Food Supplements - Chapter 8

Even after cleaning, running experiments, and secretly borrowing and returning things, it was still only a little past five in the morning.

Was it strange to feel hungry at five in the morning? Considering everything she had gone through that night, not really.

But for Qin Cheng, it was truly something rare.

She could barely remember the last time she had felt such distinct hunger. Most days, she could go without eating from morning to night and feel very little. Even when she did eat, she often vomited or suffered diarrhea afterward. After all, the organs inside her abdomen were either damaged or affected by the disease. They had long since lost the ability to function properly.

So when she first felt hungry, she did not pay much attention to it.

But after returning the borrowed items and going back to her room, the hunger grew stronger. She even developed a clear desire to eat, which finally made her take the need seriously.

Uh… what was she supposed to do when she was hungry?

Having not considered such a question in so long, the woman was momentarily at a loss.

None of the nearby breakfast shops would be open at this hour. She glanced at the phone on the table. She remembered having a food delivery app, but what could possibly be ordered at five in the morning?

Even if she found something, it would probably take at least thirty minutes to an hour to arrive.

After some thought, Qin Cheng abandoned any hope of a nutritious meal and decided to solve the problem quickly. She began searching through the cabinet beside the small table.

Although the kitchen downstairs was shared, convenient appliances such as an induction cooker and electric kettle were essential for a single tenant. Boiling water to prepare instant noodles or other quick meals was perfectly ordinary.

She had hot water, but when Qin Cheng finally found a packet of instant noodles in the cabinet, she discovered with some difficulty that it was about to expire.

There were still more than ten packets left.

Food like this could generally still be eaten shortly after its expiration date, but the thought nevertheless made her uncomfortable.

Even as she fussed inwardly, hunger burned in her stomach. Without wasting any time, Qin Cheng tore open the packet and soaked the noodles in a bowl.

While waiting for them to soften, however, she had nothing else to do, and her thoughts inevitably began wandering again.

Back when she was a student, Qin Cheng had read a few fantasy novels whenever she was bored. For a while, stories involving personal pocket dimensions had been especially popular.

They were somewhat similar to the strange experience she had gone through that night.

Compared with those miraculous spaces, however, this Taiji Bagua lake had a rather unusual style. It was far more troublesome and did not seem to have any convenient benefits such as cleansing one’s marrow with a mouthful of water or detoxifying and beautifying the body after a bath.

She had drunk the lake water and soaked in it, yet her illness still flared and her body still became exhausted.

However—

She looked at the alarm clock she had just taken from her backpack. Its time was indeed different from the corrected time on her phone.

At the very least, there was now almost no doubt that a ten-to-one time difference existed between the two places.

Thinking carefully, fantasy novels often described objects remaining fresh inside personal dimensions. Since this place truly had a different flow of time, could it possess a similar effect?

She needed to find a way to confirm it.

If objects inside deteriorated more slowly, then her earlier hope that her worsening health might also be slowed would no longer be mere fantasy.

She had somehow gone from thinking about expiring instant noodles to this conclusion.

Regardless of how she had arrived there, the connection made Qin Cheng’s eyes brighten. She felt she might finally have found tangible evidence to support her hope.

And what if it failed?

She could deal with that after it happened.

The last thing she needed now was to frighten herself before she even tried.

As Qin Cheng held the bowl and swallowed large mouthfuls of noodles without tasting them, part of her mind remained occupied with exactly how she should test the idea.

Then the phone charging on the table suddenly rang with a cheerful melody.

The sound made Qin Cheng’s heart leap, and she nearly bit her tongue.

A moment later, she realized it was not the special ringtone and finally relaxed.

But after setting down the noodle bowl, walking over, and seeing the caller’s name, her newly relieved expression tightened again.

“Hello… Mom?” she answered, deliberately making her voice sound drowsy. “Why are you calling in the middle of the night?”

“You child! And you still have the nerve to ask what’s wrong?”

The familiar voice on the other end was usually gentle and unhurried, but emotion had made it slightly sharp and anxious.

“Your father came home from Uncle Zhang’s place last night. I asked him to withdraw some money from the ATM on his way back, but he forgot his salary card, so he used your card instead. We wouldn’t have known otherwise, but why was there such a huge transfer? Where did that money come from? What are you trying to do without telling us?”

This was bad.

Qin Cheng’s brows immediately drew together.

“Mom, don’t panic. It’s nothing serious… Um, listen to me…”

She wanted to reassure her mother, but she truly had no idea what excuse to invent. All she could do was stall vaguely.

In truth, she had never expected that she would need to explain.

Qin Cheng had always assumed that by the time her parents discovered the transfer, she would no longer be able—or need—to explain anything.

Had everything proceeded according to her original plan, that might truly have been the case.

She would not even have been able to answer this call.

But now an unexpected change had occurred, and whether it was good or bad remained unknown. She could only find some way to bluff her way through for the moment.

