“Aiya! This is good! This is good!” Li Shulan slapped her thigh, her eyes shining. “My daughter really is amazing! The cold storage at the wholesale market must definitely sell large quantities of ice! I’ll go place an order tomorrow!”
The family’s thinking had completely opened up. One after another, they began adding more ideas.
“And things for use on water!” Lin Wan hurriedly added. “Inflatable boats, life jackets—even larger plastic basins or wooden boards might come in handy!”
“Canvas! Thick raincoats and rain boots! We need several sets!” Lin Jianguo recalled the list his daughter had first mentioned.
“Water purification tablets! Flint fire starters! We should buy more of those too!” Lin Yang shouted along.
“Toilet paper! Soap! And women’s necessities—we need to stock up on those as well!” Li Shulan never forgot such things.
The list kept growing endlessly, every item tied to survival.
In front of this enormous survival checklist, their 1.3 million yuan suddenly seemed painfully insufficient.
The air fell silent again.
A suffocating sense of urgency—like having one’s throat gripped by money itself—pressed down on them until it was hard to breathe.
Suddenly, Lin Wan raised her head. In her eyes flickered a nearly crazy determination.
“Dad, Mom… there’s one more way to get money quickly.”
“What way?” The three of them looked at her at the same time.
“Online loans.”
The two words had barely left her mouth when Li Shulan’s face turned pale.
“Online loans? Th-that’s loan sharks, isn’t it? We can’t touch that, Wanwan! Those things drive people to death!”
“Mom!” Lin Wan grabbed her mother’s hand. She spoke rapidly, her voice low. “This is a special situation! The apocalypse is coming soon. We don’t even know whether we’ll live that long. Why should we be afraid of loan sharks? When the time comes and order collapses, who’s going to come looking for us to repay the money? Many of these platforms aren’t even legitimate. They suck the blood and sweat of ordinary people. What we’re doing is… an ‘apocalypse zero-cost shopping spree.’ If we don’t take it, it’s a waste!”
Lin Jianguo’s brows knotted tightly.
He had lived his whole life honestly and responsibly. He had never imagined touching something like this.
Yet his daughter’s words drilled clearly into his mind—
When the apocalypse came, who would still care about these things?
Staying alive was the greatest responsibility he could have toward his family.
“How… how much can we get?” he asked hoarsely. Each word felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.
Lin Wan quickly calculated in her head.
“If I use my identity and apply across different platforms, I can probably get two or three hundred thousand at most. Little Yang is still young, so student loans won’t give much—maybe a little over a hundred thousand. Dad, Mom, if you use your identities… a lot of platforms specifically target middle-aged and elderly people. They give higher limits and the process is simple. The four of us together… we might be able to gather… two or three million!”
“Two… three million?!” Li Shulan gasped sharply, nearly fainting.
It was a number beyond her imagination.
Even after selling their house, she had never imagined owing that much money.
“Exactly! With that money, we can stockpile more supplies! Buy more professional equipment! Our chances of surviving will be much higher!” Lin Wan’s eyes shone frighteningly bright. “And we won’t have to repay it anyway!”
The last four words were like the whisper of a devil, full of temptation.
Lin Jianguo suddenly closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling violently.
A few seconds later, he opened them again.
His eyes were bloodshot, filled with a ruthless resolve like someone burning his boats behind him.
“Do it!”
He looked at his wife and son.
“Shulan, Little Yang, listen to Wanwan! She understands this better than we do! Tonight! Right now! The four of us aren’t going anywhere. We stay here—and get the money!”
The man who had lived honestly and cautiously his whole life had finally been forced to the edge.
Over the next few hours, an extremely bizarre scene unfolded inside the empty new home.
The four of them sat on the floor. In the center was a rechargeable emergency lamp. Each of them held a phone, the glow from the screens illuminating their tense and determined faces.
Lin Wan took charge, quickly switching between various online loan apps.
“Mom, tap ‘Apply Now’! Yes! Take a photo of your ID! Shake your head, open your mouth… okay! Credit limit: 100,000! Withdraw all of it! Instant deposit!”
“Dad, this platform requires facial recognition. Tilt your head a little… done! 150,000!”
“Little Yang, your credit history is good. Try this bigger platform… 200,000! Great!”
“There’s another one! High interest doesn’t matter—we want the credit limit! Tap it!”
Their phones constantly chimed with deposit notifications.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
In the quiet night, the sound was especially clear.
But that sound was no longer one of joyful gain.
It sounded like the devil’s death knell, hammering against each person’s heart.
Li Shulan’s hands trembled continuously as she operated the phone. Several times she entered the password incorrectly.
She had never owed so much money in her entire life.
Her heart pounded wildly, and her back was drenched with cold sweat.
Every time she heard another deposit notification, her face turned paler.
To her, it didn’t sound like money arriving—it sounded like branding irons scorching her soul.
Lin Yang’s face was also pale, but he gritted his teeth and mechanically followed his sister’s instructions.
He understood the terror of online loans even more clearly than the others.
But at that moment, the desire to survive overwhelmed everything.
Lin Jianguo spoke the least.
He silently and quickly tapped on his screen, every movement carrying a sense of destructive determination.
He was gambling his credit and his future to fight for a sliver of hope for his family.
When the last platform’s credit limit had been withdrawn, Lin Wan looked at the astonishing total displayed in her mobile banking app.
Her voice was dry.
“Adding the money from selling the house… we now have more than 3.37 million.”
The air became deathly silent.
More than three million.
A massive debt they would never be able to repay in their entire lives.
Yet it felt like burning coals in their hands.
“Alright…” Lin Jianguo slowly stood up.
Under the emergency lamp, his tall figure cast a long shadow. He looked extremely tired, yet unusually resolute.
“We have the money now. Tomorrow…”
His gaze swept across his family’s pale faces.
“Shulan, go to the wholesale market. Buy without holding back! Especially ice, salt, canned food, grain, and cooking oil. If you see something useful, buy it! Have them deliver everything directly to the warehouse!”
“Little Yang, go early in the morning and rent a bigger van. Fill it with fuel, then go to the countryside with your sister!”
“As for me, I’ll go get gasoline and diesel, as well as heating supplies—coal, charcoal, solid alcohol fuel. However much I can get, I’ll get.”
“Wanwan, tonight the warehouse and the supplies at home will be your responsibility.”
“Everyone go to sleep! Set your alarms! Tomorrow… will only be more exhausting!”
That night, no one truly fell asleep.
Outside the window, the city’s neon lights still glittered brilliantly.
But they could no longer illuminate this household already shrouded in the shadow of the coming apocalypse.
They lay on the cold floor, with only thin bedding beneath them, listening to each other’s heavy and suppressed breathing, along with the occasional sound of cars passing outside.
Every second felt like a countdown.
In the darkness, Li Shulan quietly wiped away tears, her hand tightly held by Lin Jianguo’s rough palm.
Lin Yang tossed and turned, his mind filled with supplies and the numbers of online loans.
Lin Wan lay with her eyes open, staring at the vague shadows on the ceiling.
The pile of supplies stored inside her spatial dimension and the shocking number displayed on her phone had not brought her peace.
Instead, they made her realize even more clearly—
The apocalypse was truly coming.
They were racing against death itself.