Chapter 14: Jing Shu’s Belief: Brazilian Pine Nuts

Although Jing Shu’s field could also be used for growing grains, it would take several days and require processing like husking. Right now, Jing Shu was short of time. She decided to buy a batch first and plant another when the first one was nearly consumed, making it ready to add to her supplies later. Jing Shu first went to the Wu City Grain and Flour Wholesale Center, where she bought 100 bags of 20 kg flour at wholesale for 60 yuan/bag; 100 bags of 10 kg vacuum-packed Jasmine Rice for 95 yuan/bag; 200 bags of 5 kg vacuum-packed Thai Fragrant Rice for 70 yuan/bag; and 10 bags of 10 kg mixed grains for 40 yuan/bag. In the north, noodles were an indispensable staple, including hand-pulled noodles and various mixed noodle dishes. Considering the difficulty in flour processing, Jing Shu bought extra flour. Mrs. Jing wasn’t adept at making dough-based food, so after the apocalypse, Jing Shu would be able to show off her skills, much thanks to the craftsmanship she learned from her grandmother. Thai Fragrant Rice was one of Jing Shu’s favorite rices. It was fragrant and glutinous; whether eaten dry or as porridge, its aroma couldn’t be masked. Using it to make egg-fried rice best brought out the original, merged aroma of egg and rice, with an explosive texture! SLURP... She bought 100 barrels of 5 L peanut oil at 120 yuan/barrel and 30 barrels of 2 L olive oil at 180 yuan/barrel. She needed to store more oil so she could later fry lots of chicken legs and fish pieces to keep as snacks in the Magic Cube Space. Jing Shu set up 3-meter-high shelves in her basement, perfectly storing all these reassuring supplies. After leaving the villa’s address and paying 47,300 yuan, Jing Shu went next door to the dried goods wholesale market. The dried goods wholesale was also straightforward: no retail, bulk purchases by the case or box only. Each shop offered different items, but the variety of dried goods was extensive. Jing Shu visited each vendor, moving loads into her car and then transferring them to the Magic Cube Space. She managed to fill both the car and the space before nightfall. She bought 5 boxes each of sweet potato vermicelli, Longkou vermicelli, cured pork belly, Guang-style cured sausage, Sichuan-flavor sausage, and Yili Horse Sausage. Being able to eat such meats in the apocalypse was something Jing Shu wouldn’t have dared dream of in her past life. Of course, red earthworms—the kind that looked the same going in as they did coming out—didn’t count. She continued to buy 2 cases each of white fungus, Black Fungus, seaweed, bamboo mushroom, dried Shiitake Mushrooms, dried tea tree mushrooms, tofu skin, bean curd sheets, kelp, dried pickles, dried scallops, dried shrimp, dried scallops (a different variety), dried bamboo shoots, and dried squid. Jing Shu planned to buy many 60-liter storage boxes to pack these dried goods. She would put them directly into the cabinets, allowing her to grab whatever she wanted to eat. If she needed to flee the villa, she could also easily pack everything into the Magic Cube Space. The dried goods cost a total of 30,000 yuan, which was the most economical among all the supplies. They didn’t need refrigeration, had a long shelf life, didn’t take up much space, and a small amount could make a meal. For instance, 0.5 kg of dried Black Fungus could be rehydrated into 5-7.5 kg of Black Fungus, and a small handful was enough to stir-fry a full plate of vegetables. After the apocalypse, giving leaders some of these dried goods could solve any problem. Compared to dried goods, dried fruits were far less practical; they could get worms over time, had a lot of peel but little flesh, weren’t very filling, didn’t last long, and had a short shelf life. Thus, Jing Shu only bought 50 kg each of: figs, macadamia nuts, pecans, charcoal-roasted cashews, pistachios, red dates stuffed with walnuts, chestnut kernels, raisins, almonds (badam), dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, plain melon seeds, five-spice melon seeds, and caramel melon seeds. She specifically bought 200 kg of Brazilian Pine Nuts for 80 yuan per 0.5 kg, one of her favorite snacks. Jing Shu was incredibly tempted; seeing all these, she found it hard to walk away. Surviving the apocalypse mostly relied on one conviction: hold on until the day she could eat Brazilian Pine Nuts. She really had held on! She could finally eat Brazilian Pine Nuts anytime she wanted! It truly wasn’t easy to stick to the purchasing plan and resist buying even more of these snacks, of which