After learning that the apocalyptic disaster was approaching, Lin Su had already put coal on her stockpile list. Not to mention anything else, buying coal for her was straightforward, after all, her neighbor just happened to be a coal boss.
Of course, the person calling her now was the coal boss’s somewhat foolish son.
“Shiyun, I can’t explain the details over the phone. I’ll fly over to your place in a couple of days, and we can talk more then,” Lin Su said.
On the other end, Wen Shiyun still couldn’t fully relax upon hearing her reply. Lin Su’s family ran supermarkets, selling consumer goods that had nothing to do with coal. Yet yesterday, out of the blue, she placed an order with his father for 100,000 tons of coal, just hearing it was frightening.
Normally, only factories or power plants would order that much coal. Private buyers rarely need such large amounts. And with the current scorching heat, electricity demand was surging. Coal-fired power plants were already moving massive amounts every day.
“The mine doesn’t have that much stock, and coal prices are very high right now. I’ll try to reserve some for you. But you must come as soon as possible and explain what’s going on,” Wen Shiyun said.
Having grown up together, Wen Shiyun knew Lin Su very well. If there wasn’t an emergency, she wouldn’t be hoarding that much coal.
Noticing the concern in his voice, Lin Su smiled slightly: “Don’t worry. It’s a bit tricky. We’ll talk about it when we meet…”
They then asked each other briefly about their families before hanging up.
Restarting her car, Lin Su drove while thinking about the Wen family situation.
Wen’s uncle and her father both came from the same region. Her father ran a chain of supermarkets, while Wen’s uncle had several coal mines in their old home in the northwest. Over the years, that business had grown far larger than the Lin family’s.
The two families had been close neighbors for a long time. After the Lin family moved to Qingshui Villa, the Wens bought a villa next door, maintaining the neighborly connection.
Additionally, Wen’s uncle was busy with the coal business, so Wen Shiyun had practically grown up at the Lin household. As for Wen’s aunt, she had passed away from illness long ago.
Although Lin Su and Wen Shiyun were about the same age, Lin Su had always treated him like a relative who needed care, since he had grown up without a mother.
After hanging up, Wen Shiyun opened the mine’s inventory sheet. Checking the stock, he immediately called the warehouse: “Yes, transfer 50,000 tons of coal to Warehouse 1 first.”
There were too many orders at hand, and Wen Shiyun didn’t dare move too much inventory at once, otherwise later orders might not ship on time.
After giving instructions to the warehouse, Wen Shiyun didn’t stay in the office. Wearing a safety helmet, he headed to the safety office where his father, Old Wen, was busy. He needed to confirm the coal inventory situation with him.
Of course, the clever Wen Shiyun had already sensed something unusual. Lin Su was requesting 100,000 tons of coal, and he also needed to reserve 100,000 tons on his side, bringing the total to 200,000 tons. He could only hope that nothing serious was about to happen.
Wen Shiyun was busy wondering what problem Lin Su might be facing, while on the other end, Lin Su drove smoothly back to her residential community.
At the entrance, however, she noticed Cheng Jiajia talking to the security guard. Behind her, a medium-sized truck was parked. Judging by the tires, it was clearly loaded with a lot of cargo.
Seeing this, Lin Su deliberately edged her car closer to the guardhouse. Then she overheard Cheng Jiajia’s voice:
“Yes, the truck will leave after unloading. It won’t take more than an hour.”
The community was strictly managed, and any external vehicle required permission from the residents to enter. For a truck like this, there were even stricter time limits.
Once Cheng Jiajia obtained entry approval, she got into the truck and drove toward the high-rise area. Lin Su considered for a moment, then decided to follow.
It was just past seven in the evening, and there were still quite a few people strolling along the roads in the high-rise area. After all, the intense heat of the day only began to ease once the sun went down.
The truck moved slowly, stopping and starting, and Lin Su carefully followed behind. After about ten minutes, they finally arrived at the underground garage.
