“Boss, this generator burns through fuel pretty fast. Do you happen to have… any way of getting fuel?”
Zhou Jiayue asked casually, though she had already made plans in her heart.
One of the reasons she had come to Fu City so early was to purchase fuel.
Gasoline, diesel, and other types of fuel were subject to purchase limits unless one had access to special channels. Ordinary people had their own methods, however. She could siphon the fuel out of her car and store it, then keep changing gas stations and refueling repeatedly.
Xing County was too small, with only one gas station, making it inconvenient to repeat the process. Fu City, however, gave her far more room to operate.
It was just that this method would be rather troublesome. There was, of course, another way that would save both time and effort, although it came with greater risks and expenses. She could hire someone to purchase the fuel for her.
The owner of the electrical appliance shop hesitated for a moment. After looking around and making sure no one was nearby, he leaned closer to Zhou Jiayue and whispered, “Little girl, if you need a large amount, I actually know someone who can get it…”
Zhou Jiayue’s eyes lit up. What an unexpected surprise!
The electrical appliance shop owner introduced her to an underground workshop that processed fuel. The fuel from such underground workshops was all unregistered fuel from unknown sources, and the workshop itself was certainly not a legitimate processing plant.
If this had happened in the past, she would have reported it immediately, but not now. She still needed this underground workshop to keep herself alive!
“Boss, may good fortune follow you for the rest of your life!”
After leaving her phone number and delivery address with the owner, Zhou Jiayue hurried straight to the workshop.
The workshop was located in the countryside, seventy kilometers from the city center. Zhou Jiayue had obtained her driver’s license during her second year of university. Originally, she had planned to save some money during university and buy herself a small car after graduation.
Now, Zhou Jiayue no longer cares about such things. She rented a car from a rental company and drove herself toward the workshop the electrical appliance shop owner had told her about.
She deliberately avoided the hottest part of the day. By the time Zhou Jiayue returned to the residential community from the workshop, it was already seven in the evening.
The workers installing the doors and windows were still working.
Judging from the situation, they had also avoided working during the hottest part of the day and only resumed after six in the evening.
Fortunately, the buildings in the residential community were spaced far apart. At present, Zhou Jiayue was also the only person living on this floor, and the apartment had fairly good soundproofing. Otherwise, she had no idea how many complaints she would have received by now.
Zhou Jiayue glanced at the progress of the door and window installation. After ordering some late night food for the workers, she returned to the hotel.
Lying on the hotel bed, Zhou Jiayue calculated how much money she had left and what else she still needed to purchase.
As for clothing, each member of the family had two hundred sets for spring, summer, autumn, and winter. She had also bought two hundred pairs of shoes in each person’s size. Socks came in standard sizes, so she had bought five hundred pairs for men and five hundred pairs for women. The packages were still on the way and would arrive tomorrow.
As for food, based on what they had already stockpiled, the family would have no worries about food or drink for at least ten years. The corresponding tableware and kitchen utensils were also more than sufficient for now.
She had three apartments in total, one for living and two for storage. If she could also get the other apartment on this floor, she would have the entire twenty seventh floor to herself. Once the electricity was cut off, she could seal off the stairwell, greatly improving the safety of her family. As for that, she could think about it later.
As for going outside, during the torrential rains, their only means of transportation would be boats. For her family, several inflatable boats and motorized inflatable boats were more than enough. As for the extreme cold that would come after the torrential rains, well, in weather cold enough to freeze people to death, with no shortage of food, why would anyone need to go outside?
As for the other things, Zhou Jiayue chatted with Li Feifei for a while using her secondary WeChat account.
After agreeing on the delivery time and address, she transferred a deposit of one hundred thousand yuan from her bank card.
Li Feifei was puzzled about why someone who supposedly ran a clinic would need to purchase so much merchandise at once, but she firmly believed that refusing to make money when money was available was foolish, so she automatically ignored that suspicious point.
After calculating everything she already had, Zhou Jiayue discovered that when everything was finished and the final payments were due, the little money left in her hands would not be enough. She would have to redeem some of her points.
Zhou Jiayue scratched her hair, feeling somewhat irritated. Then she thought about it again. The torrential rains would arrive soon. Once the floods rose, who would still have the time or energy to worry about collecting debts?
When that time truly came, money would become nothing more than a meaningless string of numbers lying on a bank card, completely useless.
She rubbed her chin and suddenly thought of another good idea.
Early the next morning, the things Zhou Jiayue had bought from the electrical appliance shop and outdoor goods store arrived.
