Zhong Jialing poked her head out of the car in a panic. “Are you all right?”
Feng Qi adjusted her breathing, then slid off the hood like liquid glue and soothed her racing heart. “Luckily, I have some skills. Otherwise, after being hit by you like that, I’d have broken a leg even if I didn’t die.”
“If you can still joke around, then I’m relieved.” Zhong Jialing let out a sigh of relief and hurriedly urged the three of them, “Get in, quick!”
The four of them gathered together and immediately began chattering over one another, opening the floodgates of conversation.
Luo Jiu: “Where did this car come from?”
Cheng Yaoyao: “You were reborn too, right?”
Feng Qi: “Do you even have a driver’s license?”
Zhong Jialing gripped the steering wheel nervously, glancing around as she drove. “This is my family’s car. Of course I was reborn. Otherwise, how could I have come looking for you at a time like this? Luckily, you came out. Otherwise, I would have been so anxious I’d have rammed the gate.
“I got my driver’s license after my eighteenth birthday, but unfortunately, I haven’t touched a car once in the past six months since I passed the test, so I’ve gotten rusty. On the way here, aside from people, I’ve hit just about everything.”
Feng Qi rubbed her shoulder with a pained expression. “I saw a dent in the front of the car just now and thought I’d made it. By the way, where are we going?”
“McDonald’s. Aren’t you hungry?”
“Hungry!” The three of them cried out in a hungry roar.
They had suffered terribly from hunger in their previous lives. That maddening hunger that made people scratch their ears and act abnormally irritable had been deeply etched into everyone’s minds. After being reborn, they all wished they could hug a pot of white rice and eat the whole thing.
Sixteen hamburgers, eight large fries, twenty chicken wings, four Cokes, four orange juices, and eight McFlurries. The four of them looked as if they had been reincarnated as starving ghosts. They were too embarrassed to eat in the restaurant, so they packed everything up and carried it straight to the car.
For at least ten minutes, no one said a single word. They simply chewed and swallowed nonstop, enjoying the food in great mouthfuls.
After Cheng Yaoyao swallowed two McSpicy Chicken Burgers and gnawed on four chicken wings, her petite body was already stuffed. She was the first to speak. “What do we do next?”
Luo Jiu took a sip of orange juice to wash down the food in her mouth. “Normally, being reborn at the end of the world comes with a large sum of money and a space, after which the protagonist can immediately begin stockpiling supplies. But the problem is that being reborn didn’t inexplicably give us a huge sum of money. Without money, there’s no way to stockpile anything. Who would extend credit for food to a few poor students like us?”
Cheng Yaoyao and Zhong Jialing raised their hands at the same time.
Cheng Yaoyao said, “We can stockpile cheap supplies. We could get several truckloads of potatoes. I know eighteen ways to cook potatoes.” She shook the fries in her hand. “At least everyone won’t starve to death.”
Feng Qi gulped down a large mouthful of Coke and hurriedly said, “The apocalypse is almost here. We can use unconventional methods, can’t we? Give me a hoe and I’ll go steal a truckload of potatoes right now.”
Zhong Jialing anxiously slapped the roof of the car. “It’s my turn to speak, isn’t it? First of all, we aren’t poor students. At least I have money.
“Secondly, if the apocalypse means I have to eat potatoes every day, I’d rather just die. I’ll become a zombie. I never want to suffer from hunger again.”
Luo Jiu was astonished. “Where did you get money?”
“I have a ‘billion’ or so in pocket money.”
Cheng Yaoyao didn’t believe her. “How much is ‘a little’? We need to buy rice and flour and prepare for a long-term battle. A little won’t be enough.”
Zhong Jialing opened a certain bank’s app and pushed her account balance in front of everyone. “Here.”
“Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, ten million… Ah!”
Cheng Yaoyao let out a shriek and excitedly grabbed Zhong Jialing by the neck. “You have twenty million! Why did you pretend to be poor? You even fought me for sticky rice buns! You liar!”
Feng Qi also leaned over and locked Zhong Jialing’s arm, joining in the accusation. “You damn rich second-generation! Every time I eat instant noodles, you fight me for the broth. Are you addicted to pretending to be poor?”
Zhong Jialing cooperatively stuck out her tongue and pretended to be suffocating. Luo Jiu folded her arms and watched the show, waving a hand with a smile. “Let her go first. Let’s hear how the young miss is going to defend herself.”
Zhong Jialing pouted. “I wasn’t pretending to be poor. But all of you live so simply—how could I bring myself to talk about how wealthy my family is every day?
