Chapter 4
Buy an oven, buy a dishwasher, buy a cat tree. In any case, the space was large enough now, and many things could be placed out in the open. There was no need to worry about buying a little more. After all, everything would be useful in the future.
By the way, his new phone had been delivered the next day, so while Jiang Qingyu had been running all over the place today stockpiling supplies, he had also taken some time to sign for the package.
Only now did he have time to open the packaging, charge it, and transfer the data. He tossed the two phones aside, lay on his stomach on the soft, large bed, and continued shopping on his tablet—shopping like crazy.
The supplies he had stockpiled today had been converted into points, and the number was truly quite impressive.
Of course, when it came to such large amounts going in and out, Jiang Qingyu had also worried about “safety issues,” and he had even asked the system about it.
The system sounded very disdainful. “To me, these things are nothing but data. We are a higher-dimensional system. Since I gave you a golden finger, do you think I wouldn’t be able to clean up the mess properly?”
Jiang Qingyu: “…”
Fine.
With his experience from the previous few times, Jiang Qingyu no longer hesitated at all when exchanging large sums of points. He barely even blinked. As long as his goal was clear and he had done his research beforehand, he was very decisive when buying things.
Before, he had not been sure what the interior of the RV would be like after the upgrade. Now that it had been upgraded, everything was very clear. Whatever he lacked, he would buy. In any case, his balance was enough. He just had to add everything to the shopping cart and check out together.
As expected, planning out the next few decades of life all at once required a lot of homework.
Even Jiang Qingyu himself could hardly believe that he had actually shopped until he fell asleep.
When he woke up again, it was because hungry Meimei had called him awake.
She paced around near Jiang Qingyu’s head at an unhurried speed, her fluffy big tail brushing across Jiang Qingyu’s face intentionally or unintentionally, back and forth. In this very gentle way, she tickled Jiang Qingyu awake.
With his eyes half-closed, he first reached out and pulled Meimei into his arms, hugging her as he sniffed the top of her head. She had a warm, clean, faint little-cat smell, and her tail lightly patted his arm.
Jiang Qingyu took a moment to come back to himself. Only then did he remember that the current RV was no longer what it used to be. He could roll around on the bed as much as he wanted. So he swept his leg through the blanket like a compass drawing a circle. Sure enough, it was spacious.
Then he wrapped himself in the blanket, hugged Meimei, and rolled over. It was nothing like before, when another turn would have sent him falling to the floor. He buried his face into the soft pillow, and his chest filled with overwhelming happiness.
Meimei meowed, reminding him at just the right time that she still had not eaten. She used the pads of her two front paws to paw at him, stepping on his cheek. They were soft and cool.
Jiang Qingyu could not help laughing. Facing Meimei, his voice turned into a sweet, coaxing tone. “All right, all right. I know you’re hungry. I’ll go make food for you right now, okay?”
As he spoke, he casually stroked Meimei from her head to her tail, then patted her little bottom.
After climbing out of bed, he opened the electric partition door, passed through the living room, and entered the kitchen. The privacy curtains on both sides rose, while a layer of gauze curtain was lowered. Warm sunlight streamed in through the window. Jiang Qingyu narrowed his eyes slightly against that golden veil of light. Standing inside the spacious RV, he was in an excellent mood.
His phone popped up with a string of shipping notifications. Jiang Qingyu glanced at them casually, then opened the refrigerator to take out food for Meimei.
For breakfast, she could have some shrimp and egg, along with a small half bowl of rabbit meat soup and chicken hearts. Meimei was not picky; whatever she ate, she ate with special relish.
As for him…
Jiang Qingyu thought for a moment, then made a bowl of milk pumpkin soup and a meat-and-egg burger. As expected, Meimei also got a small bowl of pumpkin soup. She ate it very happily and licked her cat bowl completely clean.
After breakfast, Jiang Qingyu changed into another outfit and continued going out to shop. Today, he planned to buy chickens, ducks, fish, geese, and seafood.
These were all easy to buy. Unlike pork and beef, which took effort to process, he could buy some for now, then stock up again when he reached the next place. In this way, bit by bit, he would save enough to reach the stockpile amount he felt secure with.
In the past, he had not eaten much seafood. After all, he had not lived in a coastal city, so the price was slightly higher. On top of that, people around him ate beef and mutton more often, so seafood basically did not appear much on the dining table.
But Jiang Qingyu liked it very much.
He had only felt that it was troublesome, and since his grandparents did not like eating it, he had not wanted to spend money on it.
But now, stockpiling these things could be converted into points, and points could be exchanged for money. Buying them became perfectly reasonable. He could buy as much as he wanted.
