In a frigid apocalypse, I went on a shopping spree with the reborn.

July 13th, the 21st day of the apocalypse.

Today's featured character is Jiang the Miner.

Grabbing a small hoe, Jiang Qingyue frantically expanded the shelter, digging as she went, making calculations as the shelter grew larger and became increasingly chaotic.

Firewood and food were all mixed together, and all kinds of supplies were piled up haphazardly. It took a long time to find any particular item.

The key issue is its proximity to a heat source, which makes frozen goods prone to thawing; some planning is needed.

Jiang Qingyue pondered that the previous shelter was too small, and she was in a hurry to move, so she really didn't have the leisure to make any plans.

Things are different now. The shelter can expand a lot every day, especially after her strength improved. Expanding it by twenty square meters a day is a piece of cake.

"Should I make some simple wooden racks to neatly organize all the supplies by category?"

"Frozen goods can be placed far away from the heat source, so even if several stoves are lit at the same time, there is no need to worry about the frozen goods spoiling."

"We also need to set aside a separate area for greenhouse cultivation, and we need to grow a variety of crops."

The more she muttered to herself, the more she felt she should take action.

She has analyzed the reasons in the past few days. When the trading area opened last time, none of the items she listed sold.

At that time, very few people had trading tokens. Ordinary people might get lucky and acquire one or two, but that wasn't enough to cover the entry fee, so naturally they couldn't get in.

Those masters of large bases don't lack trading currency, but they also don't lack ordinary resources.

They might lack it, but they didn't think it was worth spending trading coins to buy it, since trading coins were scarce, and they could obtain ordinary resources through other means in the real world.

As a result, no one bought the ordinary goods she put on the shelves.

Another reason is that too few people entered the trading area last time it was open, and the time was too short.

Unlike Wang Dawei, who is a celebrity and whose name is associated with many people, she is not a celebrity.

Many people may not have seen the items she listed.

But vegetables are different. According to Xiaoyi's tips, they can generate their own electricity, be grown in greenhouses, and have first aid knowledge, which is a huge advantage when the third cold wave hits.

She's already got the electricity sorted out, but it's not easy to sell electricity.

Vegetables grown in greenhouses, on the other hand, can be sold in the trading area later.

After all, it is extremely difficult to grow vegetables in such an environment.

Soil, temperature, light, seeds... all of these must be present.

The ground outside is frozen soil now. If you're not strong enough, you can dig for ages and still only find ice. You can't dig out any soil at all. This step alone can stump a lot of people.

Secondly, there's the temperature. People are freezing to death. It's only minus fifty degrees Celsius now, but when the third cold wave hits, it might drop to minus one hundred degrees Celsius.

Back then, controlling the temperature within a range that would allow vegetables to grow was incredibly demanding, and very few people could sustain it.

Growing vegetables is an incredibly difficult task.

And she, who can grow them, can naturally exchange vegetables for trading coins, and then use the trading coins to buy special items or other things she needs.

This creates a virtuous cycle.

"Luckily, we dug up another one."

The trading coin, barely visible under the light, was almost missed. Fortunately, Jiang Qingyue's eyesight is much better than before, allowing her to accurately spot the tiny, rice-grain-sized coin.

I quickly picked it up and put it in the small box.

Continue digging, bagging, and hauling away the soil.

I ate whenever I was hungry, and I didn't deprive myself at all. I ate five meals a day.

"Could it be that my appetite has increased after my strength has grown?"

Jiang Qingyue incredulously took stock of the food she had eaten that day.

She never used to be frugal, eating her fill every day, but today she ate what she would normally eat in two days.

But when he looked at the room-sized space that had been dug out today, he couldn't help but grin.

"This efficiency is more than ten times that of before, and the key is that I don't feel very tired."

Before, after digging out two cubic meters of soil, I would feel sore back, sore legs, and cramps that it felt like I had lost half my life.

Now, after digging out twenty cubic meters, the muscles in my arms are only slightly sore.

"Go to sleep, we'll continue tomorrow."

Jiang Qingyue spent the next two days digging in the soil.

The shelter was expanded for three consecutive days, adding nearly 70 cubic meters of space.

On the fourth day, I started organizing and planning.

Jiang Qingyue spent the entire day dividing the existing space of the shelter into six major areas.

I. Low-temperature frozen goods storage area

The deepest part of the shelter is dedicated to storing all the frozen goods transported from the seafood store.

Fish, seafood, shrimp, crab, shellfish, poultry, cut meat, various meatballs... all are stacked neatly according to their categories, layer upon layer.

II. Grain Storage Area

All food items except frozen goods are here.

