“Have you heard?”
“How could I not? I’ve already placed my order and paid online. I’m just waiting until it’s cooler tonight to go pick it up.”
“This kind of deal really is a once-in-a-century opportunity!”
“Exactly! Prices have gone up so insanely these past two months. Our local boss is really decent, just straight-up running a promotion. Look at this long‑grain fragrant rice: yesterday it was 5.8 yuan per jin, and today it’s directly down to 3.8 yuan per jin. My god! I’m almost worried the boss will lose his pants.”
“Hmph, this is just a capitalist strategy. You people don’t know any better. They give you discounts here, but who knows about other places…”
“Yeah, maybe it’s because the weather’s too hot and supplies are hard to store, so they’re clearing inventory.”
“Heh, buddy upstairs, I think so too. I’ll wait a bit longer, maybe the price will drop even more…”
…
Lin Su looked at the endless scrolling comments in her family’s supermarket app and almost felt like applauding some people’s conspiracy theories.
Her family did run a chain of supermarkets, but did that really make them capitalists? These people were striking “rational and objective” poses online, pointing fingers and lecturing others. Clearing inventory, what a joke. And this talk about waiting for prices to drop further, how could that possibly happen?
Although she wanted ordinary people to be able to stock up on some supplies before the apocalypse broke out, she wasn’t a philanthropist. There was no way she was going to give things away for free.
That’s right, at noon today, all Lin Family Supermarkets launched a major promotion simultaneously, both online and in physical stores.
This promotion was, in fact, deliberately arranged by the Lin family to encourage ordinary people to stockpile supplies before the apocalypse arrived.
The promotional prices were set at almost zero profit, with the goal of benefiting as many people as possible. Of course, they couldn’t sell at a loss. If they truly did, once the apocalypse arrived, many clever people would start connecting the dots and suspect that the Lin family had received some advance information.
Take that a step further, and people would begin to suspect that the family had stockpiled massive amounts of supplies.
That was why the promotion Lin Su had organized was carried out under significant risk.
Fortunately, those snide, sarcastic comments were only a minority. Most people were shopping with excitement, surprise, or even gratitude.
These were exactly the people Lin Su wanted to help. She wasn’t a saint, but when she had the ability, she also didn’t want to turn a blind eye to ordinary people’s survival.
Just as many people online and in real life were expressing their thanks for the Lin Family Supermarket’s promotion, Cheng Jiajia was furious to the point of exploding.
She scrolled through the prices of various goods on the Lin Family Supermarket app, so furious she could barely catch her breath.
The items she had bought at the beginning of the month were now going for just a little more than half the price. This was almost unbearable for her. What was even harder to accept was that she had already treated the Lin Family Supermarket’s stock as her own. Now that her “own” things were being sold at discounted prices, how could she possibly tolerate it?
Lin Su, of course, had no idea what Cheng Jiajia was feeling, and even if she did, she would have laughed heartily at it.
After the promotion began, Lin Su, following her plan, started dispatching vehicles to deliver usable supplies to hospitals, public security bureaus, and fire stations in An City.
Across the country, many people who knew the Lin family called to ask Father Lin what was going on. Was it a nationwide promotion? Were they donating supplies to public institutions?
Father Lin consistently replied that the day before, his daughter had nearly had an accident at An City Airport. He had vowed to do good deeds if she remained safe, and now that she was unharmed, he was fulfilling that vow.
Businesspeople often understand such things, and many who heard this explanation accepted it. Those who didn’t believe immediately began looking for loopholes in the story.
Father Lin didn’t really care whether people believed him or not. After hanging up, he began sending supplies to some of his old friends. He didn’t send much; while they were surprised, they accepted it, knowing how doting he was toward his daughter.
That noon, Father Lin spent his time busy fielding calls of all kinds.
At the same time, the apocalyptic rumors that had erupted so widely the night before and vanished just as quickly had left a strong impression on many people.
During lunch that day, office workers scrolling through their phones saw the Lin Family Supermarket’s major promotion. People had already been talking about the fleeting apocalyptic rumors from last night. Now there was a big supermarket sale. Combined with the recent high prices and the idea of stocking up for the apocalypse, many office workers immediately placed orders and paid through the app, planning to pick up their purchases on the way home.
Anywhere there was a Lin Family Supermarket, people were doing the same. Even in cities without one, some savvy buyers spent extra money at other stores to grab supplies.
A high school–aged girl spent all of her pocket money for the month to buy two boxes of instant noodles from the convenience store downstairs.
Naturally, her parents scolded her: “Xiao Rong, instant noodles aren’t cheap now! The pocket money is yours, yes, but don’t just spend it recklessly!”
The girl, Xiao Rong, stayed quiet but stubbornly hid the noodles in her room, refusing to let her mother return them.
She knew her mother had recently lost her job and that their family income had been halved, making life tight. But the apocalyptic posts on the forum last night had seemed so real. Xiao Rong thought that spending this money on noodles, though a bit expensive, would be worth it, if the apocalypse came, these noodles would be lifesaving; if not, she could still eat them anyway.
At this moment, Xiao Rong had no idea that in just a few days, the value of these two boxes of noodles would skyrocket several times over.
For now, all she could do was listen to her mother’s scolding and help with household chores to ease the burden at home.
Across the country, many students were acting the same way as Xiao Rong.
Most of these students didn’t have much money, but they had heard, through classmates, friends, or social circles, that the apocalypse was approaching. Students are a lively, energetic, and action-oriented group. Some asked their parents to buy supplies to stock up, while others broke open their piggy banks to get the money for the supplies they wanted to hoard.
