It was Mo Fei’s first time buying a generator, so before coming to the market, she had deliberately researched them online, comparing brands, models, and prices.
Although she was still somewhat confused after reading all the guides, her memory had become astonishingly good. She had memorized all the specifications and data, so when she walked into the market, she felt especially confident, almost like an expert.
“Anyone here?”
Now, once it was past 10:00 a.m., the weather became as unbearably hot as if it were already 2:00 p.m.
Afraid of the heat, Mo Fei had arrived early. The shop in front of her had its doors open, and its merchandise was displayed outside, but the owner was nowhere to be seen.
After calling out twice and just as she was about to try another store, a small door inside the shop rattled a few times. It opened, and a middle-aged man in a sleeveless undershirt hurried out to greet her.
“I’m here, I’m here. What would you like to buy, ma’am?” the owner said weakly, sweat pouring off his entire body from the heat.
Even so, he still could not bear to turn on the shop’s air conditioner.
Mo Fei got straight to the point. “How much is this diesel generator?”
Instead of answering immediately, the owner asked, “Is it for personal use or are you buying it for a company? If it’s for personal use, I’d recommend a gasoline generator.”
Mo Fei shook her head. “It’s for personal use. I want this brand.”
Gasoline generators were smaller and more portable than diesel generators, but since Mo Fei had her space, portability was not a concern. She chose the bulkier diesel generator because it was more fuel-efficient and more practical.
“This one’s Yuchai’s silent air-cooled diesel generator. It consumes 1.1 liters of fuel per hour and supports dual voltage switching. It’s energy-efficient, fuel-saving, and low consumption. It also has a low fuel warning, plus overheating and short circuit protection. It’s our best-selling model. Since you’re my first customer today, I’ll let you have it for 5,888.”
The owner yawned.
Mo Fei replied flatly, “5,000. I’ll take two. Deal or not?”
The owner had clearly assumed that because she looked young, he could casually inflate the price. The exact same model was marked up by a full 1,000 compared to the online price.
The owner froze.
Drawing on years of experience haggling over groceries and clothes at markets, Mo Fei immediately turned around and walked away.
The owner hurriedly called after her. “Hey! Don’t leave! The shop next door is mine too! Buy them here! I’ll sell them to you!”
Mo Fei’s counteroffer had been perfectly reasonable. She had not pushed it down to the absolute minimum, and there was still several hundred yuan of profit above the wholesale price.
The owner reluctantly agreed with a pained expression, then threw in several generator tool kits and bottles of engine oil as complimentary gifts.
The owner also mentioned that he knew employees at a fuel depot and had a way to obtain bulk diesel. If Mo Fei needed any, she could buy it through him. As it happened, she really did.
After buying the diesel generators, Mo Fei also placed an order with him for a batch of diesel fuel. Then she purchased several sets of solar power generation systems.
Since she did not need anyone to install them just yet, Mo Fei told him not to deliver them for the time being and simply keep them in storage at the shop.
“This damn weather is going to roast me alive.”
As Mo Fei left, she heard the owner cursing at the entrance of his shop. Apparently, earning money had done nothing to relieve the stifling heat weighing on his mind.
Then why don’t you just turn on the air conditioner? What if you never get another chance to use it? Mo Fei thought to herself.
Compared to the owner, who was wearing nothing but a sleeveless undershirt to stay cool, Mo Fei was practically covered from head to toe.
She wore a sun protection jacket, arm sleeves, a hat, and sunglasses.
There was not the slightest breeze in the air. Although all those layers made her feel stiflingly hot, they protected her skin from the scorching sunlight.
She could not help but tilt her head up and look at the blazing sun hanging high in the sky.
The sun loomed overhead, its dazzling light so intense that anyone who looked directly at it could barely keep their eyes open.
It was only 10:00 a.m., yet the temperature had already reached 37 degrees Celsius.
By noon, it would probably climb past 40 degrees. Calling it a human furnace would not have been an exaggeration.
Mo Fei lowered her gaze back to the ground.
The concrete road before her was riddled with cracks. There were no visible insects crawling around, but unknown wild grasses were thriving vigorously through the fissures, showing no fear whatsoever of the extreme heat.
This level of heat would not be the limit. If Mo Fei’s guess was correct, the earth’s surface would eventually reach temperatures never seen before.