Since the three apartments were still having their doors and windows installed, Zhou Jiayue temporarily piled the goods inside the garage that the landlord couple had lent her before leaving.
Zhou Jiayue stayed in Fu City alone for three days. The things she had ordered arrived one after another, and the doors and windows of two of the three apartments had already been installed. Their strength was comparable to that of a bank vault.
During this period, Zhou Jiayue also visited various shopping malls and supermarkets and purchased another batch of supplies. Who would ever complain about having too many supplies?
Of course, the money came from various lending platforms.
Most of these platforms appeared to be legitimate on the surface, but were actually illegal websites that operated as high interest lenders.
That was why Zhou Jiayue felt absolutely no psychological burden about borrowing money from them.
Yes, she had to thank Ms. Wang Yumei for providing such a wonderful idea.
Zhou Jiayue concentrated most of her supplies inside the unfinished apartment where the doors and windows had already been installed. Only a small portion of the food and daily necessities were left inside 2701, where she would live.
The ten large commercial refrigerators proved extremely useful, and Zhou Jiayue’s Interstitial Space was almost completely emptied.
During this period, apart from the unpaid installation fees for the doors and windows, Zhou Jiayue gradually spent a total of 1.3 million yuan.
Now that basic food and clothing needs had been secured and she still had some money left, Zhou Jiayue wanted to improve her quality of life as much as possible.
So she went back to the same electrical appliance shop.
The moment Zhou Jiayue appeared, the owner recognized her. After all, she had been a major customer not long ago.
The electrical appliance shop owner asked with a cheerful smile, “Little girl, what would you like to buy this time?”
“A dishwasher, hair dryer, water purifier, electric blanket, multifunctional massage chair, washer and dryer combination…”
Zhou Jiayue did not buy too many of these things that could improve her quality of life. Except for the electric blankets, she only bought one or two of each item. Even after the owner gave her a ten percent discount, she still spent nearly thirty thousand yuan.
After that, Zhou Jiayue went to a shopping mall and ordered a huge amount of high calorie but delicious food, including hot pot, milk tea, fried chicken, hamburgers, cakes, spicy hot pot dishes, and all sorts of other treats.
After all, the Interstitial Space had a preservation function.
Knowing that the internet would be disconnected after the apocalypse, Zhou Jiayue also bought twenty notebook computers. She downloaded movies, television series, anime, offline games, novels, comics, and all kinds of other entertainment onto her computer for leisure and recreation.
While waiting for the goods to arrive, Zhou Jiayue also visited Fu City Library.
Fu City Library was famous throughout the country and had basically completed its digitalization. Zhou Jiayue therefore discovered that the system could also scan and read books through electronic browsing.
So after filling two 8 TB portable hard drives to capacity, Zhou Jiayue successfully downloaded the electronic versions of three million books from Fu City Library.
She could read them slowly later!
Inspired by this discovery, Zhou Jiayue immediately registered an account with the World Digital Library and downloaded every book and piece of material available for download.
Watching the progress bars rapidly move across the computer screens, Zhou Jiayue’s eyes shone brightly.
A fortune was right before her eyes!
With twenty computers running simultaneously, the materials were soon downloaded. Zhou Jiayue happily put away more than five hundred hard drives.
This was the continuation of human civilization, and it was also the ladder that would lead her to unimaginable wealth!
With billions upon billions of points within easy reach, Zhou Jiayue was in an excellent mood.
Just as she drove along while humming a tune, planning to visit the small workshop and purchase her final batch of fuel, the scorching temperature outside the car began dropping rapidly.
The blazing sun was surrounded by surging clouds. Zhou Jiayue stared at the thick clouds gathering along the horizon, and her heart immediately tightened.
She pulled the car over to the side of the road and glanced down at her phone.
November 7.
The people moving about on the streets of various cities were the first to feel the change in temperature.
They shivered as the sudden drop in temperature pierced through them, and then came the delighted realization that the unbearable heat was finally fading.
“Damn it, the temperature finally dropped! If it had stayed hot any longer, I probably would have died from the heat this winter!”
“Does the temperature dropping mean we are going back to school? Ahhh, staying at home is pretty boring too, but compared with going to school, I would still rather lie around at home doing nothing…”
The internet erupted into a brief celebration over the drop in temperature, but Zhou Jiayue could not share their excitement.
She stared at the clouds gathering along the horizon, her expression solemn.
The torrential storm was about to arrive.