Chapter 32
Perhaps because the glowing countdown was constantly hanging over their heads, his uncle and sister threw themselves into the preparations with vastly more energy and focus. Even when the little hamster was completely worn out, the two of them were still running at full throttle.
The next morning, the little hamster woke up inside his miniature wooden house. Perched on a fresh layer of soft wood shavings, he rubbed his eyes blearily, twitched his velvety ears, and looked ahead.
Stuck to the transparent front panel of his habitat was an oversized sticky note.
Little Yuan, your sister and I have headed out to start the morning runs. Once we clear the first wholesale market, I’ll bring her back. You can load the haul then. Get some proper rest at home today.
After reading it through, the little hamster rubbed his eyes again and nodded drowsily. “Mm!”
He stood up, stuck out his round behind, stretched his chubby body with a tiny squeak~, and then promptly flopped back down with a soft thud.
He was simply too tired and far too sleepy. Glancing at the half-finished cup of milk tea left over from last night, the little hamster licked his whiskers.
Right—he still had to stockpile peanut milk tea and jars of peanut butter!
Using his tiny pink paws, he typed out a message to his uncle, asking for even more jars of creamy peanut spread. Then, he pattered out of the acrylic enclosure, eager to pour himself a chilled glass of peanut milk tea.
Breakfast consisted of iced peanut milk tea paired with thick slices of fluffy Hokkaido milk bread slathered generously in peanut butter. To aid his digestion, he rounded it off with a tiny, crisp sliver of fresh carrot.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
The little hamster munched away contentedly while watching a cartoon about a cat chasing a mouse on the tablet screen.
Just as he finished the last bite, the rumble of an engine outside signaled that his sister and uncle had returned from their opening run.
The milk-tea-colored creature perked up with a sharp squeak!, his translucent ears twitching as he caught the sound of tires rolling onto the driveway gravel. Setting down the crusts of his sandwich, he clapped his paws together, hopped out of the cage, and scampered to the front door before his uncle even stepped out of the vehicle.
Yu Yuanzhou scooped him up in one hand and tossed him straight into the utility truck’s open cargo bay.
The little hamster immediately swept the stacked pallets into the Kuntian Jade. The realm’s spatial compression and vertical stacking were vastly superior to his cheek pouches. Better still, if the dedicated storage chambers ever filled up, surplus supplies could simply be placed across the agricultural plots; as long as the ground was designated with a mental intent, temporal stasis applied there as well.
Reading through the artifact’s operating manual over the past few evenings, the little hamster had realized the ancient immortal who forged it had possessed an exceptionally progressive mind. The dimensional mechanics were remarkably flexible.
For instance, across the agricultural fields, an incantation could establish an accelerated zone where time moved at three times the standard rate, while a neighboring plot could be slowed by two-thirds, or kept at normal speed. The same selective boundary rules applied to the forested hills.
Discovering this had filled him with relief: the living plots could easily serve as an auxiliary emergency vault. With that safety net, he had nothing left to fear—he could gather an endless mountain of goods.
Once the truck bed was empty, Yu Yuanzhou lifted the furball out and stroked his head. “Your sister and I are heading right back out.”
Yu Yuanzhou was not a man accustomed to manual labor, but circumstances left him no alternative. Beyond bulk goods that could be processed through corporate purchase orders, he insisted on handling the supplies personally. If his staff realized the family was amassing an apocalyptic stockpile, father and daughter would become prime targets the moment social order collapsed. Even if his trusted employees harbored no ill will, they might surrender the information under duress to protect their own families.
Only in the earliest stages had Yu Tianwei overlooked that risk, having her assistant purchase heating fuels and charcoal. Thankfully, those materials had been routed to a separate address. It posed little real danger anyway—in the opening panic, desperate refugees would be too busy fleeing for their lives to search for solid alcohol blocks.
“The solid fuel and charcoal are scheduled to arrive shortly. Make sure to collect them; they’re highly flammable,” Yu Yuanzhou reminded him. Leaving volatile accelerants sitting in an upscale suburban enclave was a recipe for disaster.
