Stockpiling Progress: 95%

After Sister Bai left, Ming Jiu shut off the house's power, water, and gas, checked the windows, then locked up and headed downstairs.

At nine, Ming Jiu returned to the hotel parking lot and drove to City L.

Her main itinerary that morning was to visit the clothing factories she had arranged appointments with yesterday. The clothing and shoe factories selected by the system were all located in the same industrial park, not far from one another, so she could finish them all in one morning.

She would make a trip to the home textile factory at noon, and today's tasks would be more than halfway done.

At the clothing factory, Ming Jiu briefly looked around the women's and children's sections. In the children's section, she stocked up on all kinds of clothes Ming Rong would need while growing up, then moved on to the men's section for a shopping spree.

Her own height probably would not change much, but Xiao Rong had plenty of potential. Taking that into account, Ming Jiu extended the largest size up to 175 centimeters.

For small items like socks, gloves, hats, and scarves, she chose unisex styles across the board. After comparing the quality, Ming Jiu found the truth genuinely heartbreaking.

She followed the same approach at the shoe factory. She wore size 39 shoes herself, and men's shoes in that size were hard to find, but there were plenty of boys' styles to choose from.

With time to spare, Ming Jiu picked out quite a few samples to try on. Men's shoes selling for one or two hundred yuan were even more comfortable than the women's shoes she usually wore, which cost seven or eight hundred.

So when it came to haggling, Ming Jiu showed no mercy. She also wrung plenty of insoles, shoe repair glue, and anti-wear patches from the manufacturer before she was satisfied.

After an entire morning, her everyday clothing, shoes, and socks were all taken care of—and she came away with a bellyful of anger as a bonus.

Once she had finished with the daily clothes, Ming Jiu drove to the home textile factory.

Quilts and bedding of different weights and materials, four-piece bedding sets, and all sorts of other bed linens—Ming Jiu bought them by the hundred, choosing only good-quality items.

Both she and Xiao Rong were picky about mattresses and pillows. On the day she had specifically shopped online, she had already stocked up on the brands she and her sister usually used.

She bought over a dozen mattresses, all king-size 1.8-meter ones, and stocked more than a hundred memory foam and buckwheat hull pillows.

After leaving the home textile factory, Ming Jiu found a small roadside restaurant to fill her stomach. While waiting for her food, she stared at the menu on the wall for quite a while.

Forget it. If she had enough time, she would consider stockpiling prepared meals later.

Once the mobile home renovations were finished, she would basically have no risk of exposing her supplies by cooking. Combined with Ming Rong's dedication to studying the culinary arts, there was really no need to spend time specifically stockpiling prepared meals.

Even with the system cleaning up after her, it would still be easy to expose herself. She would have to deal with too many people.

Thinking of how prepackaged meals were everywhere these days, Ming Jiu pushed the plan further down her list.

If she really wanted prepackaged meals, couldn't she just buy them herself? Buying wholesale would even be cheaper.

The little restaurant she was eating at did not serve prepackaged food, but it tasted awful.

After filling her stomach, Ming Jiu drove to the farmers' market warehouse. In less than ten minutes, the vegetables and fruit she had ordered the previous day began arriving one after another.

After unloading the goods and paying the remaining balance, Ming Jiu did not immediately collect everything stored in the warehouse. She locked the door and headed straight for the old factory district.

The lighting tools and hardware arrived. Ming Jiu picked out the axes, shovels, and crowbars separately, piling them together with the decorative knives and swords that had already arrived.

The snacks, drinks, and her yarn arrived soon after... followed by the miscellaneous supplies she had ordered online.

Ming Jiu worked nonstop until seven that evening before cramming everything into her space.

Her final stop was the farmers' market warehouse. At that hour, there were few staff left in the industrial park, only a handful of people on duty. Ming Jiu parked outside and walked in, reducing System Sister's workload of altering surveillance footage as much as possible.

At eight thirty, all the vegetables and fruit had been stacked in the space warehouse with its preservation function. Ming Jiu drove home.

When she got home, she was once again greeted by her sister's loving late-night snack.