What fate awaited plants and animals that could not tolerate such heat?
Probably survival of the fittest, with nature deciding who adapted and who perished.
Originally, after renting the top floor apartment in Jinshi Garden, Mo Fei had planned to install insulation, put up sunshades, and turn the rooftop terrace into a little garden that felt like a hidden paradise. But judging from the current rate at which temperatures were rising, the rooftop received the greatest exposure to the sun. Living there would only become unbearably hot and stuffy, practically like living on a barbecue grill.
That had been a miscalculation. Fortunately, she was already preparing to move.
The only thing that pained her was the year’s rent she had paid in advance. She had not even lived there for half a month.
Of course, the biggest reason she wanted to move was to get away from her aunt’s family. That family was hopelessly unreasonable. If they fixated on her, she would be in for endless headaches. To avoid that, she considered the more than ten thousand yuan she had spent a sunk cost.
Just as Mo Fei was feeling distressed over the money, she suddenly received a WeChat message from the owner of her apartment in Jinshi Garden.
From the tone of the message, the owner was applying to transfer back to China through her company. Between the lines, she was strongly hinting that she wanted to break the lease and move back herself.
Mo Fei was secretly delighted. Breaking the lease was perfect. Wouldn’t that mean her rent could be refunded? Her fingers flew across the phone screen as she typed. First, she put on an act, hesitating and pretending she was unwilling. Then, after enough reluctance, she graciously agreed.
The owner was indeed delighted that Mo Fei had been so understanding. After deducting half a month’s rent, she immediately transferred the remaining money back to her.
Looking at the money that had just been transferred back to her WeChat account, Mo Fei narrowed her eyes with a smile.
She called the realtor, Luo Yonghe. “Do you remember the kind of house I wanted the first time we talked? That’s right, preferably one with a basement. Now I’d like to add another requirement. Preferably somewhere in the suburbs. If a suburban house is especially cheap, I’d even consider buying it.”
Besides stockpiling daily necessities, the most urgent priority now was finding a home more suitable than Jinshi Garden to serve as a refuge for her family after the natural disasters arrived. Everyone knew that suburban areas generally stayed cooler than the city. And after some renovations, a basement could provide much better insulation from the heat.
Luo Yonghe nodded repeatedly, wrote down Mo Fei’s requirements on a sheet of paper, and hung up.
After catching a glimpse of the notes, one of his coworkers stroked his chin and said, “Didn’t this client of yours just rent a place recently? Judging from these requirements, she wants to disappear from society.”
“If I had money, I’d want to disappear from society too,” another realtor wailed. “Enough talking, it’s time to meet my client.”
The real estate office had the air conditioner running, filling the room with cool air, but they could only rest there briefly before heading back outside to show clients around.
Going outside in this weather would reduce ghosts to ashes, and living people into smoked jerky.
As Luo Yonghe searched the property database for listings that matched Mo Fei’s requirements, a coworker flashed a mouthful of yellow teeth and patted him on the shoulder. “Actually, I know of a place that might fit your client’s requirements. But if you close the deal, you’ve got to buy me dinner.”
“Forget dinner, I’ll even split some of the commission with you,” Luo Yonghe said, nodding enthusiastically.
“Now that’s more like it. Oh right, don’t forget to get on the app and grab groceries! I specifically set ten alarms,” the coworker reminded everyone.
Ever since the purchase restriction policy had been introduced, all the major shopping platforms released a limited batch of rice, flour, cooking oil, vegetables, fruit, and eggs at every scheduled time slot. Whether you got any depended entirely on how fast your fingers were.
The weather was simply too hot. Sitting inside KFC, Mo Fei finally managed to cool down a little, with an iced Americano in her left hand and an ice cream cone in her right.
She scrolled through her iPad and saw that there were still many things she had not managed to buy.
Just as Mo Fei was worrying about it, Luo Yonghe called.
“You found the house I wanted already?” Mo Fei asked in surprise.
That was one of the reasons she always worked with this realtor. Setting everything else aside, his efficiency at finding properties was truly first-rate.
