After a day of work, Wen Qian borrowed the pickup truck of the company's Master and drove home. The Master was the boss's relative, and it was more convenient to borrow his car when they were a little familiar. Wen Qian snapped a picture of the fuel gauge and planned to refill the tank after using it up.
Although Wen Qian was frugal, she was not the kind of person who took advantage of others. She still had face.
After dinner, Wen Qian concentrated on sitting at the table. She looked up wholesale prices of grain online, rice, flour and so on.
Wholesale market price trends could be queried online, including price tables for the past 30 days. At this moment, Wen Qian realized that the units at the wholesale market were calculated in kilograms. Comparing with the prices at the vegetable market, she finally understood the profit situation in this industry.
At the same time, she also marveled that hoarding and coming to the wholesale market was really the right thing to do. If she bought at the most downstream, Wen Qian would feel the pain.
Wholesale market, if bought in large quantities, the price could still be negotiated.
Wen Qian planned to buy one tonne of rice and one tonne of flour first. What would one tonne of flour or rice look like?
Flour was packaged 25KG per bag. One tonne would require 40 bags.
Thinking that the pickup's carrying capacity was only 0.75 tons, which meant she would have to make several trips to take both the rice and flour away.
Things could not disappear or appear randomly. She had to find a place to conceal the fact that she was taking such a large volume of items into her space.
There was another problem that there were still many things she wanted to buy later, some shipped and some she would go to the wholesale market herself. She needed a place as the receiving point in reality.
Wen Qian then searched for rental car garages on her mobile phone. She needed a warehouse in reality as a transition, but this was not particularly urgent, after all she had not resigned yet, so she could take a closer look first.
Bai Sha Wholesale Market in An City was very famous. It was said that everything could be found there. Wen Qian was thinking that in addition to purchasing rice and flour tomorrow, she should also familiarize herself with the general zoning of this market.
Then look around the market to see if there were places not covered by surveillance cameras, which would be convenient for her to receive things into her space.
After planning, Wen Qian went to sleep. She had to rest well in order to get things done.
The next day, Wen Qian got up very early, but when she arrived at Bai Sha Wholesale Market, she realized there were a lot of people and vehicles here, all kinds of trucks, vans and tuk-tuks.
Since it was Wen Qian’s first time coming in, she was very curious to observe the surrounding environment.
After following the traffic flow in, she found a place to park, and then began to observe how people around were picking up goods.
She went to the vegetable area. The trucks were piled high with all kinds of vegetables. The wholesale prices inside were all calculated in kilograms.
Cardboard boxes, plastic crates, plastic baskets with different names written on them, mesh bags and woven bags, the packaging methods for different vegetables varied.
The brightly colored carrots were neatly placed in transparent plastic bags. Wen Qian thought that even if she didn't like them, she had to hoard some for balanced nutrition.
After observing the way goods were handled in the vegetable area, she went to the grain and oil area.
Once she determined where to get the goods, Wen Qian drove the car over. She first took half a ton of rice out of the market, then drove around the vicinity.
At this moment, Wen Qian realized that she could have actually emptied the car first and looked for a place around here. Now that she had cargo loaded, it wasted fuel driving out.
Fortunately she quickly found an unmonitored location nearby.
With the tarp covering the cargo, she reached in and put the rice into her space, then drove back in to load half a ton of flour.
In the morning she stored one ton of grain in her space, and Wen Qian was not so panicked anymore. She then started walking around the market.
There were abundant goods here, and people coming and going were all very busy.
An City was the largest city in An Province, with a population of tens of millions. Wen Qian happened to be doing a winter internship in the city.
Overnight, the entire city shut down. There were no cars or people on the roads.
It was eerily quiet.
After a brief chaos and panic, support teams from all over the country entered An City.
People from all over sent supplies. Wen Qian saw on her phone that treatment points were built up in days.
Downstairs from the staff dormitory building, on the unknown number of days, personnel began going door to door to confirm the number of residents in each household and collect contact information, setting up group chats.
Everyone reported normal temperatures every day, and regularly purchased 10-yuan packs of vegetables and frozen meat.
They also received free vegetables shipped in from other regions, some of which Wen Qian didn't even recognize.
An City finally got through it and the city regained its vitality.
Only in that year, those who passed away from illness could never come back.
Although Wen Qian did not save up money during that winter internship, she got through it safely, and became even more fond of hoarding stuff.
If she lived in a dormitory, she would definitely keep water and ready-to-eat food.
After graduating and renting an apartment, Wen Qian began hoarding rice, flour and oil again. She wouldn't wait until she ran out before buying more.
And now, because of the dream, Wen Qian had started storing even larger quantities of goods, and the fear brought on by the dream was greater than ever before.
Humans were no match for nature.
If the earth really started a big purge, no one could stop it.
She couldn't tell anyone about having the space. Even if she told others about the dream, no one would believe it.
Wen Qian stood by the roadside. It was very noisy around her and the sunlight above was glaring, heating the top of her head.
But Wen Qian's heart was getting colder and colder.
She couldn't save anyone. She felt everything around her would become black and white, like the black and white photos of the departed at funerals.
When disaster struck, most people would become objects to be cleansed, perhaps a small number would survive.
Or maybe no one would survive, and the earth would restart a new cycle of development.
What would happen to her, who had the space?
Wen Qian couldn't imagine.
After these random thoughts, Wen Qian went to the seasoning area. The aroma here was very noticeable, but the first thing she wanted to buy was table salt.
How much salt does one person consume in a lifetime?
Wen Qian had never cared about this question before, but now when she needed to buy salt, she would do her homework in advance.
More than ten years ago, someone had hoarded a lot of salt due to rumors and panic, and was written up as a news joke. Some people still had unfinished stockpiles left in their homes today.
But now Wen Qian was going to do the same thing.
Based on the amount of salt purchased over the lifetime of a person living eighty years, Wen Qian bought some iodized salt and non-iodized salt.
Considering she might also need salt later for cured meat or pickles, Wen Qian also bought some coarse salt.
Similarly, Wen Qian bought some of the cheapest edible oil in the market. If she still had spare money when she had stocked up on the main items, she could buy some other types of oil then.
Wen Qian drove the car out and parked it in the shade to eat something. She would go transport the rice and flour in the afternoon.
Stocking up on staple foods first was like taking a tranquilizer. Next she could slowly plan the subsequent matters, making plans while replenishing goods.
Wen Qian didn't know how long one tonne of rice and one tonne of flour would last her, so she should probably continue stocking up afterwards.
If she was too busy, she could resign then.
