Gu Wan went to the seafood counter and bought some fish, shrimp, and crabs. She tossed the frozen products into her space for storage, while the live ones were placed into the spiritual spring pond.
Next, Gu Wan went to the meat counter. There was quite a variety of meat here, including pork, beef, and mutton.
She first bought more than ten pounds of every cut of beef and mutton.
When she saw the pork, she was a little stunned. The pork was incredibly fatty! The layer of fat was so thick that Gu Wan wouldn’t even have looked at it in her previous life. After all, in an era when people cared about healthy eating, who would buy pork this fatty?
But in this era, when the average person consumed only two ounces of cooking oil a day and people had yet to achieve basic food security, it wasn’t a problem at all. She could render the pork fat into lard, and even rice mixed with lard would taste delicious.
So, regardless of which part of the pig it came from, Gu Wan bought more than ten pounds of each.
The young man selling the meat muttered, “You’re buying so much? It’ll spoil if you don’t store it properly. Why don’t you just buy a few whole pigs and slaughter them whenever you want to eat them?”
His words reminded Gu Wan of something.
If crops could grow in her space, then animals should be able to live there too, right?
In that case, why not buy some chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, cattle, sheep, and the like and raise them inside? That way, she would always have fresh chicken, duck, and goose eggs, as well as fresh milk. And getting meat would be much more convenient too.
But where could she buy live animals?
She humbly asked the young salesman for advice.
The young man looked her over a few times. Seeing that she didn’t look like someone from the authorities trying to catch people in the act, he told her that there was a black market in the open area nearby.
All she needed was to pay two dimes for admission. There was all kinds of merchandise inside. Chicks, ducklings, goslings, calves, foals, lambs—all of them were livestock and poultry raised by ordinary families. People brought their eggs or newborn offspring there to exchange for a little extra money, and the prices generally weren’t high.
After spending all her meat and fish coupons, Gu Wan went to the black market the young man had mentioned.
After paying the two-dime entrance fee, people didn’t behave secretly or suspiciously like she had imagined. Instead, it looked just like an ordinary market, with buyers openly choosing what they wanted and sellers openly conducting their business.
It seemed that the entrance fee was essentially a form of protection money. Once inside, people could buy and sell freely without interference from the outside.
The power behind this black market was clearly unfathomable!
The black market usually opened after five in the evening. Since summer days were longer and darkness came later, trading could continue for a little longer. After all, once it got dark, there were no streetlights here. Buyers couldn’t see the merchandise, and sellers couldn’t see the money, making things inconvenient for everyone.
In an era when even flashlights were considered household appliances, who would be willing to use a flashlight to sell goods here? The money they earned wouldn’t even cover the cost of the batteries.
Everyone wanted to sell their goods before dark, so their prices were generally quite reasonable. There wasn’t much room for haggling.
Gu Wan took a liking to several chicks. After the stall owner repeatedly guaranteed that they were definitely female, she bought ten of them. The stall owner even gave her three little roosters for free.
That was even better. This would ensure sustainable reproduction later on.
Following the same principle, Gu Wan bought ten female ducklings, ten female goslings, and two or three young male ducks and geese.
After that, she bought a pair of piglets, a pair of calves, and a pair of lambs.
Besides ensuring sustainable reproduction, Gu Wan also hoped that the calves and lambs could eventually become her babies’ milk providers. After all, with several months and the assistance of the spiritual spring water in her space, their growth rate should be astonishing.
Surely the calves and lambs wouldn’t disappoint her!
By the time she finished buying everything, it was already getting dark.
Gu Wan left the black market and prepared to head home, only to discover that the person following her was still there.
She had already sensed that someone was following her back at the department store. The man had probably set his sights on her when she bought the gold jewelry.
But she hadn’t been certain, so afterward she deliberately went to several other places.
Yet whether it was the grain station, vegetable station, non-staple food store, or even the black market, the man still refused to give up and continued following her from a distance.
At first, she had been worried that he might see her storing those things in her space. If he told other people about it, she would be in serious trouble.
But now that he had followed her all the way out of the black market, it meant he was alone and hadn’t had a chance to tell anyone else.
That made things much easier.
Gu Wan pretended not to know she was being followed and slowly walked forward, casually turning into a secluded alley.
Before entering the alley, she casually pulled a piece of firewood from a pile beside her. She weighed it in her hand.
It was actually quite handy.
As soon as she entered the alley, she immediately slipped into her space.
Soon, hurried footsteps sounded.
A tall, burly man with a fierce-looking face rushed into the alley.
He stood there and looked around in every direction, but he couldn’t find any trace of Gu Wan.
He immediately became suspicious.
“Where the hell did that bitch go? I clearly watched her walk in here. How did she disappear in the blink of an eye? Could she… really be a fox spirit?”
The man remembered what he had witnessed earlier that day. With a wave of her hand, the woman had made such a huge pile of goods disappear.
The thought made him feel a little uneasy.
But then he remembered the way she had bought gold as casually as if she were buying vegetables.
That little woman must have plenty of money.
Just getting his hands on the gold jewelry she had bought would be enough to let him live comfortably for the rest of his life.
Unwilling to give up, the man began searching every inch of the alley, all while spewing filthy remarks.
“Little beauty, stop hiding and come out. Let your big brother take good care of you…”
He searched all the way to the end, but still found nothing.
This was a dead-end alley. He had watched that woman walk inside with his own eyes, so how could she simply disappear?
Could it really be… that he had encountered a ghost?
If the man had stopped there, Gu Wan wouldn’t have felt the need to finish him off.
But instead, when he couldn’t find Gu Wan, the man became even more vicious.
He bent down and began rummaging through the piles of miscellaneous objects stacked along both sides of the alley.
“Bitch, let’s see where you can hide! Even if you’re really a fox spirit reincarnated, I’ll find you, skin you alive, and sell your hide so I can buy myself some booze!”
If Gu Wan hadn’t had her space, even hiding among these piles of debris wouldn’t have allowed her to escape this man’s clutches.
Thinking of that, Gu Wan decided she would no longer hold back.
She emerged from her space, flashed behind the man, and gripped the angular piece of firewood tightly.
As the man bent his head and searched through the debris, she swung the firewood down hard against the back of his head.
“Ugh…”
With a muffled groan, the man’s tall body collapsed to the ground like a mountain.
Blood began flowing from the back of his head.
Gu Wan casually returned the piece of firewood to the pile and walked out of the alley as though nothing had happened.
She knew that, in this era, her status and that of this petty thug were not equal. Even if she went to the police, this kind of scoundrel might not necessarily receive any punishment.
On the contrary, if he told them about her purchasing large quantities of supplies at the department store, and the sales clerks testified against her, she would have no way to explain herself.
It was better to quietly deal with him and prevent him from spreading nonsense.
What Gu Wan didn’t know was that the man hadn’t died.
After receiving emergency treatment, he survived…