Chapter 22 Ice Skates

There's nothing left on this floor, let's go down one more floor.

After gathering everything together and placing it by the door, Gu Yanzhi and Song Zhao went down one floor.

The 12th floor looks like a warehouse. Through the frosted glass, you can vaguely see that it is full of shelves, which are packed full of items.

The logo on the wall read "Tianchen Commerce and Trade". Gu Yanzhi had heard of this company before. It mainly did live-streaming e-commerce and had high sales on short video platforms before the apocalypse.

The two men easily smashed open the glass door and went inside. It was indeed a warehouse, filled with a dazzling array of goods. The shelves were piled high with all kinds of products, from food and daily necessities to electronics and household goods, just like a small supermarket.

Gu Yanzhi wandered around and put all the shelves into his space. The once orderly warehouse suddenly became messy, with everything piled up haphazardly on the ground.

“We forgot to buy shelving first,” Gu Yanzhi remarked, looking at the messy floor.

The current scene in the space is not much different from what she saw before. Everything is crammed together. Fortunately, she subconsciously made some simple classifications when collecting supplies, but it is not so convenient to retrieve supplies now. She always has to search for a long time.

Having shelves makes all the difference; finding things becomes much easier. Perhaps we should find a few more warehouses or supermarkets and acquire some shelves to store in the space? Gu Yanzhi thought to himself.

"Go call someone, it'll take a long time to clean up all this stuff," Song Zhao interrupted Gu Yanzhi's thoughts. The two of them couldn't possibly clean up all this stuff on their own.

Before calling for help, the two of them walked around the warehouse again to make sure that there was only one warehouse on the entire floor and no other offices or companies.

"Wow, there's so much stuff!" the people who came down exclaimed in amazement.

"Sister Yanzhi, you're so lucky!"

"Yes, yes, Xiao Gu and Xiao Song are really lucky. We benefited from their good fortune."

Apart from the four people still doing carpentry on the top floor, everyone else gathered on the 12th floor.

On the four floors above the 13th floor, there wasn't much stuff. All I found were three buckets of water frozen solid and two sets of solid wood furniture.

When the solid wood furniture was found, we asked Uncle Zhuang for instructions and turned it into a pile of planks, which we then carried to the top floor for Uncle Zhuang to use. The water, on the other hand, was simply carried down by Kobayashi and Takachi.

They quickly began organizing the items, categorizing them into piles. In the end, the largest group consisted of beauty products, including various high-end skincare products, shower gels, and so on.

Secondly, there was the food everyone wanted most: various snacks and drinks. What made the group happiest was that the warehouse also contained a considerable amount of rice, corn, dried shiitake mushrooms, dried wood ear mushrooms, and other dried vegetables. Finally, they found over a dozen boxes of self-heating hot pot and rice in various flavors. If everyone shared it, it should be enough for a month's worth of rations.

After packing up all the food without leaving a single grain, everyone also collected all sorts of daily necessities. Anything that couldn't be packed was simply piled up at the door, to be taken with them when they left.

More than two months have passed, and even families who don't usually stock up on daily necessities like toilet paper and dish soap have long since run out. Normally, they just have to endure it, but now that they have it, they certainly can't let it pass them by.

Zhang Qian, Yin Meng, and Liu Sisi, three young girls, picked out a few skincare products from the pile and put them together with snacks. Whether they could take them with them was another matter, but they wanted to choose in advance to avoid being in a rush at the end.

"Yanzhi, aren't you going to pick out some skincare products? We don't know how long these awful days are going to last, and we don't even have enough face cream," Zhang Qian reminded Gu Yanzhi, who was standing calmly to the side without any intention of taking anything.

"I have plenty more at home," Gu Yanzhi smiled at Zhang Qian. Hearing that Gu Yanzhi didn't need any, Zhang Qian didn't say anything more.

With many hands making light work, the 12th floor was cleared in less than an hour.

They came out early, but they'd been busy for so long that many people were already coming out to search for their belongings on the ice. There were plenty of clever people out there; perhaps they were too tired from working late last night and hadn't realized what was happening until this morning when they saw the cold weather.

Gu Yanzhi noticed that there were shards of broken glass on the ground floors of several office buildings next door, suggesting that people had gone inside to search for supplies. Their building, perhaps because it was relatively remote and the ground floor windows were broken, meant that those searching for supplies knew someone was inside and didn't go in.

Xiao Lin, Sister Li, and Liu Sisi, a married couple, were left to guard the supplies, while the rest of the people continued to collect supplies downstairs.

The 11th floor is the main office space of "Tianchen Trading". Because they do e-commerce live streaming and often work late into the night, there are many temporary cots with blankets on them. Yin Mengzhong and Junfeng, the young couple, happily collected all the blankets. With so many blankets, they wouldn't be cold anymore.

On the 11th floor, they found several more trolleys, as well as some food and daily necessities that had been taken down for the live broadcast and not put back.

There wasn't anything useful on the 10th floor, so after wandering around the 10th floor, everyone went back upstairs to organize the collected supplies.

Uncle Zhuang's self-made handcarts are nearing completion. The existing tools are only enough to make two handcarts, and there are still some spare iron sheets left. Uncle Zhuang also thoughtfully made two ice skating sleds for them to ride on.

The sled is made of wood, with a wooden board on top where people can squat or sit. Below are two rectangular legs with iron blades to provide friction, allowing the sled to glide freely on the ice. It is also equipped with two sharpened wooden sticks to provide power to the sled.

These roller skates are practically a must-have for kids in Northeast China during winter; they're incredibly popular. Uncle Zhuang, a tough guy from Northeast China, also spent his childhood on roller skates, so of course he's going to get one for everyone now.

"Wow! Uncle Zhuang, you're amazing! Is that an ice skating sled? I've only ever seen those on TV."

"I've never seen this before. How do you use it? It looks amazing."

Upon seeing the ice skates, a group of children from the south marveled at them.

"Zhuang Nanyang, have you ever played this game?"

"Of course, when I was little, my dad took me back to our hometown in the winter, and everyone there played this. I'll teach you when we go out later."

"The conditions are too basic now. The ones my dad used to make for me had seats on them, so it was easy to play with them. These have to be squatted on, which is a bit tiring." Even though he's past the age of loving roller skates, Zhuang Nanyang was still happy to see his childhood toys in this depressing environment and felt like showing them off.

"Uncle Zhuang, you're really amazing!"

"Yes, yes, Uncle Zhuang is great!"

Uncle Zhuang smiled slightly, keeping his accomplishments hidden. He didn't tell everyone that in Northeast China, almost every father knows how to make this.