“I’ll head over right after breakfast,” the little hamster promised, waving his front paws from the stone steps as his uncle and sister sped off.
He trotted back inside to finish his morning tea. Yet before he could even wrap up the cartoon episode, the front door swung open again.
The little hamster stared in disbelief. “Back already?”
“Your sister shops far too slowly,” Yu Yuanzhou grumbled, shaking his head. “She browses every aisle. I prefer walking in and buying out entire wholesale categories on the spot.”
“His storage capacity isn’t infinite, and we still have dozens of vital categories on our master checklist!” Tianwei fired back, exasperated. “Are you really planning to buy a hundred catties of fresh meat from a single grocer?!”
“If we can’t agree on logistics, we should split up,” Yu Yuanzhou replied evenly. “Independent runs will double our efficiency.”
“Fine by me. I’ll take the large SUV.” Tianwei turned on her heel and headed for the garage without another word.
The little hamster watched the father and daughter part ways in a whirl of productive friction. Since they were moving at breakneck speed, he couldn’t afford to slack off either.
Taking a sports car from the lower garage, he drove to the secondary villa, arriving just as a delivery van dropped off fifty cups of freshly brewed peanut milk tea.
He stowed the drinks alongside the towers of courier parcels that had accumulated from his online shopping over the past several days. Sitting on the living room floor, he methodically tore open the delivery boxes, stripping away the bubble wrap and cardboard to maximize every cubic inch of spatial volume.
Yu Xiaoyuan spent the entire afternoon racing across the district, sweeping the grain deliveries arriving from Qian Family Village into his realm. He barely had time to catch his breath before Tianwei whisked him directly to the international airport.
Looking out the cabin window as the jet climbed into the night sky, the little hamster rested his chin on his paws, thoroughly dazed. “Today was absolute madness.”
The round-trip flight took twenty-two grueling hours. During his brief layover on foreign soil, he kept a low profile, trailing behind the local corporate liaison as they rushed to Tianwei’s private villa near the runway.
Without stopping to inspect the crates, he swept every piece of tactical gear into the Kuntian Jade, turned straight around, and boarded the return flight.
He had originally assumed the errand would take a single night, only to realize the logistics ate up an entire day. Burning twenty-four hours was entirely different from losing twelve—especially during prime daylight hours when city markets were open.
Think of how many supplies he could have gathered in those twelve hours!
The second he cleared customs back home, his uncle picked him up curbside and drove straight to the suburban logistics depot.
Qian Family Village had been hauling in truckloads of grain daily. The volume from yesterday had already overflowed the original floor space, forcing Yu Yuanzhou to lease an adjacent bay. Qian Mingtian had thrown himself into the operation with ferocious enthusiasm after Yu Yuanzhou personally wired advance capital. Moving beyond local village harvests, he had negotiated with commercial distilleries across the region, buying up their surplus grain stocks and directing the haulers straight to the Yu family’s suburban depot.
Yu Xiaoyuan had no idea how the contracts were brokered, but his uncle’s rising urgency was unmistakable: the man had secured three additional storage facilities on the same street. One unit was packed entirely with rugged off-road motorcycles, mountain bikes, urban skateboards, and lightweight electric scooters.
The little hamster was thoroughly baffled. “Uncle, why are we buying all of these instead of more food?”
“You cannot focus exclusively on your next meal, Little Yuan,” Yu Yuanzhou said, his perspective shaped by decades of corporate strategy. “Tell me—where will humanity establish its fortified safe zones? In the metropolitan centers?”
The little hamster shook his head. “There will be too many zombies.”
“Precisely. Urban centers will crawl with millions of infected who do not decompose and will only evolve over time. In the opening phases, humanity’s sole imperative is raw survival,” Yu Yuanzhou said gravely. “I reviewed our strategic national grain reserves over the past few days. If only ten percent of the population survives, those central granaries hold enough food to sustain the initial survivors for years without widespread famine.”
