Online Shopping Spree

By the time they returned to the hotel, it was nearly ten.

Ming Jiu and Ming Rong walked into the hotel lobby. The front desk staff asked Ming Jiu whether she wanted to extend her stay, since today was the last day covered by her room payment.

Ming Jiu did not extend it. To make it easier to set up their new home, she planned to move with Ming Rong to a hotel near Dragonview Court tomorrow for a temporary stay.

They went upstairs, washed up, and the sisters collapsed onto the wide, comfortable sofa in the living room.

Ming Jiu picked up her phone and ordered some cherry tomatoes and golden berries through a food delivery app. They had spent the entire day running around outside, and she had not had a chance to feed Ming Rong any of the fruit produced in the space.

Setting down her phone, Ming Jiu began assigning her sister tasks.

"Can you help me out?"

Ming Rong immediately straightened up from the sofa and asked in sign language whether her sister needed water or a shoulder massage.

Ming Jiu almost laughed.

"No, it's about the new homes. We have two homes now—unit 2501 in Dragonview Court, and the villa we saw tonight."

"We can live in both from now on. Usually, we'll stay in the city, and when summer gets especially hot, we'll go stay at the villa."

Ming Rong picked up her tablet. [Summer retreat at the Old Summer Palace!]

Ming Jiu nodded. "Right, it's for escaping the summer heat."

This girl had definitely been secretly watching Empresses in the Palace again.

"So these are our homes from now on. I'll handle the big tasks, and you'll handle the smaller ones."

As she spoke, Ming Jiu took Ming Rong's tablet and started typing in the open memo.

"For example—kitchen supplies. Pots, bowls, ladles, kitchen appliances, that sort of thing. You can buy those. And bedding sets, pillows, quilts, and other daily necessities. We need them for both homes, so I'm leaving all the online shopping to you. Is that okay?"

Choosing kitchenware was practically Ming Rong's field of expertise. Ming Jiu had little say in it.

As for daily necessities—Mom and Dad had never interfered with their daughters' decisions when it came to decorating their rooms. They had let the sisters choose for themselves since childhood. Ming Rong knew all about bed sheet and duvet cover sizes and fabric basics, so Ming Jiu was not worried at all.

Ming Rong nodded vigorously, casually grabbed a tiny notebook and pen from the table, opened it, and began writing.

[I can handle the curtains too!]

Ming Jiu said, "Sure. I'll send you the window measurements later. Both homes need at least five sets of curtains for backups, and they need to block out enough light. Can you pick them out?"

Ming Rong nodded again.

Ming Jiu picked up her phone. "Then it's all yours. I'll transfer you some funds."

[Big sis, I have money. I still have over a hundred thousand. If it's not enough, I'll ask you for more.]

[How big are the beds?]

"Buy the 1.8-meter ones. When I ordered furniture today, I picked 1.8-meter beds for everything. I didn't ask for your opinion beforehand."

Ming Rong shook her head. [It's okay. I like big beds.]

[I know you're busy. I can help too. Helping makes me happy.]

Ming Jiu could not resist. She hugged her sister's freshly washed little head and kissed it several times.

"I'm giving you one more task. Make a list of things you want to buy for your hobbies. For example, I know you like making journals, so you can buy lots and lots of journaling supplies. You also like reading comics, so you can buy lots and lots of comics."

"Basically, list anything you like, or anything you might like in the future. Let's finish buying everything over the next few days and fill both our new homes up, okay?"

Ming Rong blinked. For a moment, she felt as though her sister were treating her like a complete fool.

Fine—considering how busy her sister was.

Ming Rong accepted the task and happily ran back to her room to shop online.

The fruit happened to arrive then. Ming Jiu swapped it out for fruit from the space. Worried that Ming Rong would overeat and make herself uncomfortable, she did not leave much.

After taking the fruit to Ming Rong's bedroom, Ming Jiu returned to her own room. She had already chosen a warehouse for temporary storage—it was time to officially begin shopping.

The system had not only organized a supply list for her, but also sorted out purchasing channels.

The supplies, worth over thirty million in total, covered everything from food, clothing, housing, and transportation to provisions for dealing with severe natural disasters. Items that could be bought online accounted for only a quarter of the list; she could visit offline factories for the rest.

For instance, several large industrial parks at the border between City B and City L, which Ming Jiu had driven past today, contained factories capable of covering nearly half the supplies on the list.

Ming Jiu opened her computer and logged into a wholesale shopping platform. She also readied her phone, then, after some thought, dug her tablet out of a storage box in the space warehouse. She opened several shopping platforms and logged into each one.

Zuo Junhao's stockpile of supplies was actually very comprehensive, but there was always the chance of something going wrong. Ming Jiu could not pin the security of her and her sister's future lives on an operation that might fail.

She would prepare a stockpile herself, then clean Zuo Junhao out. Of course, there was no way she and Xiao Rong could use up so much stuff on their own, but that was not a problem. She could trade it for gold.

Growing crops and selling vegetables was one source of income, and with supply exchanges added in... her goal was to buy a safe house within six months, buy her own ability potion and Xiao Rong's gene ability potion within a year, and acquire an intelligent caretaker robot within three years.

[Let's begin, System Sis.]

The next second, the shopping carts on her phone, computer, and tablet began scrolling automatically, and the categories and quantities of items in them skyrocketed.

Ming Jiu picked up her phone and placed orders one by one. Even if customer service informed her after accepting an order that stock was insufficient or shipping would be difficult, it did not matter. The system would immediately search and provide alternatives.

As for privately messaging customer service for discounts when buying in bulk—there was no time. Absolutely no time.

While Ming Jiu enthusiastically placed orders, the system worked behind the scenes in tandem. The woman and the system coordinated seamlessly.

Even with the system's help, Ming Jiu finished only half the online shopping list in an hour and a half. The price was a stabbing pain in her eyes. After finishing her chat with the last customer service representative, a needle-like pain pierced her head, and she decisively put down her phone for a break.

Check marks filled the spreadsheet on her computer. Ming Jiu enlarged it and added several items at the bottom—various seasonings, in large quantities; various yarns and crochet hooks, fabrics, needles and thread, and sewing machines.

Seasonings—ever since she had bound the system and opened up the first plot of farmland, she had basically never lacked food, but she was desperately short on seasonings.

The ingredients she harvested were either eaten raw or steamed and boiled. The only seasoning was exorbitantly expensive fine salt. Not only was it expensive, it also had an indescribable astringent taste. It could not compare at all to the refined salt that had been everywhere before the apocalypse, selling for just a few yuan per jin.

Just thinking about it made Ming Jiu feel as if her tongue had been killed all over again.

[System Sis, please, I want every kind of seasoning. I can get the basics like oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar at the wholesale market, but my online shopping list still needs things we don't eat often—seasoning powders, sauces, all kinds of sauce packets and soup bases, everything. I want both additive-free stuff and the chemical-laden stuff!]

The shopping cart page began scrolling again.

Ming Jiu was reassured.

As for yarn, crochet hooks, fabrics, and the like, those were purely for passing the time.

What if she somehow ended up living a very leisurely life?

Movies and dramas could serve the same purpose, of course, but she had an attention deficit. If her hands were not busy with something while watching, she felt uncomfortable.