CHAPTER 22: ARE YOU THE DEVIL? BUYING SO MUCH STUFF

It was essential to buy enough lighters and matches to ensure convenience when heating up meals with a fire, whether during an escape or when dwelling in public squares.

In the few years following the apocalypse, there was no water, electricity, or gas supply. Lighters, wood, and any combustible items usually scavenged were traded for work points and food, making it very difficult to even light a fire.

In life, you often don’t realize how precious the little things are until you lose them.

Like kitchen knives and machetes. If Jingshu’s house had had a few kitchen knives in her previous life, she wouldn’t have been killed by people wielding sticks and glass bottles. The riots in the half-year following the apocalypse were truly terrifying, and later, a bloody suppression led to the deaths of countless people.

Concurrently, Huaxia introduced new legislation, allowing all kitchen knives, machetes, metal scissors, and iron rods to be traded for a small amount of coarse grain. The state then melted them down for materials for the Artificial Sun.

Every household traded their knives for coarse grain, and people would even look for these items in collapsed, flooded houses.

Within three months, items like kitchen knives had almost become extinct in Huaxia.

If you asked who Jing Shu admired the most after the apocalypse, it was still the Communist Party. While the rest of the world was in chaos, Huaxia remained relatively peaceful. As for murder and robbery, you’d at least need a weapon, right? Guns were strictly controlled, kitchen knives had been traded for grain, and wooden sticks had been used as fuel.

You could certainly use a broken chair as a weapon, but you would likely be reported before you even got anywhere. Reporting someone could earn you one work point, enough for half a meal’s worth of food.

Alright, even if you were determined to rob—for sex? When everyone hadn’t bathed or changed clothes in years, as long as you could stand it, the other person would likely be quite willing.

Rob for food? What could those reduced to digging for rotten food and tree roots possibly have to eat? Given the time it would take, it would be quicker to search for insects yourself, and you’d avoid the risk of being reported and having your entire family sent for re-education.

The state not only deprived you of the weapons to commit robbery but also the reasons to do so. Being able to live like a salted fish was already an achievement.

In this life, Jing Shu bought many sets of machetes and large kitchen knives.

She also visited the outdoor Black Market and purchased some banned repeating crossbows and arrows for the high price of 50,000 yuan, in anticipation of defending against the dark half-year of break-ins, murders, and loss of humanity that the apocalypse would bring. Jing Shu pondered that it would be best to acquire a couple of guns as well. Unfortunately, there were no channels available at the moment... Maybe steal one?

She bought seven banned military tents—waterproof, windproof, yet breathable, weighing 3.5 KG, and featuring a one-touch, idiot-proof setup—costing a total of 120,000 yuan. Even if earthquakes occurred, she could sleep comfortably in public squares!

The remaining items included large outdoor backpacks, down sleeping bags, moisture-proof mats, windproof clothing, fully enclosed space suits, various warm and waterproof shoes, climbing ropes, safety harnesses, ascenders, and descenders—all of which would be useful for climbing and escaping in the post-apocalypse—snowshoes, mountain goggles, down jackets and pants, cooking utensils, stoves, multi-functional water bottles, and other outdoor gear essential for migrating during the apocalypse!

In addition, she bought some fuel canisters. Kerosene could be used to heat meals and keep warm anytime. Jing Shu couldn’t help but lament. Outdoor hobbies are truly for the rich; just one windproof jacket can cost thousands, and a decent set of equipment can’t be had for less than several hundred thousand yuan.

The outdoor supplies cost a total of 500,000 yuan and were all stored in the large storage room on the second floor of Jingshu’s house, given their large quantity and variety.

She also bought the latest model gasoline generator, which was extremely quiet and long-lasting. In multiple batches, she acquired 5,000 liters of 95-octane gasoline, costing 45,000 yuan and taking up 5 cubic meters of her space (1 cubic meter = 1,000 liters).

If the Magic Cube Space could upgrade before the apocalypse, she’d store even more gasoline; hybrid cars could use it too.

Jing Shu spent an entire day buying frozen food, filling up four commercial freezers and also the fridge that was originally in the villa.

