The bag of gold bars—three kilos of it—hit the surface of that still lake like a boulder.
Every survivor in the area felt the weight of it in their lungs. They looked at the well-equipped group, then looked back toward Zhang Jun.
So that's how it works here.
So this place really does have everything.
Hong Van leaned against the wall and popped the tab on a cold can of Coke. A soft *psst* of carbonation. The icy liquid slid down her throat and took some of the edge off her tightly wound nerves. She wasn't getting involved anymore—but as long as she was standing there, her presence alone was the strongest kind of order.
Three-Notch, Ledger, and Tin had finished their noodles. They'd even drunk the broth down to the last drop. They didn't leave—just drifted back into the deeper shadows and watched a scene that had no business existing in the Collapse.
"Shopkeeper, I've got this!"
A scrawny little man pushed to the front, digging a velvet box out from inside his jacket. He flipped it open. Inside sat a large diamond ring that threw blinding light in every direction under the white bulb overhead.
"This thing used to be worth a whole apartment!"
Zhang Jun gave it one glance.
"I don't take diamonds."
"Gold or Deadwalker Cores only."
The man's face crumpled. He clutched the ring and shuffled aside, dazed.
That small exchange made the store's rules crystal clear to everyone watching. Things that had once meant wealth and status weren't necessarily worth a dime here. If you wanted to trade for food, only the weight of gold and the energy inside Deadwalker Cores had any value.
After that, the trading exploded.
More and more survivors crawled out of the rubble from every direction. One man dragged out half a bag of chains and bracelets looted from a jewelry shop and dumped them on the ground with a *clatter-clatter*. Another cupped several Deadwalker Cores of different colors in both hands, cradling them like the most precious things he'd ever held.
Zhang Jun became something close to a transaction machine.
He weighed gold on a digital scale and swept it into Space Storage. The Deadwalker Cores he handled with even more care. The shelves of Dai Jun General Store emptied at a frightening pace.
Instant noodles, packaged sausages, crackers, canned goods, bottled water…
Ordinary, cheap processed food from Zhang Jun's world—set against the backdrop of the Collapse, it became hard currency people were willing to risk their lives for.
One gold bar bought exactly two cans of meat.
A single Low-Grade Deadwalker Core couldn't even get you a full case of water.
But nobody dared complain about the prices.
Because not far away, the woman who could reduce a person to ash in the blink of an eye was quietly drinking her Coke.
Time moved slowly.
The big pot of noodles out front had long since run dry, but the trading hadn't stopped.
A bald man who carried himself like the leader of some minor faction ordered his men to haul over a heavy iron safe. It was pried open right there on the spot, revealing neatly stacked gold bars inside.
"Shopkeeper, I'll take everything in this store. All of it."
The bald man's voice boomed across the space.
Zhang Jun didn't look up.
"Get in line."
The bald man's face went rigid. The men behind him instinctively tightened their grips on their weapons—but when they spotted Hong Van standing nearby, the Coke can in her hand already crushed into a lump of scrap metal, they let go just as fast.
The bald man drew a slow breath and forced out an ugly smile.
"Fine. Fine. We'll get in line."
Zhang Jun paid him no more attention and kept working at his own pace.
This was wealth that truly belonged to him alone.
Finally, when the last survivor traded a broken gold bracelet for the last bag of spicy snack sticks on the shelf, the store was nearly stripped bare. Aside from Zhang Jun himself, there was almost nothing left worth selling.
The crowd in the lot outside gathered their traded food and drifted away in small groups, satisfied.
Hong Van tossed her empty Coke can aside and walked up to the invisible boundary.
"You made out pretty well."
Her voice was flat.
"Not bad."
Zhang Jun stretched and looked at the empty store in front of him.
"When are you coming back?" Hong Van asked.
That was the question everyone still lingering nearby wanted answered.
Zhang Jun looked toward the System display.
[Spatial Transfer: Cooldown Active.]
[Time Remaining: 03:15:42]
"Don't know yet."
He genuinely didn't. He suspected the cooldown would still be twelve hours once he returned, but right now that was just a guess.
Hong Van held his gaze for a long moment, then didn't ask again. She turned and disappeared into the thickest darkness before the first light of dawn.
The lot fell completely silent.
Zhang Jun switched off the harsh white bulb outside the door, then killed the rattling electric fan. The world settled back into its natural quiet.
He turned his attention inward, and his consciousness sank into Space Storage.
Inside sat a small mountain of gold. A rough estimate put the total weight at over a hundred kilos.
Beside the gold, thirty-three Deadwalker Cores of varying sizes lay still, their colors uneven and mismatched.
This was the real currency of the Collapse.
And the key to extraordinary power.
The pain of absorbing that first Deadwalker Core was still vivid in his memory—the sensation of being ground apart piece by piece. Just thinking about it was enough to make most people flinch.
But Zhang Jun's face showed no hesitation at all.
