After renting the unit, Park went out to a nearby store to buy some basic daily necessities and bedding, and grabbed several packs of instant noodles and a few bottles of water while she was at it.After paying, she checked her card balance.Nearly cleaned out.She smiled to herself with a certain bitterness, acknowledging that she had made a genuine personal financial sacrifice in the name of an unauthorized investigation she still believed in.---The weather advisory had aired exactly as Ethan had remembered it from his previous life. No butterfly effect from his rebirth had altered the timing, which settled something in his chest that had been quietly tense.He ran through his financial situation mentally. He had spent over $350 million on supplies and preparations, lived extravagantly at the White Swan for nine days, and now had only a few hundred dollars left in his account, plus an outstanding balance of $13 million owed to Shield Security that he had no intention of paying.If

Park was quietly relieved that she had packed a full suitcase of clothes. Under the circumstances, having options was useful.As for not being at the office, she wasn't particularly worried. Her family background meant nobody was going to push the issue. Anyone who wanted to make an example of her absenteeism without authorization would be taking on a situation they hadn't fully thought through.Her phone buzzed.The screen read: Mom.Park frowned, answered with barely contained impatience."Mom, it's working hours. Is something urgent?"Her mother's voice came through measured and serious."Dana, stop what you're doing and come home.""I can't just leave. I'll come home after work. I'm busy."She hung up before her mother could respond.A moment later, the phone buzzed again. Same caller. Park silenced it and set it face down.After a few minutes of quiet, her father called.Park turned on airplane mode, set the phone aside, and returned her attention to the binoculars and the buildi

"Ethan, are we really not going to get caught if we go out and take things right now?"Mia sat in the passenger seat, brows furrowed, her heart full of worry. The idea of being caught doing something like this, with everything else already complicated, the consequences were hard to contemplate.She still couldn't fully bring herself to believe that the entire apparatus of law and order would buckle under a cold snap, no matter how severe."Whether law enforcement will even be functional by tomorrow is an open question. Stop worrying and take off your stockings."Ethan said it without turning his head, keeping his eyes on the road as the BMW moved through nearly empty streets.Mia stared at him. "Why?""Pull them over your head. It covers your face. Basic disguise. Do you understand?"Mia processed this, realized she had initially taken the instruction in a completely different direction, and decided not to mention that.She took off her stockings and pulled one over her head without f

By the time Ethan and Mia finished clearing the basement supermarket, it was past five in the morning.Neither of them had slept. Counting from when they'd left the apartment, more than five hours had passed.Ethan was exhausted in a specific way, the deep, pulling fatigue that came from sustained use of the Storage Space over an extended period. His eyelids felt weighted. Every cell in him wanted a flat surface and eight hours.The sustained mental drain of collecting supplies at that scale was not something his body shrugged off easily.Mia was worse. The excitement she'd felt when they started had evaporated somewhere around the fourth floor. They had taken so much, processed so much, covered so much ground, that even genuine enthusiasm had run out of fuel. If another equally massive retail complex appeared in front of them right now, she doubted she could work up the interest to go in.Ethan made a rough mental estimate. The retail value of what they'd collected from this building

At 8:00 AM, a call came through the emergency line.A man's voice, shaking badly:"There's been a murder at the Meridian Mall. I need to report it."The operator on duty snapped to attention."Who is this? Can you confirm what you're reporting?""I'm a security guard there. Morning shift. I came to relieve the night crew and found them, Wang and his son they're dead. On the basement level"The guard, who had arrived to find the main entrance shattered and the entire building silent, had spent twenty minutes searching before he found the bodies. He had stood there for another ten minutes before his hands steadied enough to make the call.The operator didn't delay. The report went immediately to the lead investigator on duty.The investigator was stunned when the details came through. He asked the operator to repeat the part about the inventory.The entire building. All ten floors. Cleared out.He stood with the phone in his hand for a moment, turning that over.How is that possible? Th