“Besides, that money was earned by my parents, not me. Every one of your families is so… incomplete. If I showed off in front of you about having both parents and being filthy rich, wouldn’t that just be annoying?
“I fought you for the sticky rice buns because the ones from your house taste good. I fought you for your instant-noodle broth because you always make hot-and-sour beef noodles. Who wouldn’t want to drink a couple of mouthfuls of that broth when they saw it?
“What gave you the impression that rich second-generation kids can’t drink instant-noodle broth?”
Luo Jiu sighed. “I figured your financial circumstances were better than ours, but I didn’t expect you to have more than twenty million.”
Zhong Jialing didn’t think much of it. “This is the New Year’s money and pocket money I’ve saved since I was little. I didn’t have many opportunities to spend it at school. There is one thing I hid from you, though. I only scored a little over two hundred points on my secondary-school entrance exam…”
“What?” The three of them widened their eyes in unison. They were no less shocked than when they had learned she had more than twenty million in pocket money.
Zhong Jialing bit her lip and looked awkwardly at Luo Jiu. “I scored a little over two hundred points, yet I was able to attend the same school and the same class as you, who got full marks, and even sit at the same desk as you. What do you think that could be besides the power of money?”
Luo Jiu said, “No… Wasn’t it because your father had connections with the principal…?”
Zhong Jialing shook her head. “It wasn’t because they had connections that I was able to attend this school. It was because I wanted to attend this school that they established a connection.”
Luo Jiu suddenly understood, and silence fell over the car. Those few brief sentences had given the three children from ordinary families quite a shock.
Zhong Jialing coughed lightly. “You won’t despise me for being stupid just because my grades are bad, will you?”
Feng Qi hurriedly said, “Of course not. I’m ranked last in the entire school, and I’ve never seen you despise me. Could you possibly be stupider than me?”
At Jiangcheng No. 1 High School, exam results were made public only partially. The top one hundred in the entire grade were announced to the whole grade, while the top ten in each class were announced within the class. Only the students themselves knew the results at the bottom of the rankings. Originally, no one knew that Feng Qi was ranked last. She had blurted it out herself because she had a big mouth.
When she received her report card, she slapped it on the desk. “Fuck! I’m ranked last in the whole school!”
And just like that, the entire school knew.
Zhong Jialing smoothed the loose hair at her temples. “Actually… I’m about as stupid as you are. I’m ranked second from last.”
Luo Jiu nearly dropped her jaw. Dormitory 301 was truly full of hidden dragons and crouching tigers—the Hidden Dragon and the Young Phoenix were both right beside her.
“All right, none of this is important. We can talk about it later. Let’s hurry up and get down to business. We have money now, and we have a space… too.”
Luo Jiu held out her hand. In her palm was an ear stud made of a ruby as red as blood. It had originally been transparent, but after her blood had dripped into it, it had changed into this appearance.
Luo Jiu opened the space settings in her mind and used her administrator status to add users. A holographic interface soon appeared in front of the four of them.
Feng Qi stared at the image before her in astonishment. “Fuck! This is the space?”
Cheng Yaoyao asked, “Is it the legendary space that keeps food warm and fresh forever without letting it spoil?”
“Of course. What space doesn’t keep things fresh?”
“How big is it? Can we go in and take a look?” Zhong Jialing asked.
“I’ll try.”
After obtaining the space, Luo Jiu had been busy getting out of the school and hadn’t had an opportunity to examine it carefully. She concentrated her thoughts, and in the blink of an eye, disappeared from in front of the other three.
Once inside, she was instantly stunned by the vast and boundless space.
It was like a brand-new, enormous natural refrigerator—quiet and empty, without a single object in sight. It was so empty that even her breathing seemed to echo.
Above her was a blue, clear sky, and the faint scent of earth lingered in the air. She couldn’t see the boundaries at a glance. Luo Jiu’s exploratory steps grew faster and faster until she began running excitedly.
Three minutes later, Luo Jiu came out and happily summarized the situation. “The space is a cube one hundred meters long, one hundred meters wide, and one hundred meters high, with a total usable area of ten thousand square meters. You’ve all seen the international football matches broadcast live on television, right? It’s about one and a half football fields.
“Of those ten thousand square meters, one mu is black soil. We need to leave that plot empty for now and save it for growing crops in the future.”
Zhong Jialing searched through her pockets. “Did you bring a ruler? What did you use to measure it?”
Luo Jiu brought up a holographic interface. “Look at the attribute information. I checked it inside just now. If you don’t believe me, go in and see for yourselves.”
“We can’t get in!” The other three looked frustrated. They had already tried more than a dozen times during those three minutes of waiting.
