Houses and cars would all become worthless in the face of survival.
Jing Shu shook her head. She hoped history would change, that the apocalypse would not come again in this lifetime. But no matter what, the necessary preparations still had to be made.
So Jing Shu would never confess to her parents. She could not tell them about the Cube Space, about her rebirth, or about the coming apocalypse.
Having made her plan, Jing Shu quickly came up with an excuse to quiet Zhu Zhengqi: "Give me one more month to think it over. If I still want to be a streamer then, I will come find you. After all, one million is not a small sum."
Only then did Zhu Zhengqi, who had been bombarding her nonstop with messages, finally stop. He did not dare push Jing Shu too hard.
Jing Shu changed clothes, shouldered her bag, and pulled along a shopping trolley. She dug out her father's hidden stash of 3,600 yuan, leaving 100 behind, added the 6,059 yuan in her WeChat wallet, and borrowed another 6,000 yuan from Jiebei before heading out. In the Jing family, money was always managed by her mother. Her father, an honest man, had devoted his whole life to the three women he loved most: his mother, his wife, and his daughter.
At the printing shop near the community gate, Jing Shu used her phone to alter the electronic contract in three places: she changed the deposit to 800,000 yuan, the full payment to 1.5 million, and swapped the company name. She printed it out, signed it, and pressed her fingerprint. Tonight, when she returned home, she could negotiate with her parents about the money.
The first thing Jing Shu needed to do now was head to Wucheng's largest agricultural wholesale market to buy seeds, and while she was at it, stock up on seasonings.
There was a saying: with grain in hand, one never needs to panic. Even if the world ended tomorrow, she could still live well.
The wholesale market's greatest feature was this: no retail. Everything was sold in boxes and crates, large quantities only. That was exactly what Jing Shu needed.
She spent twenty minutes in a taxi and arrived at the bustling market. People were everywhere, vegetable leaves scattered across the ground, trucks constantly loading and unloading. Who would believe that in just half a year, a single cabbage could sell for thousands of yuan?
The market was enormous, divided into sections for vegetables, fruits, dried goods, frozen and preserved items, and aquatic seafood.
Jing Shu entered the vegetable section. In the middle were two long rows of massive trucks stacked with boxes of fresh vegetables. Some were already half-sold, some entirely cleared out, while others still stretched as far as the eye could see.
On both sides were shops selling seeds, farm byproducts, and seasonings, wholesale and retail. Jing Shu went from shop to shop, more than ten in a row, purchasing a variety of seeds: vegetables, fruits, cotton, medicinal herbs, sugar crops, rice, wheat, beans, oil crops, and more. Whether they would be used or not, Jing Shu thought, at least she would preserve some of Huaxia's lifeblood. If someday sunlight returned and farming became possible, it would be far better than seeing these things go extinct.
Every shopkeeper looked at Jing Shu as if she had lost her mind. Just maize alone had more than one hundred varieties, not to mention the endless vegetables and fruits.
"It's like this," Jing Shu explained. "I am from the National Bureau of Agricultural Environmental Protection and Ecological Testing. Here is my work ID." (She had made it herself on Baidu.) "I need a wide variety of seed samples. If you have other varieties, please sell me some too."
At times like this, the longer the title sounded, the harder it was for others to figure out what the department actually did. And if you tagged on a bureau or authority, people immediately worried about whether you might be inspecting their goods for compliance.
Sure enough, the shopkeepers' expressions shifted to polite smiles, and they eagerly began to explain their products. Jing Shu carefully labeled every packet of seeds with notes and instructions. At checkout, the shopkeepers often tossed in extra items.
One gave her sweet potato and yam tubers, another gave her potato seed pieces. These things were considered worthless, but the shopkeepers, feeling they were contributing to the nation, offered them gladly. Jing Shu gratefully packed them into her trolley.
To her surprise, she even found fungus bags for sale: enoki, lion's mane, shiitake mushrooms, and more. These required no watering, and could sprout within ten days, producing three harvests. But once Jing Shu brought them back, she had her own way to ensure they kept growing indefinitely.
Mushrooms were among the very few vegetables that could still grow in the apocalypse. They had saved countless lives. Jing Shu, though sick of oyster mushrooms from her past life, still welcomed the idea of having different mushrooms to eat.
She bought two bags of each variety, filled out her address, and arranged for delivery directly to her home.
Finished with seeds, she moved deeper into the market.
Though seeds were cheap, often just a yuan or two per packet, the sheer number of varieties added up. Jing Shu spent a total of 1,030 yuan.
Soon, Jing Shu found a large seasoning wholesale shop. Right at the entrance stood ten massive vats of aged vinegar, lined up in a grand display.
"Hello, boss. Do you offer free delivery?" Jing Shu asked, glancing at the middle-aged woman behind the counter, who was hammering numbers on her calculator with lightning speed.
"Free delivery on orders over two thousand. Look at what you need, no bargaining," the woman said without raising her head. Then she shouted over her shoulder at a young man arranging goods: "Hurry up with that order for Friendly Supermarket, they are urging again."
It was clear that although the shop was tucked away, business was thriving, filled with loyal returning customers.
Jing Shu walked inside and began checking the prices. She could not help but marvel: wholesale really was cheap.
But here, wholesale meant a minimum of five crates (100 jin). No single boxes.
Shanxi aged vinegar: 270 yuan (five crates). Low-sodium salt: 180 yuan. Soy sauce: 140 yuan. White sugar: 300 yuan.
Jing Shu almost thought she had gone mad. Just looking at these seasonings made her mouth water. Especially sesame oil. A splash in hotpot or noodles left an aroma lingering between the teeth.
Only heaven knew that in the apocalypse, even grain would vanish, let alone surplus used for seasonings. At most, strategic rations like salt were distributed in tiny portions once a week.
In those days, every grain of seasoning would be priceless.
In her past life, after the flood washed away her family's home in the second year, Jing Shu never tasted any seasoning again. Either she ate mass-produced communal gruel or foraged for carrion.
Carrion was a new species evolved from the long darkness, a kind of rotting organism that bred endlessly in swarms. Easy to catch, boiled in plain water with bark and salt, and if lucky, sprinkled with a few scallions, it counted as a decent meal.