Shrimp was available at any time, but crabs would only become plump enough to eat in another month or so. It would not hurt to wait. For now, he would buy some fish, shrimp, and shellfish first. He went to the seafood market and placed orders with the stall owners. After checking everything, he wanted all of it fresh. Anything half-dead or nearly dead was unacceptable.
After they had agreed on the conditions and prices, he practically bought out all their stock.
Thanks to the system’s static space, whenever he wanted them later, he could eat them fresh at any time.
And there was Meimei too. She had not really eaten much of this before.
After several days of intense stockpiling, Jiang Qingyu was already very familiar with most of the process. In the middle of it, he also went to pick up packages twice and brought them back using the small camping wagon he had just bought. He threw everything into the RV all at once and planned to slowly sort it out at night.
When Meimei saw him come back, she only lifted her head in her sleep and glanced at him before lying back down to continue sleeping. Her cozy little appearance was so lovable that Jiang Qingyu could not resist. After washing his hands, he went over, hugged her, and buried his face in her fur for a fierce round of cat-sniffing before putting the bewildered Meimei back down.
Back to stockpiling: chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits were all easy to buy. These days, there were many farms and plenty of supply. As long as one had money, there was nothing one could not buy.
The sellers would not ask too many questions either. They would only casually chat and ask what he needed them for, whether he was supplying a cafeteria or a restaurant, since the quantity was quite large.
Jiang Qingyu still used the same old excuse, but it worked.
He looked young and tender-faced, not like someone with many schemes. On top of that, he had recently been willing to buy good clothes and nice things. He ate well and slept well. Although he knew the apocalypse was about to arrive soon, now that he had money and supplies in hand, he was not that panicked. His whole person had relaxed. He paid readily, which was enough to fool others into thinking he was a young man from a good family who had come out to do charity.
Those with some conscience naturally supplied him with good goods. But those without conscience still wanted to give him poor-quality products, such as frozen goods from a long time ago or stale seafood. They would pull him aside and mutter about rebates and kickbacks, treating Jiang Qingyu like an errand-runner and trying to drag him into pocketing the money with them.
Whenever he ran into this kind of person, Jiang Qingyu turned around and left without another word. He did not waste even a little time on them.
Was he supposed to bet that someone who passed off inferior goods as good ones would suddenly discover their conscience? Once Jiang Qingyu gave in, the other party would only become even more excessive.
He would never do business with people like that and let them make money from him.
However, since he wanted to purchase goods in large quantities, it was inevitable that he would have to deal with such people. Learning how to distinguish and filter them was also a kind of lesson.
As expected, he was busy again that day until night fell. However, Jiang Qingyu had learned from yesterday’s experience, so he very wisely ended his “work” early. After all, after going back, once he finished tidying up and lay in bed, there were still other things to do. Buying, buying, and more buying could never stop.
When he was almost “home,” Jiang Qingyu deliberately took out a little fresh shrimp, put it in a bag, and carried it back inside, so that Meimei would know he had gone “hunting” again.
This was not Meimei’s sleeping time. After Jiang Qingyu pressed his fingerprint and got into the RV, he happened to see her clinging to the cat tree and stretching her body, her fluffy big tail swaying left and right.
It was only because the space inside the RV had been too small before that Jiang Qingyu had not been able to buy a large cat tree. Now things were better. He had bought a multi-level one with a cat bed for her to play on. The delivery was already on the way, and in another two days, Meimei would be able to enjoy it.
Jiang Qingyu swung the bag toward her. “Meimei? Look what I brought back for you.”
Meimei meowed and immediately abandoned her beloved cat tree to walk over. Her two front paws clung to Jiang Qingyu’s pant leg, and her round cat eyes stared straight at Jiang Qingyu… at the thing in his hand.
Jiang Qingyu smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it for you right away. Today, how about egg custard and shrimp?”
Meimei no longer clung to him. Instead, she held her tail upright and circled Jiang Qingyu’s legs, following him into the kitchen. She turned into a tiny cat supervisor, watching him boil water and cook the shrimp, then steam egg custard and boil greens and carrots.
Soon, the fresh fragrance of food spread through the kitchen. Meimei raised her head to look at him. She had such a beautiful pair of cat eyes, long clever ear tufts, and a very pink nose tip. When she saw him carrying the plate, she did not rush him. She sat down obediently, waiting for Jiang Qingyu to call her.
“Meimei, come over here.” Jiang Qingyu led her to the dining table. Meimei was very smart and immediately understood that this meal would still be eaten on the dining table. She leapt up lightly, her four white paws looking like plump mangosteens.
Jiang Qingyu peeled the shrimp one by one for her to eat, along with the egg custard and vegetables in the bowl. Bit by bit, she ate everything clean, then sat on the dining table and stared at him while licking her mouth.