The house looked even more like a home than it had yesterday. Familiar cushions rested on the new sofa, along with familiar knickknacks, various vases that had yet to hold flowers, the decorative paintings their father had made, their mother's art portraits, and framed family photos...

The wardrobes in the rooms had been filled. In the cabinet of the walk-in closet in the master bedroom, Ming Jiu found a dress that belonged to their mother.

Clearly, when her sister had first started organizing the clothes, she had not yet realized—Mom and Dad would not be living in the master bedroom in this house.

Ming Rong's eyes were still a little red. Clearly, she had already cried while sorting through these things.

Ming Jiu wanted to cry too, but no tears came.

"We won't be staying at the hotel the day after tomorrow, okay?"

Ming Rong nodded vigorously.

January 31st. Eight days until the blizzard.

The familiar routine continued—she dropped her sister off at the new house, then Ming Jiu drove to City L on her own.

That morning, all the meat, eggs, and ordered dairy products arrived. After checking the goods, Ming Jiu locked the warehouse and left.

Until two in the afternoon, she drove around City L aimlessly. When she finally calculated it, she had spent just over ten thousand yuan on medicine in total.

There was still a long way to go.

That afternoon was once again spent receiving deliveries and paying the remaining balances. The clothes, shoes, socks, and bedding had all arrived, as had the supplies she had ordered online. The only thing still in transit was the household flour mill.

Ming Jiu locked the main gate and put all the supplies piled up in the warehouse into her space. It was already six thirty in the evening.

She ate a piece of bread in the car to replenish her energy, then drove straight to the farmers' market warehouse. Just like yesterday, she put all the stored meat, eggs, and dairy products into her space warehouse.

At this point, Ming Jiu's own stockpiling plan was already ninety-five percent complete.

The supplies that needed preservation were all piled inside the warehouse. She had not specifically sorted them, stacking them together from the floor all the way to the ceiling.

The warehouse was 1,100 square meters and seven meters high, yet the preserved supplies she had stockpiled occupied only around fifty square meters. The rest of the space had all been reserved for Zuo Junhao.

Withdrawing her mental power from the space, Ming Jiu was in high spirits. She locked the warehouse door, left the storage area, and drove home!

The moment she stepped inside, Ming Jiu saw cat tree parts neatly arranged across the living room floor. Ming Rong was sitting in a lounge chair, studying the assembly instructions.

Then she looked to the side—cat carriers, dog leashes, cat beds, dog beds, cat bowls, dog bowls, litter boxes, dog toilets, automatic water dispensers...

One entire wall of the dining room had been fitted with storage cabinets. Two cabinet doors stood open, revealing all sorts of pet canned food, snacks, supplements, cat food, dog food, wipes, waterless cleansing foam...

Food and supplies came first. Nothing wrong with that.

It looked like her sister had been researching this for half the day, judging by her tightly furrowed brow.

"Need help?"

Ming Rong nodded hard, stuffing a stack of assembly instructions into her sister's hands. Then she dragged over another wheeled lounge chair from the side and eagerly pushed it beneath her sister's butt.

Ming Jiu counted the instruction sheets—good lord, there were three of them, and none were small. Each cat tree could accommodate three or four cats playing at once.

After handing the job over to her sister, Ming Rong ran into the kitchen to heat up her sister's meal.

What could Ming Jiu say? Of course she had to indulge her!

They were only a few cat trees. She could assemble three more if needed.

It was clear that Ming Rong had done plenty of research before buying them. The cat trees were of good quality: two castle-style ones, and one floor-to-ceiling post-style model with telescoping support rods.

Once assembled and placed in a corner of the living room, they would make a proper cat paradise.

Ming Jiu took off her coat, rolled up her sleeves, and began furiously tightening screws.

Tomorrow, she would not need to keep an eye on deliveries. She only needed to find time to buy medicine, check on the renovations to several mobile homes, and check out of the hotel and move... Ming Jiu glanced at the calendar. Perfect—tomorrow was Saturday. She planned to take Ming Rong along and visit the dog market while they were at it.