With the Absolute Safe Zone protecting him, pain was just part of the process. What he needed was the result.
He opened his mouth and tipped in a large handful of ice-cold Deadwalker Cores.
No need to chew.
The crystals, hard as gemstones, dissolved the instant they touched the inside of his mouth.
This time, the sensation wasn't a thousand needles driving through his body.
It was pressure—like being stretched to the point of bursting.
"Ngh—"
Zhang Jun snapped backward, his whole body slamming down onto the folding cot. A massive surge of energy detonated inside him, roiling and flooding into every corner, every muscle fiber, every cell.
His skin flushed red. Blue veins rose in sharp ridges beneath the surface, twisting violently as though something was running wild inside. His skeleton let out a series of deep *crack-crack-crack* sounds, as if the energy was one second away from shattering it outright. Muscle tissue was torn apart and just as quickly replaced by denser, stronger fibers.
Destruction and rebirth separated by a single thin line.
And the gentle force wrapped around him was that final boundary. It allowed Zhang Jun's body to be remade, to be strengthened—but it would not allow the energy to actually destroy him.
In that sensation of pressure pushed to its absolute limit, time lost all meaning.
He had no idea how long it lasted. When the last trace of energy was finally absorbed, the feeling of being ripped apart slowly receded.
Zhang Jun lay limp on the folding cot. His entire body was soaked through as if someone had blasted him with a pressure hose—even his hair was dripping.
He lay there for a long time.
Long enough that he nearly drifted off right where he was.
Then, slowly, he opened his eyes.
The world was different.
He could make out a tiny insect on the ceiling beating its wings in a very specific rhythm. He could hear, beyond the rolling shutter door, the faint involuntary moan rising from a Deadwalker's throat. He could even distinguish the lingering smells in the air—instant noodles, blood, and the damp earthen reek of wet soil.
His senses had been enhanced to an almost unbelievable degree.
Zhang Jun slowly sat up.
He raised his right hand toward the empty metal shelf beside him and curled his fingers slightly.
*Whoosh…*
An invisible force wrapped around the shelf.
The heavy metal shelf shuddered a few times—then actually, slowly, lifted off the ground, hovering about half a meter in the air.
Zhang Jun's pupils contracted.
This wasn't Space Storage.
This was…
Telekinesis?
He shifted his focus, and the shelf dropped back to the floor with a heavy *crash.*
Zhang Jun immediately pulled up the System display.
[Awakened: Zhang Jun]
[Awakened Ability 1: Space Storage]
[Current Capacity: 1,000 cubic meters]
[Note: Separates space-time; stored by mental intent]
[Awakened Ability 2: Gravity Pull]
[Current Strength: Can manipulate objects under 50 kg from a distance]
[Note: The stronger the mental force, the greater the control]
Two abilities.
He had genuinely Awakened a second ability.
The Deadwalker Cores were all absorbed, and the store's inventory was nearly gone. Even though the Spatial Transfer cooldown hadn't expired yet, Zhang Jun had no intention of going outside to scout around. He stayed put in the store and waited.
*Whoosh…*
That familiar sensation of the world twisting and pulling hit him again.
But this time, Zhang Jun wasn't startled.
*Click.*
The gray-yellow sky of the Collapse outside the window vanished, replaced by a city at four in the morning. Streetlights cast their glow across pavement still wet from rain, pooling in pale orange halos. From somewhere in the distance came the faint sound of a sanitation truck rolling slowly down the street, its familiar jingle drifting through the air.
The smell of rust and rot was gone.
In its place: damp earth after rain, mixed with the faint green scent of grass.
He was back.
[Spatial Transfer Complete.]
[Current World: Earth (Safe).]
[Next Cooldown: 11:59:59]
Zhang Jun looked at the countdown on the display, dismissed it with a thought, and closed it.
He walked to the door and pulled it open—the glass door that had been indestructible in the Collapse was just an ordinary door here. The cool, damp night air rushed in, taking the edge off the heat still radiating from his newly surged body.
The breakup.
The loan shark debt.
Getting fired.
Things that had kept him awake for nights on end now felt as light as a layer of dust he could brush off his shoulder.
Zhang Jun thought it, and two heavy gold bars materialized in his hands. Five hundred grams each, cold and solid to the touch. The hundred-plus kilos of gold in Space Storage was his real trump card, but unloading too much at once would draw too much attention. One kilo was just right—still within the range of something he could explain away.
It wasn't dawn yet. Zhang Jun wasn't in a hurry. He went back to the folding cot and slept a few more hours.
A little past nine in the morning, he showed up at Tan Binh Antique Market, the city's largest trading hub for antiques and collectibles. The kind of place where all sorts of people mixed together—and naturally, the best place to move goods with murky origins.
Zhang Jun quickly picked out a shop that looked unremarkable from the outside, with no flashy signage, but whose owner had eyes that were noticeably sharper than average.
He didn't beat around the bush.
"You buy gold?"
