Stockpiling Underway 1

January 28th. Eleven days until the blizzard disaster.

At six-thirty in the morning, the alarm rang on time. Ming Jiu immediately got up, washed up, and ordered breakfast through a delivery app.

Ming Rong did not hold her back either. By the time breakfast arrived, she had just finished washing up. After eating, Ming Jiu first took her sister back to 2501 before returning to the hotel parking lot, driving out of City B, and heading straight for the wholesale market in City L.

The deliveries would not begin arriving one after another until eleven in the morning. Ming Jiu had mapped out a rough schedule the night before, so she decided to spend some money at the wholesale market first.

The car smoothly entered the highway. At nine o'clock, Ming Jiu arrived outside the wholesale market, dragged her suitcase full of cash, and headed straight for several stores the system had already screened.

Rice, flour, and miscellaneous grains—Ming Jiu ordered enough for herself and her sister to consume for ten years, including various varieties of rice, high-, medium-, and low-gluten flour, all kinds of noodles, and coarse grains.

The system farm could currently only harvest basic agricultural products such as wheat and rice. If she wanted large quantities of polished rice and white flour, she would need to wait until the farm reached level ten and unlocked the processing plant.

Stocking up would ensure they were prepared. Even if she and her sister did not eat it, they could use it to trade for gold or other supplies.

But this reminded Ming Jiu of something. After reviewing the shipping order and paying the deposit, she immediately ordered household flour mills and small rice husking machines through an online shopping app.

She bought two of each machine. Noise would not be an issue either, since she could use them directly inside her space.

That way, even if it would still be some time before the farm reached level ten, she and Xiao Rong could eat rice and flour produced by the farm.

She stockpiled enough cooking oil for ten years, including both vegetable oil and animal fat, with a full range of varieties.

She skipped the oil press—after looking it up, Ming Jiu found the process rather complicated. She would wait until the farm was upgraded.

As for condiments such as salt, sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar, common and uncommon alike, Ming Jiu had already bought enough online to last herself and her sister a lifetime.

Still, after looking over the supplier's list, Ming Jiu picked out and added some more. If they could not finish it, she would find a way to sell it. It would all get used up eventually, so it was not a big problem.

Ming Jiu also bought quite a lot of canned goods and other heavily processed meats. Neither she nor Ming Rong particularly liked them, but they would do for the occasional change of taste or for trading supplies.

She bought all kinds of dried goods by the hundred pounds—though she skipped anything outrageously expensive. After all that, the money in an entire suitcase was spent on deposits.

Holding the shipping orders and deposit receipts, Ming Jiu returned to her car and filled the suitcase with cash again before heading straight for her next destination. When she spotted wholesalers selling snacks and beverages along the way, she enthusiastically ordered all kinds of snacks and sweet drinks.

Mornings were the busiest time. A large wholesale market like this handled an absurd volume of goods every day, and Ming Jiu's orders barely made a ripple among them.

Her next stop was a factory-direct wholesale store for a water plant. There was no shortage of water in her space, but she still needed to stockpile some packaged drinking water.

Ming Jiu ordered ten thousand disposable nineteen-liter barrels of water each from Ha, Tian, and Nong. The wholesale price was only sixty percent of retail, making it an excellent deal.

She bought bottled water in 500-milliliter, 1-liter, 1.5-liter, and 4-to-5-liter sizes by the pallet—one pallet being twenty to thirty cases—and ordered dozens of pallets of each.

The empty mineral water bottles could still be reused for a while afterward. It was not a loss.

After buying all that, it was about time. Ming Jiu checked over the list on her phone once more.

Her orders were considered small by wholesale market standards, but fortunately, the delivery address was nearby. The rice, flour, and grains would arrive that afternoon, while the rest would have to wait until the next day.

On her way out of the wholesale market, she saw a store selling all kinds of yarn wholesale and could not resist spending again.

Whether she would have time for all this miscellaneous stuff in the future or not, she would buy it first. Stockpiling was always the right choice.

The moment Ming Jiu started the car, she received a call from the delivery driver. She hurried over, and by the time she drove to the old factory building, the delivery truck had arrived as well.

She had already paid extra for unloading when placing the order. The workers drove the truck into the factory grounds, parked in front of the warehouse, and began unloading.

Ming Jiu opened her shopping app and checked the order beside them.

This truck carried daily necessities and cleaning supplies. She had mostly chosen practical old domestic brands—cheap and sold in large quantities.

Nearly half the laundry detergent was unscented. She bought more than ten cases of laundry soap. For body cleansers, Shu-brand body wash made up thirty percent, while the remaining seventy percent was all-purpose lanolin soap. There was not much shampoo among the hair-washing products; shampoo bars and shampoo powder, with their mild scents and fewer additives, accounted for nearly half.

Once the unloading was complete and she had signed for it, the delivery truck left. Ming Jiu immediately entered the warehouse. Only after confirming with the system that there was no risk did she collect the piled-up boxes into her space one by one.

After two days of practice, Ming Jiu could more or less sink her mental power into her space anytime and anywhere. Her only shortcoming was that she still needed to close her eyes for that first moment of operation—though she was working hard to improve it.

Delivery trucks came and went one after another. Ming Jiu did not even have time for lunch. Whenever a truck arrived, she watched the unloading. Whenever one left, she shut the doors and collected the goods. Whenever she had a moment, she checked on Ming Rong's condition. She stayed busy until five in the afternoon.

Everything delivered today could be stored for a long time, so there was no need to use the warehouse in her space for now.

At first, Ming Jiu had paid attention to sorting things as she collected them into her space. Once she got busy, though, she had no time for that. Now, the grassland inside her space was covered with all kinds of miscellaneous goods.

But she was not in a hurry. Once the stockpiling phase was over, she would have plenty of time to sort everything slowly. It would also train her mental power, killing two birds with one stone.

And if that really did not work, there was always the system lady—as long as she had enough gold coins.

The sky gradually darkened. The temperature had fallen to minus eighteen degrees today. Ming Jiu was bundled up tightly, but she still had to sit in the heated car for quite a while before recovering.

She was starving. Ming Jiu remembered the several storage boxes she had packed from the refrigerator and snack cabinet at home when she had first returned after being reborn. She found a few bags of bread and milk and slowly finished them in the car.

Before starting the car and heading back into the city, Ming Jiu made a video call to her sister. Ming Rong was eating dinner in the video.

There was stir-fried broccoli stems, corn and pork rib soup, and tomato scrambled eggs, all served in matching porcelain bowls. One look was enough for Ming Jiu to know that Xiao Rong had made it herself.

"Wow, you made something delicious?"

Ming Rong disappeared from the video frame and soon returned with a notebook and pen, lowering her head to scribble away in it.

Ming Jiu really wanted to say that she could just type instead.

[Yeah! The kitchen supplies all arrived today! I bought vegetables too, and filled up the fridge!]

[Don't worry, Sis. I bought the vegetables through delivery. I didn't go out by myself.]

[I saved some tasty food for you. When are you coming back?]

Ming Jiu said, "I'll be home soon. Go ahead and eat."

After ending the call, Ming Jiu drove back into the city.

At this rate, she would need to travel back and forth between City B and City L for at least four or five days. She had made things seem too simple before. It would be too exhausting if Xiao Rong followed her around, so it really was better for her to stay home and handle logistics.

Tomorrow, she could secretly bring these storage boxes to 2501. Her sister would have something to do over the next few days.