“Actually, what happened was…” A sudden idea came to her. “I did a good deed and bought a jade hairpin. Later I discovered it was an antique, so… Wait, Mom? Where are you calling me from?”

Halfway through speaking, her expression abruptly changed.

She could faintly hear an announcement in the background. Although the words were unclear, the sound was enough to make her heart jolt.

“Where am I? I’m getting on a train!”

As expected, the background noise was somewhat chaotic.

“After your father came back and told me, the more we thought about it, the more wrong it felt. It was already too late, so we planned to call you in the morning. But then your father had a nightmare. He dreamed that…”

Her mother stopped herself.

“That old fool insisted I call you right away, but your phone couldn’t be reached. So he got all superstitious and booked the earliest train!”

“What? Why is he still so impulsive? Mom, no—you can’t just indulge him!”

This time, Qin Cheng was genuinely anxious, and urgency entered her voice.

“I didn’t indulge him. With that nasty temper of his, he’d definitely start arguing with you after only a few words if he came along. So I came by myself. I left him at home with Wangwang to wait for news.”

A hint of laughter finally entered the voice on the other end.

“Since you’re fine, it won’t hurt to let him worry for a while. You and I can meet first. It’s already been several years…”

“Oh, I can’t talk anymore. It’s my turn to have my ticket checked. Trains are fast now, so I’ll arrive tonight. Come pick me up if you’re free. That’s settled. Wait for my call.”

She finished hurriedly without giving Qin Cheng another chance to speak.

With a soft click, the call ended, leaving only the disconnected tone.

The faint color that had returned to Qin Cheng’s face after eating drained away again.

How did this happen?

After a long silence, she rubbed her temples in frustration and slowly sorted through her thoughts.

She had deliberately found excuses not to return home or meet her parents over the past few years precisely because she feared they would notice something.

It was not that she did not miss them.

She simply did not want her terminal illness to torment the two elderly people as well.

But extremes always produced the opposite result.

Clearly, not seeing her for several years had also affected them. That was why such a small incident had been enough to—

And of all times, she had failed to answer the call her family made after the nightmare.

There was no missed-call notification afterward either. It had probably occurred while she and the phone were inside the lake realm.

What should she do now?

It was too late to stop her mother.

One crisis had barely settled before another arrived.

After worrying for quite a while, Qin Cheng could only sigh and accept her fate.

She forced herself to recover and stood, planning to perform a few small, harmless tricks before her mother arrived.

And what kind of tricks would those be?

Naturally—

Hiding the evidence.

Specifically, the evidence of what illness she had.

Although she now possessed a glimmer of hope, she would still prefer to keep the truth from her parents if possible.

Once Qin Cheng made that choice, she carried it out seriously.

Fortunately, she now had an absolutely secure place where she could perfectly hide anything she did not want others to see.

Holding the medical records, diagnostic reports, medicines, empty bottles, and other items she had gathered after rummaging through the room, the woman freed one hand, tightly grasped the silver hairpin, and shifted her thoughts.

In an instant, the world around her changed.

This time, she was no longer standing on the lonely white stone in the middle of the icy section.

She appeared on the stone-paved path beside the lake.

As for the principle behind it…

Qin Cheng looked at the blood-soaked shirt by her feet with mixed emotions and felt almost certain it was connected.

She had originally sealed the bloodstained pajama shirt inside a thick plastic bag and brought it with her in case she needed blood.

However, while hurriedly changing into the spare clothes in her backpack earlier, she had found it inconvenient and casually taken it out and placed it aside.

Then she had been involuntarily pulled back into her room without warning, so naturally, the shirt had remained behind with everything else.

Later, when she returned using the method she had discovered, she appeared beside the bloodstained garment rather than on the white stone as she had the previous two times.

Qin Cheng had deliberately picked up the bag and examined it.

The thick plastic had a small hole in it. When it had been inside the backpack, the hole faced upward and caused no problem. But after she set it down and its position shifted, some residual blood rubbed onto the stone path.

This made Qin Cheng increasingly certain that her previous theory was correct.

On the other hand, she had no intention of moving the bloodstained shirt easily or changing the location of the mark.

Her current position was near the end of the deep-water section, not far from the shallow side. It could almost be considered the meeting point between the two kinds of water.

The lakeside path was wide, and there was plenty of space to move around.

It was an ideal entrance and exit point.

Although she had stumbled upon this location by accident, it was far better than the white stone.

She had moved things only because she had no choice last time. Now, she naturally did not want to disturb anything recklessly. If she handled it poorly, she might lose more than she gained.

However…

After setting down all the evidence she had brought, Qin Cheng lifted the bag containing the blood-soaked shirt and looked again.

Her sharp eyes noticed that the garment inside was still damp.

Almost none of the blood had dried or hardened.

For blood, it seemed to be coagulating unusually slowly.

It had already begun to congeal while on the floor.

Could this also be related to the difference in the flow of time?

Wait.

Coagulation…

Had she not just been considering how to test whether changes in objects were slowed inside this place?