Luo Jiu frowned and swiped through a few more pages. “Oh, I know. It currently only allows one person inside, so we can only take turns. Maybe the space’s area and the number of people it can hold will increase after it levels up. The first upgrade is in ten days. For now, we’ll just have to make do.
“First, we need to find a base and build a safe house. Does anyone have any recommendations?”
Cheng Yaoyao said, “Grandma and I have four one-story rooms in the village.”
Zhong Jialing objected. “How old is Grandma? That house isn’t young either, is it? Are we going there to build a safe house or renovate a dangerous building?”
Luo Jiu said, “Exactly. Besides, once a single-story house is breached, there’s nowhere to retreat to. It’s unsuitable.”
Cheng Yaoyao opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but swallowed it back down.
Feng Qi asked, “Then what do we do? We can’t rent a house to use as a safe house, can we?”
Zhong Jialing raised her hand again. “My family has a five-story small villa in a suburban villa district. It was completed the year before last and has basically been left vacant since the renovations were finished. The three of us stayed there for several days during the New Year. It has spacious grounds, a low population density, plenty of greenery, and first-rate security.”
Luo Jiu drew a deep breath and forced herself to remain calm as she blinked. “What are we waiting for? Drive.”
Half an hour later, the car swerved its way to No. 88 Fengshan Road in the suburban villa district.
Zhong Jialing poked her head out of the car. After facial recognition verified their access, two black-and-gold, precision-steel villa gates, each two point six meters high, slowly opened.
The off-road vehicle stopped casually in the spacious front yard. The three of them got out and looked up at the luxurious five-story villa, complete with a front yard and a backyard. They couldn’t help exclaiming, “Wow.”
Luo Jiu patted Zhong Jialing on the shoulder. “You just called this a small villa. May I ask where exactly the word ‘small’ came from?”
Zhong Jialing shrugged. “The villa my family lives in is a connected, castle-style estate with its own manor. It’s more than thirty thousand square meters, and you can ride horses in the garden. How small is this yard? It’s not even five hundred square meters.”
She took out her key, opened the privately customized Grade-A anti-theft entrance door, and gestured invitingly. “Everyone, welcome home!”
Feng Qi and Cheng Yaoyao ran inside, while Luo Jiu remained where she was, carefully examining the door. At the apocalypse, every door would be a protective shield that they relied on for survival.
The door was more than ten centimeters thick, and its panel was made of the sturdiest armor-grade cast aluminum.
Zhong Jialing chattered beside her. “Don’t worry. I can’t speak for other houses, but this one is absolutely the sturdiest. Before this house was renovated, my parents happened to discover that someone had secretly picked the lock on an unoccupied house and moved in. So this house was configured specifically to prevent intrusion. The first consideration in choosing the materials was sturdiness and durability.”
“By the way, did you tell your parents about the apocalypse?”
“They should be safer than us in Antarctica. I’ll call them after we get settled.”
As the two were talking, Cheng Yaoyao approached with pursed lips. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay with everyone. You all know that my parents died when I was young. Grandma raised me. I can’t abandon her. Besides, you don’t need me here, and I don’t want to hold you back. I’ll leave first.”
“Leave? What are you talking about?” Zhong Jialing grabbed her. “We were reborn; we didn’t turn into nonhuman creatures. Who told you to abandon Grandma? Besides, while we were quarantined at school, we ate plenty of sticky rice buns and big bones Grandma sent us. Do you think we’re all ungrateful wolves?”
Luo Jiu also said, “How long can you and Grandma hold out in those few little one-story rooms? Of the four of us, you have the most experience with everyday life. Without you, we wouldn’t even know how to cook. Do you want us to lose weight during the apocalypse?”
“Exactly,” Zhong Jialing said. “Bring Grandma here. There are dozens of rooms in this place. It’s not as if we don’t have enough space.”
Luo Jiu said, “Your family’s village is near Nandu Market, right? Come on, let’s go place our orders and bring Grandma back while we’re at it.”
The four-person apocalypse team embarked on their first major shopping trip, and all sorts of suggestions emerged as soon as they set out.
Feng Qi said, “Should we order two thousand cups of milk tea first? We won’t be able to buy any after the apocalypse. What if we crave it then?”
“How could two thousand cups be enough?” Zhong Jialing said. “At least eight thousand cups. If each person drinks one cup a day, that’ll only last five or six years at most.”
Cheng Yaoyao said, “Then we can stockpile the ingredients. With milk and tea, I can experiment with brewing it.”
The more Luo Jiu listened, the more dazed she became. “Ladies, the apocalypse isn’t a spring outing. Can we stockpile some proper supplies first?”
