The next morning, resignation.
Monday morning, the phone alarm rang shrilly, dragging Lin Mo out of a chaotic sleep. She sat up groggily, her voice still hoarse from just waking up. Rubbing her eyes, she yawned: "Time to go to work."
However, that thought lasted only three seconds.
When her gaze swept across the dim gray light filtering through the curtain gap, yesterday's inexplicable system, incredible train, crazy shopping spree, and other scenes suddenly crashed into her mind.
Too much information. Lin Mo's hand, which had been lifting the blanket, suddenly relaxed, and she flopped heavily back onto the bed.
In a day's time, the world was practically falling apart. Why go to work?
She casually tossed her phone back onto the bedside table, crossed her arms comfortably, and closed her eyes: Let those pie-in-the-sky leaders and difficult clients all go to hell!
But this feeling of giving up only lasted a short while. Five minutes later, she resignedly reached out and grabbed her phone.
"No, my desire to resign has reached its peak. I can't wait even a minute longer."
As someone with a strong sense of punctuality, Lin Mo naturally wouldn't choose an ugly way like absenteeism. If she was going to leave, she had to finish neatly.
She threw on a down jacket and walked to the dining room, opened the laptop on the table, and sent all her overtime work results to her slick-tongued immediate boss. At least it was a proper finish, a perfect ending to the project she had been following for months.
Immediately after, she created a new email, filling in the department manager and HR's email addresses in the recipient field. Her slender fingers clattered over the keyboard, and the resignation letter was written crisp and clean.
"I, Lin Mo, hereby formally resign from all positions. Reason for resignation: I've had enough of the bottomless pit of unpaid overtime, and I can't be bothered with the gaslighting games. We'll never meet again!"
The moment the email was sent, an indescribable sense of pleasure surged from the depths of her heart, flowing through her veins all over her body, even her pores felt refreshed.
This crappy company just kept squeezing newcomers, euphemistically called 'capable people do more work', 'training opportunities', 'young people need to eat bitterness'. In reality, they were just exploiting them, easy to manipulate newcomers.
Anyway, she was done serving them. Whoever wanted to do it, go ahead.
She let out a long breath of pent-up frustration, turned around, focused her mind, and in an instant, she was inside the train carriage. She crouched down, checking the items in the Basic Locker one by one to see how well the supplies were preserved.
The vegetables were still fresh and crisp, showing no signs of wilting. The cake and butter rice cake tasted the same, still sweet and soft, just like when they were first bought.
The iced cola was still cold, the ice cubes in the plastic cup barely melted—this effect was better than her home freezer. Freezing would just turn the cola into a block of ice, not keep it chilled like this.
But the fried chicken she had put in last night had lost its heat long ago. Lin Mo rubbed her chin thoughtfully, feeling that refrigeration was better; it wasn't suitable for hot food.
That said, could she use it to store beef and mutton in the future? But then she reconsidered—there was a fridge at home, so precious locker space was better left for fresh vegetables.
The wind outside grew stronger, its howling sound tightening her heart and directly discouraging Lin Mo from going out for breakfast. She picked up her phone and ordered delivery of pork soup dumplings and freshly ground soy milk, and also ordered 10 large plastic storage bins on the delivery app.
"Need to stock up on more shelf-stable food..." Lin Mo didn't exit the app; she continued browsing for a bit.
Now, there were even curry-flavored dumplings?
Then that's the place—corn and pork, celery and pork, water chestnut and pork, three-delight, curry, beef, lamb and green onion... one large portion of each of the ten flavors.
No need for cooked food; raw was fine.
Each large portion had 30 dumplings, 300 plump dumplings in total. When hungry later, just cook about ten for a meal.
The computer was still on, so Lin Mo took the opportunity to search for several highly-rated long documentaries and critically acclaimed dramas, and downloaded them all. If the internet went down, these video resources would be perfect for killing time.
When the storage bins arrived, she sorted the soft small cakes, cashews and almonds, soda crackers, beef jerky, and luosifen (snail noodles) she had bought yesterday into four bins and neatly placed them on the top shelf of the train's right-side shelf. The basket of grass-fed eggs that had been in the kitchen was also packed into a storage bin and placed next to the nuts to avoid knocking them when retrieving.
The remaining five bins were stacked in the kitchen for now, to be gradually packed when subsequent deliveries arrived. She wouldn't have time to cook these days anyway, so the kitchen was basically unused.
