The next morning, at exactly ten o’clock.
Tan Zhizhi lazily stretched and sat up from beneath her thick floral quilt.
She had returned home too late last night and accidentally slept until broad daylight.
Outside the window, the hailstorms had already stopped. The old cypress trees in the residential complex stood bare and stripped of their branches and leaves, all of which had been knocked to the ground. Several crooked trees that were not particularly sturdy had even been snapped in half.
A group of unruly children climbed onto the broken trees and jumped around happily, driving the adults below them to distraction.
No one took the hailstorms too seriously.
Everyone merely felt that the weather had become somewhat unusual. Despite the hailstorms having just passed, the temperature had risen rather than fallen.
It was only ten in the morning, yet the outdoor temperature had already reached forty degrees Celsius.
Tan Zhizhi frowned as she slowly fanned herself with a large old-fashioned palm-leaf fan and made her way toward the soup dumpling shop outside the residential complex.
The shop was well known throughout the area and served particularly delicious soup dumplings.
Quite a few customers had already come to eat there early in the morning.
A large floor fan whirred loudly as it blew.
The customers, drenched in sweat from eating their hot food, chatted casually among themselves.
“There was such a huge hailstorm last night, but this morning it’s already as hot as a steamer. This weather is far too strange!”
“Who knows? The climate has become more and more abnormal in recent years. I heard that Shenniu Country, near the equator, has already had twenty snowfalls this year. It snows for at least half of every month. Several of my childhood friends went there to sell down jackets and made a fortune. Two years ago, a business like that would have bankrupted them!”
“Sigh! Last night’s hailstorm affected such a wide area. All the grapes that had just ripened in Lian City were knocked off the vines, and the ten-thousand-mu vegetable base over in Shiling was also ruined by the hail. These damn natural disasters have really devastated the farmers.”
“Exactly! My aunt called me this morning and said that several dozen mu of rice fields they leased had all been stripped of their grain. The rice was just about to ripen, and then this happened. It’s heartbreaking!”
Tan Zhizhi felt a faint ache in her heart as she listened.
Farmers truly had it hard.
She decided that she should buy vegetables, fruit, grain, fish, meat, daily necessities, and similar goods from neighboring countries instead. There was no need to keep stripping domestic supplies. The neighboring countries were close to the sea and were major agricultural nations, so she could stock up there instead.
As for prepared food, domestic options were still the best.
After all, their country was famous for its cuisine. Many delicious dishes and snacks could not be bought in other countries.
…
After finishing her soup dumplings, Tan Zhizhi casually packed another one hundred servings to go.
Once she left the shop, she returned to her car and briefly changed her appearance.
Then, at a bun shop not far away, she used the excuse of organizing a company food banquet to buy fifty baskets of mushroom and meat xiaolongbao and twenty baskets of shredded chicken xiaolongbao. She also bought one hundred rice cakes, eighty triangle rice cakes, two hundred brown sugar steamed buns, and one hundred corn steamed buns.
She purchased three hundred red bean paste buns, along with two hundred each of mushroom buns, sugar buns, beef buns, chicken buns, preserved mustard greens buns, zucchini buns, vegetable buns, and fresh meat buns. She also bought two hundred cups of freshly ground soy milk and five hundred fried dough sticks.
At a porridge shop, she bought one thousand servings each of lotus seed porridge, mung bean porridge, red bean porridge, coix seed porridge, century egg and lean pork porridge, chicken porridge, black rice porridge, sweet potato porridge, purple sweet potato porridge, and more.
At a fried chicken chain restaurant, she bought five hundred buckets each of the Brilliant Drumstick Bucket and the Dazzling Chicken Wing Bucket, with twenty pieces in every bucket. She also bought four hundred whole fried chickens, three hundred beef burgers, two hundred chicken burgers, three hundred servings of fried chicken strips, and eight hundred servings of French fries.
When she passed a Sichuan restaurant, she used the same excuse to purchase two hundred servings each of steamed pork with rice flour, cold-eaten beef, spicy fish slices, tofu fish, mapo tofu, fish-fragrant eggplant, spicy chicken, kung pao chicken, pork slices with garlic sauce, mala duck, braised pork ribs, saliva chicken, and boiled pork slices.
For soups, she bought two hundred servings each of Mother’s Pig Trotter Soup, sour radish and old duck soup, tender pork soup, Sichuan-style lamb soup, pickled mustard greens and enoki mushroom beef soup, and cured pork trotter and mushroom soup.
