Chapter 11

The next morning, the sun came out bright and clear. The photovoltaic system at home began to operate, gradually filling up half the solar battery in the house.

Tired last night, Chao Youqian went to bed early, and it wasn't until eight or nine that he woke naturally. Lang Xin shared the doctor's news from yesterday; he hadn't expected everything to have been foreshadowed. He also thought of his family, connected only by blood, and shared Lang Xin's sentiments, believing that the best situation for both parties was to leave each other alone.

The next-day delivery arrived at his home that morning, and the courier left it at his door. Wearing a mask and disposable gloves, Lang Xin unpacked the package at the door, folded the large cardboard box, tied it up with the family's garbage bag, and placed it in the large trash can in the hallway outside the fire exit.

The property management fee is nearly 10,000 yuan per month, and the cleaning service provided by the property management is a service that all residents who pay the fee can enjoy. The cleaning staff will come twice a day to clean the trash cans, morning and evening. Of course, if you don't like the property management staff coming to your floor, you can choose not to have the cleaning staff come up and either take the trash to the garbage disposal room outside on the first floor yourself or have a live-in nanny take it out.

The high property management fees mean that each building has exclusive butler service. In addition to having the property management perform simple regular cleaning when the owner is not at home, they can also help purchase items and accessories, and handle non-private matters such as ticket booking and pick-up.

Yet they all cautiously chose to handle everything themselves, taking out their trash on their daily departures. One must be cautious of others. No matter how attentive the property management services are, they are still a group of unfamiliar outsiders. When chaos reigns, who will care about a precarious employment relationship? People live for themselves, and the more desperate the situation, the more they push their boundaries.

Lang Xin and Chao Youqian put on masks and went downstairs together. The nearby city park was beautifully planned, so they could go there to have breakfast and take a walk while there were few people in the morning.

As expected, there weren't as many breakfast places around here as there were near City B's apartment, so he had a set meal at McDonald's. Chao Youqian always loved the teriyaki chicken leg, so since he had a smaller breakfast, he added a ham roll. He also added two packets of sugar and two cartons of milk to his coffee, as usual; he just couldn't handle American coffee.

The morning sky in the park was clear and crisp, and the lush green trees were full of life, releasing fresh oxygen through photosynthesis. I chose a sparsely populated greenway, took off my mask, and breathed in the fresh air. As we walked, I said to Youqian, "Let's go to the supermarket later. Our freezer and refrigerator are still empty."

The Ole supermarket in the nearby business district does not open until 10 o'clock. They walk around the park and then slowly go back to drive, so they are considered early customers.

Lang Xin agreed, "Sure, let's go to the supermarket and see if there's anything worth buying. The freezer can reach -38 degrees Celsius anyway. I heard that the national reserve meat can be frozen at that temperature for decades without spoiling. Three freezers at home can hold a lot."

"Really? Then we can buy more well-seasoned meat. Canned meat all tastes the same. But it has a long shelf life and doesn't need to be refrigerated, so we can forgive its shortcomings." Chao Youqian said happily, "I've seen many videos of how to store white noise in large refrigerators, and this time I can finally do it myself. Before, I just ordered takeout for whatever I wanted to eat that day, and the refrigerator was useless except for freezing ice cream and drinks."

After wandering around for a while and having enough exercise to digest the food, they drove to the nearest Ole supermarket. Shortly after opening, the salesperson was stocking the shelves with fresh produce. This chain of supermarkets is known for its high-end, luxury-oriented style, featuring fresh, imported products and very high prices. Their target customer is the affluent and price-insensitive crowd.

Although Chao Youqian and Lang Xin's blood-related families have faced numerous troubles, they've never lacked for money. After making a fortune investing in mainland China, Chao Youqian, who in a previous life always chose discounts for takeout, also developed the unhealthy habit of buying things without checking prices after his bank account balance surpassed eight figures.

As the supermarket's ideal customers, Chao Youqian and Lang Xin each pushed a shopping cart, unreservedly stacking everything. Boxes of fruit costing hundreds of yuan, organic vegetables that cost more per gram than silver, bags of ham costing five hundred yuan, soft drinks and mineral water costing dozens of yuan a bottle, vacuum-frozen Wagyu sirloin costing over a thousand yuan, salmon and shrimp, and all sorts of imported snacks quickly filled both carts.

The two trucks were loaded with six large bags and were carried to the parking lot by staff on a cart. The trunk and back seat were completely filled. There were two folding flatbed trucks in the garage for easy transportation, and they brought everything up at once.

