Lin Ba and Lin Ze’s task today was to list their family home for sale, then head to the warehouse to receive goods—all the items purchased yesterday were scheduled for delivery today.
Meanwhile, Lin Ran and Lin Ma were responsible for handling matters at the supermarket.
The supermarket wasn’t far from Lin Ran’s home, and the mother-daughter pair arrived after a 20-minute drive.
Anjia Supermarket was founded by Lin Ran’s mother, Ms. An Xin. Lin Ran vaguely remembered that in her childhood, it was just a small convenience store. Now, it had expanded into three interconnected storefronts.
Moreover, all these properties belonged to her mother.
Lin Ma fully demonstrated her decisiveness and efficiency in business to Lin Ran. Upon arrival, she offered generous severance packages to several long-term employees.
Although the employees were reluctant and puzzled by Lin Ma’s decision to close the shop, the substantial compensation in their hands led them to accept her choice.
“Business has become tough lately. Look at these past two years—natural and man-made disasters keep happening. Remember to stock up on supplies and go out less after returning home. Nothing is more important than keeping your family safe and together.”
Lin Ma kindly reminded everyone, though she couldn’t do more than that.
Her daughter had said that in the apocalypse, human nature was the most terrifying. Having struggled through society for so many years, how could she not understand such truths?
Thus, this was the extent of her advice.
After dismissing the employees, Lin Ma unplugged the store’s surveillance cameras and said to Lin Ran, “Ranran, store all these items in your Dimension, including the shelves—they’ll be easy to organize.”
Lin Ran smiled sweetly. “Got it.”
With a wave of her hand, Lin Ran collected everything in sight into her Dimension, including the goods in the back warehouse.
These supplies were worth several million.
Once that was done, Lin Ma called a few realtors to list the shop for sale.
The realtors assessed the location and size of the property, estimating its market value at around 13 million.
Lin Ma explained, “Our family has an urgent need for funds. As long as you can sell it quickly, we’re willing to accept up to 1 million below market price. However, we only accept cash transactions—no bank loans.”
Hearing the significant price reduction, the realtors immediately agreed, assuring her that such a prime property at a lower price would sell fast.
By the time the realtors left, it was already noon.
Lin Ma pulled down the supermarket’s rolling shutter, posted an A4 paper ad for the urgent sale, and took Lin Ran out for lunch.
Next to Anjia Supermarket was a food street.
Lin Ma let Lin Ran order freely, her heart aching for the hardships her daughter had endured in the apocalypse. Now, she wanted her to eat whatever she desired.
Lin Ma had access to part of the family’s savings and the supermarket’s liquid funds, totaling 5 million.
The majority of their assets were in Lin Ba’s stock account.
As a manager at a financial company, Lin Ba had both skills and connections, and he had rarely suffered losses in the A-share market over the years.
Thus, the family was relatively well-off.
At noon, the sun blazed overhead.
Yet, being a weekend, the food street was still crowded with people.
Lin Ma sighed, “The weather is getting hotter and hotter.”
“Yes, it’s going to get even hotter later, Mom. Let’s go get some milk tea.”
“Alright, I want extra ice.”
The mother and daughter each bought a cup of chilled milk tea and also packed a serving of ice jelly.
Then they bought duck necks, duck intestines, duck gizzards, chicken feet, and duck feet from a braised food shop.
They also bought grilled squid, grilled gluten, takoyaki, and spicy rocket squid.
Finally, they sat down in a Yunnan Cross-Bridge Rice Noodle restaurant and ordered a large portion of fatty beef cross-bridge rice noodles, with extra rice noodles, extra tofu skin, extra bean sprouts, and extra fatty beef.
These snacks were truly delicious.
Lin Ran ate with great relish, but Lin Ma, sitting beside her and watching, felt a pang of sorrow in her heart.
Her daughter had endured far too much hardship in the past.
Suddenly, she had an idea: “Ran Ran, should we stock up on some of these delicious snacks too?”
Lin Ran swallowed the rocket squid in her mouth and said, “Yes, but let’s first stock up on the essentials. With the remaining money, we’ll buy all the delicacies Cloud Metropolis has to offer. When the apocalypse comes, we can enjoy these treats at home while watching TV.”
Hearing her daughter’s concern about money, Lin Ma leaned in and whispered, “Ran Ran, don’t worry about the money. Your father’s stocks are worth at least 50 million. Once the market opens tomorrow and we sell them, we’ll have plenty of cash.”
Lin Ran’s eyes lit up at this.
“Mom, I had no idea you and Dad were so low-key.”
She had thought their family was just comfortably well-off, never imagining they were this wealthy.
Her parents had hidden it so well—both drove joint-venture SUVs worth only three or four hundred thousand to work, yet their family had such substantial assets.
Adding in their real estate—if they sold their house and storefronts—their disposable assets would amount to at least seventy or eighty million. That meant they could stock up on even more supplies.
With that in mind, she could indeed go all out and stockpile plenty of food.
Next to the rice noodle shop was a highly-rated bun shop. Lin Ran tried one and found it quite tasty.
So, she ordered 2,000 meat buns, 1,000 cabbage and vermicelli buns, 1,000 three-delicacy shrimp buns, and 500 chive and egg buns.
She ordered fewer chive and egg buns mainly because she wasn’t fond of chives, but her father liked them.
She ordered more meat buns because both men in the family enjoyed them.
At the neighboring braised food shop, she ordered 1,000 jin each of braised chicken feet, braised pig ears, braised pork intestines, husband and wife lung slices, braised chicken, braised pig trotters, braised duck intestines, braised chicken gizzards, braised chicken wings, braised duck wings, braised chicken feet, and braised duck feet.
She then went to a cold noodle shop and bought 1,000 servings of cold skin noodles, 500 roujiamo with a mix of lean and fatty meat, and 500 roujiamo with pure lean meat.
She also found a highly-rated barbecue shop and ordered various meat skewers and vegetable skewers from the owner, along with a few grills.
Noticing the shop’s silver thread charcoal, which produced no smoke, was of good quality, Lin Ran asked the owner for the supplier’s contact information, planning to order a batch of this charcoal as well.
Lin Ran had so many delicacies she wanted to order, but there were only a few highly-rated shops on this street. She decided to place orders online with other top-rated stores.
The shop owners were thrilled by the large orders from Lin Ran and her mother.
Knowing that such large quantities would take time to prepare, Lin Ran told them to deliver the goods to the warehouse address within three days.
After finishing these tasks, Lin Ran and Lin Ma packed some marinated goods and braised pork rice before heading to the warehouse to meet up with Lin Ba and the others.
Lin Ba had hired two professional unloading teams. By the time Lin Ran and Lin Ma arrived, the warehouse was already completely filled.