Chapter 44: Quite Tempting
Returning to Before the Apocalypse, I Emptied the World's Supplies
“Bzzzz!”
“Bzzzz!”
“…”
As Jiang Yan finished crossing the street and stepped onto the shopping mall grounds, the dozens of ravenous blood mosquitoes circling above her head finally lost their patience.
One after another, they split up and dove toward her, brandishing their long, needle-like proboscises.
The improvements to Jiang Yan’s physical abilities from the space weren’t just about strength and endurance—her vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch had all become much sharper as well.
She raised both hands, nimbly wielding her electric mosquito swatter, and started batting with deadly precision.
The temperature was already over sixty degrees Celsius, and the heat-resistant suit she wore was heavy, but she didn’t even break a sweat.
“Zap! Sizzle!”
“Zap! Sizzle!”
“Zap! Sizzle!”
All around her, the sound of mosquitoes being struck and electrocuted echoed.
The mosquitoes were so big that her electric swatter quickly ran out of power.
Luckily, she had several fully charged ones stored in her space. With a thought, she swapped them out in an instant.
In less than a minute, all the electric swatters from her space were flashing red, and the ground around her was littered with mosquito corpses and severed limbs.
A few mosquitoes had managed to suck some blood before falling, and when they hit the ground, they splattered in bloody messes.
The ground was so hot you could fry an egg on it.
The blood oozing from the mosquito bodies dried up and turned black in seconds, long before any surviving mosquitoes could come over to feed.
There were still some mosquitoes attacking her, but not as many as before.
Jiang Yan quickly made her way toward a shop she’d scoped out earlier, spraying mosquito repellent from a bottle she’d pulled from her space as she went.
She was fully covered—heat-resistant suit, helmet, tactical gloves—so the mosquitoes couldn’t really do anything to her.
But the incessant, irritating “buzz” made her want to swat every last one of them.
The shop she’d chosen was a high-end brand coffee shop.
Maybe because of the quality of the building materials, it was one of the few stores still in good shape.
But as she got closer, she saw signs of attempted break-ins.
Whoever tried hadn’t succeeded, though—just a few scratches on the metal.
She paused at the door. No one inside.
Through the bulletproof glass door, she could see three U-shaped locks hanging inside. Jiang Yan glanced around, then summoned a regular electric saw from her space.
The saw blade was thin and just long enough to slip through the finger-width gap in the glass door.
The sunlight was blinding, but she’d put on sunglasses under her helmet before leaving, so she wasn’t worried about sparks flying into her eyes.
With a click, she turned on the saw and started cutting the locks.
The harsh buzzing of metal being sliced filled the air, and sparks flew everywhere.
“Clang!”
“Clang!”
“Clang!”
The three U-locks were quickly cut through, but Jiang Yan’s eardrums were about to burst from the noise.
She didn’t open the door right away.
Because behind her, another swarm of blood mosquitoes had gathered, buzzing furiously.
She put the saw away, grabbed two bottles of mosquito repellent from her space, and sprayed wildly behind her, then swiftly opened the door and slipped inside, closing it in one smooth motion.
The repellent was quickly blown away by the hot wind, and the mosquitoes came crashing against the glass door with a loud patter.
Jiang Yan looked at their needle-like proboscises and long legs, took a silent breath, and pulled out a new U-lock from her space, locking the door quickly.
Just to be safe, she added another one.
The mosquitoes, realizing they couldn’t get in, didn’t leave. Instead, they landed on the glass, hungrily staring at her.
Jiang Yan glanced at them—her trypophobia almost kicked in.
She could only choose to ignore them.
After all, she had more important things to do.
Besides, since the door was locked from the inside, that meant one of two things: either there was a back door leading elsewhere, or someone was still hiding inside.
First things first, she needed to check.
Jiang Yan pulled a sharp knife from her space and started moving slowly through the shop.
The place was about two hundred square meters.
Soon, she found a side door at the back.
It was glass, too, and looked out onto the mall’s central atrium.
She realized then that many mall shops actually had both front and back doors—one to the street, one to the mall interior.
The side door was locked from the outside, with signs of attempted forced entry.
That meant whoever had been here had left through the mall.
It was likely they’d taken shelter in the basement supermarket or parking garage—standard features in malls like this.
Jiang Yan didn’t bother with the side door for now.
All she needed was a temporary place to rest until midnight.
But it was still too early to enter her space.
She decided to look around the shop and see if there was anything useful to scavenge.
She already had enough clothes and food stored to last several lifetimes, so she wasn’t interested in those.
But as a coffee lover, she felt compelled to look around.
This shop’s coffee had been famous, after all.
The first thing she saw were two display racks of coffee cups.
Ceramic, metal, glass—every kind imaginable.
Since it was summer, the cups were especially bright and colorful.
Jiang Yan had always been a die-hard cup collector.
In her old villa, she’d had an entire wall dedicated to displaying cups she’d collected from all over the country and the world.
So of course, she was tempted.
And who could resist the thrill of a zero-cost shopping spree?
The tea bar in her space’s apple-shaped pod had two beautiful display racks, but they were still empty.
She could pick some nice cups to decorate them.
With that thought, she used her mind to collect all the cups from the display rack into her space.
Near the counter, there was another rack of pretty cups—she took those too.
A quick glance at the display case showed all the pastries had spoiled.
But a few bottles of imported, high-end mineral water used for price comparison were still perfectly fine.
She slipped behind the counter and stashed the bottles in her space.
You could never have too much water.
Even if it wasn’t drinkable, it could be used for watering plants or washing hands.
There were some napkins, cinnamon, and packets of sugar at the pickup counter, but not enough to bother with.
A shop of this size probably had a storeroom.
Jiang Yan searched around but couldn’t find it, so she went back behind the counter and pressed on the wall.
With a soft “click,” a hidden door, camouflaged to match the wall, appeared before her."