Chapter 15 – Nine Hundred Million, Gone

Jiang Yan had thought about building a new home inside her space, so she bought twenty sets each of the latest refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, induction cookers, microwave ovens, ovens, dishwashers, smart toilets, massage bathtubs, and so on.

As for pots, pans, bowls, plates, and tableware of every kind, she bought thirty sets each.

Though Jiang Yan loved cooking and fine food, in the apocalypse cooking every single day wasn’t practical. So she also bought over a dozen sets of self-cooking appliances and all sorts of vegetable-cutting gadgets.

Thinking about the times she might have to cook outside the space, without gas or electricity, she stocked up on portable stoves—cassette stoves, alcohol burners, firewood stoves—a whole pile of them.

The reason she bought so much was simple: when things broke down beyond repair, she could just toss them out.

Aside from grains, oils, meat, eggs, and milk, daily-use paper products were also a must-have for bulk storage.

In this regard, Jiang Yan went all out.

Toilet paper, tissue boxes, pocket tissues, wet wipes, face towels, kitchen paper—she bought fifty thousand units of each.

For feminine necessities, she bought ten thousand packs each of sanitary pads (daytime, nighttime, panty-style, liners). Menstrual cups she wasn’t very used to, but she still bought five hundred.

Even though she had smart toilets with automatic warming and washing, she still bought ten thousand packs of toilet wipes.

Having lived through the mask shortages, she also put disinfection supplies on her list.

One hundred thousand masks, ten tons of alcohol, ten tons of disinfectant, ten thousand packs of disinfectant wipes, plus thermometers, mops, rags, spray bottles—all of it went into her space.

She also stocked pesticides and insecticides—buying them in bulk, a thousand units at a time.

Because her warehouses were stuffed with incoming rice, flour, grain, oil, and meat, she left the bulk purchases of vegetables and fruits for last.

Cabbage, potatoes, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, corn, romaine, shiitake, button mushrooms, broccoli, asparagus, eggplant, kale, baby cabbage, yam, celtuce, lotus root, watercress, pea shoots, fennel, spinach… she bought six tons of each.

For vegetables she didn’t eat often—chestnuts, taro, bamboo shoots, peas, tofu, sweet potatoes, celery—she bought one ton each.

For flavoring ingredients like scallions, ginger, garlic, cilantro, chili peppers, mint, she bought five thousand kilos each.

She paired these with individually packaged vegetable salads and fruit salads, plus every flavor of salad dressing—ten thousand portions of each.

On top of that, she ordered signature low-calorie fitness meals from several highly rated healthy-eating shops—three thousand portions of each dish.

As for fruit, she bought ten thousand kilos each of oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, durians, apples of every variety, cherries, watermelons, hami melons, dragon fruit, young coconuts, bananas, avocados, lychees, pineapples, mangosteens. Strawberries, grapes, pears, longan, passion fruit, papayas, lemons, and dates—five thousand kilos each.

Toiletries were another must. Face wash, makeup remover, shampoo, conditioner, essential oils, toothpaste, floss, mouthwash, hair-removal devices, razors, shower gel, bath salts, soap, hand sanitizer, laundry pods, detergent, washing powder, dishwashing liquid, sponges, toilet cleaner, household cleaners—five thousand units of each.

When buying these, aside from picking brands with good reputations, she chose mild scents only—the kind that wouldn’t draw attention after use.

As for skincare, she ordered small amounts of well-reviewed domestic products online.

Products from South Korea and Japan were famous and worked well for Asian skin, but she didn’t dare buy Japanese products at the moment.

She did, however, buy a batch from Korea.

The rest, she planned to purchase abroad.

After all, many foreign skincare brands had very different formulas for their domestic and international lines, with vastly different effects.

As an experienced novel reader, she also followed the classic advice—stocking up one hundred tons of cat litter and mountains of trash bags.

Thinking of that fertile, unplanted black soil in her space, with all her seeds and saplings ready, she also bought farm tools and gardening equipment.

She even ordered two automated hydroponic cultivation machines from abroad.

These were perfect for growing lettuce, water spinach, and regular spinach, though delivery would take a month.

Passing by a bookstore, her love for reading and paper books got the better of her. She bought two copies each of everything—management, life wisdom, science fiction, food and health, classics, agricultural manuals, livestock guides, and all kinds of novels.

One copy to read, one to collect.

Of course, to kill time after the apocalypse, she also spent nearly one million on more than two hundred different LEGO sets, ranging from easy builds to extreme difficulty.

One Hogwarts Castle set alone could take her a month to finish.

Besides LEGO, she bought stacks of sticker books, postcards, wax-seal kits, and all kinds of arts and crafts supplies, plus sketchbooks and drawing tools.

Naturally, she also prepared an e-library.

She offline-downloaded all her favorite anime, TV dramas, movies, finance programs, gossip shows, science documentaries, farming and livestock guides—everything.

Music too—Chinese and foreign, classical and modern, pop, rock, light music, traditional styles, rap, even square-dance collections and children’s songs—all downloaded.

Downloading and organizing all this data was time-consuming, so she didn’t do it herself.

She simply paid someone to categorize and store everything on hard drives.

She also bought two full home-theater systems, two KTV setups, a dance machine, a Street Fighter arcade cabinet, assorted consoles, and VR headsets. She had nearly turned her place into an amusement arcade.

Whether she played or not didn’t matter. The point was—if you’ve got money and space, you stock everything.

As a fitness enthusiast—and knowing that good health would be essential for survival in the apocalypse—she asked the owner of her favorite gym to custom-build her five complete sets of gym equipment, following single-user configurations.

From small items like yoga mats, yoga balls, dumbbells, jump ropes, ab wheels, to large machines like treadmills, ellipticals, stair climbers—everything was covered.

Once all the buying and hoarding was done, Jiang Yan calculated: nine hundred million was gone.

Vegetables and paper products hadn’t cost much. The down payment on her house and renovations had been under ten million. Most of the expenses had gone into meat, premium tobacco and alcohol, and especially energy supplies.

Fortunately, the payments from selling her house, car, luxury watches, and bags had come through.

Altogether, she’d raised 230 million—most of it thanks to her mother’s luxury villa, a “king of properties.”