Cheng Jiajia began directing the truck driver to unload the cargo, and at this moment, Lin Su finally got a clear look at what was being delivered.
It was boxes of solid alcohol, windproof matches, water disinfectant, and other outdoor supplies, tents, rescue ropes, life jackets, lifeboats, and so on. At the very end, she even noticed more than ten bags of cat litter.
None of these items were sold at Lin Su’s supermarket. She couldn’t help thinking of the first live comment that had appeared yesterday. It seemed Cheng Jiajia was indeed preparing to receive goods from her supermarket!
Watching the truck driver, under Cheng Jiajia’s direction, place all the supplies into a small storage room in the underground garage, Lin Su guessed that this was Cheng Jiajia’s stockpiling location.
Once the truck drove away, Lin Su was about to restart her car and head home when she saw Cheng Jiajia suddenly unlock the small storage room and go inside. About ten minutes later, she emerged furtively, locked it again, and left.
The whole process was clean and efficient; any passerby wouldn’t have noticed anything.
Only Lin Su, who had parked her car not far from the storage room, saw something shocking. At the moment the door opened, the small storage room, which should have been packed full with supplies, appeared completely empty when Cheng Jiajia went in and came back out.
This discovery left Lin Su stunned.
It was at that moment she finally understood how Cheng Jiajia was planning to receive goods from her supermarket.
Turns out the girl had a protagonist’s standard “space” after all!
Cheng Jiajia had no idea that Lin Su already knew about her every move, including her “space” gold-finger.
After finishing collecting the supplies, she felt no joy at all, only a heavy sense of burden.
She was just an ordinary girl from a small town. Although she was an only child and had just graduated and started working this year, her savings were limited and mostly spent on renting her current apartment. The money for renovating the apartment and buying supplies came from a few credit cards and online loans.
If she hadn’t known that temperatures would exceed fifty degrees on the first day of September, Cheng Jiajia wouldn’t have dared to do all this.
Fortunately, she had a space. Once the extreme heat caused disorder, she could take advantage of the chaos to gather supplies. The lure of getting things for free was just too strong. She was waiting for that day to come.
As for her parents, who were still working in the small town, she had thought about bringing them over. But she was afraid they might discover her secret, and then all the aunts and relatives back home would find out as well. So Cheng Jiajia decided to wait until the extreme heat hit before figuring out how to bring her parents over.
Thinking too much, she bumped into a neighbor while exiting the elevator.
The neighbor, an older lady, was holding her little granddaughter’s hand. The collision made her stumble, and the little girl fell to the ground.
The child’s loud crying made the lady immediately grab Cheng Jiajia’s wrist.
Cheng Jiajia realized that the spot where her space was located was being held, which felt extremely uncomfortable. She quickly pulled free, and the two began arguing right at the elevator entrance.
Compared to the chaos with Cheng Jiajia, back at home Lin Su was immediately pushed by her mother into the dining room for a late dinner. Afterward, she finally had time to check on the day’s renovation progress.
As soon as she entered, she saw that the front yard was already piled high with construction materials. Inside, the first-floor living room had been cleared out, and the insulation materials had been installed.
“This is moving fast.”
“Well, your Uncle Old Wu is really dependable.”
Lin Su’s father, who had spent the whole day at home overseeing the renovation, spoke happily.
“We spent a lot more money, and Uncle Old Wu brought in over twenty workers to help. Naturally, it goes faster this way.”
Lin Su nodded with a smile. After checking the renovation progress, she began organizing today’s collected supplies.
She had already prepared a separate spreadsheet for all the supplies that needed to be gathered, filled with dense inventory data.
She marked off the fresh meat section in red, indicating that this supply had been fully collected.
The entire supply list, aside from fresh meat, covered every aspect of clothing, food, shelter, and transportation.