"What kind of gold? Where's it from?" The owner leaned back in his chair, not even bothering to lift his eyelids.
Zhang Jun didn't answer. He just pulled two gold bars wrapped in newspaper from under his arm and set them gently on the counter.
*Thud.*
The solid, weighty sound made the owner's eyelids twitch. He sat up straight immediately, his breath catching for just a moment.
The owner put on his reading glasses and ran a thorough inspection with his tools. He tested it with heat, weighed it, examined the cut surface under a loupe, turned it over and back more than ten times, and finally let out a long breath.
"Good stuff. Purity checks out." He looked at Zhang Jun with a complicated expression. "I'll give you five hundred eighty million."
"Seven hundred million."
Zhang Jun's voice was perfectly calm, as if he were discussing something that had nothing to do with him.
"Come on, that's too high. I'm taking on risk here, and I've still got to handle the—"
"Seven hundred million."
Zhang Jun repeated it once, no louder than before, no hint of a threat. He just looked at the man in silence.
But that silence made the owner feel like bargaining was going nowhere. The young man in front of him didn't look like someone who'd come to sell in a panic because he needed cash. Those eyes were too steady—like if he didn't get this price, he'd pick up his gold and walk out without a second thought.
The owner was quiet for nearly half a minute.
"Fine." He nodded. "Cash or transfer?"
"Transfer."
Fifteen minutes later, Zhang Jun's phone buzzed with a bank notification.
[Account ending xxxx has received a transfer of 700,000,000 VND. Current balance: 700,322,000 VND.]
He left the antique market and stood in the early morning sun, then dialed the number that used to make his stomach drop every time he saw it on his screen.
The phone rang for a while before someone picked up.
"Who is it?" A rough, gravelly voice came through—sounded like the man hadn't slept off his last drink yet, impatient and coarse.
"Zhang Jun."
"Oh." The voice on the other end shifted immediately, dripping with mockery. "Still know how to call back, huh? So—you scrape the money together?"
"Yes."
"Smart." A short, contemptuous laugh. "Three o'clock this afternoon. Cement Factory Number Three, west district. Bring the money. Come alone."
He hung up.
Three o'clock. West district.
Zhang Jun walked alone into Cement Factory Number Three, abandoned for years. Sunlight cut through holes in the roof in jagged columns of light. The air hung heavy with old cement dust, mold, and a faint, stale ammonia smell.
In the middle of the factory floor, a shirtless fat man sat sprawled on a beat-up sofa. His arms and chest were covered in gaudy dragon-and-tiger tattoos, the linework cheap and ugly.
Fat Seven.
Behind Fat Seven stood seven or eight men—some holding steel pipes, some gripping baseball bats. The whole crew tilted their heads and looked Zhang Jun over, their faces itching for trouble.
"Gutsy showing up alone for real." Fat Seven spat a cigarette butt on the ground, ground it out with his toe, and asked slowly, "Where's the money?"
Zhang Jun asked back:
"Where's the debt note?"
He had no interest in small talk with these people. Three hundred fifty million, pay it off, get the note back, done.
Fat Seven heard that and burst out laughing like he'd just heard the funniest thing in years. He slowly heaved himself up off the sofa, his bulk radiating a very deliberate sense of menace.
"The debt note?"
He curled his lip, showing teeth yellowed by cigarettes and liquor.
"Oh, I've got it. But prices have been going up lately—my boys gotta eat too."
He spread five thick, stubby fingers in front of Zhang Jun's face.
"Five hundred million. Principal, interest, travel expenses, emotional damages. Hand over five hundred million and I'll burn the note right in front of you."
The men behind him erupted in laughter. Steel pipes and baseball bats tapped rhythmically against palms, filling the empty factory with a low, dull beat.
Zhang Jun's brow moved slightly.
He hated people who broke the rules.
Didn't matter if it was the Collapse or here—same thing.
Borrow and repay—that was how it was supposed to work. But agreeing on a number and then flipping the table when it came time to settle up? That was breaking the most basic rule there was.
"I was going to pay you three hundred fifty million."
Zhang Jun's voice wasn't loud, but it was enough to kill every laugh in the factory dead.
"But now I'm only paying two hundred million."
The smile on Fat Seven's face went stiff.
He dug a finger in his ear, like he thought he'd heard wrong.
"How much did you just say?"
"Two hundred million. Not one dong more."
Zhang Jun repeated it, voice still flat.
"Oh, that's how it is!"
The man standing closest to Zhang Jun—bleached blond hair, the kind of yellow that hurt to look at—finally snapped. He swore, swung his steel pipe, and brought it straight down toward Zhang Jun's head.
The pipe cut through the air with a sharp *whip* in the hollow factory.
A vicious grin spread across Fat Seven's face.
This was exactly what he wanted. Beat him first, beat him until Zhang Jun was on his knees begging—then it wouldn't be five hundred million anymore.
But in the very next second, the grin on Fat Seven's face froze solid.