she could never have too many. So even though it cost 69,000 yuan, took up 10 cubic meters of the Magic Cube Space, and would have to be stored there from now on, Jing Shu felt it was worth it. She remembered the earthquake when everyone was huddled together. Jing Shu had watched the child from the next unit lick each melon seed shell for several minutes. The craving was so intense she couldn’t sleep all night, constantly wondering whether the child’s seeds were plain or five-spiced... In the apocalypse, only tycoons wouldn’t lick their bowls after eating or their sunflower seed shells after cracking them. Jing Shu joyfully spat out the seed shells, embracing a tycoon’s life ahead of schedule. So satisfying! "Look at you, scattering pine nut and sunflower seed shells everywhere, just like your dad, flicking his cigarette ash all over the place! Clean it up as soon as you’re done!" Definitely her real mom. Identification complete. Mrs. Jing finished speaking and glared at Mr. Jing, who immediately tried to appease her, "You’ve worked hard, dear! I’ll give you a massage tonight." "That’s more like it." During her evening inspection of the Magic Cube Space, Jing Shu was thrilled to discover that the fish feed—small shrimp/krill gifted by the fisheries owner—had grown into schools of large shrimp. They were dominating the waters and reproducing at an astonishingly rapid rate, with so many tiny shrimp hatching that the other fish fry couldn’t eat them all. To control the shrimp overpopulation, Jing Shu heartbreakingly decided to hold a shrimp feast the next day. The mustard greens and cowpeas in the field would ripen by tomorrow. The other crops, such as chili peppers, cabbage, white turnips, cucumbers, spring bamboo shoots, and garlic, had already been harvested once. Some were kept for Seeds, while the rest were crammed into 6 cubic meters of the Magic Cube Space for storage. Jing Shu knew the field in the Magic Cube Space was freakishly productive, but she hadn’t expected it to be *this* insane. Despite such dense planting, everything not only survived but thrived vigorously. They were packed tightly together without deforming, each vegetable large, plump, and bursting with vitality, filling every inch of the small patch of field. The current usage of Jing Shu’s 64-cubic-meter Magic Cube Space was as follows: 1 cubic meter for the Spiritual Spring, 6 cubic meters for crop fields, 19 cubic meters for raising Domestic Poultry, 8 cubic meters for fish farming, 1 cubic meter for mushroom logs, 1 cubic meter for Seeds, 3 cubic meters for chicken, duck, and quail eggs, 6 cubic meters for vegetables, 10 cubic meters for dried fruits, 1 cubic meter for feed, 1 cubic meter for fish food (bloodworms and mealworms), and 7 cubic meters for dried goods. Jing Shu squeezed the well-cultivated potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams gifted by the owner into the field, planning to transplant them to the villa once it was ready. She had bought a small room’s worth of feed and stored it in the villa. For now, she was feeding the Domestic Poultry various vegetable leaves, so she needed less commercial feed. The next day, Jing Shu moved the dried goods from the Magic Cube Space and the car to the villa. The purchased rice and flour had also arrived. She asked the delivery men to move them inside, then she used the Magic Cube Space to shift them onto the basement shelves, row by row. She had already stocked the condiments two days before. With the grains and temporarily stored dried goods, the basement was almost full. Seeing the villa now fully enclosed in reassuring tempered glass, Jing Shu felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment. The pond and reservoir had been excavated and tiled, and waterproofing was underway. If they were leak-proof and seepage-free, work could continue in two days. The boiler room at the back was still under construction, and the chicken coop in the front yard had not yet been built. "Your dad and President Wang had a big fight. Someone informed on your dad, accusing him of abusing his authority for personal gain with this batch of top-quality tempered glass. Some are proposing to fire your dad and forcibly buy out his shares, demanding that the outstanding material costs be settled within three days. There’ll be a board meeting at the end of the month to discuss this, so you need to be mentally prepared," Uncle Chen suddenly told Jing Shu. Jing Shu gazed at the dazzling, iridescent tempered glass. "Weren’t they unable to sell it? We bought it at cost price, didn’t we?"