"Reappear." The soldier had barely finished speaking when the train suddenly materialized, instantly crushing the obstacles in front of it into pieces, debris flying.
The lieutenant general said solemnly, "The professional team has confirmed there is no editing. All officers and soldiers present have testified."
The senior general's expression gradually turned grave. He trusted the military's discipline and made arrangements on the spot: "Immediately arrange for this soldier to see me." Then he turned to the secretary general: "You leave now and deliver the USB drive to the central government."
On the other side, the taxi's engine died, stopping downstairs at the apartment building. Lin Mo made two trips to carry the suitcase and packed cakes into her home.
Her palms were red from the plastic handles of the cake bags. She rubbed her hands and sighed in relief. Good thing she lived on the first floor; carrying all this up the stairs would have exhausted her.
After a hectic morning, she collapsed on the sofa to rest. Then she gave herself a pep talk: "First finish this 100kg food and water beginner mission and see what changes the system has."
She went to the kitchen, dug out a spring scale, and weighed the 10 boxes of cakes and butter rice cakes. They were heavy, totaling about 10kg.
Still far short; transporting 90kg on her own would be too difficult.
She pulled out her phone, fingers sliding quickly into Tmall Supermarket, selected the category "grains, oils, and seasonings," and started adding items to her cart:
50kg each of Northeast rice and egg noodles, two 5L bottles of peanut oil, and one box each of vinegar and soy sauce.
After paying for everything in one go, Lin Mo closed Taobao and switched to JD.com to place another order: still 50kg each of rice and noodles, but she changed the rest to two 2.5L bottles of olive oil, plus 20 small bags of salt and sugar, some sesame oil, Sichuan pepper oil, cooking wine, and oyster sauce.
Lin Mo deliberately kept the quantities just right—neither too conspicuous nor insufficient to last a few months if heavy snow blocked roads. Even if the disaster didn't come, she could consume these slowly without waste.
Actually, she should buy some flour to make more filling flour-based foods, but she didn't know how to knead dough, roll wrappers, or steam buns.
Back when her parents were alive, they never let her do these chores. When making dumplings at home, her mother always kneaded the dough and prepared the filling, while her father rolled out the wrappers and pinched the edges. She only needed to help with the simplest step of pinching the dumplings. Her parents' only expectation for her was to study well and get a stable job in the future; they never thought she needed to learn these rustic skills.
"I should have learned some," Lin Mo sighed.
She loved freshly steamed white flour buns—the skin slightly chewy, slowly springing back when pressed, the inside as fluffy as clouds. When bitten into, the natural wheat aroma mixed with a hint of fermented sweetness—whether paired with stir-fried dishes, red oil fermented bean curd, or a plate of crunchy pickles, it was satisfying.
"I'll buy a bag of flour and some yeast and learn when I have time." As for rice and noodles, she planned to stock up later at the supermarket. Buying too much at once would be too noticeable; better to spread out the purchases.
Her gaze inadvertently swept over the light-yellow instant noodle mug on the dining table. The cartoon noodle pattern on the mug was somewhat faded—they had bought it together with her friend at a creative store last year. With a sudden impulse, she opened JD.com and typed "instant noodles" in the search bar. Her finger paused for a moment, then decisively selected the bagged version.
After all, cup noodles took up space; bagged ones saved space and were cheaper.
She ordered two boxes each of pork bone soup noodles and old hen chicken soup noodles—these two flavors were light, and when hungry, a bowl would warm her up nicely.
Thinking further, she added a few boxes of pickled cabbage and curry flavors to change things up when she got tired of the others.
Both platforms advertised "door delivery" and "delivery today." By today, she should have the 100kg.
Thinking of her friends and family, she forwarded the now-viral article "The Little Ice Age Is Coming Suddenly! Check Out This Stockpiling and Survival Guide" to her Moments and separately sent the article to her college friends, Jian Qing and Bai Jie.
Once, she had wrapped herself up like a hedgehog.
To outsiders, the cold and distant Lin Mo had simple relationships. After her parents died, her two best friends who had always been by her side were her whole world.
Lin Mo specially sent a few voice messages emphasizing: "This isn't alarmism or a rumor. You must prepare for the extreme cold in advance."
Bai Jie's reply came almost instantly: "Oh, this year in the Northeast it's been freakishly cold. My parents already started Winter Nesting early. We have everything ready. You should prepare quickly!"
Jian Qing hadn't responded yet. That workaholic was probably working until the sky went dark again. Or maybe sleeping until the sky went dark. Lin Mo checked her Moments; the last post was a picture of her desk at 3 a.m., with ice cubes in her coffee cup.
Perhaps worried that Lin Mo had no one to remind her, within two minutes after her message, Lin Mo's phone rang, and the screen showed "Bai Jie."
Lin Mo answered the call, and on the other end was Bai Jie's rambling stockpiling list.
Bai Jie complained, "Mo Mo, you bought way too little! If you believe in the doomsday, how come you've bought less than our autumn vegetables?"
Lin Mo held her forehead: "Well, I'm just starting..."
She was prioritizing the system's 100kg food and water mission, and bulk online shopping was too conspicuous.
"Don't worry about me. Before winter, we stocked up on three or four hundred jin of autumn vegetables, three large slabs of pork, hundreds of sticky bean buns, over ten jin of frozen pears, and a big jar of pickled cabbage. My parents even bought a lot of chives and shrimp at the market and made thousands of dumplings to eat slowly in winter."
Lin Mo felt reassured and secretly marveled: As expected of Northeasterners who Winter Nest—for a moment, she couldn't tell who actually knew about the doomsday news...
Author's note:
Northeastern Winter Nesting: natural-born stockpilers.