"Food coupons..." Sun Hang murmured.
Food coupons were a kind of "special voucher" used in quarantine zones. Unlike ordinary towns that operated under a market economy, the vast majority of supplies in quarantine zones came from provisions periodically transported in from outside.
This meant that the goods people in quarantine zones could buy were limited.
Other than the few people connected to the military who could obtain some off-plan goods through smuggling channels, for most quarantine-zone residents, once an item sold out, it was gone. Unless they waited for the next shipment of supplies, no amount of money could buy it.
To prevent hoarding and price gouging, quarantine zones issued not only currency used throughout the Federation, but also rationed "special vouchers" according to household size. Buying goods required both money and vouchers for the designated category. Buying rice or flour required food coupons, buying salt required salt coupons, and even buying a bicycle required a bicycle coupon.
The purpose was to prevent someone from buying up an entire essential commodity at once and then reselling it at an inflated price.
Of course, to prevent special vouchers from becoming another form of currency, all vouchers in quarantine zones had time limits. If they were not used that month, they became invalid the next month.
Invalid vouchers, like the one in Sun Hang's hand, would be stamped with a square red seal bearing the words "Invalid."
"From a certain day onward, supplies stopped coming in from outside. The people in charge of distributing supplies in town could no longer contact the military outside either. Without food, what use were food coupons?" the old woman said slowly. "But no one dared leave Maoyun Town... not even the most powerful people in town. Privileges, smuggled goods, those were all trivial matters. As long