Chapter 19: Purchasing Supplies

Lin Shi picked up the phone.

Liao Peng's voice came through the phone:

"Boss, I've been all over Sha City these past few days and found three locations that all meet your requirements.

I've sent the detailed information to your WeChat, take a look."

"Alright, I'm busy now, I'll call you back later."

Lin Shi first went to open the warehouse door and, together with a dozen porters, unloaded the goods.

Seven containers, it took over three hours to put all the goods into the warehouse.

After all the workers left, Lin Shi placed his hand on the pile of supplies and stored all the supplies into his space.

Looking at the supplies that only occupied a small corner of the space, Lin Shi knew this was just the beginning.

After taking a shower, Lin Shi checked the information sent by Liao Peng.

He had to admit he hadn't misjudged the person; the three locations Liao Peng sent were all in line with Lin Shi's requirements.

High terrain, remote locations, no high-rise buildings around, and ready for construction at any time.

One of the locations was particularly spacious, in the eastern suburbs of Sha City.

It was not only enough to build his own private shelter but also more than enough to build a residential area.

Lin Shi suspected that the official shelter in his previous life was built in this place.

If that were the case, and it was requisitioned by the authorities in the future, his loss would be significant, so he decided to pass on this location.

That left two places.

One was behind a village in the western suburbs, with a hill only tens of meters high, separated from the first open space by tens of kilometers.

There used to be a Taoist temple on the hill.

Although the temple had collapsed, the foundation was still there.

The last place was in a fishing village called Xi Island on the coast of Sha City.

There was a cliff tens of meters high in the village, with a spacious homestead on top, where a few families used to live but later moved away.

Lin Shi sent a text message to Liao Peng, asking him to find someone to survey the mountain with the Taoist temple and the cliff to check the geology.

He didn't want to live in a house where the foundation collapsed.

Although the cliffs are made up of rock layers, the rock quality might have been weathered due to long-term exposure to wind and waves, making it unsuitable for building a shelter.

In comparison, the hill that used to be a Taoist temple was more in line with his ideal.

But everything would have to wait until the results came out.

After doing all this, Lin Shi went to sleep.

For the next three days, the goods delivered to the warehouse were all fresh produce that Lin Shi bought from the agricultural market.

Lin Shi hired four people nearby to receive and move the goods in the warehouse.

He, on the other hand, went to the timber market on the 8th.

After the extreme cold, humans lost electricity, and natural gas pipelines in various countries were frozen and leaked.

The demand for fire sources by humans was extremely high.

Without fire, it was impossible to eat cooked food and hot meals, and most survivors lived a life of eating raw meat and drinking blood.

Countless people also froze to death in their sleep due to the cold.

Therefore, timber also became incredibly precious.

Lin Shi directly bought 500 tons of firewood.

Just so much timber had to be loaded into 25 containers, fortunately, Lin Shi ordered a large quantity, otherwise, the timber market would not be willing to load and unload the goods for Lin Shi.

Next was the purchase of windproof lighters, fire-starting flints, windproof matches, etc.

And he ordered cold medicine, antibiotics, disinfectant water, bandages, and other medical supplies online.

On the 9th, Lin Shi went to the largest generator factory in Hai City and bought ten portable generators, ten home generators, and two industrial generators.

Apart from the industrial generators, all were the quietest gasoline generators.

The industrial generators were only needed for situations requiring a great deal of power as a backup, using diesel, but they were noisy.

Normal times, home generators were already enough.

Next is the electrical wire.

After the onset of the extreme cold apocalypse, even if the electrical circuits were not destroyed by electromagnetic storms, the wires exposed outdoors were essentially frozen and damaged.

Therefore, Lin Shi had already considered laying the wires indoors, making the shelter's power form a self-contained cycle.

To avoid power outages caused by line aging or short circuits and other unexpected situations, Lin Shi purchased a thousand meters of wire as a backup.

Following that is diesel and gasoline.

To use a generator, one must stock up on diesel and gasoline.

However, petroleum is prohibited from private trade, and if one were to fill up the tank and then export the fuel, it would take an unknown amount of time to gather enough oil.

So Lin Shi paid another visit to "Sincere Pawnshop."

...

"You want 100 tons of diesel? 100 tons of gasoline? Do you think I run a gas station?" Xie Qingshan looked at Lin Shi with an expression that said, "You must be joking."

Lin Shi gave a wry smile.

100 tons is not much at all; a large SUV's fuel tank can hold 100 liters, and ten times that is a ton.

Naturally, when stockpiling, one would want to have more.

No one knows when the apocalypse will end, and at least in the eighth year of the apocalypse, there was no sign of the extreme cold ending.

If Xie Qingshan couldn't help, then Lin Shi would have to buy a car with a large enough fuel tank and go to different gas stations to collect fuel.

Just as Lin Shi was about to leave, Xie Qingshan pondered for a moment and said:

"However, I can get you up to ten tons."

A flash of joy appeared in Lin Shi's eyes, and noticing Xie Qingshan's inquisitive gaze, he quickly concealed his delight.

"What's the price?"

"Ten tons of gasoline, ten tons of diesel for two kilograms of gold."

Two kilograms of gold is over 800,000.

This is not just overcharging, it's like a massive abyss mouth!

The price of diesel and gasoline per ton is less than 100, and ten thousand respectively.

Even if it's ten tons of each, it's only a little over a hundred thousand, and Xie Qingshan has directly increased the price by more than five times!

"Don't think it's expensive, I'm not in the business of this stuff, and I'm taking a great risk.

If you don't want it, then forget it," Xie Qingshan said.

Lin Shi, of course, was not someone to be manipulated.

He still had some replicas of gold bars in his space, but the amount of trade had to be up to him:

"Twenty tons of gasoline, twenty tons of diesel, all delivered in a container, and I'll give you five kilograms of gold."

Wealth is sought in danger, Xie Qingshan gritted his teeth and agreed.

Seeing Xie Qingshan agree so readily, Lin Shi's eyes moved, and he asked, "Can you get me some medicine? The price is negotiable."

"You tell me, what are you preparing all these things for?"

Lin Shi's requests were getting stranger and stranger.

Although inquiring about a client's purpose was a taboo, he was too curious.

Cold weapons, cold-resistant clothing, petroleum, and medicine - what was this for?

Could it be that, as the young man said, he was going to settle in Antarctica?

Xie Qingshan began to ponder this preposterous possibility.

Lin Shi, of course, would not reveal his true purpose, "Didn't I say? To settle in Antarctica."

Next, Lin Shi listed antibiotics, cold medicine, and medicine for external and internal injuries for Xie Qingshan.

Xie Qingshan was skeptical but negotiated the price with Lin Shi.

After leaving the pawnshop, Lin Shi thought about going to the appliance market to buy some appliances first.

In the apocalypse, he would need to use them for many years, so he had to buy some of each essential appliance.

Soon, Lin Shi arrived at the largest appliance mall in Hai City.