Jing Shu was in for a busy time. These supplies were scattered all over the living room, and the haul was both messy and numerous. Grandpa Jing and Jing An went off to the backyard to tinker with the heavy freeze-drying equipment, the metallic clanking of their tools echoing through the house, while she and Grandma Jing started the daunting task of organizing the piles of goods.
When she had purchased the items in the capital, Jing Shu hadn't thought much about the logistics. At the time, the costs were just a string of abstract numbers on a screen, so she had simply moved through the lists and clicked the buy button. With the excellent service that handled the full transport of the crates, she hadn't considered the sheer physical volume of the gear. She had figured it was the equivalent of a few transport trucks' worth of stuff, but seeing it dumped in her living room made it feel much more substantial.
Earlier, she hadn't considered the sheer physical volume of the gear. Now that Zijin wasn't here, she couldn't help but miss the days when Zijin was around to help.
Speaking of which, she had to mention Zijin's obsessive-compulsive habits. Zijin was meticulous about everything she touched, ensuring that every container was perfectly aligned and every label was facing forward. With her around, managing the silkworms had been an easy task, and Jing Shu had saved herself a significant amount of exhausting labor. Now that Zijin wasn't here, and the silkworms weren't being raised in such massive quantities, Grandma Jing couldn't handle all the meticulous organization by herself.
Zijin had gone off to volunteer, driven by a desire to help more people in the struggling communities. By now, she should be coming back. She had had her share of hardships and physical exertion, and Jing Shu thought that maybe Zijin was still a bit too kind-hearted for this harsh world. But without Zijin's kindness in her past life, she wouldn't have had someone to help her through those incredibly tough times. Because of that debt, she didn't comment on the choice. In this life, as long as Zijin didn't betray her, Jing Shu would treat her like a good sister.
Sorting and categorizing all the goods, checking the stock, and making sure every corner of the warehouse was neat was Jing Shu's favorite part of the process. The repetitive motion was addicting and provided her with a strong, grounded sense of security.
Jing Shu had a good habit of keeping a small notebook whenever she checked her supplies, recording every detail so she could verify her Cube Space inventory at any time. She could have used a digital app on her phone, but in this age of big data and constant surveillance, she felt that nothing was truly private once it was typed into a connected device. So, she either used a phone without a SIM card for offline tasks or wrote everything by hand in her notebook.
The notebook recorded everything from the past four years: where she got the items, when they arrived, and regular inventory checks to remove what had been used. This way, she always knew exactly what she had and exactly what was left in her hidden reserves. Of course, she hadn't stored all her supplies in the villa, even though the building was quite safe. Diversifying her storage locations was a survival rule she lived by.
This trip to the imperial capital had replenished a lot of household goods, providing a stockpile that would last for several years. Items that weren't immediately necessary for daily life got marked with a yellow circle in her ledger for later attention, while nearly depleted items were marked in bold red, ready to trigger a supply request.
Medical supplies and equipment were fairly complete now. She didn't have an infinite supply of life-saving Spirit Spring, but she had cultivated batch after batch of valuable herbs in the rich soil of the Cube Space. In the past few years working at the Medicinal Herb Association, Jing Shu had learned several traditional Chinese medicine formulas, just in case she ever found herself without modern supplies.
What she lacked most were professional anesthetics and painkillers. She could plant mafeisan, but for serious injuries, she would need professional medical advice and hospital-grade drugs. Those things were critical for long-term safety.
Back in Wu City, Jing Shu was busy organizing her supplies while keeping up with her various enterprises. She hadn't realized it before, but as her responsibilities grew, each business required constant handling and signatures, keeping her constantly exhausted. Only now did she grasp just how many enterprises she actually had under her control. It also proved an old saying true: telling one lie isn't scary, but the scary part is having to spin thousands of others to cover it.
Take her red nematode factory, for example. Initially, it was just about opening the factory doors. But to supply it properly, she ended up collaborating with Xishan on energy and gas. For the factory's future and the impending fifth-year relocation, she had even introduced Sulfuric Acid Ants on the empty land nearby, ensuring a stable sulfur supply that could be used as fertilizer or sent to the local government.
She had also taken over the trash plant in the Banana Community as the manager, specifically to cut costs and provide extra fuel for her factory. This also helped her prepare for the logistics of the fifth-year migration. Later, she partnered with the Insect Girl, Xiao Wei, acting as a middleman to supply rice, flour, oil, and daily necessities. They sent hundreds of super bugs to be slaughtered for meat patties, then reinvested the profits back into the factory, repeating the cycle endlessly.
Did it end up being meaningless?
No, it didn't. The businesses had snowballed, growing bigger and more complex until one operation had to open another just to cover a gap in the supply chain. If she broke one link in the chain, the whole operation's stability would be affected.
Jing Shu finally grasped the businesses' essence: if there's trouble, go to the local government. If you need money, go to the local government. Borrow what you can and don't rely on anyone else. She had become the kind of capitalist she had despised in her past life. But as she said to herself, "I hate big corporate capitalists. But if it's me, let's pretend I didn't say that."
Now she had to account for her shares in Xishan and the biotech research company, not to mention her smaller ventures. She spent days basking in a bit of self-indulgence as she reviewed the numbers. Of course, her return had stirred the whole family, especially with all the rare items she brought back in the crates. She even planned to raise the fresh blood and bamboo rats personally in her room, keeping them close so she could monitor their progress. That showed just how invested she was in their growth.
Meanwhile, batches of feed bugs were released into their new pens. Grandpa Jing had work to do as well, setting up a dedicated breeding section in the backyard with specialized heaters. With temperatures now dropping below minus twenty Celsius, the family kept the villa warm twenty-four hours a day with the boiler heating system, so the livestock wasn't at risk of freezing to death.
Jing Shu, utilizing the Cube Space, had already bred a massive batch of creatures. She planned to replace as much fresh grain as possible with feed bugs over the next few years to save her primary crops. Since there wouldn't be much fresh vegetable root available during the migration, she was breeding as many as she could, filling every available container. Freeze-drying them later would save an immense amount of space in her RV.
The Wu City news predictably welcomed the Herb Association's triumphant return. The reports didn't go into much detail, only briefly mentioning the imperial capital competition since the insider information couldn't be disclosed to the public. It didn't matter to her. The broadcast's highlight was the footage of Jing Shu, wearing her big winter coat, waving as she got off the plane and shaking hands with Jin Tianci, an image that was broadcast everywhere.