“Then why am I hoarding so much?” A chill ran down the little hamster’s spine. Had his entire approach been flawed from the start?
“No, food will always remain in critical shortage,” Yu Yuanzhou clarified. “Large-scale agriculture will be impossible. Furthermore, human nature is driven by deep survival anxiety. When people realize they are surviving purely on depleting stockpiles without fresh harvests, panic, civil unrest, and territorial warfare are inevitable. Vast quantities of food will be burned or lost in the chaos.”
He let out a slow, measured breath. “We must plan for the worst. The environmental anomalies you described—the extreme floods and blistering droughts—will ignite wildfires and submerge entire basins. Even the most secure subterranean grain silos will suffer catastrophic structural breaches.
“How much of those national reserves do you honestly believe will remain edible in the end?”
The little hamster looked up at his uncle, his eyes wide. “Maybe… one-tenth?”
“Yes. A tenth at best,” Yu Yuanzhou said softly. “Once submerged, grain rots into toxic sludge, utterly ruined. It vanishes overnight.”
Unless starving survivors resorted to eating the dead, finding clean food would become a desperate struggle.
“On top of that, wildfires will sweep through industrial zones, and mutated hamsters and birds will strip the surviving grain depots bare.
“Therefore, stockpiling food is never a mistake,” Yu Yuanzhou emphasized. “Safe zones will never take root inside metropolitan basins, particularly after the opening seven-day deluge. Survivors will naturally migrate to high, defensible terrain. The highlands surrounding Mount Qingyan are ideally situated.”
That was the primary reason Yu Yuanzhou had refused to abandon this region.
“But Mount Qingyan will be crawling with mutated beasts and aggressive plants,” the little hamster countered nervously.
“Every path carries lethal danger—a wolf ahead and a tiger behind. We deliberately choose a stronghold that bypasses environmental disasters,” Yu Yuanzhou explained from a broader survival perspective. “By doing so, we eliminate one entire category of catastrophic risk.”
Avoiding natural disasters meant their only immediate adversary would be mutated wildlife. In low-lying urban valleys, survivors would be crushed beneath rising floodwaters, scorching heat, and dense zombie hordes simultaneously. Even a fully functioning modern society struggled to manage natural disasters, let alone a collapsed civilization.
“Uncle is right,” the little hamster murmured. Provided human survivors remained disciplined and well-equipped, mutated fauna could be countered.
Yu Yuanzhou patted the boy’s head, relieved to see him grasping the strategic picture.
A deep guilt still gnawed at the older man’s heart. Driven by lingering regret over his late sister, he had sheltered Yu Xiaoyuan too gently, asking nothing more of the frail boy than to remain safe and lawful. He had assumed that as long as the Yu Corporation flourished, his nephew could live a peaceful, comfortable life under his protection.
As a result, the boy had grown into an adult largely ignorant of the world’s darker realities. In truth, the tragedy of Little Yuan’s past life stemmed from that very overprotection.
The realization had cost Yu Yuanzhou many sleepless nights. Now, with the cataclysm looming, he was determined to forge the youth into someone capable of standing on his own feet.
Glancing above his nephew’s head, Yu Yuanzhou checked the glowing countdown once more.
Two hours after Yu Xiaoyuan had boarded the international flight, the numbers had faded from Yu Yuanzhou’s vision—perhaps due to the immense physical distance, or a natural time limit on the shared perception. It required direct physical contact with Yu Xiaoyuan to renew.
Now that the boy had returned and touched his hand, the digital clock was back in full view.
The glowing digital timer hovering above his nephew’s head snapped back into view:
2 days, 13 hours, 56 minutes, 25 seconds.
Yu Yuanzhou squeezed his eyes shut against the creeping dread, took a slow, steadying breath, and opened them again to check the readout.
2 days, 13 hours, 56 minutes, 10 seconds.