“Then you tell us,” Zhong Jialing said. “What should we stockpile first?”
Luo Jiu took a sheet of draft paper from her pocket. It contained the ideas she had temporarily come up with during math class.
“This is my current plan. We have ten days in total to prepare. During the first three days, we’ll focus on stockpiling food and water—rice, flour, grain, cooking oil, vegetables, and so on. From the fourth day to the seventh, we’ll focus on weapons, medicine, daily necessities, and so on. During the final three days, we’ll reinforce the safe house and try not to go outside.
“We’ll use both online and offline purchasing methods. It’s ten in the morning now, so we’ll spend no more than two hours at the market and bring Grandma over at noon. We’ll take a brief two-hour break in the afternoon and charge all our phones. I’ll create a group chat, and everyone can send anything they think of to the group at any time.
“In the afternoon, we’ll split into two groups. Jialing, Sister Qi, and I will go out to sweep up supplies. Someone has to stay home to receive the deliveries. Yaoyao, you and Grandma wait at home.
“We’ll put everything in the front yard first, then move it into the space as soon as possible when no one is paying attention. The space isn’t infinitely large, so we need to arrange everything neatly. Yaoyao, organize things according to your own ideas first. Once we buy suitable shelves, we can sort everything more carefully.”
Cheng Yaoyao nodded. “No problem. I was just thinking that after the apocalypse begins, we probably won’t have much time to prepare fresh food. Can I make some high-energy semi-finished foods first? They’ll fill our stomachs and be convenient to eat, too. Things like dried beef, cured meat, and sausages?”
“Good idea!” Luo Jiu said. “That will also save energy. Once the water and electricity are cut off, we’ll have to conserve the fuel we’ve stockpiled. The more things we can prepare in advance, the better.”
Feng Qi’s eyes lit up when she heard “dried beef.” “Then let’s buy several more cleavers. I’ll cut the meat with you.”
“Okay!” Zhong Jialing declared happily. “Leave these things to the people who know what they’re doing. I’ll just handle paying and buying delicious food.”
Practice made perfect. Zhong Jialing’s driving became more and more skillful, and she sped all the way to the largest Nandu Market in the local area.
Nandu Market was comparable to Beijing’s Xinfadi Market. Xinfadi Wholesale Market covered 210,000 square meters, while Nandu was slightly smaller at 160,000 square meters. It carried every kind of agricultural product imaginable.
Not only did locals shop there; most of the merchants from the three nearby provinces and eighteen cities also came there to purchase supplies.
With its low prices and huge stock, it was absolutely the ideal place to stockpile supplies for the apocalypse.
The four of them entered the largest rice, flour, grain, and cooking-oil shop and exchanged glances, all feeling somewhat nervous.
Luo Jiu cleared her throat. “Hello, we’d like to buy rice.”
The owner and his wife were busy looking down as they sorted through their accounts. Hearing the young voice, they raised their heads at the same time.
“Little girl, we’re a wholesale business. We don’t sell to retail customers.”
“We know. We need a large quantity. We’re not retail customers.”
The owner smiled and shook his head. “A hundred or eighty jin doesn’t count as a large quantity to us.”
Luo Jiu raised her clear eyes and asked with a smile, “What about fifty thousand jin?”
The smile froze on the owner’s face. “Child, you’re not joking with me, are you?”
The atmosphere became a little awkward. The owner’s wife quickly stepped in to smooth things over. “He didn’t mean anything by it. Usually, even grain stores only buy two or three thousand jin from us. We’ve been running this shop for twenty years and have never received an order for fifty thousand jin.”
Luo Jiu glanced at her. “We’re in a hurry. If this is difficult for you, we’ll look somewhere else.”
As soon as she finished speaking, the four of them turned in perfect unison and pretended to walk out.
“Not difficult at all!” The shopkeeper’s wife hurriedly called the little gods of wealth back. “We have it, we have it! You came to the right place for such a large order. As long as the money is in place, we’ll definitely have the goods.”
Zhong Jialing showed her a WeChat balance of more than four hundred thousand. “We have plenty of money. We’ll pay in cash right away, so don’t worry.”
“Of course, of course!” The shopkeeper’s wife was so happy that she could barely close her mouth. “What kind do you want? I’ll give you the lowest price.”
After discussing it, Cheng Yaoyao and Luo Jiu chose Northeast long-grain fragrant rice and Wuchang rice.
Wuchang rice was expensive and produced in limited quantities. The shopkeeper’s wife spoke honestly. “There’s a fixed amount of genuine Wuchang rice produced every year. I can bring out all the Wuchang rice from the warehouses nearby, but there will be at most a little over four thousand jin.