At a Cantonese restaurant, she bought two hundred servings each of Hong Kong-style honey-glazed char siu, soy sauce chicken, Cantonese crispy pork belly, sweet and sour pork, Cantonese ginger and scallion chicken, black bean sauce steamed chicken feet, Three Cup Chicken, white-cut chicken, steamed chicken with cordyceps flowers, Cantonese shrimp vermicelli casserole, and blanched choy sum.
At a Hunan restaurant, she bought two hundred servings each of Xiangxi bandit duck, Hunan-style tiger skin chicken feet, perilla bullfrog, toothpick beef, Hunan-style giant freshwater prawns, chopped chili fish head, meat and egg rolls, and spicy crayfish.
She also bought various dishes from Shandong, Jiangsu, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Anhui restaurants.
At a guokui shop, she bought one hundred servings each of brown sugar guokui and fresh meat guokui.
At a cake shop, she bought six hundred servings of tiramisu cake, ten kilograms of snow maiden mochi, fifteen kilograms of jujube cake, twenty-five kilograms of Margaret bear cookies, fifteen kilograms of cream puffs, and three hundred servings of mango pudding.
At a braised food shop, she bought one hundred kilograms each of braised pig ears, braised beef tripe, braised chicken hearts, braised duck feet, braised chicken wings, braised pig trotters, and braised lotus root slices.
After buying all of that, Tan Zhizhi headed into the nearest vegetable market and bought ten kilograms of wonton wrappers, fifteen kilograms of dumpling wrappers, and five kilograms of thin wonton wrappers.
There was no particular reason for it. She simply did not want to go through the trouble of rolling dough herself when she wanted to eat these things during the apocalypse.
“It’s so hot! If this weather keeps getting hotter, we’ll all be roasted into mummies! Hey, miss, don’t go! How about buying two sets of ultra-thin silk underwear? My silk underwear is incredibly cool and comfortable. Everyone who buys it says it’s wonderful!”
“Not only is the quality excellent, but even their husbands start coming home more often than before.”
As Tan Zhizhi reached the exit of the vegetable market, an elderly woman who was preparing to pack up her stall blocked her path.
Tan Zhizhi glanced at the pink underwear in the woman’s hand, which was so transparent that it left almost nothing to the imagination. Then she looked at the black, dark green, and bright red thongs spread across the stall.
She was completely speechless.
“Miss, don’t tell me you think Auntie is trying to fool you. Don’t be fooled by the fact that I run a street stall. What I sell is genuine high-end merchandise. All the underwear here is imported from our neighboring country, Rose Country.”
“Pure silk. The underwear is only five yuan a pair, and the bras are eight yuan each. If you buy a lot, I’ll knock another fifty cents off.”
The elderly woman rattled off her sales pitch, looking determined to win Tan Zhizhi over.
Tan Zhizhi could only rub her aching temples and casually make up an excuse. “Auntie, I already have several pairs of that style. I can’t even finish wearing them, so I’m not buying any for now.”
The truth was that she simply did not believe imported silk underwear could possibly cost only five or eight yuan.
However, the woman’s words gave her quite a few ideas.
Silk clothing was absorbent, cool, and durable, making it extremely suitable for periods of extreme heat.
Once she arrived in Rose Country, she would definitely need to purchase plenty. Rose Country’s sericulture industry had developed considerably in recent years, so she should be able to find satisfactory goods there.
“Alright then. Once you’ve worn yours out, remember to come back to Auntie’s stall. I have all kinds of styles, and I bring in new stock every week.”
The elderly woman was straightforward. Seeing that Tan Zhizhi had no intention of buying anything, she did not force her, though she still gave her habitual sales pitch.
Tan Zhizhi: “…”
After leaving the vegetable market, Tan Zhizhi drove straight to the antiques market.
She planned to sell the valuable items she had taken from the Tan family’s old residence as soon as possible.
That way, she could have more money for her overseas shopping spree!
In the end, the golden Buddha statues, gold bars, paintings and calligraphy, jade porcelain vases, jewelry, and other valuables sold for a total of 150 million.
After finishing everything, Tan Zhizhi immediately booked a flight to Rose Country.
…
Rose Country.
The moment she stepped off the plane, a wave of scorching heat rushed toward her.