Chapter 73: The Treasure Map

Jewelry stores have another characteristic: they’re almost always located inside shopping malls, just like the big-name brands, occupying the best spots at the mall entrances.

According to Jiang Yan’s memory, the torrential rain would stop once the water reached the fifteenth floor.

That meant these jewelry stores would be submerged at least 45 meters underwater.

She had the ability to collect supplies into her space with just a touch, so she didn’t need to worry about professional salvage operations.

But this did mean she’d have to dive deep underwater to reach the jewelry stores.

For ordinary people, snorkeling with fins and a breathing tube usually only allows them to dive 3–5 meters, and even the deepest dives rarely exceed 40 meters.

However, as an experienced travel blogger, she held a professional scuba diving license and could dive with full gear. She’d even done several live streams exploring underwater caves in the past.

Plus, she already had a stash of high-quality diving equipment in her space, so she didn’t have to worry about lacking gear.

So now, she was facing one last problem:

With the world outside turned into a vast ocean and no GPS navigation, how could she quickly locate these submerged jewelry stores?

Many shopping centers had adjacent apartment or office buildings, most of which were at least eighteen stories tall. Even if the rain flooded up to the fifteenth floor, a few floors would still be above water.

And the floor height of office buildings was clearly greater than that of residential buildings.

This meant that when the Shallow Water Bay complex was flooded up to the fifteenth floor, the office buildings might not be.

Some apartments and office buildings were even taller, with a few being city landmarks—easy to recognize.

So, finding those wouldn’t be hard.

The real challenge was that most of Anming City’s malls weren’t inside shopping centers—they were standalone four- or five-story buildings.

Finding those would be much more difficult.

If she remembered correctly, the most famous pedestrian street in downtown Anming had the highest concentration of jewelry stores in the city.

But the buildings there were even shorter, only four stories high, and would be deeply submerged.

Unless she had extremely precise coordinates, searching for these jewelry stores would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

She did have a submarine in her space, but even so, she couldn’t just wander aimlessly underwater without a destination.

As Jiang Yan pondered, she found herself inside the Apple Pod, unconsciously walking into the study.

Looking up, her gaze was drawn to a world map made of white pine, mounted on the wall as a decoration by the Apple Pod’s supplier.

Jiang Yan’s eyes lit up, and an idea sprang to mind:

If she had a map marking the locations of all the jewelry stores, wouldn’t she be able to find them quickly by following those coordinates?

Even without GPS, as long as she used Shallow Water Bay or Anming’s landmark buildings as reference points, she could mark the longitude and latitude of those stores.

Then, just like ocean-going captains, she could use a compass to find her direction and a sextant to determine her precise location.

Speaking of longitude and latitude, she’d previously downloaded offline map data on her computer. She just needed to look up each location and mark them on a paper map.

Longitude and latitude can be accurate to within a meter, so there was no need to worry about imprecise positioning.

Once she had her target coordinates, she could strap on her oxygen tank, put on her wetsuit, and dive down.

That way, collecting most of the gold, silver, and jewelry hidden underwater into her space wouldn’t be impossible.

Of course, the city’s largest gold reserves would definitely be in the central bank’s vault.

But those vaults were usually several floors underground, heavily secured, and not something she could easily break into.

Besides, with the authorities’ capabilities, the valuables in those vaults had probably already been relocated.

Forget it—better to focus on civilian targets.

After several days of boredom and confusion, Jiang Yan suddenly found a short-term goal in life. She was filled with energy and motivation from head to toe.

She turned on her computer and, with a thought, pulled out a paper map of Anming City from her [Inventory].

Only then did she realize that after getting up, she’d been so busy checking on the stream and everything else that she hadn’t even washed her face or brushed her teeth.

Oh well, forget it—she’d draw this “treasure map” by hand first!

*

Two days later.

After two days of frenzied eating, Huabao finally finished off all the gold bars Jiang Yan had stored in the [Inventory].

At the same time, the progress bar above the stream finally reached 6.3%.

Progress was slow, but at least it was a big step closer to success.

Jiang Yan’s city “treasure map” was finally completed by hand.

There were 3,168 jewelry stores in the city, scattered across 46 locations.

Some were branch offices, located in office buildings.

But those places probably didn’t have much jewelry—mainly for administrative work.

She categorized the 46 locations by area, store brand, and store density, assigning them different priority levels.

With limited time, she’d prioritize the highest-level locations.

To prevent damage to the map, Jiang Yan even made an identical backup copy.

After two days holed up in her space, she changed clothes and emerged with dark circles under her eyes.

She’d also put away the man-eating flower.

Jiang Yan reminded it that, from now on, it couldn’t show itself outside without her permission.

After all, here in Shallow Water Bay, she didn’t have anything to fear.

But with so many people around, if the authorities or some evil force ever found out, she could easily end up being dissected for research.

She wasn’t afraid of anything, not even armed forces, but going up against the authorities was clearly unwise.

Better to keep a low profile.

Huabao was obedient—after finishing its meal, it quietly returned to Jiang Yan’s palm.

The torrential rain outside was still falling.

Jiang Yan took a look through her binoculars—the water level was almost up to the fourteenth floor.

It looked like in another day or so, she’d be able to go out and find some “food” for her “child.”

Once the water reached the fifteenth floor, she’d have to leave through a window on the sixteenth.

Jiang Yan thought for a moment and decided to go down and check the situation first.

Before leaving, she checked the surveillance feeds for the twentieth and thirty-first floors.

Both hallways were packed with people who’d moved up from the lower floors.

It was crowded, dirty, and noisy.

Most people didn’t look well.

Some were arguing and fighting over food.

Others had banded together, cooking meals right in the hallway.

The twentieth floor was filled with smoke.

The thirty-first was a bit better.

After checking the cameras, Jiang Yan, as usual, put on a mask before heading out.

Unlike the other floors, the thirty-second floor was deserted.

The doors to 3202 and He Chunmei’s apartment were both open, letting in a bit of faint light to the otherwise dark hallway.

When Jiang Yan first stepped out, her eyes took a few seconds to adjust.

She headed straight for the stairwell.

Just as she pushed open the fire door, she saw Ye Qing coming up from the thirty-first floor, carrying two white plastic buckets.

Judging by the bulging veins on his arms, whatever was in the buckets was heavy.

Maybe because he hadn’t had a haircut in a long time, Ye Qing’s hair had grown out.

Before, it hung messily over his forehead, almost covering his eyes, giving him a slightly disheveled look.

But today, he was wearing a black sports headband with red and white stripes, which made him look much more energetic—youthful and handsome.

Jiang Yan glanced at the label on the buckets—they looked like they were filled with gasoline.

No idea where he got it from.

Ye Qing saw her too.

He paused at the landing, a flicker passing through his usually indifferent eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed as if he wanted to say something but hesitated."