“If anyone tells you they can get ten thousand jin of Wuchang rice, they’re definitely lying to you. No one can obtain that much stock in such a short time. But I can guarantee that everything I give you will be genuine Wuchang rice meeting the GBT standards.”
“All right. Then we’ll take four thousand jin of Wuchang rice, and fill the rest with long-grain fragrant rice. We want new rice, not old rice. We’ll pay half the deposit first. Please gather all the goods and deliver them to the location we specify as quickly as possible. We’ll pay the balance when they arrive. Jialing, come sign the receipt and pay.”
As the only member of the group who was at least eighteen years old, Zhong Jialing took on the major responsibility of signing and paying.
Feng Qi quietly asked Luo Jiu from the side, “Why fifty thousand jin? Did you calculate it by the number of people? I eat at least three bowls per meal.”
Luo Jiu gave a soft hum and said quietly, “Don’t worry. I calculated it for a family of six. Even if we eat nothing but rice for all three meals, it’ll last us until we’re eighty.”
The owner’s wife was fairly honest. To keep such a large order, she was willing to make a small profit through high-volume sales, adding only fifty cents to the purchase price. It was even cheaper than the price charged to ordinary grain stores that bought from them.
Luo Jiu and the others also wanted to save time, so they ordered all their rice, flour, grain, and cooking oil from this shop.
Fifty thousand jin of rice. Six thousand jin of millet. To prevent their diets from becoming boring and maintain variety, they also ordered one thousand jin each of black rice, glutinous rice, yellow rice, brown rice, and coix seed.
As for flour, they ordered ten thousand jin each of high-gluten, all-purpose, and cake flour. The high-gluten flour was for noodles, the all-purpose flour for steamed buns, stuffed buns, and dumplings, and the cake flour for cakes and baking.
In short, by eating everything in combination, these rice and flour supplies would last at least fifty years.
As for after fifty years, Luo Jiu thought, they would all be so old that they might not even have teeth left by then. That would save supplies. No matter how much Feng Qi could eat, surely she wouldn’t still be able to eat three bowls of rice and forty dumplings at the age of seventy, right?
Cooking oil was a major item. For the sake of their health, they chose only non-genetically modified oils. They refused to buy any blended oil bearing the GBT2716 standard and wanted only oil meeting standards 3248 and 1534.
They ordered three hundred barrels each of soybean oil, sunflower-seed oil, corn oil, peanut oil, and rapeseed oil.
As one side called out quantities, the other frantically pressed buttons on a calculator. The owner had already hung a “Closed for Business” sign at the entrance. This single order would be enough to keep the couple and their six employees working themselves to death.
Cheng Yaoyao picked up some vermicelli from the shop. “Is this sweet-potato starch or potato starch? Does it taste good?”
The shopkeeper’s wife replied directly, “It’s a gift. Take it home and try it. If you like it, call us and place an order; I’ll deliver it to you. There’s also half a sack of red beans here and a sack of spotted beans. Anything in the shop that catches your eye, I can give you half a sack or a whole sack as samples. If you like the taste, come back and order more.”
Luo Jiu folded the receipt. “All right. Then deliver everything to No. 88 Fengshan Road when the time comes. If it tastes good, we’ll come back.”
The grain shop portion temporarily came to an end, and they hurriedly moved on to the meat shop.
None of the four had any dietary restrictions. Beef and mutton, pork, chicken, duck, and fish—all of them were essential.
Cheng Yaoyao murmured to herself, “Beef can be made into dried beef, stewed beef brisket with tomatoes, or braised beef. Mutton and radish soup replenishes qi, and there are even more ways to prepare pork. My braised spare ribs are unparalleled. I guarantee you’ll crave them every day after eating them.”
Feng Qi was already hungry just listening to her. She swallowed and said, “Then let’s start with one thousand jin of spare ribs.”
“Not enough,” Zhong Jialing said. “I love spare ribs too. Add another thousand jin.”
“Three thousand jin of spare ribs, then. I love them too.” Luo Jiu finalized the total.
Three thousand jin of spare ribs, one thousand pig elbows, two thousand pig trotters, two thousand large pig heads, and eight thousand jin of pork. Ten whole pigs, complete with heads, tails, hearts, livers, and other organs.
While they were still calculating the price, Cheng Yaoyao was already considering how to prepare everything and what cooking utensils they needed to buy.
“We need to buy ten pressure cookers. Cleavers, chopping knives, sharpening stones—we’ll need at least twenty of each, right? When you really calculate it, there are so many things we need to buy. Do we have enough money?”