“I don’t have time right now. Let’s do it in a couple of days. When the time comes, I’ll treat Auntie and Uncle to a meal instead,” Zhao Xiaoqian said. She planned to visit He Lili’s home after she finished stockpiling supplies—after all, He Lili’s parents had also been quite worried about her.
“All right then. Take care of yourself, and don’t be too sad,” He Lili replied. Seeing that her best friend didn’t want to come over for dinner, she assumed Zhao Xiaoqian still hadn’t gotten over her grandfather’s passing.
After hanging up with He Lili, Chen Xiaolin went back to busying herself with stockpiling. Since she needed to buy a large quantity of meat, she decided to place an order directly at a livestock farm.
Following the navigation, Chen Xiaolin drove for a full two hours before finally arriving at the nearest farm.
“Sir, I’m looking for your boss. Is he here?” Chen Xiaolin was stopped at the gate and not allowed to enter.
“What do you want with our boss?” the elderly guard asked, puzzled as he looked at the young girl in front of him.
“I’d like to discuss some business with him. Could you call him over for me?”
“Hold on a moment,” the guard said, then made a phone call.
After a while, Chen Xiaolin finally met the owner of the farm.
“Young lady, what can I do for you?”
“Hello, Uncle. I’d like to buy two hundred pigs, ten cows, and ten sheep from your farm. Can you slaughter them for me?” Chen Xiaolin stated her request straight away.
“That’s fine, but we can’t finish slaughtering that many today. The goods will be ready for delivery tomorrow morning,” the farm owner replied after some thought.
“That works. Do you also have ducklings, chicks, or goslings?” Chen Xiaolin asked. She planned to raise the smaller poultry herself—animals raised on feed didn’t taste as good. As for pigs, she had no intention of raising them: they smelled too bad, and she didn’t know how to slaughter them anyway.
“Yes. If you don’t need many, I can give you twenty of each for free,” the owner said generously, immediately having people bring over twenty chicks, twenty ducklings, and twenty goslings.
After settling the bill, Chen Xiaolin was nearly three hundred thousand yuan poorer. She decided to find somewhere to eat. There were plenty of farm-style restaurants in the suburbs, so she picked one at random and walked in. Not only did she enjoy a hearty meal, she also packed one serving of every dish on the menu.
In the afternoon, Chen Xiaolin followed the navigation to a textile factory. A couple of days earlier, she had seen online that this factory was poorly managed and close to shutting down, and that all the fabric in its warehouse was being sold off at clearance prices.
When she arrived at the warehouse and saw the piles of fabric, she immediately understood why the factory was failing. The owner had terrible taste—the styles were outdated, mostly fabrics favored by people from the ’60s and ’70s. Polyester—what used to be called Dacron—alone filled more than half the warehouse.
After some bargaining, Chen Xiaolin bought the entire warehouse—tens of thousands of bolts of various fabrics—for one million yuan. The factory owner even threw in several hundred bolts of defective fabric for free.
After signing the contract, the owner promised to deliver the fabric to the address Chen Xiaolin had provided early the next morning.
After a full day of work, Chen Xiaolin was exhausted. Ever since returning from He Lili’s place, she hadn’t even had the strength to cook. She picked up her phone, ready to order takeout.
Opening a certain yellow app, she happened to see a milk tea shop running a promotion—buy ten, get one free. She immediately ordered twenty cups of pearl milk tea. Seeing her favorite bucket rice, she ordered ten portions. She also ordered five grilled fish from a barbecue place. She planned to stockpile cooked food slowly—whatever she could manage.
After receiving the food, eating, and cleaning up, Chen Xiaolin went to sleep. She needed to wake up early the next day to continue stockpiling, and she also had to receive deliveries at the warehouse.
The next morning, Chen Xiaolin once again went to Aunt Zhao’s stall to buy steamed buns. This time she didn’t plan to buy so many—buying too much might raise suspicion. She decided to buy fifty a day, claiming they were breakfast for her classmates.
Once Aunt Zhao packed the buns, Chen Xiaolin drove off. There were too many acquaintances around here; if not for how delicious Aunt Zhao’s buns were, she wouldn’t have come here at all.
After receiving the delivered meat, rice, and the tens of thousands of bolts of fabric at the warehouse, Chen Xiaolin headed to the seed wholesale market to buy seeds.
At the market, she chose the largest seed shop and bought 1,000 pounds of corn seeds, 1,000 pounds of rice seeds, 1,000 pounds of wheat seeds, 100 pounds of cotton seeds, and 100 pounds of watermelon seeds. Seeing fruit saplings for sale, she also bought saplings for pears, apples, peaches, tangerines, oranges, lychees, longans, bananas, dragon fruit, plums, grapes, and cherries. She didn’t buy other fruits she didn’t like.
After buying the seeds, Chen Xiaolin drove to a clothing wholesale market to stock up on thick clothes.
At the market, she bought 1,000 base-layer shirts, 5,000 pairs of socks, 1,000 military coats, and 1,000 sweaters. She came across a shop clearing out thick padded jackets and bought the entire store’s stock. She also bought 1,000 pounds of yarn. Seeing cashmere coats, she purchased 1,000 classic-style coats. She bought 500 pairs of cotton shoes in various sizes, and also picked up fifty down jackets in assorted sizes.
On the way back, she saw someone selling quilts from a stall at a commercial street intersection. She got out of the car, bought all the quilts from his vehicle, and asked him to deliver them to the warehouse.
Chen Xiaolin worked in the warehouse until ten at night before finally storing all the clothes and quilts she’d bought that day into her space.
It was the third day since discovering the space. Chen Xiaolin didn’t plan to go out that day, because the items she had ordered online were arriving one after another.
With some free time, she placed more online orders: ten kitchen knives, ten old-style iron woks, ten old-fashioned kettles, and ten old-style thermos flasks. She bought ten boxes of matches, one box of lighters, ten boxes of white paper, and a box of fountain pens. Seeing old-style bed sheets for sale online, she bought a hundred of them. She also found agricultural machinery online and bought a plowing machine, a rice transplanter, a harvester, as well as various rice mills, flour mills, and oil presses. Since there was electricity in the space, she didn’t buy a solar generator. This time, she chose expedited shipping from every shop, had them use Shun Express, and changed all delivery addresses to the warehouse.
After placing the orders, Chen Xiaolin started ordering takeout again. Whenever she saw a milk tea shop, she went in and ordered ten cups—no two shops the same. Seeing all kinds of marinated duck snacks made her drool. How could she watch dramas without duck snacks? She bought a little from each store, and by the end, each type added up to nearly ten pounds.
In just one day, Chen Xiaolin had successfully spent another million yuan or so. She planned to continue stockpiling elsewhere after receiving all the goods. After all, her school was already preparing for graduation—she had passed her thesis and only needed to wait to receive her diploma. Whether she went to class or not didn’t really matter anymore.
That night, Chen Xiaolin entered the space, planning to plant the fruit trees first. After searching for a long time without finding any tools, she had no choice but to return home and bring in Zhao Ma’s small gardening shovel for digging holes.