Chapter 23

Chapter 23: Cooking

The owner looked like he didn’t know what to do with her. Rich people really lived in a different world.

“I’ve got some ornamental fish too. Want them?”

Ling Mo fell silent for a moment. Then she said, “Uncle… even before the heat, fish wouldn’t survive half a day in my hands.”

After that, she bought every bird in the entire flower-and-bird market. The ones that could fly, she released. The ones that couldn’t, she caged.

She worked until night fell.

Her behavior spread down the street at lightning speed.

“Hey, did you hear? Some rich idiot came today. She bought birds and released all the healthy ones, only keeping the half-dead ones.”

Ling Mo rode her scooter past them with a blank face.

Under the cover of darkness, she slipped the caged birds into her pocket space.

Most of them were suffering from dehydration and heatstroke. Once they entered the cooler environment, their weak bodies began to recover little by little.

As for the birds she’d released earlier, they hadn’t truly left.

Led by the first Jin Gang parrot, they all returned to Ling Mo and were taken into her pocket space as well.

She wanted these birds to become her eyes.

The news still broadcast fresh information every day, but Ling Mo didn’t believe it would last. Sooner or later, the network could collapse entirely.

Even now, she could feel the internet had become sluggish, lagging far more often than before.

After storing all the birds, she went to the temporary warehouse and collected the potting soil and fertilizer.

By the time she finished, it was fully dark, but she wasn’t afraid. She didn’t even turn on her scooter’s light, speeding down the road.

With mental power scouting ahead, she knew every obstacle before she reached it. There was nothing to fear.

When she got home, the blue plastic crates had already been delivered.

Ling Mo hauled them inside one by one.

Soon, the living room—half of it already occupied by swimming pools—had its other half claimed by stacks of blue crates.

With the heat this severe, seeds didn’t germinate well. Ling Mo planned to start seedlings inside her pocket space first. Once they sprouted, she would transplant them. The survival rate should be better than scattering seeds directly.

After finishing everything, she began her meditation for the day.

She still couldn’t fully replace sleep with meditation, but she could clearly feel herself needing less sleep as time went on. One day, she would succeed.

Oh, right. Tomorrow she needed to harvest the wood ear mushrooms she’d brought back from the game and dry them.

With that thought, she sank fully into meditation.

The next day, Ling Mo got up on time and began studying at 6:30 sharp.

At noon, she used her former lunch break to harvest all the wood ear mushrooms. That way, the rotten logs could keep producing new growth.

She spread the fresh mushrooms under the sun. In less than an hour, they dried completely.

Fast and convenient—better than a drying machine.

Eating the pre-made meals she’d stocked up earlier, Ling Mo thought, I really need to learn to cook.

If she cooked more and stored it in her pocket space, she could take it out whenever she wanted and eat immediately.

Once she decided, she acted. That afternoon, she moved her “training ground” from the gym to the kitchen.

She started rice first—more than a dozen rice cookers running at once—while she followed a video blogger and cooked several simple, delicious dishes.

Meals needed meat and vegetables to stay balanced, so she also made a large pot of braised meat.

By the time the dishes were ready, the rice had finished too.

She took out her meal boxes and packed single servings of rice and dishes into each one.

That way, whenever she wanted to eat, she could grab a box, open it, and enjoy a hot meal.

As for the nutrient solution she’d gotten in the game… Ling Mo could only say this: it filled your stomach, and that was it. Everything else was trash, and the taste was hard to describe.

After drinking it once, she gave up without hesitation. Unless it was truly life-or-death, she refused to suffer like that again.

Nutrient solution? It should be called life-support fluid.

While she cooked, her phone kept chiming.

When she checked, it was the homeowners’ group chat. Someone was asking which residents were game players and insisting they should step up to protect the community.

After all, even if things outside looked stable, everyone knew it was only on the surface.

When no one responded, the person’s tone grew more and more heated. In the end, they even tried to guilt-trip everyone—and a few people actually agreed.

“We’re neighbors. Protecting the neighborhood is protecting yourselves.”

Ling Mo read that and nearly laughed. The?? was so loud it might as well have been rattling against her face. They wanted protection without offering anything in return. Where did they think that kind of deal existed?

They wanted the horse to run without feeding it.

Ling Mo glanced once and tossed her phone aside. The best way to handle people like that was to give them nothing—no attention, no response. Otherwise they’d cling to you like a leech.

Sure enough, before long, the notifications stopped. When she checked again, the person had been kicked from the homeowners’ group.

Without realizing it, afternoon arrived, and her alarm rang again—the reminder she’d set for shopping.

She tidied the kitchen, showered, changed into clean clothes, and headed out.

The moment she stepped outside, a wave of heat slapped her in the face.

Was it hotter than yesterday?

Her instincts screamed yes. The temperature was climbing again.

Yesterday, she’d ridden her scooter to the city center without much trouble. Today, she barely got halfway before the heat made her dizzy, her head swimming.

With no choice, she turned into the nearest mall to cool down.

The moment she entered, she breathed out in relief.

The mall was upscale, and the air conditioning was blasting. If nothing else, the owner’s wealth was obvious from that alone.

There were plenty of people inside, most of them doing the same thing—hiding in the cold air.

With the heat this bad, many workplaces had stopped operating. No work meant no income. Some people had no choice but to brave the heat and go out looking for jobs.