That afternoon, Xu Qinghe returned to the market she had visited the day before.
She needed to pick up some of the toiletries she had ordered and buy the remaining household items on her stockpiling list.
The items left on the list were mostly miscellaneous odds and ends, too varied to categorize neatly.
Fifty bars of yellow laundry soap to use in place of dish soap, three thermos flasks, four metal kettles, five large plastic bathtubs, twenty blue plastic storage bins, two boxes of flint fire starters, and ten carbon monoxide detectors.
After paying, Xu Qinghe loaded everything into her car before heading to the shop she had visited yesterday.
The owner had already sorted part of her order and stacked it by the entrance. Xu Qinghe checked the quantities against her list before helping carry everything into the car.
When she returned to settle the bill, something on the shelf caught her eye—snow cream.
She had used it as a child. Compared to modern skincare products, it was much thicker and richer. Back then, she had developed red, chapped skin from the cold.
A classmate had let her use some, and the results had been surprisingly good. The redness on her face had faded quickly.
Xu Qinghe had originally planned to buy some skincare products—not out of vanity, but because she remembered how miserable frostbite had been in her dreams. Her face, hands, and feet would itch, burn, and ache unbearably. Proper skincare could help prevent some of that.
Unfortunately, modern skincare products were expensive, and she had hesitated for a long time, unwilling to spend the money.
Snow cream was different.
Three tins cost only ten yuan, and because of its rich texture, a small tin could last a long time.
She had completely forgotten about it while making her stockpiling plan. Fortunately, she had spotted it today.
This was a good find.
Xu Qinghe immediately bought one hundred yuan’s worth. Since she was purchasing in bulk, the shop owner gave her a five percent discount, and she ended up spending just over two hundred yuan.
Driving away with a car full of supplies, she saw that it was still early and decided to buy a few more things.
She first found a secluded spot and stored all the supplies in her space before driving toward the suburbs.
After arriving, she used her map app to locate several pharmacies and purchased another batch of medicine.
The winters in her city were mild, so it had taken quite a bit of searching online to find a coal supplier.
In ancient times, firewood was a precious commodity—expensive and often in short supply.
She remembered watching an educational video explaining that ancient emperors sometimes paid officials with firewood as part of their salary.
At the time, she hadn’t thought much of it.
But after half a month of recurring dreams, she finally understood just how scarce fuel had been in ancient times.
People often assumed ancient environments had more forests and vegetation, but that wasn’t necessarily true.
In the era from her dreams, mountains belonged either to the government, powerful clans, or wealthy landowners.
Ordinary people couldn’t simply go into the mountains to gather firewood.
Unless the mountain belonged to their clan, they needed permission from the authorities or the landowner.
Sneak in and gather wood without permission?
If you were caught, getting beaten was the best-case scenario. In more serious cases, people could be beaten to death.
And even if you survived the beating, in an age with little medicine and poor healthcare, it often only meant a slower death.
The village in her dreams had relatively good conditions because it possessed a clan-owned mountain.
Unfortunately, it faced the same problem as the rest of the era: firewood was scarce.
As the population grew, demand for fuel increased.
But there was only so much wood to go around, and trees took a long time to grow.
Year after year, the supply dwindled.
So even with a clan mountain, there was never enough firewood.
That was why she had never burned a fire for warmth during the winters in her dreams.
To survive the cold, Xu Qinghe had devised multiple layers of protection.
Portable electric heaters and oil-filled radiators were one safeguard.
Coal was another.
Because her city rarely experienced harsh winters, coal was slightly more expensive than in northern regions where it was commonly used.
She ordered three tons of coal briquettes and three tons of charcoal, spending over ten thousand yuan in total.
After paying the deposit, she told the owner she would send the delivery address the following day.
As she left the coal yard, Xu Qinghe sighed.
The money she had hoped to save was impossible to save after all. Renting a warehouse was unavoidable.
It looked like she would need to visit a livestock farm tomorrow afternoon.
The sooner she finalized her purchases, the fewer days she would need to rent the warehouse.
By the time she drove home, it was completely dark.
She rushed into the parcel pickup station just before closing time and quickly loaded all her packages into the car under the resentful gaze of the employee.
The snacks she had ordered earlier had finally arrived.
And there were quite a lot of them.
Even though it was dark, there were still plenty of neighbors downstairs, so she had no choice but to carry the packages upstairs one trip at a time.
After several days of stockpiling, her stamina had improved noticeably.
Once everything was inside, Xu Qinghe collapsed onto the floor, exhausted.
Too tired to open the packages, she simply stored them all in her space.
Then she took out the food she had prepared earlier and wolfed it down.
After eating and resting for a while, Xu Qinghe pulled out her notebook and started doing the math.
She had already completed more than half of her stockpiling plan, and she had spent a significant amount of money.
It was time to calculate her remaining funds.
Before doing so, she dug out several USB drives she had used for work, wiped them clean, and downloaded books and resources on farming, barefoot medicine, plant encyclopedias, and wilderness survival.
She also ordered more than a dozen additional USB drives and several external hard drives online.
Xu Qinghe opened her payment history.
Food expenses:
Household supplies:
Other expenses:
Altogether, she had spent 160,000 yuan.
She had just over 90,000 yuan left.
There were still livestock, fish fry, weapons, and electrical appliances left to buy.
She sighed deeply.
She was really poor.
She had no idea whether that lottery ticket would win. If it didn’t, she would have to give up some of her supplies.
She agonized over it for a while, only to realize she didn’t want to give up anything.
Forget it.
She would take it one step at a time.
For now, she should organize the space.
Tomorrow, she planned to rent a warehouse to receive the coal shipment and purchase livestock at the same time. Having everything delivered together would save money on warehouse rental.
That meant she needed to divide the space into separate areas tonight.
Following her original plan, Xu Qinghe used the fencing to mark off different sections.
One advantage of working inside the space was that everything was much easier than in reality.
With a thought, she could manipulate the wooden fences and insert them into the ground effortlessly—something she could never do in real life.
After separating the livestock area, she retrieved some pasture grass seeds from storage and scattered them across the bare black soil in the planting area.
Then she poured out three boxes of earthworms she had bought earlier.
That way, the animals she raised would have some treats to snack on.
Before going to bed, Xu Qinghe tossed a solar-powered charging bank into the planting space.