Chapter 74
A woman sat beside them, wearing a white silk horse-face skirt paired with a Ming dynasty round-collar shirt. She wore a bamboo branch flower hairpin while crafting incense, and her patience appeared nearly exhausted.
The key detail was that after entering, they had heard the sound of a guqin.
Their moment of stunned silence ended abruptly when they looked over and saw a handsome man with long legs standing up from the qin table.
Although Shen You had asked him to change back into modern clothing forcefully, this scene still left the two newcomers dumbfounded.
Captain Fang’s mouth widened. Had she woken up too aggressively today?
She remained uncertain and decided to observe further.
This was the fifth year of the apocalypse, wasn’t it? The clothes these two people were wearing appeared better than the finest equipment from the most powerful teams around Lan City.
Whether it was psychological or not, she felt refreshed both physically and mentally after entering this courtyard, and even the air seemed fragrant.
“Ahem, excuse me, are you the owners of this shop? Did you clear all those mutants outside?”
Director Xiang recovered his composure first, though his eyes still lingered on the food displayed on the table.
He was management at the shelter, so his food wasn’t bad by apocalypse standards, but he had never seen anything this refined.
“I am.” Shen You set down the brass incense shovel in her hand, raised her hand slightly, and spoke with eyes so determined it seemed she was inviting them to join the Party.
“Clearing obstacles from the path for our customers is what this shop should do!”
Wen Zhi watched her serious expression and chuckled softly while leaning back lazily.
“What do you sell here? Antiques?”
Director Xiang, who had weathered many storms, was also confused at this moment.
Shen You smiled and shook her head. “I’m here to collect things.”
After saying this, she activated the shelf projection function that was restricted to the [Lan City] plane.
“I have rice, antibiotics, raincoats, and other supplies here, plus a portable storage pouch for only 35 gold bars.”
When they saw the initial items, Captain Fang and Director Xiang were already stunned, but when they heard about the storage pouch, both of their breathing became rapid.
“Is there really storage space?! How big?” Captain Fang asked excitedly.
“About the size of a garage.” Shen You pointed to her own garage nearby.
Her car hadn’t followed her to this plane, so the garage size was obvious at a glance.
“Only 35 gold bars?” Director Xiang asked again.
Shen You nodded. “50 grams each. Gold of equivalent weight is also acceptable if you don’t have gold bars.”
It was such a bargain!
Captain Fang’s eyes sparkled with excitement. That was dozens of square meters of storage space!
Fortunately, Xiao Ren had brought Jin Feng back, and they knew this place could conduct trades, so they had prepared some gold bars in advance.
Years ago, she had led a team to a large supermarket, struggling desperately to get inside, only to find nothing there.
Previously, they had hidden a batch of important supplies in a warehouse in the same city, waiting to transport them to the shelter, but those were gone too, including life-saving medicine.
Back then, the apocalypse had just begun, and there weren’t many surviving humans, yet so many supplies had been swept clean. The shelter had felt something was wrong.
After all this time and investigation, they confirmed that there had to be spatial storage or something similar.
If only they had known about this shop earlier!
“Can we buy several more?” Director Xiang asked hopefully.
“I currently only have one available.” Shen You replied.
Director Xiang, who had spent time among people before, understood from Shen You’s expression that she was telling the truth.
Being able to buy one was better than having none.
“Have you sold storage pouches to other people here before?” Director Xiang asked, then explained, “I don’t mean anything by it. If you can’t discuss sales information, then forget I asked.”
“No, I just started doing business in your area.” Shen You answered truthfully.
“Good, 35 gold bars. I’ll go get them right now.” Director Xiang said and immediately headed outside, afraid that if he was late, someone else would beat him to it.
When he pushed the door to come out, Jin Feng was still unwillingly reaching out to try, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t touch the door.
He had always been timid, but after finally returning to the shelter, he had voluntarily come out again, thinking about the shop’s benefits.
The others, after hearing Director Xiang describe the situation inside the shop, were all eager to try and wanted to go in and see for themselves.
However, they couldn’t leave the outside unguarded, and the people inside certainly wouldn’t want too many people disturbing them.
Considering that moving supplies would require manpower, Director Xiang called two people to go in with him, while those left behind could only watch enviously as they entered.
Jin Feng watched as everyone else went in while he alone couldn’t enter, feeling both angry and anxious.
“You didn’t offend the boss inside yesterday, did you?” Someone looked at him suspiciously and warned quietly, “You’d better not cause trouble. The captain and Director Xiang are still inside conducting business.”
Jin Feng stood aside sullenly, only saying that yesterday he had been forced to go in with the bandits, and that the boss might have misunderstood.
He didn’t dare say specifically how he had been thrown out, in case these people competed with him for staying at the shop.
The eyes of the two team members who entered the shop with Director Xiang, carrying gold bars, suddenly widened when they saw the scene before them, too shocked to speak.
Lan City actually still had such a wonderful place!
“Miss, here are 35 gold bars. Please count them.” Director Xiang handed over a bag of gold bars.
Some bore the names of gold shops, others the names of banks. Shen You used the checkout system to collect them, which could also verify their authenticity.
“The items are fine.” Shen You smiled as she gave them their purchase.
The system deducted 20 bars, leaving her with the remaining 15.
“How do you sell the other supplies in your store?” Director Xiang looked at the projected shelf, which showed no prices.
“We still have two gold bars and this jade-inlaid bracelet. How much food, antibiotics, hemostatic medicine, and white medicine can we exchange for them?”
