There was almost nothing left to buy here, so Gu Wan turned toward the non-staple food counter.
The first thing she bought was powdered milk. Once the baby was born, milk powder would be indispensable. The milk powder sold here was not cheap, so there was no purchase limit.
Gu Wan had heard from her former coworkers that babies went through milk powder very quickly, needing a whole bag every few days. She couldn’t let her own child go without milk powder, so she bought up every brand of milk powder available at the counter.
She had the sales clerk help her carry everything to the empty lot behind the department store. She would go find a vehicle to haul it back. Once she made sure no one was around, Gu Wan quietly stored everything in her space.
Then she went back to continue shopping.
Life was hard, so she might as well add a little sweetness. At least her mouth could taste something sweet.
Since she had sugar coupons anyway, Gu Wan bought fifty pounds of brown sugar, fifty pounds of white sugar, five pounds of every kind of candy, five pounds of every type of preserved fruit, five pounds of every variety of pastry, and ten gift boxes of Jingbaijian pastries.
Of course, she could put together the contents of the gift boxes herself, but finding such beautiful boxes wasn’t easy. She might as well keep some in her space so she wouldn’t be left scrambling when she needed them.
She didn’t know whether Li Xiaoyu had a habit of smoking or drinking. The book had never mentioned it, but that didn’t stop her from buying some famous brands of cigarettes and liquor. They were both useful hard currencies when she needed to ask someone for a favor. Besides, Maotai and Huazi cigarettes were very cheap in this era, so buying them could also be considered an investment.
She bought several cases of ordinary bottled baijiu, five barrels of loose baijiu weighing five pounds each, and five cartons of ordinary cigarettes.
Oh, and tea.
Whenever she used to stay up late working, Gu Wan loved drinking tea.
The varieties of tea available in this era were not much different from those in later generations, and tea was also a very respectable gift.
So whether it was pre-Qingming Longjing, Lu’an Guapian, jasmine tea, Huangshan Maofeng, Baihao Yinzhen, or Yunnan Pu’er, Gu Wan bought them all.
Holding a packet of preserved fruit and eating as she walked, Gu Wan browsed through the entire department store. In the end, she bought several Haiyan-brand transistor radios.
In a world without cell phones, computers, or the internet, if she couldn’t even listen to a radio, she really didn’t know what she would do.
Although televisions already existed, the screens were barely larger than a tablet, were black and white, and there weren’t many channels. They really weren’t very practical.
And in that place, even more remote than Muzhou and so obscure that it couldn’t even be found on a map, she didn’t even know whether there would be electricity. A luxury item like a television would probably end up being nothing more than a decoration, so she decided to forget about it.
After buying almost everything she needed at the department store, Gu Wan went to a grain station. Grain stations were places specifically for selling all kinds of staple grains.
There was a long row of glass counters, each filled with different grains: rice, millet, corn, sorghum, white flour, black flour, cornmeal, sorghum flour, mung beans, soybeans, rice beans, adzuki beans, and so on. The selection was quite comprehensive.
Residents generally had grain ration books and could collect a fixed amount of grain each month. If that wasn’t enough, they could use grain coupons and pay extra to purchase more.
Gu Wan had a large number of local grain coupons. These local coupons could only be used within the city; once she left, they would be nothing more than scraps of paper.
She had no idea when she would be able to return to Beishi, or whether these grain coupons would still be usable by then. Rather than let them go to waste, she decided to use every last one.
So she bought five hundred pounds of rice, five hundred pounds of millet, five hundred pounds of corn, five hundred pounds of sorghum, five hundred pounds of white flour, five hundred pounds of black flour, five hundred pounds of cornmeal, five hundred pounds of sorghum flour…
It wasn’t that she particularly liked buying things in quantities of five hundred pounds. The grain station simply limited each variety to a maximum purchase of five hundred pounds. If she bought all of it, what would everyone else have left to buy?
