Jiang Li and Gu Jin drove out of the underground garage one after the other, planning to check out a large shopping mall a little farther away. The drive would take about an hour. The nearby places had probably already been looted clean by now.
Jiang Li drove her own private car from before. Gu Jin had seen her car previously, and since she had not gone out at all during this period, suddenly switching to another vehicle might attract attention. Fortunately, the trunk space of the sedan she had bought earlier was fairly large. Gu Jin, meanwhile, drove a black SUV that Jiang Li had never seen before. It was probably modified.
Along the way, there were occasionally several corpses lying by the roadside. Because of the extreme heat, some had already rotted, with maggots wriggling across them, making the sight truly disgusting.
There were also abandoned cars parked in the middle of the road from time to time, along with all kinds of random obstacles blocking the way, forcing them to take detours. What should have been a one-hour trip ended up taking an hour and a half. After parking the cars, the two entered the mall through a side entrance.
Jiang Li had been to this mall before. It had a total of five floors above ground and two underground levels. The very bottom level was the parking garage, while Basement Level 1 contained a food street and a fairly large supermarket. The first floor sold cosmetics and jewelry, the second floor sold clothing, shoes, and bags, and the third floor was filled with children’s items such as clothes, shoes, and toys. The fourth floor housed all kinds of large restaurants, while the fifth floor was a movie theater. Of course, every floor had food shops to some extent, though not nearly as many as the fourth floor and Basement Level 1.
After Jiang Li explained the layout of the mall to Gu Jin, the two agreed to check Basement Level 1 first before gradually working their way upward.
There were many food stores downstairs. Perhaps because of the heat, some food had already spoiled, leaving an unpleasant smell in the air. The two decided to split up and search separately for anything still usable.
The mall had backup power generators, and after the blackout, it had likely switched over automatically. Some of the food inside refrigerators was still good, probably because the power had not been out for too long, while most food left outside had already spoiled and rotted.
Inside a milk tea shop, Jiang Li discovered a lot of unopened canned ingredients and supplies for making milk tea. After checking the expiration dates and confirming they were still good, she stored them all into her space, leaving only one or two in her backpack. Now she could make milk tea for herself in the future.
Later, inside the storage room of a sushi restaurant, she found an unopened bag of rice hidden behind other items. If Jiang Li had not been so sharp-eyed, she probably would not have noticed it at all. There were also seasonings there. It was possible that previous looters had overlooked them, or perhaps someone had intentionally hidden them there.
She gradually found some other useful things in other stores as well, though not much. Most likely, the majority had already been taken by others.
When she arrived at the supermarket, many of the goods inside were already gone, and the floor was a complete mess. Jiang Li was not in a hurry. She wanted to see whether the supermarket warehouse had already been discovered.
After wandering around for several laps, she finally found a passage hidden behind a door. With no electricity, the corridor was somewhat dark, though the small windows along the side still provided enough light to see the way. Judging from the passage, it seemed to be frequently used, and several cargo carts were parked nearby. Walking farther down the corridor, she soon saw a large door secured with a heavy lock. This should be the supermarket warehouse.
Jiang Li felt a little excited. Looking at the locked door, she immediately knew that the warehouse had not yet been discovered. After opening the lock, she found that it really was a warehouse. It was around two hundred square meters in size, with goods packed in cardboard boxes. She had no idea what exactly was inside them. Jiang Li directly stored everything in the warehouse into her space, including the shelves themselves. By the time she finished collecting everything, quite a lot of time had passed.
Returning to the supermarket floor outside, she took some leftover daily necessities from the shelves and stuffed them into her backpack. She did not bother looking at the rest anymore, leaving them for others instead. After collecting an entire warehouse worth of supplies, Jiang Li was in quite a good mood.
Back on the first floor, she did not see Gu Jin. He had probably gone elsewhere. Jiang Li was not in a hurry to go to the second floor. The first floor contained many luxury skincare brands. In the apocalypse, most people no longer cared about skincare products. When going out to search for supplies, everyone focused mainly on food. Who would bother carrying skincare products around? Because of that, most of the skincare products were still untouched. But Jiang Li had a space, so she naturally was not worried about carrying too much.
Later, she also found a store selling electronics and stored all the phones, tablets, computers, and similar items into her space.
Just like that, she walked forward while collecting things as she went, putting bulky items directly into her space while placing ordinary necessities into her backpack or shopping bags. Along the way there were also several gold shops and jewelry stores, all of which Jiang Li stored into her space as well.
As the saying goes: in prosperous times, antiques are valuable; in chaotic times, gold is king. Even in the apocalypse, gold was still highly sought after.