Before heading home, Xie Lingruo deliberately put on a makeup look to appear haggard and worn out, just to make her upcoming story more believable to Papa Xie.
As before, she took a taxi to the Xie family villa—familiarity makes things easier the second time around.
This time, she had already informed her father in advance to stay home and not go to the office, saying she had something very important to tell him.
The moment Papa Xie received her call, he cleared his schedule and waited in the living room, even instructing the butler to clear the area of staff.
At that moment, the only person in the villa's living room was Papa Xie, anxiously waiting on the couch, fingers restlessly fidgeting.
As soon as Xie Lingruo got out of the car, she acted weak and gloomy, rushing to Papa Xie's side and, imitating the original host, burst into tears.
She sobbed as she spoke:"Dad, Mom's been appearing in my dreams lately. She said the family supermarket should close for a few days. She also gave me a storage space and told me that it's safer if we move some supplies from the supermarket warehouse into my space."
Papa Xie listened with concern, wondering if his daughter had been so upset by that scumbag that she was starting to hallucinate.He even reached out to feel her forehead. If her mother really wanted to send a message from the afterlife, wouldn't she come to him instead?
Realizing that a dream alone wouldn't convince him, Xie Lingruo knew she needed to reveal the existence of the storage space to help carry out her later plans.
Seeing that Papa Xie still didn't believe her, she took him to his study for privacy.
Once there, she directly demonstrated the space ability—by placing and retrieving his precious huanghuali wood desk inside the space a few times.After seeing it for himself, Papa Xie had no choice but to believe her.
As a middle-aged man who'd read a few novels, he immediately sensed something big was coming. After all, novels always foreshadowed crises with things like this.
But being a shrewd old fox, Papa Xie thought deeper.They couldn't publicly shut down the Xie Group's supermarkets—doing so would attract unwanted attention and suspicion from others.
After explaining his thoughts to her, Xie Lingruo reflected and thought:"The older the ginger, the spicier it gets." Her previous idea had been far too naïve.
Under his guidance, they adjusted the plan. He would personally accompany her to inspect various supermarkets, focusing especially on their warehouses.
For the next two days, Xie Lingruo followed Papa Xie around.He made warehouse managers take a few days off, and had his assistant hand over all inventory reports to the young miss.
The employees all assumed Xie Lingruo was preparing to take over company operations, and that this was a grooming and transition phase. No one grew suspicious.
Each time she entered a warehouse for inspection, she shut off the surveillance cameras, using the excuse that she didn't want anyone leaking the inventory being inspected.
Of course, she didn't take everything.She would selectively hoard and, more importantly, scout each site to analyze what materials were available, paying special attention to supplies her space lacked.
She figured when the time came to "shop for free," she'd prioritize her own family's stores.
The next morning, Xie Lingruo instructed the butler to dismiss all household staff, under the pretext that the family would be going on a week-long vacation, and they could return once the family came back.
Meanwhile, employees of the Xie Group received a notice:"There's joyous news in the chairman's household, so everyone gets one day off."That day off was, conveniently, the exact day the apocalypse would begin.
This was Xie Lingruo's suggestion. She didn't tell Papa Xie the truth about the apocalypse; she just said she hadn't hoarded enough supplies yet and needed a full day to get more.
Being a devoted father, Papa Xie didn't question it. After all, it was just a single day off.
On the last day, while checking her inventory for gaps, Xie Lingruo realized she'd forgotten to get paper maps.
So she immediately went to the city's largest library and bought detailed maps of different regions, along with several survival skill books.
Once that was done, she made a bulk grocery order and arranged for home delivery.She needed to make sure that on the surface, their house still had plenty of visible supplies, because she wasn't ready to reveal her storage space to anyone except Papa Xie.
The butler was still in the house.He had grown up with Papa Xie, remained unmarried all his life, and had always been treated as part of the family. So they couldn't act like nothing was being stored.But when it came to revealing the space, she figured it was best to wait a little longer.
After taking care of everything, Xie Lingruo returned to the villa—only to be surprised and delighted to find that her older brother, Xie Lingfeng, had come home.
This discovery made her genuinely happy—at least now her family-related missions wouldn't be completely directionless, which gave her some peace of mind.