The three of them returned to the villa. In the space of just one afternoon, the courtyard, which covered more than four hundred square meters, had already been transformed.
Cheng Yaoyao had put up dozens of long racks, all hung with sausages streaked with alternating layers of lean meat and fat. The red and white colors complemented each other beautifully.
However, the enormous courtyard was already almost completely filled.
There was one pile of cabbages to the east, a pile of stoves to the west, and a heap of large iron basins and running machines in the middle. There was also a large open space at the front, specifically left for delivery trucks to unload their goods.
Several machines were running at the same time. Luo Jiu hurriedly took the sausage she was filling from Sun Feng'e's hands. “Grandma, let me do it. You’ve done so much—your hands must be sore, right? Go take a break. We’ll handle it.”
“I’m not tired. This little bit of work is easy for me. If I only eat and never work, wouldn’t that make me a useless old woman? We’re almost finished; you don’t need to get involved.” Smiling, Sun Feng'e snatched the sausage back and skillfully tied it off.
Cheng Yaoyao called Luo Jiu over and said in a low voice, “Just let my Grandma work. The doctor said that doing more things puts her in a better mood, which is good for her illness. Otherwise, if she has too much free time and starts overthinking, one day she might not even recognize anyone.”
Luo Jiu hurriedly asked, “Then what medicine did the doctor prescribe? We’ll remember to stock up on it later.”
Cheng Yaoyao shook her head. “There’s no specific medicine for dementia. Apparently, someone committed academic fraud, causing twenty years of research across the entire field to go to waste. It’s been stagnant ever since.”
As she said this, a layer of gloom clouded Cheng Yaoyao’s round eyes. She had once been poor and believed that money could do anything. She had never expected that even after becoming wealthy, there would still be things she could do nothing about.
Cheng Yaoyao sighed. “Grandma’s illness is still in its early stages. It’s all right. We’re so lively every day; maybe her condition will stabilize like this and never get worse.”
As the two of them spoke quietly, Feng Qi carried over a movable stove. “Should I put the pot on this now? Where should I set it?”
Cheng Yaoyao pointed to an empty patch beside them. “Put it here. Set them all up. Once I’ve finished cutting the meat, we’ll render the lard.”
The moment Zhong Jialing heard this, her face lit up. “Those pork-and-pickled-cabbage pastries you brought last time were especially delicious. Did you fry them in lard?”
“Exactly. Whether you’re pan-frying pastries or stir-frying dishes, nothing tastes bad when it’s cooked with lard in a large iron wok.”
Once ten large woks had been set up, they were washed clean and filled with chunks of snowy-white fatty pork. Firewood was lit beneath them, and before long, an enticing aroma spread through the air.
Everyone took a spatula and stirred at the edges of the woks.
Luo Jiu joked, “This doesn’t look like a villa complex. It looks like a lard factory, and we’re the female factory workers.”
The weather in April was already quite warm. With so many woks burning at once, it was as if ten bonfires had been set up. The heat roasted everyone’s faces red.
After Sun Feng'e finished with the sausages, she was ordered to go inside and rest. But even the four young women couldn’t withstand being roasted like this for long.
Zhong Jialing hurried upstairs and carried out the seven or eight portable electric fans from the storage room.
They plugged them in around the courtyard. Once the strong wind began blowing, they finally felt cool.
Feng Qi wiped away her sweat. “I heard that when you turn on a lot of electrical appliances at the same time, the electric meter runs incredibly fast.”
Zhong Jialing said, “Don’t worry. Your sister has money. Even if the meter starts flying, we can afford to keep everything running.”
Luo Jiu said, “No matter how high the electricity bill is this month, it won’t be collected until next month. In other words, no one’s going to come collect it.”
The water, electricity, and gas they were using now were all basically free resources they were taking advantage of.
The meat grinder had been working nonstop just now, and its body was burning hot. Feng Qi carried a fan over beside the machine. “Since you say it doesn’t cost anything, let’s blow some air on it too.”
The four of them burst into laughter. They took off their jackets and lounged crookedly beneath the pavilion in short sleeves or tank tops.
Each of them took out her phone. While waiting for the lard to finish rendering, they leisurely began stocking up on supplies.
Cheng Yaoyao planned to pickle vegetables, render lard, salt eggs, and cure bacon over the next two days. She placed orders for all kinds of stewing ingredients and marinades as well.
Luo Jiu was still checking for omissions among the daily necessities. “We haven’t stocked up on ear picks, have we?”
Zhong Jialing said, “I don’t remember.”
Feng Qi said, “No idea.”