Looking further, he wanted everything.
Shen You examined the jade bracelet they brought. The main body was platinum, with several different colors combined into multi-treasure stones. The quality was good, and it could sell for seventy to eighty thousand as second-hand.
The procurement mall still had a hundred boxes of antibiotics, and she had accumulated dozens of boxes in her spare time.
At a gold price of 560, two gold bars were worth 28,000 each.
“I’ll give you 10 boxes of antibiotics, one first aid kit with everything you need inside, plus two bags of 10-kilogram rice and 5 packages of salt. How does that sound?”
Director Xiang and all his people showed expressions of delighted surprise. This boss was really a good person!
They could actually exchange for so many things. Outside, one box of antibiotics could be traded for a box of compressed biscuits plus two cans.
These gold, silver, and jewels had been valuable before, but now they weren’t worth as much as a full meal.
“Good! Let’s make this exchange!” Director Xiang nodded emphatically.
Thinking that the other party had helped her complete the task, and that the system transaction records showed that they were from an official shelter where many people depended on them for survival, and since she finally had a stable customer source, she would need to maintain this relationship,
So after she brought out the items, she spoke again. “I also have luosifen, instant noodles, and mooncakes here. I can give you some as gifts.”
The mooncakes were truly too many to finish, and the instant noodles included several flavors that had been discounted items she had stocked in the store.
“Really?!” Captain Fang was so excited she almost cried. “You’re giving us luosifen?”
She didn’t know how long it had been since she’d eaten this. Before the apocalypse, she had been a working professional who liked to watch movies and eat luosifen as a late-night snack when stressed.
After the apocalypse, she had never eaten it again.
She never expected this shop to have it! And they said they could give some away. What kind of divine shop owner was this!
Shen You went upstairs to get a bag of luosifen and seven to eight mooncakes with their packaging boxes removed, then went to the warehouse to get a five-pack of instant noodles, giving everything to them.
Several people stared wide-eyed. If it wasn’t that they were still in the shop, they would have started grabbing items.
“Thank you, boss.” Director Xiang looked at the small, exquisite mooncakes in the plastic bags, feeling moved. It had been five years since he’d eaten mooncakes.
Things he hadn’t wanted to eat an extra piece of before the apocalypse were now precious beyond measure.
“Will this shop continue to operate?” Director Xiang urgently added, “We can still find gold bars, probably dozens of them, plus some jewelry.”
Shen You thought about it. Her appointment with Gu Shaoyu was the day after tomorrow.
And the map switching between [Lan City] and [Great Qi] had a cooldown period of seven days. Since she hadn’t prepared her goods yet, there was no rush to go to Great Qi.
Since there was business here, she would definitely do money-making work.
“It will be open, but not until three days from now.” Procuring supplies also took time.
Director Xiang thought for a moment, then asked politely, “Could you stock more rice, flour, compressed biscuits, alcohol, and such?”
“Gasoline would be even better.” Captain Fang interjected.
“Everything else is fine, but alcohol and gasoline might not be available.”
She’d have to see if tomorrow’s procurement mall update included them.
In the real world, gasoline could only be obtained by driving to a gas station. Besides that, ordinary people had no other purchasing channels, and doing so improperly could land you in trouble.
“Having food and medicine is also good.” Director Xiang responded quickly.
The shelter was most short of these two things.
“Um, do you have asthma medication? Just two bottles would be good. I’ll bring gold to buy them.” The team member who hadn’t spoken before finally spoke up.
“Yes, I can get that.” Shen You nodded.
As long as it wasn’t in large quantities, she could usually obtain most medicines.
Director Xiang put the traded supplies into the storage pouch. These belonged to the shelter collectively, while the bag of gifts from the boss could be shared among everyone.
After saying goodbye and leaving the shop, as soon as they came out, the team members guarding outside saw the plastic bag in Captain Fang’s hand and grinned broadly. “Captain Fang, that thing looks heavy. Let me help you carry it.”
“Go away, go away. You’re never this eager usually. Captain, let me do it instead. I’m more reliable than all of them.”
Everyone looked at the plastic bag eagerly. Those were instant noodles, right!
Captain Fang pushed their hands away and said seriously, “None of you should think about taking it. We’ll divide it according to the old rules later!”
Looking at such a bag of delicious food, everyone returned to the parking spot much faster than when they had come.
Once in the vehicle, everyone was extremely excited. When Captain Fang opened the bag, someone immediately shouted in surprise, “Am I seeing things right?! Those are actually mooncakes!”
And they looked very fresh, not spoiled at all!
“You young people can divide these instant noodles. I’ll just take a mooncake.” Director Xiang was the first to speak up, choosing a five-nut mooncake.
Captain Fang took the luosifen, and the remaining items were quickly divided. Everyone chose not to open them there but tacitly decided to take them home.
These things were hard-won and needed to be treasured carefully. Even one seasoning packet could make a decent dinner for the whole family.
The team members who hadn’t gone in listened to their accounts with mouths agape. “Really? The boss is a beautiful girl? Those mutants were all handled by them for customers?”
“That’s right. The shop owner is particularly nice, and she even agreed to find asthma medicine for me.” The team member excitedly couldn’t stop talking. “I really envy that somewhat frail-looking employee of hers. If they’d let me work in the shop, I wouldn’t want wages. I’d even be willing to pay them!”
Captain Fang nodded in agreement.