'How did my daughter, who usually loves nothing more than lazing around, suddenly know how to do all this?'
'It feels so amazing.'
Xie Ning turned to look at her dumbfounded mother. "My teachers at school taught me."
'Teachers teach this??'
"Where did you get these oil drums?"
Xie Ning was also confused. 'I never saw these supplies from my past life in the villa, so how did I just pull them out?'
After a moment's thought, her will shifted.
What appeared before Xie Ning's eyes was no longer her family's living room, but the two-square-meter small Space from her past life. She knew the purpose of every single item inside it like the back of her hand.
Though small, many of the tools inside were extremely useful, including these two oil drums and a small, manual oil pump.
The tiny storage Space was filled with Xie Ning's memories.
The great-ax she used to hack down zombies, its blade now dull and chipped, rested quietly beside the toolbox.
Xie Ning couldn't bring herself to throw it away. Even though the long blade she now wielded was far superior to the ax in sharpness and attack speed, she still couldn't part with it.
"Ningning?"
With another shift of her will, Xie Ning found herself back in the villa's large living room.
'This is great,' Xie Ning thought. 'So my underwhelming two-square-meter pocket Space didn't disappear. I can access it whenever I want.'
'That means I have two Spaces now—one large and one small.'
'It's a bit strange, but it's definitely a good thing.'
'After all, I still have a lot of very practical tools stored in that small Space, like the maps I hand-drew while navigating the apocalypse. It would've been a real shame to lose them.'
"It's nothing, Mom. The oil drums and the pump were actually bonus gifts that came with my Space Ability."
"Your Space comes with professional tools?" Song You'ai asked, her face full of curiosity. "The perks that come with this Space Ability are pretty great."
Xie Ning chuckled awkwardly. "Let's just say this is our little secret."
Song You'ai nodded quickly and made a zipping motion across her lips. "Don't you worry, sweetie. Mom won't say a thing."
After siphoning the two barrels and packing away the tools, they both ran out of the gas station.
Just as they looked up, they saw a panicked young man and woman burst out of the convenience store across the street.
Each of them was clutching a messy armful of food, dropping things as they ran. Roars and guttural screams echoed from behind them.
"Mom, let's go, let's go!" Xie Ning grabbed Song You'ai's hand, spun around, and ran.
The convenience store's glass door suddenly shattered. A clumsy-looking zombie, its head covered in glass fragments, burst out. It staggered in a circle before lurching in the direction of the couple's screams.
"Go away! Go away!" the woman shrieked, frantically throwing bags of snacks at the zombie behind her.
In her mad panic, she ran headfirst into a tree and cried out in pain.
Her scream seemed to act as a signal, luring the zombies to shamble toward her.
The woman's legs went weak with fear. She looked pleadingly at the man, who was already more than ten meters away. "Save me! Zhang Yang, save me!"
Zhang Yang, still clutching his pile of goods, glanced back at the woman and gulped, hesitating on whether to go back and pull her up.
Just then, an RV came barreling toward them, swerving wildly as it sped forward.
Xie Ning cursed the idiot under her breath and yanked her mother out of the way.
The RV, driving as if it were drunk, careened past them and smashed headfirst into the convenience store with a tremendous crash.