To some parents, these actions seemed like foolishness. But those parents who didn’t care much about the money let their children handle it themselves. Other parents, like Xiao Rong’s mother, forcefully took the supplies their children had gathered back home and returned them to the store for a refund.
In the end, when the apocalypse actually struck, the first group of parents would be grateful for their children’s foresight. The second group, however, would regret not letting their kids hoard supplies and would have no choice but to pay high prices to buy back some essentials.
But that was all for later.
On August 26, many people across the country began bringing supplies into their homes for various reasons.
Online, information about hoarding supplies once again became widespread and chaotic.
And the story didn’t end there.
Thanks to the Lin Family Supermarket’s major promotion generating huge sales, over the next two days, new merchants across the country were joining in the summer promotion. Each merchant had their own sales campaign, and the wave of discounted prices tempted countless people.
That Lin Su’s promotion could trigger a nationwide sales surge was something she hadn’t anticipated.
Her original intention for the promotion was simply to help ordinary people. Yet now it had sparked a larger promotional wave, which gave Lin Su considerable satisfaction.
Merchants joined in for various reasons, public pressure, clearing out inventory, recouping capital, or even just to do good deeds.
Whatever the reason, their participation directly led to a massive increase in household stockpiles nationwide. This initiative would have a far-reaching and positive impact on the survival rate of the population when the apocalypse arrived.
However, no matter how large the promotion, it couldn’t stop the soaring temperatures.
Since August 20, the heat had shot up almost unnaturally, rising rapidly day by day.
In An City, for example, temperatures had climbed from just over thirty degrees at the start of the month to an average of over forty-five degrees by August 29.
Keep in mind, An City is a central city with a lot of greenery. For temperatures to reach this level was extreme. In southern regions with lower latitudes, it was even worse. As Lin Su had seen in Yangcheng a few days earlier, the temperature had nearly hit fifty degrees in just a short span of time.
By this point, more and more people truly believed the apocalypse was coming.
Increasing numbers of people crowded into supermarkets, pharmacies, outdoor supply stores, grocery stores, and other shops where essential goods could be obtained. By then, many products in Lin Family Supermarkets nationwide were out of stock and could no longer be replenished.
Under these circumstances, government agencies didn’t step in to clarify the situation. Instead, they required all merchants nationwide to implement purchase limits. Each person was allowed to buy only a fixed amount of food and drinking water per day.
Early on the morning of August 29, after having breakfast at home, Lin Su put on a sun-protective shirt and hat, ready to head out. Wen Shiyun arrived on time to knock on the door, and when he saw Lin Su fully geared up, he laughed: “Let’s go quickly and come back quickly. There are very few people outside during the day, so it’ll be easier to move around.”
Lin Su nodded and hurried to the garage.
“Is this car safe?”
In the past half month, global temperatures had surged dramatically, approaching fifty degrees Celsius. Countries near the equator were even nearing sixty degrees, turning the entire equatorial region into what could be called a no-man’s land. Millions of people had been forced to migrate to other parts of the world.
Even many of Lin Su’s acquaintances had relocated to the Greater Northeast, where average temperatures were a few degrees lower.
Some had invited the Lin family to leave as well, but they refused.
Lin Su reasoned that the extreme heat was only the first step. If they fled to the Greater Northeast now to “escape the heat,” they might one day have to flee from there as well. After all, extreme heat and extreme cold often occur in tandem.
Even without leaving An City, the recent heat had already caused multiple incidents: cars spontaneously combusting while driving, planes experiencing mid-air explosions, and train tracks melting or deforming, causing accidents.
These events made many people too afraid to go outside. Railways, highways, and flights were all suspended, and even when these transport methods were used, they avoided traveling during the daytime heat.
Just past midnight the previous night, the fifty frozen fish freezers they had ordered long ago finally arrived at their home warehouse. Now, heading out during the day to collect them required caution.
“The car body, fuel tank, and tires are all specially made. They can withstand extreme heat and cold. As long as we’re not constantly baking under the sun, it’ll be perfectly safe,” Wen Shiyun explained.
As they spoke, the car smoothly exited onto the main road. There was literally no sign of any vehicles or people along the way. The heat waves pressed down like a tangible force, stacking layer upon layer across the landscape.
Lin Su could see with her naked eyes how everything seemed warped and distorted by the heat.
When they arrived and stepped out of the car, she felt as if she had been shoved into an oven. Sweat poured down from her temples, nose, neck, and every other exposed area.
Wen Shiyun looked the same, soaked as if he had just been pulled from water.
“I told you to wait in the car; that would have been fine,” he said, hearing Lin Su’s slightly annoyed mutter. His smile was completely hidden behind his mask.
The fifty freezers of frozen fish weren’t a huge quantity, but neither were they small. They were all unloaded into the large warehouse. The fish remained in the freezers, which were all powered to maintain temperatures around minus ten degrees Celsius.
“You bought all these freezers?”
Knowing Lin Su’s character, of course she had. Freezers could serve even more special purposes in certain situations.
One by one, the fifty freezers were unplugged and immediately stored in her space. The entire process took just over half an hour.
With these supplies, along with the other materials Wen Shiyun had been bringing in over the past few days, Lin Su’s space was now overflowing with resources, enough for both their families to live comfortably in the post-apocalypse world.
Once the unloading was complete, the two of them didn’t linger and drove back home.
However, as soon as the car reached their doorstep, Lin Su noticed several people waiting outside their house.