“Yes! The layout is excellent. It’s a detached villa with a basement, though it’s in a pretty remote location. But Miss Mo, there’s something I need to tell you first. Well… this used to be a haunted house. The owner originally wanted to sell it at a discount, but that murder case caused such a huge stir that it wouldn’t sell even at half price. The owner is moving to the Imperial Capital soon. Since nobody’s buying it, he’s decided to rent it out first. But don’t worry, there’s definitely a lot of room to negotiate on the rent.” Even Luo Yonghe sounded unconvinced.
Mo Fei, however, thought, What kind of treasure of a house is this? It checks every single one of my requirements.
A haunted house? What was there to be afraid of?
“Let’s go. We’re looking at it right now! Don’t ride that beat-up little electric scooter of yours. I’ll drive over and pick you up.” Carrying her iced Americano, Mo Fei rushed out the door.
“Uh… if you don’t like it, I’ll keep looking… Huh???” Luo Yonghe was completely dumbfounded.
An hour later, after picking up Luo Yonghe, Mo Fei parked her car halfway up a mountain in the suburbs.
People always said that cheap goods were never good, and good goods were never cheap.
The owner had bought this villa five years earlier for a total price of 2.1 million yuan in pursuit of a life of “poetry and distant horizons,” believing he had gotten an incredible bargain.
Who would have thought that just two years earlier, while vacationing here, the owner’s mother and wife had run into a group of vicious escaped convicts?
The place was a full hour’s drive from the city. It was truly the kind of place where no one would answer your cries to heaven or earth.
The fugitives decided that since they had already committed one crime, they might as well commit another. After murdering them and stealing their money, they fled. They remained on the run until they were finally captured by police near the border with a neighboring country.
It was said that when the police arrived at the villa, the first floor was covered in blood and scattered human remains. The scene had been too horrifying to look at.
From that day on, the owner, who had only escaped the tragedy because he had been working overtime at the office, never returned to the villa and handed everything over to the real estate agency.
Maintaining a house that had sat empty for years was expensive.
Every year, the owner had to pay a cleaning company to come every other week and clean the property.
Because the house was a haunted house and located so far from the city, the cleaning fees were twice the normal market rate.
The owner had long wanted to get rid of the villa. Whether by renting or selling it, he was willing to accept whatever price anyone was willing to pay.
After hearing Luo Yonghe explain everything, Mo Fei, who had originally intended only to rent the property, changed her mind. “I’ll buy this house. Can I finance it with a mortgage?”
The villa before her, surrounded by trees on all sides, still needed extensive renovations before it could become a true natural disaster shelter.
Only by owning the property herself could she avoid the owner changing his mind and wanting to terminate the lease in the future.
Counting the original owner’s 100,000 yuan in savings, the more than 1.3 million yuan from selling the apartment, and the 500,000 yuan her parents had given her, Mo Fei had paid the remaining balances on her orders, covered her online purchases, and financed her trip to Hei City. Even after all those expenses, she still had about 1.2 million yuan left.
“Of course!” Xiao Luo had never expected Mo Fei to suddenly change her mind. Overjoyed, he immediately called the owner.
The moment Huang Leshan heard that Mo Fei wanted to buy the house, he was afraid she might change her mind, so he immediately made a huge concession.
He said he was willing to sell the house for only 900,000 yuan, demonstrating complete sincerity.
Early the next morning, Mo Fei brought all the required documents and went with the villa’s owner, Huang Leshan, to the Real Estate Registration Center to complete the ownership transfer.
A down payment of 270,000 yuan was promptly transferred into Huang Leshan’s account.
Having finally rid himself of this enormous burden, Huang Leshan looked at Mo Fei as if she were a living bodhisattva and insisted on treating both her and Realtor Xiao Luo to a meal.
After they politely declined, Huang Leshan did not press the matter. He immediately boarded a flight to the Imperial Capital. Whoever wanted this lousy house could have it. He was finally free of it.
Looking at the mere 930,000 yuan left in her savings, Mo Fei let out a sigh. Money really did disappear fast.
Although 930,000 yuan sounded like a lot, renovating the villa alone would cost at least 500,000 yuan.
There were priorities. The remaining supplies she had yet to stockpile would have to wait for now.
And so, without telling anyone, Mo Fei quietly bought the house.
Then, in a tremendous hurry, she visited ten different banks to apply for credit cards. After securing a combined credit limit of more than 200,000 yuan, she immediately hired a construction crew and began the extensive renovations on the three-story villa with its basement.