She also bought one hundred pounds each of mung beans, soybeans, rice beans, and adzuki beans. These were also subject to purchase limits.
At the very back of the grain station was a machine that dispensed soybean oil. You placed an oil container underneath it, and it would fill the container.
Gu Wan wanted to buy oil, but she didn’t have any containers. The staff told her that they could sell her oil together with containers, but each container required a two-yuan deposit.
That was no problem. It was basically like spending two yuan to buy a container, which wasn’t expensive. So Gu Wan bought every container of oil available at the grain station.
She then went to another grain station and did the same thing, continuing until she had used up every single local grain coupon she had.
Next, Gu Wan went to a vegetable station. Whether it was seasonings such as scallions, ginger, and garlic, or vegetables such as cabbage, potatoes, peppers, and eggplants, she bought more than ten pounds of each, claiming that she was purchasing supplies for a large communal cafeteria.
The sales clerks hauled bags of vegetables out of the storeroom and piled them in front of Gu Wan, leaving her to figure out how to transport everything herself.
That suited Gu Wan perfectly. While no one was paying attention, she stored everything in her space.
The vegetables looked like a lot, but they wouldn’t last very long anyway.
Then Gu Wan remembered that there was still a large plot of land in her space. Why not buy some seeds and grow her own crops? After all, everything grew quickly when watered with spiritual spring water.
So Gu Wan went to a supply and marketing cooperative and bought saplings of various fruit trees, including apples, pears, pomegranates, peaches, persimmons, oranges, grapes, and more, tossing them into her space.
She also bought all kinds of vegetable seeds: bok choy, rapeseed greens, spinach, Chinese cabbage, carrots, radishes, peppers, eggplants, peas, cowpeas, and so on.
With all these seeds, at least she wouldn’t have to worry about vegetables in the future.
She also bought seeds for staple crops, such as rice, wheat, corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, along with oil crops such as peanuts, sunflowers, and sesame, as well as seeds for various melons and other fruits and vegetables.
She had no idea whether any of them would come in handy, but it was always better to be prepared.
As someone who couldn’t live without meat and loved eating it, Gu Wan headed straight for the non-staple food store.
The moment she entered, she went straight to the cooked-food counter. All kinds of sausages, pork knuckles, pig’s feet, pig’s ears—whether they required coupons or not—she bought the maximum amount allowed.
She also bought all kinds of soybean products: dried tofu, tofu sheets, vegetarian chicken, fresh tofu, and frozen tofu, more than ten pounds of each.
Then came the seasonings: cinnamon bark, bay leaves, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, sesame paste, sesame oil, dried chilies, and so on. She bought more than ten pounds of each as well.
Next, she went straight to the egg counter.
Children couldn’t grow without eggs, but here, eggs required egg coupons and were also rationed. Each person could buy a maximum of five pounds, so she bought five pounds for now.
Duck eggs and goose eggs, on the other hand, had no purchase limit. However, they were really only suitable for making salted duck eggs or salted goose eggs. They didn’t taste very good boiled plain, and even when fried or scrambled, they had a distinct fishy smell.
Still, they were better than having none at all.
So she bought twenty pounds of each.
She also needed to stock up on salt, so Gu Wan went to the salt counter and bought twenty pounds of coarse salt and twenty pounds of refined salt.
There was nothing she could do about it; these were rationed as well. There was no need to buy so much at once, since even the supply and marketing cooperative at the military base should sell salt. What she bought now was simply for backup.
Nearby were large vats of soy sauce and vinegar, but Gu Wan didn’t have any containers. She had no choice but to spend one yuan and borrow two large buckets from the sales clerk on credit.
She bought one large bucket of soy sauce and one large bucket of vinegar.
These things might occasionally run out of stock at the supply and marketing cooperative, but they wouldn’t be completely unavailable. She would always be able to buy more eventually.
So these two large buckets would simply serve as emergency reserves.