The two divided the work according to their heights. Feng Qi was responsible for the top two shelves, while Luo Jiu handled the bottom four, working like an assembly line.
Feng Qi: “Nail clipper sets—will fifty boxes be enough?”
Luo Jiu: “These things always get lost. Make it a hundred boxes.”
Feng Qi: “OK, ordered.”
Luo Jiu: “Sewing kits, fifty boxes ordered. Assorted sewing thread sets, a hundred packs ordered.”
“Six God floral water, five hundred bottles, ordered.”
“Superb mosquito coils, extra-large trays, five hundred boxes, ordered.”
“Citrus insecticide… Do you think this stuff would work on zombies?”
Luo Jiu: “Are zombies insects?”
Feng Qi: “Let’s spray it in their eyes and see. What if it works?”
“Fine, order twenty cases. I’ll also order five hundred jin of chili powder and make pepper spray later. Spray bottles, a thousand. Ordered.”
The shelves were three meters long. The two walked from one end to the other, placing orders item by item, practically working themselves into a frenzy.
As soon as Zhong Jialing returned, she heard the two of them muttering in a daze: “Ordered, ordered…”
“I’m back!”
“What took you so long?” Feng Qi wiped the sweat from her brow. “My mouth’s gone dry.”
“I went to upgrade everyone’s equipment. Look!” Zhong Jialing opened the large bag hanging from her left hand. “The latest phones and tablets. I stocked up on two hundred of each. The rest have been sent home; we’ll use these ones now. Your phones are all too old. Placing orders isn’t smooth at all.”
“Good, good, good.” Even Luo Jiu could not keep going. “Perfect timing. Let’s take a break.”
Zhong Jialing opened the large bag in her right hand as well. “I bought milk tea. Have some.”
Thoughtfully, she inserted the straws and handed the drinks to the other two. “You two rest. I’ll do this. We’re at this section now, right?”
They had reached the paper products and cleaning supplies shelves.
“Facial tissues, five hundred cases. Wet wipes, four hundred cases. Alcohol wipes, four hundred cases. Kitchen paper towels, two hundred cases. Toilet paper—how much should we stock up on?”
Feng Qi: “As much as possible. It’s a consumable, and we won’t be able to produce any more in the future. I don’t want to wipe my ass with leaves.”
Luo Jiu calculated silently for a moment. “Three thousand cases of toilet paper should be enough. Add another thousand cases of flushable wet wipes.”
Zhong Jialing’s fingers flew over the screen for a while. “OK, everything’s ordered.”
Next came the most important item of all: choosing sanitary pads. None of them had ever bought them in large quantities before. They had always picked up whatever brand they happened to need at the school supermarket, without sticking to any particular one. Now they had to think long-term, so naturally, they had to be careful.
The three of them stood in front of the shelves, carefully examining the product ingredients. They even opened online reviews to check the recommended and blacklisted products.
Anything meant for intimate use that contained harmful ingredients such as fluorescent agents was rejected.
After weighing all the factors, Luo Jiu reached a conclusion.
“Let’s go with Beisute. It has excellent reviews, safe ingredients, and it often does charity work to help women affected by disasters deal with their menstrual needs.”
“How much should we stock up on?” Zhong Jialing opened the ordering page and prepared to enter the quantity.
Luo Jiu paced back and forth as she calculated. “Asian women generally reach menopause between the ages of forty-five and fifty-five. Let’s use fifty-five as the benchmark. We need enough to last the four of us nearly forty years.
“Three to six days a month. To prevent bacterial growth, they need to be changed every two hours. At night, to prevent side leakage, overnight period pants are best. Three packs of daytime pads per month, six pairs of overnight period pants…”
She did the calculation mentally for a few seconds. “Stock up on six thousand packs of daytime sanitary pads and twelve thousand pairs of overnight period pants.”
“Got it. Then I’ll order another ten cases of panty liners, just in case.”
They had stocked enough paper products, but they could not afford to be careless with cleaning supplies either. Especially after the cities collapsed, with corpses littering the streets and bacteria filling the air everywhere.
Air freshener: one thousand cases. Antibacterial soap: five hundred cases. Laundry soap: two hundred cases.
Laundry powder and liquid detergent: three hundred cases each. Hand soap: five hundred bottles. Disinfecting alcohol: one thousand jin.
