even if the heat ended, the apocalypse might not. People could face other extremes—deep freezes, torrential rain, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions. Any one of them sounded worse than this.

After paying, she rented a warehouse on short notice and had the owner deliver the soil and fertilizer there first.

Just as she was about to leave, her mental power suddenly caught a faint, desperate plea.

Since awakening mental power, this was the first time something had tried to communicate with her through it.

She followed the feeling and saw a parrot with stunning feathers—a Jin Gang parrot.

Animals’ instincts were sharp. Sensing something different about Ling Mo, it begged for help on pure survival instinct.

A Jin Gang parrot’s intelligence was roughly equivalent to a five- or six-year-old child. Their abilities showed in learning, problem-solving, and interaction with humans. Some studies even suggested their cognitive ability wasn’t inferior to chimpanzees or dolphins.

If mental power allowed her to communicate with animals, then maybe she could…

Before she did anything, she tried talking to the parrot first. When she received a clear, affirmative response, she walked into the pet shop.

The owner’s eyes nearly popped out when he heard she wanted every pet bird in the store.

“Young lady, are you serious? Just so you know—once you pay, there are no refunds.”

“I know.”

She spent 20,000 and bought all the dozens of birds in the shop.

In normal times, that many birds would have cost far more. But the extreme heat hit people hard, and birds even harder.

Only a small portion of the birds were still doing okay. Most were already close to dying.

Ling Mo put the birds that couldn’t fly into a large cage and carried it. As for the ones that could, she opened their cages and let them go.

The owner stared, baffled. “Why did you let them out?”

Ling Mo smiled, eyes clear and gentle. “If they stay in cages, they’ll die. If they can fly away, maybe they’ll live.”