Starting off traveling through the galaxy, I traded scrap metal for hundreds of billion

Wen Zhi spent twenty-two years as an adopted daughter in the wealthy Wen family, enduring daily abuse under the guise of discipline while her adoptive parents maintained a perfect public image. When they discovered their biological daughter had returned, they immediately cast Wen Zhi out, stripping her of her identity and leaving her with nothing. She returns to her biological father’s rundown recycling factory, only to find him gone after accumulating tens of millions in gambling debts and stealing the family’s remaining assets. Left to care for her three younger siblings—a mute four-year-old, a rebellious sixteen-year-old, and a ten-year-old with a critical heart condition—Wen Zhi faces poverty and desperation.

While entering the factory, Wen Zhi is struck by a mysterious purple light and gains access to a "Future Little Shop" in her mind. This shop serves as a portal to a dystopian future world ravaged by giant insect invasions. There, she encounters Quan Yuan, a powerful military commander with golden beast-like eyes who is fighting a losing war against the insect horde. Quan Yuan reveals that items from Earth contain rare magnetic energy in his world. Wen Zhi trades three rusty screws for a massive diamond, which she sells to a wealthy neighbor, Zhu Lan, for thirty thousand yuan. This trade establishes a lucrative business model: Wen Zhi can gather scrap metal from Earth, trade it in the future world for valuable gems, and sell them back on Earth to generate income.

The urgency of her situation escalates when her youngest brother, Wen Fangming, suffers a high fever due to his heart condition. Wen Zhi races him to the hospital, where doctors warn that he needs surgery costing at least one million yuan before he turns eleven. With no money and her father’s debts looming, Wen Zhi is forced to return to the future world to gather more energy items. She navigates a primeval forest and meets Quan Yuan again, trading a large quantity of rusty screws for five high-quality diamonds. The transaction restores her shop’s functionality and deepens the mysterious connection between her and Quan Yuan, who seems to remember a past life with her despite her lack of memory.

Back on Earth, Wen Zhi’s life becomes increasingly chaotic. She confronts her abusive adoptive mother, Xue Qiu, who insults her and her siblings, leading Wen Zhi to slap her for the first time in her life. However, her victory is short-lived when debt collectors, led by a man named Jiang Jian, track down her biological siblings. Jiang Jian holds Gu Xiaoxiao hostage and beats Gu Yan, demanding the fifteen thousand yuan in interest owed by their father. Wen Zhi arrives just in time but is overpowered. To save her siblings, she hands over the fourteen thousand yuan she had earned from selling the diamonds—the exact amount needed for Wen Fangming’s immediate medical expenses.

Deprived of her brother’s treatment funds and with her siblings hospitalized, Wen Zhi is forced to return to the scrap factory and the future world once again. She realizes that her only path to securing her family’s future lies in mastering the connection with the Future Little Shop and Quan Yuan. The story follows her determination to bridge two worlds, using the resources of a sci-fi battlefield to solve the crises of her mundane, impoverished reality. As she builds a fragile bond with her skeptical younger brother Gu Yan and deepens her alliance with the enigmatic Quan Yuan, Wen Zhi transforms from a discarded orphan into the protector of her family, navigating dangers from both her past abusers and the insect-infested future.