Those two were truly a pair of Wolong and Fengchu—ask them a question, and they knew nothing about it. Fortunately, Luo Jiu had organized all the information into a shared spreadsheet. Whenever they were uncertain about something, a quick search gave them the answer.
She immediately placed an order for three hundred traditional stainless-steel ear picks and three hundred illuminated ear picks. Once they arrived, they would all be fully charged and stored in the space for later use.
Zhong Jialing pondered whether people would still need skincare products in the apocalypse. Face masks, creams, toners, lotions, serums—La Mer, SK-II, Helena Rubinstein, Estée Lauder, Shiseido… not a single major brand escaped her attention.
Luo Jiu said, “Go ahead and stock up on skincare products, but don’t forget lip balm and hand cream, either. As for cosmetics, forget it. No matter how good you make yourself look, one bite from a zombie and it’ll all be over.”
“Mm-hm, I didn’t stock any up. Do I look that stupid?” Zhong Jialing said as she silently removed the lipstick she had just added to her shopping cart. Her bright, limpid eyes rolled around, and no one knew what she was thinking.
Feng Qi focused on food and drinks. She ordered twenty thousand cups of milk tea, ten thousand cups of coffee, and eight thousand pieces of fried chicken.
When Luo Jiu heard the numbers she announced, she asked, “Did you order all the milk tea from the same shop?”
“No. I ordered them according to everyone’s preferences. Five thousand cups are your pure English classic milk tea, five thousand are Jialing’s cheese-foam milk tea, five thousand are Yaoyao’s Boya Juexian, and five thousand are my jasmine milk tea.”
Luo Jiu nodded without saying anything. She thought that even five thousand cups would be enough to keep the shop employees scrambling around in panic while cursing her ancestors for eighteen generations. Fortunately, she was an orphan.
Once the lard had finished rendering, they put out the fires. They scooped out the cracklings left after the fat had been rendered and placed them in a large basin. The lard was poured into oil jars, sealed, and stored in the space.
Cheng Yaoyao brought a piece of pork crackling to Feng Qi’s mouth. “Try it. It’s especially delicious right after it’s fried.”
Feng Qi bit into it doubtfully. “Mm!” Sure enough, it was crisp and crunchy, not greasy at all, and filled with the fragrance of rendered fat.
“In our village, we call this oil crackling,” Cheng Yaoyao said. “We save it, mince it, and use it as dumpling filling. It’s incredibly delicious.”
Everyone gathered around and ate for quite a while before Zhong Jialing finally surrendered. “No, I’ve eaten too much today. If I eat any more, I’m going to throw up.”
“Then let’s get some exercise and make another trip to the farmers’ market.”
Zhong Jialing drove Luo Jiu out, while Feng Qi stayed behind with Cheng Yaoyao to pickle vegetables.
The two of them headed to the fruit section first. Dandong strawberries, Chilean cherries, domestic cherries—every delicious fruit was stocked up on, at least five thousand pounds of each. For the sake of variety, they even stocked up on fruits they did not particularly like, such as apples and bananas, buying more than a thousand pounds of each.
After the two of them finished placing their orders, nearly all the nearby fruit shops immediately closed up and went home to load the goods.
Next, they went to the seafood market. They opened with an order for three thousand pounds of Norwegian salmon, one thousand pounds of eel, and two thousand pounds each of fish maw, abalone, and Argentine red shrimp.
They ordered one thousand five hundred pounds each of crawfish and mantis shrimp. They ordered three thousand pounds of oysters and scallops. As for the other types of seafood, they ordered five hundred to one thousand pounds of each, depending on what they felt like buying.
The owner and six shop assistants each held a calculator and ran the numbers more than ten times. Finally, with their eyes wide and their voices trembling, they told the two women, “The total is… nine… nine million two hundred and sixty-four thousand and twenty-seven.”
“Nine million two hundred and sixty-four thousand is nine million two hundred and sixty-four thousand,” Zhong Jialing said. “Why are you so nervous? It’s not as if we can’t afford it.”
They handed over the card, swiped it, and signed their names without batting an eye.
The moment the two of them left the shop, Zhong Jialing received a call from the bank. They asked whether she had been scammed and why there had been so many large expenses in succession.
Zhong Jialing calmly told them, “No, I just… wasn’t in a good mood, so I bought a few things on a whim.”
There was silence on the other end for several seconds before the caller quietly hung up, secretly lamenting: Please, can I be the rich person in my next life instead?
There were simply too many things to buy, so the two of them split up.
Zhong Jialing went to sweep through the dessert shops, while Luo Jiu entered an agricultural-supplies store.
She picked up a sickle and gazed at its blade, which gleamed with a cold light, lost in thought.