CHAPTER 454: CHAPTER 454: PREPAREDNESS PAYS OFF

Guan Xiaojie, seeing that she couldn’t get any money here, hardened her heart and went back to her parents’ home to borrow some funds. She was determined to start the clothing store again. Although she was a city dweller, her education wasn’t high, and there were no suitable jobs for her. However, with her connections, no matter what, starting this clothing store would still bring in earnings.

The store was opened, and clothes were displayed, but since she had limited funds, she only stocked the cheapest clothes, which sold for around 10 yuan each. Despite hanging these in her store for a month, only a few pieces sold, not to mention the quality was poor, making them look very unfashionable when worn. The money she earned was not even enough to pay the rent, but she couldn’t bear to close the shop and had to grit her teeth and keep going.

Meanwhile, in the Siheyuan at Yingdu, Qin Xiangnuan had prepared another season’s collection of clothes, ready for the new releases. Café’s clothing had new arrivals once a week, and now the workshop had gradually matured, basically without her having to do any manual work. She simply needed to design a few pieces each month to keep the shop’s collection fresh.

The sound of a car arrived at the front gate, and soon after, a car pulled in.

Jian Zhiqing got out of the car and then opened the trunk. With a pull, the trunk popped open, revealing it was full of 84 disinfectant in boxes, with countless boxes inside.

Qin Xiangnuan came out from the house as soon as she knew Jian Zhiqing had returned. Upon seeing what was in the trunk of the car, she let out a sigh of relief. These items were necessary to stockpile. Judging by the time, SARS would be approaching soon. She was quite worried – handling several stores was too much, and she needed to stock up now. Otherwise, it would be difficult to purchase essentials later, and if the supply was disrupted, it would be a huge problem.

Jian Zhiqing stored the purchased 84 disinfectant in an empty room. Thankfully, the Siheyuan had many such empty spaces, and that room now contained piles of boxes that were all marked with "84 disinfectant" and medicines like Lan Gen.

"Why do you need so much of this?" Jian Zhiqing placed everything properly, took the glass of water that Qin Xiangnuan handed him, and sat down on the stone bench outside. He still didn’t understand why Qin Xiangnuan had bought so much 84 – even if it was for disinfection, the amount they had would last for years.

"It’s still not enough; we need to buy it a few more times," Qin Xiangnuan calculated and felt that the stock was really insufficient. Although it seemed a lot now, it wouldn’t last if they actually started using it regularly. The three stores, plus the internet café with high customer traffic, required daily disinfection. Every computer must be wiped with disinfectant, too. Without overestimating, using one bottle per store per day would mean three bottles – over more than a year of SARS, that’s almost 1200 bottles. We certainly need to stockpile a large amount.

Therefore, before SARS arrived, it was urgent to buy and stockpile, also to avoid potential price gouging by others.

"You’re still buying?" Jian Zhiqing almost didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, "Are you planning on opening an 84 store or what?"

"Well, this..." Qin Xiangnuan didn’t know how to reply, "Let’s just stockpile for now. I heard from Zhang Lulu in the shop that there seems to be a peculiar contagious disease emerging in some city. Although it’s not serious yet, it’s best to prevent the disease before it occurs."

In fact, she wasn’t lying; Zhang Lulu had indeed mentioned it, and in her family was an old traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, her grandfather, who felt from years of experience that it could turn into an epidemic. Li Yuan heard it and laughed, suggesting she was overthinking. Not believing in these old tales, he expressed skepticism, remarking that even if an epidemic did break out, modern medicine wouldn’t let it become as severe as in the old times where an entire city could perish and then be burned down to prevent anything from growing there for years.

They didn’t know, but Qin Xiangnuan was aware that if SARS were easy to control, it wouldn’t have lasted a year. As of August 7, 2003, there were a total of 8422 reported cases globally, with an average case fatality rate of 9.3%.

And the number of people infected was not small.

At that time, SARS was a name that struck terror in hearts followed by a sudden sense of unease.

She had no capability to prevent the outbreak, even as someone who had lived through it before, and she couldn’t just recklessly announce an imminent outbreak of SARS, how severe and contagious it would be. She was also afraid that people would think she was mentally ill and might even detain her for spreading harmful rumors about society and the country.

"You really do think ahead," Jian Zhiqing rubbed Qin Xiangnuan’s head, "Okay, I’ll help you buy some more. Anyway, these things have a long shelf life and won’t go bad if stored."

The next day, Jian Zhiqing indeed returned with a vehicle full of items; more 84 and Chinese herbal instant powders like Lan Gen.

As time passed into 2002, SARS, although first discovered, did not catch much attention and was just treated as regular pneumonia. It wasn’t until the following year, 2003, that SARS began spreading on a large scale.

The disease spread incredibly fast and swept across the world in just a few months, with their country becoming one of the major epidemic hotspots. Gradually, everyone learned the term SARS, and the mere mention of it changed the atmosphere.

Somehow the rumor spread that drinking Lan Gen could prevent SARS, causing it, too, to run out of stock, and its price surged. The same happened with 84 – regardless of the price, the problem was the difficulty in purchasing it once it was out of stock.

Luckily, Qin Xiangnuan had stockpiled a room full of it. Even though each of her three stores used one bottle daily, business began to dwindle. The daily sales plummeted, and even the clothing store entered an off-season. 84 was also facing supply shortages, virtually disappearing from large and small stores. Even Qin Xiangyang was affected – his school had already been closed, but because of the large number of students, the product was in high demand for daily temperature measurements and disinfection tasks that had become routine for schools.

Qin Xiangnuan provided Qin Xiangyang with some of her stockpiled 84, relieving his urgent need. Otherwise, they really would have run out of supplies in the short term.

"Xiang Yang, where did you get all this from? How come you have so much?" Commander Xu was relieved to see so much 84, feeling assured that with these supplies on hand, the school would manage.

"It’s stocked up by my sister," Qin Xiangyang unloaded boxes of 84 from the car and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "We run an internet café which naturally attracts lots of people, so we use a lot of it. She was just being cautious, so she stockpiled quite a bit. It’s just in time to meet the school’s urgent need."