A thought stirred in Qin Cheng’s mind.

She quickly gripped the hairpin and returned to her room with a flash of thought.

Then she rushed to the small refrigerator beside the cabinet and chipped a medium-sized piece of ice from the freezer.

That was the inconvenience of a refrigerator without an automatic defrost function.

After thinking it might not be enough, she broke off several more pieces before returning to the lakeside.

After deliberately entering and leaving several times, she had become increasingly skilled.

At first, she had needed to focus for several seconds before anything happened.

Now, a single thought was almost enough.

Having fully mastered the method of moving between the two places, Qin Cheng carried the freshly broken ice, still giving off cold vapor, and began another experiment.

Her idea was simple.

If something that should coagulate did so more slowly, then something that should melt ought to be affected as well.

If the ice failed to melt as expected, then the time difference in this place truly affected physical objects—and might even include her diseased body.

Holding onto that expectation, she first placed two pieces of ice beside the bloodstained shirt.

Then she walked some distance away and set several more pieces on different sections of the stone path.

After a moment’s consideration, she tossed the remaining pieces into the dark-blue water and pale-green water.

The final piece went into the black soil of one of the empty landscaping plots.

Then the woman walked around, observing everything carefully and waiting for the results with slight nervousness.

As expected, the ice in the pale-green water melted the fastest.

No matter how mysterious the place was, hot water and ice remained natural enemies.

The piece floated in the green water for only a few seconds before quickly disappearing.

The next piece to melt was somewhat unexpected.

It was the one she had thrown into the black soil.

Strictly speaking, it did not melt especially quickly, but it did gradually disappear, almost exactly as it would in the real world. There appeared to be no noticeable difference in time.

The stone path and the dark-blue water were what ultimately preserved her hope.

Qin Cheng remained there for more than two hours.

Every piece of ice on the stone path, regardless of where it had been placed, produced only a small amount of water. Most of each block retained its original shape and continued giving off cold air.

They had unquestionably melted far more slowly than they would in reality.

As for the piece floating in the dark-blue water—

Could it be called perfectly normal and logical?

Throughout those two hours, its shape did not change at all. There was not the slightest sign of melting.

Only then did Qin Cheng, who had watched with wide eyes the entire time, relax slightly.

Setting aside the special influence of the hot and cold water on the ice, the blocks on the stone path had unquestionably behaved abnormally.

To some extent, the result matched the theory and hope in her heart.

Did this indirectly mean she should avoid soaking in the hot water and spend more time beside the lake instead?

As this thought drifted through her mind, Qin Cheng suddenly felt grateful that she had learned to use the silver hairpin in time rather than having to wade across to the black stone every visit.

To shake off the lingering unease, she returned to her room again.

She planned to continue tidying up and move any food or even cosmetics nearing expiration into the lake realm.

Since she now had a ready-made preservation storage space, it would be foolish not to use it.

It would also keep her mother from nagging when she arrived.

Instant noodles, seasonings, brown sugar, tea bags…

She would never have known without taking inventory.

Because she was so often hospitalized and away from home, quite a few things in the small cabinet were nearing expiration.

Qin Cheng found a cardboard box and placed them inside one by one.

She cleaned the items and tidied the room at the same time.

Eventually, she even had to stop and rest before she could continue working.

When she was almost finished, the woman was wiping dust from the corner of the cabinet.

She casually moved an empty seasoning container aside and saw a flash of green behind it.

Having not grown plants in a long time, Qin Cheng froze before recognizing a few spring onions and cloves of garlic she had bought at some unknown point.

She had used the spring onions before.

Some roots remained, and Qin Cheng had casually placed them in a disposable cup of water.

Now, only a shallow layer of cloudy water remained, yet the onions had stubbornly produced fresh green shoots.

The garlic had been forgotten almost immediately after purchase and left untouched in the corner.

Now, clusters of tender sprouts had silently emerged. Even without sunlight, they had grown more than a finger’s height, lively and crowded together.

This was a common sight in any kitchen.

Yet seeing that vibrant green up close stirred unexpected emotion in Qin Cheng. Her eyes even became faintly warm.

In such a harsh corner, almost completely deprived of sunlight and rain, life still radiated vigorous energy.

No matter how difficult the conditions, it continued growing stubbornly.

It wanted so badly… to live, didn’t it?

She knew plants did not possess thoughts like that, yet the idea still touched the softest place in her heart.

Without thinking, she reached out, placed both items into the cardboard box, and carried them away with everything else.

Qin Cheng’s current living environment was not very good.

The only window received very little sunlight, and there were no flowerpots or soil nearby for growing plants.

So when she thought of planting them, her mind instinctively turned to the empty plots of black soil beside the lake.

Could a place that contained nothing be given a little life?

Could these lives that struggled so hard to survive be given somewhere to take root?

This was not a research experiment.

When the thought arose, what filled the woman’s heart was nothing but simple kindness and hope.