“Gu Huaiyu, don't ever bring up the past again. It only makes me sick!” After saying this, Su Wan didn't spare the two of them another glance.
She straightened her back, turned around, and walked away.
Step by step, she walked into the depths of the piercing sunlight, leaving those two figures she hated to her very core completely behind her.
Bai Ruochu's chest heaved violently. Her carefully maintained elegance had vanished, her face flushed with a mixture of anger and humiliation. Her fingernails dug deep into her palms.
She glared fixedly at Su Wan’s retreating back, her eyes churning with a venomous hatred that felt almost tangible.
How dare Su Wan... how dare she!
Who does she think she is?!
Gu Huaiyu stood in place, his gaze deep as he watched the direction Su Wan had disappeared. His expression had already returned to its usual calm.
That mask of gentle elegance was back in place, but deep within his eyes, dark currents seemed to be quietly surging.
Su Wan had never looked at him with such utter indifference before. When she looked at him, it was usually with love and admiration.
In this moment, Gu Huaiyu suddenly realized something.
Su Wan didn't love him anymore.
She hated him...
The thought was like a thin needle, pricking him when he least expected it.
His heart constricted, feeling both sour and painful.
The sensation was foreign and... unpleasant.
As for Bai Ruochu, she was keenly aware of Gu Huaiyu’s abnormality, and hatred instantly flooded her entire chest.
A twisted smile gradually spread across her beautiful face...
...
Su Wan walked quickly through two streets, only slowing her pace once she was sure the two could no longer see her.
At some point, a thin layer of sweat had broken out in her palms.
It wasn't fear, nor was it sadness.
Rather, it was a sense of relief from completely severing the past and starting fresh, mixed with a faint excitement for the new journey about to begin.
She felt the thick stack of bills in her pocket and checked the clearly existing system panel and the 10-cubic-meter storage space in her mind.
“Gu Huaiyu, Bai Ruochu...” she murmured those two names silently in her heart, her lips curling into a cold arc.
She lifted her head, her eyes sharp and bright.
Su Wan hailed a taxi and gave the address of a large wholesale market.
The taxi stopped outside the gates of a wholesale market in the eastern suburbs of Jiangcheng.
Su Wan stepped out, met by a wave of clamoring voices and a mix of smells from food, daily chemicals, and plastic.
Under the massive canopy, stalls were lined up in neat rows, goods were piled high like mountains, and merchants and buyers pushing flatbeds or driving tricycles wove through the crowd. It was noisy and full of vitality.
Completely different from the refined but cold luxury boutiques, this place was coarse and direct. Every cent was spent on tangible goods.
She tightened her grip on the small bag containing the cash and quickly scanned the rows of signs.
She first headed toward the stalls specializing in instant noodles and ham sausages.
These items had low unit prices and high consumption rates. They were hard currency in the apocalypse, and their packaging was relatively uniform, making them easy to store.
“Boss, how much for a case of Braised Beef Cup Noodles?” She stopped in front of a stall piled with Master Kong boxes.
The proprietress, who was cracking melon seeds, looked up. Seeing it was a young woman, she said casually, “Forty-eight for a single case. Cheaper if you buy in bulk.”
“I'll take ten cases to start,” Su Wan said calmly.
The proprietress paused her seed-cracking and sized her up. “Ten cases? Running a small shop, girl?”
“Stocking up on overtime snacks for the company cafeteria,” Su Wan replied without missing a beat, having already prepared her excuse. “What about the ham sausages?”
“I’ve got those!” The proprietress perked up and stood up briskly. “Ten cases of noodles. How many sausages? A case has forty packs, ten sticks per pack.”
“Ten cases of those as well.” Su Wan had studied the system's built-in space; it had an automatic organizing function. As long as the total volume didn't exceed ten cubic meters, it would fit.
“I also want some individually wrapped braised eggs, vacuum-packed chicken legs, and beef jerky... Not too many, two cases of each for now to see how they go.”
“You got it!” The proprietress was all smiles as she pulled out a calculator and started tapping away. “Ten cases of noodles, ten cases of sausages, two cases of eggs, two cases of chicken legs, two cases of beef jerky...”
“I’ll give you a round number. It’s... nineteen hundred and fifty total! I'll round it down to nineteen hundred. Do you need delivery?”
“Yes, the address is a bit out of the way. My warehouse is near the foot of the mountain on the edge of town.” Su Wan nodded, paid the deposit, and left the specific location of the unfinished building along with a phone number.
The number she provided was for an unregistered burner card she had recently acquired.
Su Wan requested that all the goods be delivered together after four in the afternoon.
As for water, Su Wan thought of the tap water she had seen gurgling out of Room 102 in the apocalyptic world last night—cold and clear.
The building bound to the system, along with its infrastructure—at least the infrastructure of the room she was renting—also "traveled" and maintained its functionality.
This meant that in the apocalypse, she had a nearly infinite, safe source of fresh water!
This discovery greatly eased her mind.
Bottled water was good, of course—convenient, clean, and easy to trade—but volume and weight were the biggest issues. Transporting and storing it took up too much space.
But tap water... as long as she had a container, it would be endless.
So she only bought two cases of mineral water, twenty-four 500ml bottles per case.
She didn't forget compressed biscuits either. They had high energy density, a long shelf life, and were perfect for staving off hunger in critical moments.
She found a military surplus style shop and bought ten cases of military-grade compressed biscuits, then supplemented them with ten cases of a regular brand.
The owner also fully believed her "company procurement" story.
When it came to purchasing medicine, Su Wan became more cautious.
She visited several different pharmacies and wholesale medicine stalls in batches.
Antibiotics (Amoxicillin, Cephalosporins), cold medicine (Compound Paracetamol and Amantadine, Lianhua Qingwen), fever reducers (Ibuprofen), anti-diarrheals (Montmorillonite powder), gastrointestinal medicine (Hydrotalcite), anti-allergics (Loratadine)...
She only bought two or three boxes, or one or two bottles, of each.
For external use, she bought a reasonable amount of iodophor cotton swabs, individually wrapped alcohol prep pads, sterile gauze, bandages, adhesive bandages, and antibiotic ointments like Erythromycin Ointment.
She also picked up a few bottles of multivitamin and calcium tablets.
All the medicine together filled two large plastic bags.
In July, the wholesale market didn't have much winter clothing, but it wasn't non-existent.
Su Wan found several shops clearing out off-season stock.
She took fifty pairs each of thick cotton socks and various types of cotton boots.
She took twenty sets of unisex thermal underwear in medium or large sizes.
She took twenty sets of fleece jackets and pants.
She took ten each of thick wool sweaters and athletic hoodies.
She took ten each of long and short down jackets.
She took twenty sets of thick gloves, hats, and scarf sets.
There were also a dozen thick wool blankets and a few thin down comforters with good thermal properties.
These clothes were tightly compressed into vacuum bags or large woven sacks, significantly reducing their volume.
Even so, it was still several large bundles.
For other miscellaneous items, she got high-intensity flashlights with spare batteries, multi-tool knives, lighters, windproof matches, a bundle of sturdy nylon rope, several large boxes of water purification tablets, a few stainless steel mess kits and water bottles, a simple camping stove, and a small case of portable gas canisters...
After one round, the over thirteen thousand in cash was nearly gone.
Rate on N.U.