Time was bleeding away. Even with their wealth, their industry influence, and their desperate scramble over the past week, a cold hollow formed in his stomach. Could he and Tianwei truly guide this fragile household through the nightmare ahead? Would they even survive the opening gauntlet of the Seven Catastrophes?
“Uncle, why did we spend so much time gathering electric scooters, skateboards, and ordinary bicycles?” Yu Xiaoyuan asked, looking up from the car seat.
“Those aren’t ordinary bicycles; they’re rugged, heavy-duty mountain bikes,” Yu Yuanzhou explained with patient, measured calm. “Mountain bikes feature reinforced alloy frames, specialized gearing, and knobby, puncture-resistant tires. Just like lightweight dirt bikes, they are built to navigate cracked asphalt, shattered glass, and off-road wilderness trails.
“Once the initial cataclysm subsides, metropolitan roads will be choked with abandoned vehicles and debris. Standard sedans will be useless. Worse still, full-sized automobiles consume massive amounts of non-renewable fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel.
“When regional strongholds establish safe zones, survival will depend on scavenging runs. The official military squads will conduct high-risk sweeps, but ordinary civilian survivalists will need to scour surrounding ruins for salvage. Regular people simply won’t have the fuel or logistics to run heavy passenger cars.”
A full-sized truck naturally held a massive cargo payload, but for nimble scavenging parties or solo scouts, two-wheeled transport was irreplaceable. A nimble motorcycle served as an agile reconnaissance scout for larger convoys. For a family workshop or an independent scavenger, a single motorcycle could carry enough dry rations and medical supplies back from an industrial park to sustain a household for a month, allowing family members to trade off using the machine.
“Mountain bikes serve the exact same purpose, but with an even greater advantage,” Yu Yuanzhou continued. “They are inexpensive, remarkably fast on open ground, and run entirely on human muscle rather than scarce petroleum. Pedaling is physically demanding, of course. Yet as long as you aren’t ambushed by high-speed mutated infected, a geared mountain bike gives you enough velocity to outrun standard walkers.
“Infected ghouls don’t feel lactic acid buildup and will pursue prey until their tendons snap. Living humans experience physical exhaustion, but humans possess tactical intellect—you can pedal hard for an hour or two, break line of sight, and slip into an alleyway or a rooftop access hatch to shake off the pack.
“Little Yuan, you have to realize our nation is not a dominant global crude oil producer,” Yu Yuanzhou added with a dry, self-deprecating chuckle. “Over the past few days, I even logged the registry codes and route manifests of the foreign crude tankers currently steaming toward our domestic coastal refineries. Down the road, if we run completely dry on petroleum, we might literally have to charter an ocean vessel to salvage those dead container hulls.”
The little hamster stared wide-eyed at his uncle’s sweeping strategic foresight, his tiny paws coming together in a silent, respectful clap.
“Without abundant fuel reserves, post-apocalyptic settlements will regress to the pre-industrial era of the late twentieth century,” Yu Yuanzhou observed. “Think about street transit back in the seventies and eighties: roads were dominated by millions of commuter bicycles. As manufacturing matured, low-draw electric scooters took over, powered by off-grid solar arrays.”
He shook his head with mild regret. “Unfortunately, there are no commercial photovoltaic manufacturing plants in our immediate province. I only secured a modest pallet of high-efficiency solar panels and deep-cycle lithium storage banks—just enough to power the basic environmental scrubbers and refrigeration for our household of three.
“Systemic solar power requires state-level industrial logistics to maintain and repair over the long haul. I have no intention of volunteering to run the municipal electrical grid for a safe zone; that kind of thankless public liability will only paint a target on our backs. At most, I might trade the coordinates of regional solar warehouses to settlement administrators down the line—and whether I hand those manifests over for free or barter them for medical supplies will depend entirely on the moral character of the authorities in charge.”
Yu Yuanzhou shifted the SUV into park beside their private driveway. “Help your sister haul the remaining crates inside, stow them away, and then get some proper sleep upstairs.”
“Mm-hmm!”