Compressed biscuits, bagged bread, vitamin tablets, candy, dried fruit, dehydrated vegetables, sealed rice, flour, and oil, seasonings, drinking water...

III. Tools, Building Materials and Equipment Area

All tools, building materials, machine parts, axes, chainsaws, entrenching tools, chisels, hammers, ropes, stones, clay, hardwood planks, wood strips, sawdust, pipe materials, bearings, sheet metal...

IV. Living Area

It's like a living room; once you open the door to the shelter, you're right in the living area.

There is a small bed on the right, built with stone slabs and covered with a large wooden plank, about 1.5 meters long, with a thick, fluffy mat.

Not far away was the stove and a small cabinet that used to be used in the house, which contained commonly used pots, pans, and various seasonings.

V. Fuel Area

Jiang Qingyue specifically placed this space with the power generation equipment. Apart from the power generation equipment taking up a space, the remaining space was used to store firewood, as well as the coal and a small amount of smokeless charcoal that he had bought before.

VI. Room

This area is currently the smallest, and she plans to use it to create a room that is exclusively hers. However, after arranging the other areas, she found that there wasn't enough space left.

I can only temporarily store some clothes, small boxes containing trading currency, and personal items such as mobile phones.

She plans to finish expanding the room tomorrow, then go chop some wood and build herself a real wooden bed.

It's not that the small bed in the living area is hard to sleep on, but there's a lot of dust. The stove is emitting smoke and ash, which all flies onto the bed.

She makes a creaking sound whenever she turns over, and she's a restless sleeper, so I'm always worried she'll roll off the bed.

Besides, cooking and sleeping in the same area always felt awkward. She could accept it before because she didn't have the means, but now she had the energy and resources; she even had tutorials on how to build a bed on her phone. She didn't want to compromise herself.

For the rest of my life, I might end up staying in this shelter, passing the time with these kinds of things.

That evening, when Jiang Qingyue turned on her personal computer, she saw that everyone at the Happiness Base was flooding the screen with messages.

A message kept flashing on the regional channel of Quanshui City: Jiang Qingyue, your second uncle Jiang Mitian is waiting for you at the Happiness Base. He is dying soon.

Countless people with the ID "Happy Base" have been spamming this phrase.

Jiang Qingyue was stunned when she saw it.

Do I have a second uncle?

She was truly stunned.

I don't know. My parents never mentioned it, and we haven't been in touch for years.

"Could it be a case of the same name?"

"But it's someone from Happiness Base posting this again, what a coincidence!"

"Could it be that I really do have a second uncle who knows I live in Happiness Community, and now that it's the apocalypse, he's come to Happiness Community specifically to find me?"

"But that doesn't make sense. It wasn't the apocalypse before. Even if my second uncle was abroad and couldn't come back, he could still make a phone call, right? And why haven't Mom and Dad ever mentioned it?"

Jiang Qingyue kept seeing this sentence appear, and finally turned off her personal terminal. Whatever, her parents hadn't told her this, so they must have their reasons.

She didn't believe there was any real reason behind it all. They hadn't been in touch for decades before the apocalypse, and now they suddenly remembered her, their eldest niece.

Moreover, this second uncle never showed up when my parents were injured or passed away.

My parents don't have any contact information for my second uncle on their phones.

Thinking about it this way, Jiang Qingyue stopped worrying. Maybe it was just a case of having the same name. After all, Jiang Qingyue is such a common name, it's normal that many people use it.

I turned off the personal computer and went to sleep.

"Tomorrow's task is to dig out a room; the day after tomorrow's task is to chop down trees and make myself a sturdy, comfortable bed that I can easily turn over in; and the day after that's..."

Jiang Qingyue assigned herself tasks and then entered a dream.

Meanwhile, the Happiness Base.

Wang Dawei stared at the family of three opposite him, his fake smile vanished, replaced by a sinister expression: "Didn't you say that as long as you said you were about to die, your niece would definitely respond? Where is she? I'm asking you, where is she?"

"Tens of thousands of people from Happiness Base dominated the regional channel in Quanshui City for an entire day, and Jiang Qingyue didn't reply to a single word."

The middle-aged man, Jiang Mitian, was being scolded by Wang Dawei, who was a few years younger than him, until he couldn't lift his head: "Boss, calm down. Maybe she just saw the news and doesn't believe it yet. After all, I haven't been in contact with my older brother and sister-in-law's family for decades."

Jiang Mitian's wife, standing nearby, quickly smiled and said, "Yes, yes, boss, that girl has never met us before, she might not believe it at all."

