017 Hua Mi is determined to return to the supermarket to carry out construction (Thanks to TRJ1225 for the additional alliance chapter reward)

After the production was completed, the energy levels of Hua Mi's Level 4 factory hit rock bottom again.

Hua Mi: Anxious x3.

She continued to click upgrade, hoping to take her Level 4 factory to Level 5 in one go and restore her energy levels.

However, the outcome was very disheartening, as the familiar prompt appeared once more,

[!!! Unable to upgrade to Level 5 due to incomplete supporting facilities.]

The supporting facilities referred to the meager one square of Black Land she still possessed.

Hua Mi: Anxious x4...

At this time, the supermarket workers called her to report that after their relentless efforts, the generator set was almost fully installed.

Because Hua Mi had provided them with a large quantity of food and water, they decided to reciprocate her kindness by taking the initiative to clear away the debris and miscellaneous items around the supermarket.

As a result, a small open space had been cleared next to Lotus Shengxing.

Awesome!

Hua Mi resolved to return to the supermarket to get on with the construction.

She packed her things, unplugged all the power banks from the socket board, tossed them into her shoulder bag, and started looking for defense items at the stalls along the road.

She also took the opportunity to hasten the real estate agent on her phone, asking about the remaining money from the sale of her ancestral home which should have been paid out by now.

Lately, she had been consuming funds at a significant rate, using all her earnings to upgrade the factory.

The agent was very accommodating, and since that area had not been affected by the earthquake, they said they understood her situation in the disaster zone and had already convinced the buyer to transfer another 10 million to her account.

Hua Mi held the warm phone in her hand and stopped in front of a stall selling surveillance cameras,

"Do these cameras work? Can they withstand being hung on a wire fence with exposure to wind and sun?"

"These are professional-grade cameras. Before, you wouldn't get one like this for less than a few hundred thousand."

The stall owner, seated cross-legged behind the stall, picked up a large camera and started explaining the technical details to Hua Mi with a rapid-fire delivery,

"Now, I'll give them to you for 50,000 apiece. After these last remaining items sell, I'm leaving Xiang City."

Let this damned quake-ridden city go to hell.

"10,000 each. I'll take them all."

Hua Mi habitually haggled over the price, and the vendor agreed once again.

At this point, he just wanted to liquidate his assets and leave as fast as possible. The cameras were quite specialized for the field, and ordinary people had no use for them.

Large companies were in disarray as well, and it would be some time before they would place orders with him again. So, when he encountered someone like Hua Mi who was ready to do a clean sweep, the stall owner was happy to sell as long as he got paid.

Wrapping the professional cameras with a floral-patterned bedsheet, Hua Mi hefted the bulky package onto her shoulders with brute force.

She continued to scour the stalls for materials that could be used for security protection... and then, she cleared out a stall selling kitchenware.

The vendor's reason for the rush sale was similar to the previous one, needing to liquidate assets and leave Xiang City, this unlucky place, as quickly as possible.

And the items on her stall were mostly stainless steel scouring pads, aluminum wire mesh wipes, dishwashing liquid, tile cleaner, oil-absorbing sheets, disposable wipes, aluminum foil, spice jars, food storage containers, and the like.

Hua Mi thought she could use all these items, offered a fair price, and bought them all.

The umbrella vendor next to her saw this and thought it was a great opportunity for a distress sale. He hastily extended one of his transparent ladies' umbrellas toward Hua Mi,

"Beautiful lady, I'm also rushing to leave Xiang City, buy all the umbrellas on my stand too."

At his stand, there were at least dozens of umbrellas stacked up, as well as several boxes of raincoats, both men's and women's.

There were also rain hats to be pulled over the head, and rain boots of all sizes... everything one could need.

Hua Mi looked up at the cloudless sky. In reality, rain gear could be useful, since before the snow disaster arrives, there would always be a long period of rain.

Another burly man carrying a roll of barbed wire also approached,

"Beautiful lady, do you want this barbed wire? It's good quality."

He seemed to be a delivery man for a construction site, and since Xiang City was hit by a disaster, all construction projects were on strike. He couldn't deal with his barbed wire and no other places wanted it, while the bank was still waiting for him to repay his loan, so he had no choice but to try selling it outside the relief center.

Hauling a large bag on her shoulder, Hua Mi scanned the crowd that had gathered around,

"I'll buy, I'll buy them all, wait for me a moment, I'll call my driver over."

She immediately made a call, asking Ah Fu to drive his empty truck over to the outside of the relief center to collect supplies.

The kitchen consumables, the rain gear, the barbed wire, Hua Mi wanted it all.

But she couldn't possibly stuff all these things into her level 4 storage in front of everyone, so she had to let Ah Fu drive the truck over first and put the items on the truck for now.

Lately, Ah Fu had been helping Hua Mi with the transport of mineral water and mineral water bottles, though he would always bring the truck filled with goods to the ruins of Hua Mi's residential area.

Then, according to Hua Mi's instructions, he'd park the truck by the ruins and clock out for the day.

A few hours later, or the next day when Hua Mi called him to pick up the truck, the mineral water that filled the truck would be replaced with full mineral water bottles.

But Ah Fu had never doubted Hua Mi.

He was an honest man and finding a job during the disaster was not easy; he didn't want to lose this job by being unnecessarily suspicious.

So, after receiving Hua Mi's call, Ah Fu came quickly and parked the truck at the fringe of the stall area. The vendors selling kitchen consumables, rain gear, and barbed wire then loaded their goods onto Ah Fu's truck.

"Miss Hua, you are buying so much stuff... what for?"

Ah Fu, seeing the oversized floral bedsheet bundle on her shoulder, hurried forward to help secure it, curious about why Hua Mi was purchasing all these seemingly useless things.

Indeed, dozens of bottles of dish detergent, hundreds of steel wool pads, dozens of umbrellas, more than a dozen boxes of raincoats, over forty pairs of rain boots, rolls upon rolls of disposable kitchen towels, and so on and so forth.

And not to mention, the large bundles of barbed wire. What was Miss Hua planning to do with all this?

He couldn't help but look at Hua Mi with worry,

"Miss Hua, you should really buy more food and water now. My wife and kids have also been fond of visiting the stalls outside the temporary relief center, and I've heard that all the food and water there are getting more expensive, while the price of other things is going down."

It was a terrifying sign quietly conveying a message; when an item's price increases on the market, it indicates scarcity.

That's to say, the food and water in Xiang City were gradually diminishing.

So if one has money, one should stock up on food and water during such times.

Ah Fu explained this simple logic to Hua Mi.

Hua Mi spread her hands,

"Look at these stalls, the food and drink are being sold at such high prices; I need to have money to buy them too."

All her money had gone into stocking up on goods, and all the money she earned was used to upgrade the factory. It meant she was just continuously spending money without saving any.