For clothing, the focus was on garments suitable for everything from scorching summer to freezing winter. Aside from essential underwear, the summer collection included short-sleeved shirts, tank tops, sun-protection clothing and hats, shorts, and so on. For winter, thick down jackets, thermal underwear, sweaters, warm hats, gloves, earmuffs, and other essentials were included. Other clothing covered everyday wear for normal weather.
As for shoes, Lin Su planned to buy thick-soled shoes. For summer, she leaned toward wooden-soled sandals, considering that if the ground were exposed to extreme heat, ordinary plastic shoes could melt on contact, burning the feet. For winter, aside from regular winter shoes, she had arranged to airship specialized polar shoes from abroad.
Outdoor-specific items like quick-dry clothing, sun-protection jackets, and windbreakers were also essential.
For food, the list included rice, flour, grains and oils, corn, various beans, dried goods such as mushrooms and black fungus, dehydrated vegetables, dried fruits, fresh vegetables and fruits, seasoning packs, snacks, milk powder, lotus root powder, kudzu powder, vacuum-packed cooked meat, canned meat, canned corn, canned fish, and other provisions.
Of course, aside from the fresh meat purchased today, Lin Su also planned to order dozens of containers of frozen goods from an import company. These imported frozen products ranged from pig trotters, beef tripe, and chicken feet to all kinds of frozen meat and ribs. While these frozen items weren’t particularly nutritious, Lin Su had plenty of cash on hand and decided to buy them anyway.
For drinking water, she directly contacted a bottled water factory to deliver a large batch. She also ordered several large water storage tanks, planning to fill them in the warehouse upon arrival and then store them in her space.
Daily necessities included a huge quantity of toiletries, sanitary pads, diapers, towels, bedding, mosquito nets, disposable tableware, underwear, and garbage bags.
Naturally, various home appliances were also essential. Items like induction cookers, air conditioners, washing machines, and soy milk machines were included in the list, and these could be sourced from supermarket inventory.
For shelter and transportation, the list of needed supplies was even longer.
It included cookware, kitchen knives, screwdrivers and hammers, outdoor tents, sleeping bags, water bottles, climbing ropes, helmets, snowboards, high-altitude goggles, paper maps, compasses, binoculars, work gloves, alcohol stoves, solid alcohol fuel, water purification tablets, thermal blankets, fire blankets, gas masks, solar-powered hand-crank flashlight-radio combos, solar generators, solar panels, solar power banks, solar fans, solar lights, diesel and gasoline generators, life jackets, lifeboats, and various other survival items.
For flood preparedness, Lin Su additionally ordered a batch of plastic ox-tendon boats. These lightweight plastic boats were affordable, and combined with a fishing boat her family already owned, she felt the preparations were sufficient.
Aside from boats, Lin Su also prepared bicycles, tricycles, electric bikes, off-road vehicles, and cargo trucks of various tonnages. Since these vehicles were already in stock, they were delivered today to one of her private warehouses.
The off-road vehicles were in short supply, she could only get three for now, and Lin Su planned to have them reinforced tomorrow. Bicycles, tricycles, and electric bikes were plentiful, and she purchased a hundred of each.
To support these vehicles, Lin Su asked her father to leverage old contacts to secure more diesel and gasoline. Meanwhile, she contacted a battery factory to directly purchase 1,000 of the highest-capacity storage batteries, each roughly the size of a chair. The factory had shipped them yesterday after receiving the deposit.
At the end of the spreadsheet were building materials like cement and steel, which Lin Su’s father was responsible for procuring.
One category that was particularly difficult to collect was medicine.
Common household medicines, cold medicine, anti-inflammatory drugs, wound treatments, and vitamin supplements, were relatively easy to obtain. But medications for chronic illnesses and simple medical devices, such as surgical sutures or [1]AED is an Automated External Defibrillator jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1674268_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1674268_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });AED emergency equipment, required someone with connections to help.
As if on cue, while Lin Su was preparing to visit the neighboring He family the next day, someone from the He household unexpectedly showed up at her door.
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