Condiments like vinegar, sugar, and salt do not expire in principle. Star anise and cinnamon keep fine as long as they stay dry. These can be stored for the long term, so Jing Shu would stock plenty in the villa's basement without using up precious room in the Cube Space.
Jing Shu secretly wiped a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth, then said to the shop's brisk, calculating auntie, "Aside from vinegar, give me ten cases (200 kilograms) of every other seasoning."
The auntie looked up at Jing Shu. "Every seasoning? Are you sure?"
Jing Shu nodded and added, "Yes. As for aged vinegar, give me thirty big cases."
The vinegar came in 5-liter carry jugs, the soy sauce and oyster sauce in 1-liter jugs, and the rest in 500-gram or 250-gram pouches.
The auntie regained her composure, scribbling out the order. She glanced at Jing Shu and asked, "Douban paste, chili paste, and chili powder sell very well, and the margins are good. Want some of those too?" She figured this young woman was a first-timer, so she gave a friendly nudge.
Jing Shu thought it over. For the first month she would stock raw ingredients, and for the second month she would process foods. She would certainly pickle a lot of vegetables then. Chili paste would be better made from peppers grown in the Cube Space, and she could make douban paste herself too, though it might not taste like the store brands.
"Then add ten cases of douban paste," Jing Shu said, swallowing unconsciously. The auntie gave her a strange look. This girl had been gulping since she walked in. Was she ill?
The auntie tapped away on her calculator. Jing Shu opened the calculator on her phone and did her own math. She was not the kind of customer who accepted whatever price the shopkeeper named.
"A total of 12,890 yuan," Jing Shu said first. The auntie nodded, ran the numbers again, and said, "Correct. Orders over ten thousand come with a free case of curry blocks." At once, Jing Shu pictured curry chicken over rice, and her mouth watered again.
Jing Shu left her address, paid, took the invoice, exchanged phone numbers, and arranged delivery before closing time. Pleased, she left the shop and continued deeper into the market.
She had 1,630 yuan left. The vegetable stalls were already emptying, and the seasoning shops were getting ready to close. Jing Shu decided to top up a bit more, buying whole peppercorns, brown sugar, and Wang Zhihe fermented bean curd, and asked the seasoning shop to ship those along with the rest.
She had only 30 yuan left on her, and night had fallen, so Jing Shu took a taxi home.
After work, Jing Shu's father quietly planned to take out 500 yuan to buy a birthday gift for Uncle Sun's son. When he opened his stash, only a single 100-yuan note remained. For a moment, Jing Shu's father's expression shifted through shock, unease, and stubborn reluctance, as if remembering the fear of being ruled by the little demon king.
When Jing Shu returned, Jing Shu's father sat on the edge of the bed with a constipated look, sighing and debating whether to confess to Jing Shu's mother. Jing Shu's mother was cooking in the kitchen. "You little rascal always come home right at dinner time."
The aroma carried a faint burnt edge. Jing Shu's mother's cooking was still as unreliable as ever. Looking at Jing Shu's mother's face, still fairly young and pretty ten years earlier, Jing Shu's throat tightened. She did not dare imagine the gaunt cheeks and head of white hair that malnutrition would bring ten years later.
She tucked away her emotions. They only hardened Jing Shu's resolve to sell the house and the cars and stockpile supplies so that the three of them would not only have enough to eat during the apocalypse but live well.
They had just finished dinner when the mushroom bags and seasonings arrived together. Under her parents' puzzled gazes, Jing Shu had the deliverymen carry dozens of big boxes straight into her bedroom. Then Jing Shu took out the contract and showed it to her parents, explaining, "Zhu Zhengqi helped find a marketing team to package me as a food influencer. I will livestream while selling food, so I went to the wholesaler this afternoon for seasonings."
Since Jing Shu could not reveal the Cube Space, she needed a legitimate, open explanation for the stockpiles so her parents would not grow suspicious later. Jing Shu felt like a genius for coming up with a plan that killed three birds with one stone.
"Why buy so much? Can you even use it all?" As the family cook, Jing Shu's mother naturally kept a tight grip on the household budget.
"We will need over a thousand jin of vinegar just to make hundreds of jars of pickles," Jing Shu said. She then walked her parents through the entire pipeline of a persona and hype strategy, how much hiring water-army engagement would cost, and how lucrative ads would be once she became popular.
Never underestimate what some parents will sacrifice for their children. They will sell a house for a good school, and they will do the same for a promising future.
"We need that much money?"
"For our daughter's future, we will sell pots and pans if we must. We prepared to spend when our girl chose the performing arts. Did Lao Liu next door not invest several million?"
The decision to pour money into a livestream career was made quickly. With only one daughter, they cherished Jing Shu to the bone.
Jing Shu added, "The persona is a rich second-generation cooking and selling her own food. That means I should stream from the villa, and we need to renovate a few places to suit the content."
Jing Shu's father worked in renovation, which would save money.
"All right. I will find workers tomorrow. Labor and materials at cost. When funds are freed up, we will redo things exactly how you want," Jing Shu's father said. Whatever the three women in his life wanted, he supported unconditionally.
"Sell the shop, and sell my car," Jing Shu's father said without hesitation, making the same choice he had in the previous life.
Jing Shu nodded like a pecking chick. "Relax. I will break even in three months and buy you something even better."
"My car too. But we are still short six hundred thousand," Jing Shu's mother said, a little worried. "Should we sell this apartment and move to the villa?"
"Commuting more than thirty kilometers to work from the villa will not do," Jing Shu's father objected. The villa was too far.
Jing Shu offered a plan. "The contract says we must pay an eight-hundred-thousand deposit within three days. Why not sell the shop and Dad's car to cover the deposit first? If time is tight, borrow from Auntie, Uncle, and the other aunts. We still have a month to scrape the rest together."
By borrowing, she would also let her parents see her aunt's true colors. In this life, Jing Shu intended to bring that enemy down early.
They agreed. They immediately posted the listings on 58.com with urgent pricing, set low and requiring full payment.
"Dad, look. Today is Uncle Sun's son's twenty-third birthday. Did you send a gift?" Jing Shu showed Jing Shu's father a photo from Moments.
"Not this year," Jing Shu's father said gloomily. With his stash gone, what gift could he send?
"Oh, Dad, look. Uncle Sun's son just got a new Mercedes. He even wrote, 'Thanks to Dad for the birthday present.' So rich." As soon as she said it, Jing Shu saw Jing Shu's father's face darken. Knowing not to push too far, she slipped away. As for Uncle Sun's one hundred thousand debt, it was time for him to cough it up.
Back in her room with the door closed, Jing Shu first stored the mushroom bags in a one-cubic-meter section of the Cube Space. Then she moved all the boxes into the Cube Space and used her x-ray view to check them. The unopened salt, chicken bouillon, sesame oil, and other items were all in the correct quantities with fresh dates. Only then did she put the boxes back in her bedroom. It sounded like an absurd amount of seasonings, but stacked high in three neat rows, they did not take much room. On her phone, Jing Shu checked off each item on her list and noted the quantities.
Sorting her stockpiles was Jing Shu's happiest time. It felt like counting money every day.
===
Author's note:
All prices and items were verified and cross-checked with reference data and past wholesale rates. Every expense was carefully calculated, real and effective, not made up. O(∩_∩)O