After finishing these tasks, Lin Mo sat down in the dining room with the freshly delivered soup dumplings and had breakfast. Soup dumplings with freshly ground soy milk—tasted really good. Biting open a small hole, the piping hot broth gushed out first, carrying the aroma of scallion, ginger, and fresh meat.
Casually looking up, she caught sight of a few elderly uncles outside wrapped up warmly: thick gloves, woolen hats, scarves wound around and around, walking with canes.
This reminded Lin Mo that no matter how cold it got, there would always be times when she had to go out.
While eating, she searched online for a list of extreme cold outdoor gear, and the more she saw, the more she felt the need to stock up: fleece-lined thermal underwear, scarves, snow masks, windproof masks, earmuffs, goggles, thick gloves...
Some things seemed inconspicuous, but in truly extreme cold weather, every item was essential.
Severe cold was often accompanied by snowstorms. Umbrellas were completely useless in strong winds; they'd be torn to shreds as soon as they were opened. If she had to go out in the future, she needed to buy a truly windproof and waterproof thickened raincoat, and one with a hood, otherwise snow would go straight down her neck.
"Anyway, these are all essential consumables... Might as well stock up on each item more. The unit price isn't high anyway." Lin Mo skimmed through a long summary of extreme cold survival, quickly calculating in her mind. These outdoor gears were not only for her own use; they could also become bargaining chips for exchanging supplies later, so she might as well buy more, like 100 snow masks.
During the pandemic, even cola prices had skyrocketed. These necessary supplies should help her thin wallet recover some losses. If handled properly, she wouldn't have to work for blood-sucking capitalists for the rest of her life; she could retire early.
Next, she conducted a intensive purchasing spree against the list. After placing orders, she opened each merchant's chat box one by one, asking them to ship early, even paying extra for expedited shipping.
Little by little, after a while, a faint sigh echoed in the room: "Money flows like water..."
Lin Mo checked her deposit balance. Though not a lot, adding her parents' savings and the accident compensation, it was barely enough for purchasing supplies.
The trailing tone drifted out gloomily: "Is it really enough?"
While tapping on the calculator, she opened the bank app and first one-click redeemed 500,000 in fixed deposits and wealth management products. Lin Mo had always valued a comprehensive allocation of asset returns and safety, so she had a bit of everything, even a lifelong critical illness insurance policy, with an annual premium of over 10,000, covering 120 major diseases for life.
Unfortunately, the critical illness insurance was utterly useless now. The only option was to apply for a policy pledge loan from the insurance company to get some cash in an emergency.
The stock funds and bond funds in Alipay were requested to be redeemed today, but the money wouldn't arrive until two days later.
Stocks and gold ETFs, on the other hand, could be redeemed in real-time. Gold prices had soared in the past two years, doubling. Lin Mo had also caught the rhythm of A-share storage and robotics stocks, with a floating profit of several hundred thousand in her stock account. However, the broad-based funds focused on consumer and healthcare were still in the red.
If it still wasn't enough?
How about making an evil online loan?
Lin Mo shook her head, casting the thought out of her mind. She'd deal with it later. The profits from stocks and gold ETFs were substantial, enough to buy many things. There was no need to touch online loans, which everyone hated.
Notifications of "parcel picked up" kept popping up on her phone shopping app. Lin Mo organized all supplies into categories: "Clothing - Heating - Food - Tools", and marked the estimated delivery times in an Excel spreadsheet.
The doorbell rang—the fresh dumplings had arrived.
She carried the bag to the kitchen, opened the freezer drawer, and stuffed in the packaged dumplings one by one. The freezer already had beef and lamb rolls, and with the jam-packed dumplings, the drawers couldn't close properly.
"Already full?" Lin Mo sighed helplessly.
She had to take out some dumplings first and put them in the refrigerator compartment. The old refrigerator left by the landlord was too small in capacity. How could she stockpile like this?
She had long wanted a double-door refrigerator, but since she was renting, buying large furniture never seemed cost-effective, and moving would be even more troublesome.
Her fingertips slid across the screen, searching for the price of double-door refrigerators. Lin Mo's eyes lit up. So it only cost a few thousand yuan to greatly improve the happiness of life.
After changing her shoes and just as her hand touched the door handle, her phone vibrated violently with a buzz.
It was a WeChat from her manager, messages popping up one after another, the screen practically reeking of the furious reprimand: "What do you mean? Just leaving your work half-done and abandoning the client? Do young people have no sense of responsibility?"
Author's Note: None.