She had always been hesitant to buy frozen food because she knew it was the most expensive...

Jing Shu first bought her favorite Yuqing sausage. It was 10 yuan at the store but only 4.8 yuan each at the wholesale price. She bought 8,000 of them, making up 200 boxes, spending 38,400 yuan.

Once you’ve had Yuqing sausage, you never want to go back to the 2-yuan ones again.

She also bought 1,000 jin each of compressed beef and mutton. After the apocalypse, they could be sliced into beef rolls and mutton rolls using a meat slicer, perfect for dipping in a hot pot with sesame oil and garlic sauce... Okay, that cost 100,000 yuan.

She purchased high-quality pure steaks, including T-bones, rib eyes, filets, sirloins, and porterhouses, totaling 8,000 steaks for 240,000 yuan.

Of course, a steak must be paired with a sausage and a fried egg to be truly soulful... SLURP.

Ice cream had been a lifesaver in the first year of the apocalypse. Haagen-Dazs 9-liter tubs cost 1,300 yuan each. Jing Shu bought 120 tubs, filling 1 cubic meter of her space and half a freezer, for a total of 156,000 yuan.

Having come this far, how could she not buy some ingredients that would be unobtainable after the apocalypse? With beef rolls and mutton rolls for the hot pot already secured, why not add some side dishes?

Therefore, Jing Shu bought various hot pot sides like fish tofu, beef balls, shrimp balls, fish balls, rice cakes, and wide glass noodles, as well as convenient, self-heating, ready-to-eat individual hot pots. She bought 200 of them for 30 yuan each.

What if she craved KFC in the apocalypse? KFC also uses various kinds of frozen products, so Jing Shu managed to find and buy them all in bulk: fries, Chicken Nuggets, chicken wings, bacon, chicken tenders, Colonel’s chicken pieces, and meat and cartilage skewers, purchasing several boxes of each.

Pizza Hut’s pizzas, egg tarts, various cheeses, cream cheese, and Butter for frying steaks were must-haves, even though they were ridiculously expensive.

Finally, she bought a selection of items like sweet dumplings, wontons, regular dumplings, mooncakes, and frozen cakes. Just like that, her funds of over a million yuan had dwindled to just over two hundred thousand. Jing Shu quickly stopped herself. There were still more things she needed money for.

Jing Shu really wanted to say to herself, "Am I the Devil? Buying this much stuff?"

By the 21st, everything that needed to be stored was put away, and all the purchases were completed. One couldn’t exactly have a pond full of fish suddenly appear while Mr. Jing and Grandma Jing were staying, or loads of chickens and ducks the next day, right?

The villa’s kitchen was much bigger after the renovations. Jing Shu filled 60-liter boxes with dried goods, flour, rice, and various grains, and lined the cabinets with them. On top of the cabinets, she placed all kinds of bulk spices, removed from their packaging, while four huge refrigerators stood in a row where the dining room used to be.

The eggs from chickens, ducks, and quails were neatly packed into tall stacks of egg boxes in three rows.

Next to them were stacked 60-liter boxes filled with chilies, preserved vegetables, cabbage, white turnip, and other vegetables from her space that didn’t spoil easily, taking up half the kitchen. This thankfully saved Jing Shu some of her Magic Cube Space.

A door in one corner of the kitchen led directly to the boiler room in the villa’s backyard, which also housed two more stoves for cooking.

Even though all the supplies were stored in cabinets and refrigerators, Jing Shu still installed a security door for the 40-square-meter kitchen, making it a separate room. In the apocalypse, once the door is locked, who would know what’s inside?

Early this morning, Jing Shu, along with a carload of luggage, Grandma Jing, and Mr. Jing, arrived at the villa. Time to begin making Chili Sauce and spicy pickled cabbage... AHEM, I mean, to start her live-streaming business worth 2 million yuan! It’s a business!

Grandma Jing and Mr. Jing were both very excited, asking many precautionary questions, but Mr. Jing’s concerns were a bit different, "What if I become famous, and everyone likes me, but you don’t? What then?"

Jing Shu was speechless. Her grandpa was thinking way too far ahead, wasn’t he?