Jiang Qingyu smiled and stroked her head. “It’s tasty, right?”
Meimei very obligingly gave a “meow.”
Jiang Qingyu continued, “If it’s tasty, I’ll make it for you often from now on, okay? Tomorrow, I’ll cook fish for you.”
Meimei meowed again. One person and one cat echoed each other back and forth. Although their languages did not connect, both sides were very satisfied.
Only after letting the cat fill her stomach did Jiang Qingyu start thinking about what he should eat for dinner.
Since he had bought a large amount of seafood today, it would be somewhat unreasonable not to eat something fresh while it was at its best that night. In any case, it was still early. He was quick and efficient when preparing food, so it would not take much effort.
After briefly referring to some online recipes and considering what he wanted, Jiang Qingyu chose to make garlic-butter baked spotted babylon snails with abalone and pan-fried shrimp fried rice.
The spotted babylon snails were first blanched once with scallions, ginger, and cooking wine. After they were cooked, he passed them through ice water once to make the meat even more springy.
He sprayed a small amount of oil, added minced garlic, minced ginger, and bird’s eye chili, and stir-fried them until fragrant. Then he added the snails and seasonings. On top, he arranged a circle of thick, plump abalones that had been cleaned and scored with decorative cuts. In the middle, he stuffed a large piece of butter, covered the pot, poured a circle of white wine around it, and baked everything over medium-high heat for five or six minutes.
The abalone was golden and bright, like kernels of golden corn. In the center, he placed scallion shreds cut extremely, extremely thin. It was both delicious and beautiful.
The shrimp were all very large. He cut them into big chunks of shrimp meat and pan-fried them until they were slightly golden. Then he fried them with rice and beef, adding some minced tribute vegetables for a rich texture.
This dinner left Jiang Qingyu extremely satisfied. The only unavoidable thing was that he had eaten slightly too much.
So after dinner, he grabbed Meimei over to brush her fur. Long-haired cats shed easily, but Jiang Qingyu brushed her often. The washing and grooming products he used on her were all expensive, and he had raised her coat to be flowing, soft, glossy, and smooth. From her head to her tail, there was not a single tangle.
As he brushed and petted her, Meimei comfortably spread out her belly, lying on her back with all four paws in the air, kneading at empty air.
Just then, the phone on the bed suddenly vibrated. Jiang Qingyu freed one hand to check the message on the lock screen. It was a text from an unknown number, but Jiang Qingyu recognized the phone number at a glance. It belonged to his eldest uncle.
It had only been a little more than half a month since they had fallen out. Jiang Qingyu could be considered to have been “driven out.” Even after doing everything he could, what he had received in the end was only a tiny bit of money, and he had been dismissed very casually.
The scene back then had been extremely ugly. Most likely, they would never interact again until death. Logically speaking, the other party should have had no reason to contact him now.
He had blocked the WeChat accounts of his eldest uncle’s family, but he had forgotten to block their phone numbers. That was a mistake.
Driven by curiosity, Jiang Qingyu still tapped open the message and glanced at it.
His eldest uncle had sent a message telling him that his cousin was about to get married, inviting him to attend the wedding, and putting on an act by saying a bunch of things about how they were still family and should help one another in the future.
Jiang Qingyu was speechless for a moment.
Why had they not talked about helping one another when they were fighting over his grandparents’ house? In order to occupy the house, they had even fabricated the claim that Jiang Qingyu was not related to them by blood. Now they were suddenly sending him a message to invite him to the wedding. Surely they were not after gift money, were they?
Did they even want to scheme away the tiny bit of money he had finally managed to get?
Jiang Qingyu silently rolled his eyes. He could not even be bothered to reply. Moving extremely quickly, he added the phone numbers of that entire family to his blacklist.
He really ought to thank this family for not even wanting to pretend after his grandparents passed away. They had been so impatient that they wanted to drive Jiang Qingyu out of the house before the funeral had even ended, without any of their former kind and affectionate appearance left.
Otherwise, if they knew that he had received this opportunity now, they would probably perform in front of him every day and cling to him to suck his blood.
Almost everyone in his eldest uncle’s family had the same lazy, greedy temperament. His eldest uncle had snatched away his grandparents’ house, sold it for money, and used just enough to get their son a wife and hold a wedding. The rest was all used for enjoyment.
Before blocking them, Jiang Qingyu had even seen posts on their Moments showing their family traveling. Some relatives had flattered them in the comments below, and they had gone along with it, saying things like one should enjoy life in time and seize the moment.
With hardly any savings on hand, when natural disasters began descending one after another, that whole family could go live on northwest wind!