Cheng Yaoyao looked at the long string of messages popping up on her phone screen and hurriedly said, “You don’t need to check the kitchen supplies. I’ve already stocked up on all of those. Six hundred tubs of dish soap, and fifty cases each of the various scrub pads and steel wool. That should be enough.”
That left the three of them free to focus on the other sections.
They bought an extra-large household garbage disposal unit. For small trash cans, they chose the sturdiest, most aging-resistant iron mesh type and stocked up on two hundred.
They bought twenty large trash cans. Those took up too much space, and they did not plan to put them in the storage space. They would leave them in the yard and use them for garbage outdoors after the apocalypse.
For garbage bags, they chose the extra-thick, extra-large kind. Zhong Jialing asked, “Each roll has two hundred bags. Will a thousand rolls be enough?”
Luo Jiu: “No. The manufacturers of these garbage bags are the most slippery and dishonest of all. They never actually put in the full number. They claim there are two hundred per roll, but at most there’ll be one hundred and fifty or sixty. We’re short on time and don’t have time to argue with unscrupulous merchants. Fortunately, a roll doesn’t take up much space. Let’s stock up on two thousand rolls.”
There was not much in the sporting-goods section that they could use. They ordered twenty sets of long-sleeved, long-legged sportswear, as well as shoes and socks, in each of the four people’s respective sizes. The clothing styles here were only average, and everyone had already planned to buy more at the clothing market.
Feng Qi picked out some fitness equipment, such as boxing gloves and dumbbells. Soon, the three of them reached the stationery section.
Paper and pens would basically be of no use in the future. They bought five cases of adhesive tape, three hundred pairs of scissors, and fifty carving knives.
Luo Jiu thought about it and ultimately ordered a case of notebooks, along with twenty Xiaomi Giant Writes pens. As long as they were not dropped, each of those pens should last long enough to write for four or five years.
They soon arrived at the heartening snack section. There was no need to urge them on; Feng Qi and Zhong Jialing had already dashed over.
The two were so excited that their speech unconsciously sped up.
Feng Qi: “Weilong spicy konjac strips—how many should we order?”
Zhong Jialing: “All four of us love them. We should get at least a thousand cases, right?”
Luo Jiu: “Order fifteen hundred cases. They aren’t that heavy, so we can stack them high in the storage space.”
“Got it!” Feng Qi placed the order in an instant.
Potato chips, spicy strips, wafer cookies, Oreos, Chips Ahoy!, Snickers, chocolate, Moguchili mushroom-shaped biscuits, Xiaoxiaosu crackers, Ya Tudou potato snacks, Crispy Shengsheng snacks, protein bars…
They picked different flavors and combined them as appropriate, ordering more than a hundred cases of each. If they had not taken into account how much food was already in the storage space, they would have doubled those quantities.
Pickled chicken feet: four hundred cases. Pickled pepper pork skin: two hundred cases. Hand-torn duck necks: one thousand pieces. Pork jerky: one thousand jin. Assorted mixed nuts: three thousand packs.
Convenience foods were stocked up on in bulk. Hot-and-sour beef noodles: eight hundred cases. Old hen soup noodles: five hundred cases. Hot-and-sour rice noodles: four hundred cases. Dry instant noodles: six hundred cases.
They had nearly finished clearing out the supermarket’s general merchandise. As for clothing, pastries, and similar items, Luo Jiu planned to buy them from specialty stores. After all, a supermarket was neither a cake shop nor a home-goods store, and the quality was somewhat inferior.
Feng Qi asked, “So are we going to the cake shop or the home-goods store now?”
As the three discussed it, a message popped up in the group chat. Cheng Yaoyao had purchased two thousand jin of pork carcass strips, ten portable large cooking stoves, thirty large vats, ten thousand chicken eggs, five thousand duck eggs, two thousand goose eggs, and four thousand jin of cabbage.
Luo Jiu immediately called her. “Those things are so heavy. Stop for now. We’re heading back, and we’ll handle it together. Also, don’t make dinner tonight. We’re going to test the dishes.”
Cheng Yaoyao’s voice came through in broken fragments. “My hands just got covered in oil, so it’s inconvenient to talk. Just wait until you get back and take a look.”