5 days before the extreme heat
The sky had not fully brightened yet. A gray, dim light barely squeezed through the curtainless window.
In the new house, no one needed an alarm clock.
Almost everyone had stayed awake the entire night. Their eyes were bloodshot, and exhaustion clung to them like a shadow that would not fade. Yet beneath that fatigue was an even stronger feeling—an excitement born from being pushed to the edge of desperation.
“Splash—”
Lin Jianguo used a new bucket taken from the Space Dimension to scoop some cold water and roughly splashed his face. The icy shock made him shiver, instantly clearing his mind.
“Hurry up, everyone! Shulan, go to the warehouse and collect the goods we bought yesterday. I’ll transfer another 300,000 to you—buy more rice, flour, grain, cooking oil, and fruit. Little Yang, here’s the money for renting a vehicle and the fuel card. Pick a truck with a higher chassis and go to the countryside with your sister to collect supplies!”
His voice was hoarse, but his tone carried unquestionable authority.
Li Shulan silently nodded, clutching her phone tightly as if it were a lifeline.
She said nothing. Instead, she quickly distributed several cold steamed buns they had bought the day before and twisted open a few bottles of mineral water.
“Just make do with this. There’s no time to heat anything. If it’s not enough, eat something outside later.”
The cold buns scratched painfully against their throats as they forced them down with cold water, the food sitting in their stomachs like stones.
But no one complained. The instinct to survive overwhelmed all physical discomfort.
“Dad, Mom, we’re leaving.”
Lin Wan stuffed the last bite of bun into her mouth and pulled along Lin Yang, who was still struggling to swallow.
“Sis, wait!”
Lin Yang rushed to the corner where miscellaneous items had once been piled up. He dug out two military shovels and a high-powered flashlight, stuffing them into his backpack.
“The roads in the countryside aren’t great. We might need these.”
Lin Jianguo looked at his son, a trace of approval flashing through his eyes before he solemnly reminded them, “Drive carefully! Be smart if something happens—safety first! Wanwan, make sure no one sees you when you store the supplies!”
“Got it, Dad!”
The siblings hurried downstairs.
There was not even a hint of coolness in the morning air. It felt heavy and suffocating.
Looking at the weather on the phone, the highest temperature today had already reached 42°C.
The residential community was quiet. Only a few elderly people out walking their dogs or doing morning exercises glanced curiously at the two young people rushing about.
The rental car shop had just opened. Lin Yang chose a small cargo truck that looked the toughest and had the largest space. While completing the paperwork, his hands trembled slightly from nervousness and lack of sleep, but he tried hard to appear experienced.
Meanwhile, Li Shulan had already boarded the earliest bus and headed straight for the wholesale market.
In her arms was a sheet of paper densely packed with handwritten notes. Her palm was slick with sweat as she gripped her phone.
She rehearsed her explanation again and again in her mind.
“Opening a small supermarket… right, a small supermarket… grand opening promotion… preparing more prizes…”
Lin Jianguo, on the other hand, rode the family’s old electric scooter straight toward the suburban gas stations and building materials market.
His objectives were clear: fuel and construction materials.
Gasoline, diesel, coal, even alcohol fuel blocks—and the steel plates, screws, and toolboxes he hadn’t bought enough of before.
He thought that no one knew what the future would hold. If they needed them later, they could continue reinforcing the house.
The wholesale market was already bustling with noise early in the morning.
Li Shulan plunged into it like a drop of water falling into a raging river, instantly swallowed by the crowd.
“Boss! Rice! Another two hundred bags! Yes! The vacuum-packed ones!”
“Flour! One hundred bags!”
“Cooking oil? Which one lasts longer in storage? Palm oil? Fine! Fifty barrels first!”
“Salt! How many packs are in this big bag? A hundred? How many big packages like this do you have? Give me five sacks! Yes, the woven sack kind!”
“Oh, I’m opening a supermarket in our residential community. The salt is for promotional events. Five sacks probably aren’t enough—give me another five.”
She practically had to shout for the shop owners to hear her. It was simply too noisy around her, and her voice was nearly cracking from yelling.
The surrounding merchants and buyers all turned to look at her.
“Big sister, you’re really opening a supermarket?” the grain shop owner asked, wiping sweat while directing workers to move the goods.
Li Shulan’s heart skipped a beat, but she forced a shrewd yet helpless business smile.
“Of course! Not just a supermarket. I’m also partnering with someone to supply food for several construction site cafeterias. The demand is huge! Boss, you’ve got to give me a cheaper price—we’ll be working together long term!”
“One hundred bags of rice won’t even last a few days.”
While dealing with the questions, she rapidly calculated prices and quantities. Her brain had never worked this fast before.
She bargained fiercely, rounding down prices and negotiating over every detail. To save just a few dozen yuan, she could argue with a shop owner for five minutes.
Every single yuan was capital for survival.
“Toilet paper! Laundry detergent! Soap! Toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo!”
She rushed to the daily necessities section.
“And sanitary pads too! Day use and night use! The big packs! Twenty boxes of each!”