"How about we change our wording? Let's say we have a lot of trading currency or special items, and that we are childless and dying, and want to pass on these special items to our niece."

"Not bad, not bad." Jiang Mitian agreed with his wife's suggestion. "People are greedy. She's just a girl. Who knows how miserable she is now? She might be selling her body to some big shots, begging for scraps."

"As long as we say we have something special, she'll come running to get it. Even if she can't come, she'll definitely tell us her location."

Wang Dawei grew angrier and angrier as he read on, and couldn't help but feel sorry that Jiang Qingyue's parents had died so young.

If those two old bastards weren't dead, they would have leverage over Jiang Qingyue. As long as he had Jiang Qingyue's parents in his hands, Jiang Qingyue would have to obey him no matter what he said.

His gaze passed over Jiang Mitian and his wife, landing on a girl behind them.

He was around twenty years old, with an ordinary appearance, and he hunched over with his hands in his pockets, looking timid and submissive.

I thought that since we're all from the Jiang family, this girl would resemble her cousin Jiang Qingyue at least a little. But now it seems she doesn't resemble her cousin at all. She doesn't even look like the two canaries her family keeps.

Disappointed, he waved his hand and his younger brother came up and settled the family of three into a house in the Happiness Community that had no descendants.

Although it was called one household, many people actually lived in it. Jiang Mitian's family of three was only assigned to the smallest room closest to the toilet.

It's not that there are no houses, but mainly because there are no resources, especially heating equipment. So, many people have to share a room to save on coal and firewood.

"Stay put. If you dare to run, we'll break your legs. If you behave, the day Jiang Qingyue returns, your riches and glory will come your way."

"Don't worry, don't worry, go ahead and do your work. We will keep sending messages to Jiang Qingyue and we will definitely find a way to bring her back." Jiang Mitian bowed and saw the man out.

Then he took his wife out and greeted everyone in the living room and the other two rooms, trying to build rapport.

in the room.

Jiang Qingtian, his daughter whom he had never liked, quickly closed the door and turned on her personal terminal when she saw her parents leave.

After hesitating for a long time, she still didn't dare to send a message in the regional channel of Quanshui City. These personal computers are all registered under real names. If she sent a message, she would die tonight.

But she couldn't bear to watch her parents trick her cousin into coming back.

Not to mention that Happiness Base already had a bad reputation, just look at the team leader, Wang Dawei, whose eyes are like those of a venomous snake; he's clearly not a good person.

She went to great lengths to trick her cousin into coming back; she definitely had ulterior motives.

She edited and revised the message, and finally posted it on the world channel:

"My dad, Jiang Mitian, and I joined the Happiness Base. Team leader Wang Dawei has been very good to our family of three. We have enough to eat and wear, and we are in good health. Thank you, Happiness Base."

She carefully considered each word, not daring to directly tell her that it was a trap or to tell her cousin Jiang Qingyue not to come back.

This is the only way to send it out. If Jiang Qingyue can see it, she will know that the three of them are healthy and not dying.

By comparing the two, it becomes clear that those who flood the regional channels with messages are lying, and it becomes a trap.

As for whether she could see all the messages on the world channel, she didn't know.

"I hope this cousin is lucky and can see it."

She had no other choice.

Jiang Qingyue didn't see it.

She spends most of her day working, and when she has a spare moment, she takes out her phone to carefully check the various steps of greenhouse cultivation, the materials needed, and so on.

There is very little time to stare at the quantum computer.

I usually check it before going to bed at night, and what I see is entirely up to chance.

This day was no exception.

She expanded the room to the required space, about thirty cubic meters, based on her height, so that she wouldn't hit her head; therefore, the height was only about 1.7 meters.

He spent another day going out to cut down trees and saw planks, using mortise and tenon joints to make himself a large wooden bed.

Ignoring the fact that the makeshift structure made of wet wood would crack later, Jiang Qingyue couldn't wait to move her bedding from her small bed in the living area into the room.

Then he took out electrical wires, pulled two wires inside, and hung a light bulb.

Even though there was no door, she still installed a switch at the "doorway".

That evening, she cooked herself a pot of boiled seafood.

Mantis shrimp, slipper prawns, whelks, mussels... a whole big pot full.

While blowing on it to cool it down, I skillfully peeled the shells, dipped them in a small bowl filled with minced garlic and chili peppers, and it was so delicious that I almost swallowed my tongue.

After finishing my meal and tidying up, I lay down on the brand-new, 1.8-meter-wide bed, wearing only thin pajamas.

Jiang Qingyue felt that the apocalypse wasn't as terrible as she had imagined; at least, there was still hope.