The little hamster didn’t burden his thoughts with the crushing weight of high-level geopolitical logistics. Perhaps because his mind was remarkably uncomplicated, the digital countdown ticking away in his vision didn’t feel like an agonizing executioner’s blade; it was simply a handy cosmic stopwatch alerting him to when the weather was about to turn nasty.
Settling onto the leather sofa, Yu Yuanzhou watched his daughter slice through packing tape while the milk-tea-colored hamster waddled across the rug, methodically vacuuming shipping containers into his spatial storage. Every few minutes, the creature paused, trotted over to the coffee table, and buried his nose in a plastic cup to take long, appreciative sips of peanut milk tea through a trimmed straw, drinking until his fuzzy belly swelled into a plush sphere.
The older generation generally frowned upon sugary milk tea and street takeout, viewing them as greasy, processed junk and insisting that personal chefs prepare balanced meals. Yet remembering the miraculous spring water his nephew had produced two days prior, Yu Yuanzhou softened. The boy took sips of the spiritual water alongside his snacks; surely a bit of sweet milk tea wouldn’t harm his health.
Watching the little creature’s contented face, the uncle found himself powerless against his instinct to spoil the boy. Reaching into his jacket, he picked up his own phone, grabbed Tianwei’s unlocked phone from the console, and placed two separate orders for fifty more cups of peanut milk tea.
“Dad, order me some fresh taro paste boba tea while you’re on the app,” Tianwei called out without looking up from her cardboard cutter.
“You can pick up your own drinks on your warehouse runs tomorrow; I’m using the courier slot for your brother,” Yu Yuanzhou replied smoothly.
Tianwei paused, looking over her shoulder to hit her father with a flat, incredulous glare.
Hmph. Typical fatherly favoritism.
Once every wholesale crate had been swept into the jade realm’s stasis vaults, the little hamster was thoroughly stuffed. He waddled up the stairs on stubby legs, pushed through the master suite door, and collapsed flat across the vast mattress.
It was half past ten at night. Sprawled across the silk duvet, which felt as vast as a football field to his tiny frame, he propped his chubby chin on his front paws, scratching his round tummy while his mind ticked through their supply manifests. They had barely two days of civil peacetime remaining. The final afternoon would be consumed by an emergency run to secure the corporate fuel tankers, round up their reinforced vehicles, and make the mountain trek to their bunker.
Sigh…
He let out a tiny, contented burp. His round belly was practically sloshing with rich peanut milk tea.
Right! What about Sister’s favorite comfort snacks?
Over the past week, the vast majority of their private hoarding had revolved around his personal cravings—peanut spreads, whole grains, and sweet nutty teas. While he had thought of his sister, his own tastes had undeniably driven their snack budget. He had barely stocked any of her favorite junk foods!
Pulling out his smartphone with his front paws, the little hamster pulled up several grocery delivery apps, rapidly loading his virtual carts with wholesale cartons of Lay’s classic potato chips, followed by smoky barbecue and braised short rib flavors. Classic salted was the undisputed king, while barbecue and savory stew were great for breaking the monotony. As for cucumber flavor…
His velvety ears gave a shudder of pure distaste. Let’s pretend that culinary crime doesn’t exist.
He had three separate delivery addresses registered: their suburban estate, his old downtown apartment, and the secondary guest villa. Tapping across several supermarket delivery platforms, he bought out entire snack aisles. When the bags arrived tomorrow, he would pierce the outer bags with a pin, squeeze out the excess nitrogen, and pack the flattened bags into his spatial vault so they would remain crisp indefinitely.
He added towers of canned chips, though bagged crisps remained his true love. Then came crates of Oishi prawn crackers, sweet corn puffs, crispy onion rings, roasted green peas, and sharp cheese curls.
Oishi snacks were cheap, crunchy, and delicious. Back when he resided in the spiritual boutique, the attendant often stashed bags of cheese curls in the breakroom cupboard; the little hamster had regularly staged midnight raids to snatch them. The only drawback was that the neon-orange cheese seasoning dusted his paws and whiskers, leaving him to be caught red-handed the following morning!