She lowered her voice slightly, her face burning red with embarrassment.
She couldn’t buy too much from one store—she feared people would notice something unusual.
What worried her the most were ice blocks.
In a few days, the extreme heat would arrive. Water and electricity would be cut off. Ice would be incredibly useful then.
She found a cold storage wholesaler.
“Ice blocks? How many do you want?”
“How many do you have in your cold storage right now? I’ll take them all!” Li Shulan said firmly.
“All of them?!” The boss was startled. “Big sister, that’s over a hundred blocks! Thirty-two yuan each! And they melt quickly…”
“It’s fine. I have cold storage! Deliver them this afternoon. Money isn’t a problem!” Li Shulan displayed unprecedented boldness. “Send them to the warehouse at this address!”
Watching workers begin hauling out huge, crystal-clear ice blocks one after another and loading them onto trucks, Li Shulan finally let out a small sigh of relief.
She could almost feel the scorching air of the coming extreme heat already—and these blocks of ice would be life-saving rain.
The truck bounced along the bumpy dirt roads of the countryside.
Lin Wan studied the map on her phone and gave directions.
“Turn left at the intersection ahead. I heard there are some large farming households over there.”
Lin Yang gripped the steering wheel tightly, his palms sweaty as he carefully avoided large potholes.
“Sis, don’t we look like wholesalers coming into the village to sweep up goods?”
“Stop joking. We’re legitimately buying things,” Lin Wan said, suppressing her nervousness and trying to sound relaxed.
The first place they found belonged to a large potato farmer. Seeing the mountain of potatoes piled in the yard made Lin Wan’s eyes light up.
“Uncle, how much are your potatoes?”
The old farmer looked at the two young people driving a battered truck and named a price.
“Three mao per jin.”
Lin Wan immediately bargained.
“Uncle, we’ll take them all. Give us a real price.”
“All of them?” The farmer froze, squatting down to knock on a potato. “I’ve got tens of thousands of jin here. Can you even take that much?”
“We can! Cash payment! Our family supplies food to several construction sites. We’ll take as much as you have,” Lin Yang said, patting his chest and trying to sound confident.
In the end, they closed the deal at a very low price—0.19 yuan per jin.
As the farmer’s whole family busily loaded potatoes into the truck, Lin Wan seized the chance to ask:
“Uncle, who else in the village grows sweet potatoes, corn, wheat, or rice? Or sells eggs, live chickens, ducks, pigs, cattle, or sheep? We’ll buy them all! But for the live poultry and livestock, they need to be slaughtered before we take them.”
The news spread quickly.
The entire village became excited.
Two big bosses from the city had arrived (though they didn’t really look like it), driving a shabby truck, buying everything they saw—and not bargaining much compared to the wholesale market.
Lin Wan and Lin Yang were soon surrounded by enthusiastic villagers.
“Miss, my family has sweet potatoes! Very sweet and floury!”
“We’ve saved several hundred eggs!”
“Our backyard free-range chickens are fat! Want them? I’ll slaughter them for you right now!”
“We press our own peanut oil—it’s very fragrant!”
“We’ve got some dried mushrooms and cured pork too!”
When Lin Wan heard about cured pork, she immediately said she would take however much they had.
After that, she accepted almost everything.
As long as it looked fresh, could be stored, and had a reasonable price—she bought it all.
Sweet potatoes, pumpkins, winter melons, baskets of eggs, even two freshly slaughtered cattle, more than a dozen sheep, dozens of chickens and ducks already prepared, and several large barrels of homemade oil…
The truck filled up at a visible speed.
Originally, Lin Wan had planned to buy live livestock and store them in the Dormancy Area, but since they still needed to keep buying supplies, they had some slaughtered first and planned to collect live ones later.
“Uncles and aunties, does anyone have vegetable seeds? We want all kinds!” Lin Wan didn’t forget the most important thing.
She simply said their father loved experimenting with planting vegetables and wanted to try everything.
Soon, she exchanged for many small bundles of seeds wrapped in old newspapers—Chinese cabbage, radish, scallions, chives… even a few unlabelled ones that farmers proudly claimed were good varieties.
Lin Yang handled the lifting and payments. Money flowed out like water, exchanged for a truckload of heavy hope for survival.
His arms were so tired he could barely lift them, but he was full of energy.
Finally, guided by a villager, they even found a mountain spring. The water was clear and sweet.
Since they had come in a hurry, they hadn’t brought containers for water.
Without hesitation, Lin Wan bought more than a dozen large plastic barrels from several households and filled them all with spring water.
No matter how much they loaded, it never felt like too much.
The truck was packed tightly, the chassis visibly lowered from the weight.
Only then did Lin Wan and Lin Yang pretend to begin their return trip.
After driving dozens of kilometers away, Lin Wan stored everything into the Space Dimension. Then they repeated the process and went to two more villages, buying more supplies.
By the time the sky slowly darkened, Lin Wan checked her phone.
It was already past 5 p.m.
Only then did she tell Lin Yang to drive them home.