Chao Youqian, once ambitious, backed off after buying too much. He put the items that needed to be refrigerated and kept them in their designated areas, leaving the place in disarray. Watching others organize and doing it yourself are two completely different things. He opened a bottle of sparkling water and took a backseat, leaving it to Lang Xin, who, upon returning home, had been paying to watch videos of professional kitchen organizers, to take action.

First take out the press storage box in the kitchen disinfection cabinet, and set aside the kitchen paper, vacuum sealer and food-grade low-temperature resistant microwave vacuum packaging bags.

The top two doors house a 400-liter refrigerated area. The sides are filled with beverages and dairy products, and the top shelf is for frequently opened condiments, jams, and refrigerated snacks. Fruit is simply unwrapped, wiped with kitchen paper, and placed in a vacuum container, occupying one shelf. The penultimate shelf is for refrigerated ready-to-eat foods like sausages and ham. The last shelf is for fresh vegetables, which are said to stay fresh for a week. Remove the outer packaging, seal them in a vacuum sealer, and place them in the refrigerator to extend their freshness.

Below is the frozen area. The vacuum-packed steaks, salmon fillets and frozen shrimp I just bought take up half of the space, and the other half is filled with instant wontons, dumplings and buns.

The other two refrigerators were arranged roughly in the same way, allowing for flexibility in the types of items and the amount of space left unfilled. Chao Youqian paid a few dozen yuan for shipping from a local store and placed an online order for a bunch of ice cream and desserts, as well as more than a dozen cases of sparkling water, fruit and vegetable juices, coconut water, milk, oolong tea, and carbonated drinks. They were expected to arrive this afternoon, filling up the remaining space in the refrigerator and storage room.

Although both bathrooms on the 27th floor have been converted to water storage tanks and equipped with water purification facilities, it's always a good idea to stock up on mineral water. I bought a few dozen cases of high-quality bottled mineral water. Each 3L bottle is just enough for two adults. The 26th floor also has a two-thirds open balcony. The large living room is bare except for the sofa, so there's definitely plenty of room for everything.

After cleaning up, it was noon. I went to a local brand fresh food supermarket to continue shopping and had a quick meal there. The pepper and salt shrimp and spicy crab were both delicious.

In addition to dried fruits, beef jerky, pork jerky and meat floss, there are also semi-finished products that can be heated and eaten, such as broiled eel, fried chicken, steamed buns, eight-treasure rice, etc. The covers of the numerous pre-prepared dishes are very eye-catching and more suitable for Chinese food appetites.

Chao Youqian is no stranger to this kind of dish. When he was a sophomore, he invested in a pre-prepared food company and was invited to taste it. After heating, it can be restored to 80% of the fresh taste. The fast-paced life of modern people and the laziness of not wanting to spend time cooking have caused the stock prices in his hands to soar.

From the Cantonese cuisine series, I'll grab five packages of white-cut chicken and black bean chicken, and five boxes of fish maw and chicken hotpot. For other items, I'll grab whatever I see: braised pork, pork knuckle, braised food, pickled fish, grilled fish, tom yum goong, army hotpot, and so on.

In the end, the things I bought here exceeded the capacity of the car. The fresh food supermarket can deliver to your door, so I drove back to take some away and they will deliver the rest. It’s just that it’s a bit far, half an hour’s drive.

All the things were bought and transported up, and the three refrigerators were neatly stacked. Half of the 27-layer freezer area was filled with ice cream and the other half was left empty for buying fresh meat later.

The two freezers are full of pre-prepared meals that can be eaten directly after thawing and heating. The last freezer has a partition, half of which is used to store beef rolls, lamb rolls, meatballs and shrimp balls for hot pot, and marinated and vacuum-packed pork belly slices; the other half is used to store frozen butter croissants, rice cakes and other staple foods and freeze-dried fruits and vegetables.

All unnecessary plastic packaging was removed and thrown away, and the large number of refrigerator food-grade vacuum containers that I had purchased earlier were labeled and put to good use. The refrigerator and freezer were equipped with appropriate deodorizers and deodorizing stickers to absorb any harmful substances and prevent odor transfer.

Mineral water and drinks only occupy a quarter of the area in the living room and are covered with an opaque dust cover. Two rattan chairs and a table are placed on the balcony, with a set of tea sets on them. When you have free time, you can bask in the sun, drink tea, and take care of plants and animals here, experiencing the retirement life in advance.

I finally finished the stockpiling and sorting before nightfall. There are still more than ten days before the apocalypse in the original novel. I have made the best preparations. Now I can finally sit down and count the remaining money in my hand to eat, drink and have fun at the last moment. I live here and adapt to the life at the end of the world in advance.