“Wait… what’s this?” He squinted at a newly listed promotional banner on the digital storefront. “Salted duck egg yolk potato chips?!”
A truly magnificent clash between unorthodox culinary madness and sheer genius!
Buy it! The little hamster must have it all!
His paws were flying across the checkout screens when a faint, sharp sound tapped against the glass of the bedroom balcony.
Tink.
Tap-tap!
The hamster blinked, tilting his head with slow, puzzled curiosity.
Before he could investigate, the adjoining balcony window slid open. Yu Tianwei poked her head out into the night air, glanced down into the private driveway, and called out: “Little Yuan! You’ve got a visitor down here!”
Oh!
The little hamster realized someone had come looking for Yu Xiaoyuan the young master, not little hamster the pet.
Setting the phone down, he scampered over the windowsill to peer into the driveway below.
Ah! Mu Feiyi?!
Parked beneath the garden arbor was a low-slung, dark crimson sports car.
The man standing beside the vehicle looked remarkably different from their previous encounters. When they first met, Mu Feiyi had radiated the icy, imposing aura of a ruthless corporate CEO—controlled, aloof, and utterly untouchable.
Tonight, however, the young magnate carried a reckless, magnetic edge.
Leaning casually against the driver’s door, his tall frame was clad in an unbuttoned black tailored jacket that fluttered slightly in the evening breeze. The crisp white shirt beneath was left daringly unfastened down the collar, revealing the sharp lines of his collarbones and the lean contour of his upper chest.
The little hamster rubbed his cheeks in sheer delight.
It was the exact elevation he loved!
Not overly bulky, but firm, sculpted, and unmistakably powerful. He couldn’t help wondering if he might be permitted to rest his paws on that chest again tonight.
Wait, no! A dignified spirit beast cannot indulge in such shameless thoughts! I am a perfectly respectable little hamster!
Snapping himself out of his daze, he leaped down from the window frame, transforming back into a slender, dark-haired youth in an oversized cotton t-shirt.
Down in the gravel courtyard, Mu Feiyi balanced a smooth river pebble between his fingers.
He leaned against the sports car, lightly tossing the stone in his palm with a relaxed, half-amused smirk. He had thrown a handful of gravel up at the third-floor balcony, only to draw out a glaring Yu Tianwei from the master suite next door. The elder sister had called her brother, flashed Mu Feiyi a fierce middle finger, and slammed her French doors shut with a resounding thud.
Mu Feiyi hadn’t taken offense in the slightest. The Yu family siblings were an endlessly entertaining pair, though the younger brother was undeniably far sweeter.
Catching the faint, startled gasp from the balcony above, he looked up, expecting the youth to step out.
Instead, a round, milk-tea-colored hamster pressed its soft, white tummy flat against the upper pane, its tiny pink paws clinging to the glass as it stared down at him with wide, luminous eyes.
And then… the creature let out a tiny, visible burp against the glass.
Good heavens… just how much had this little glutton eaten tonight?
A sudden urge to gently squeeze that plush, balloon-like belly gripped Mu Feiyi’s fingers. That ridiculously round curve was practically begging to be stroked.
Before he could plot any further mischief, the hamster vanished from the glass. A second later, the balcony doors swung open, and the slender youth leaned over the wrought-iron railing, gazing down with bright, expectant eyes.
“Did you come out here to chat with the little hamster, or with me?”
“Am I only allowed to pick one?” Mu Feiyi asked, looking up with an easy, teasing smile.
“Yes!” Yu Xiaoyuan raised a single, very serious index finger. “Humans shouldn’t be so greedy. You can only choose one.”
“In that case, may I invite you downstairs for a stroll, and then say hello to the little hamster on the side?” Mu Feiyi chuckled, waving a hand toward the driveway. “Come on down. I brought you some treats.”
“Coming right down~”
The youth spun away from the railing, darting toward the stairs with the speed of a wind-up toy.
