Chapter 17 Traffic Jam

Upon returning to the apartment and entering the 23rd-floor hallway, a long row of white square plastic buckets came into view, stacked densely against the walls on both sides—a truly spectacular sight.

Unexpectedly, the cleaning lady was there. She knew Bai Xiao, and seeing that she had bought such a massive pile of items—filling the elevator lobby and the nearby hallway—she was a bit angry. Not only did it interfere with her cleaning, but it also blocked the walkway.

As soon as she saw Bai Xiao, she couldn't help but question her: "Xiao Bai, why did you buy so many things? Look, it's completely filled up. How am I supposed to clean?"

"I'm sorry, Auntie. I'll move them in a moment." Bai Xiao smiled and laughed it off, then thought for a moment and added, "Auntie, I'm moving soon. There are some appliances in the room I won't be using. If you see anything you can use, feel free to take it."

Cleaning ladies loved picking up scrap items while working; it was a secondary source of income for their job.

Sure enough, as soon as the cleaning lady heard this, she immediately swapped to a smiling face and said a few polite words of apology. Seeing Bai Xiao open the door, she immediately followed her inside and took several small appliances.

Bai Xiao watched her go downstairs. Her new home was fully furnished with appliances, so she truly had no use for the ones in the apartment. Giving them to the cleaning lady was for the best, as it also saved her from being resented for taking up space.

Fortunately, most people were still at work at this hour, so it didn't affect the tenants much.

Having dealt with this small interlude, the next batch of water tanks was about to arrive, so Bai Xiao hurried to get moving.

With her current strength, it was no exaggeration to say that moving a hundred pounds was effortless. However, since each bucket was at least 40 centimeters long, she could only carry the width of two buckets at a time. Even if she stacked two more on top, she could carry four at most; any higher and she wouldn't be able to fit through the door.

In this manner, she moved back and forth for a dozen trips, gradually storing them into the game storage slots.

The next shipment hadn't arrived yet. Taking advantage of this gap, Bai Xiao took out a few water tanks and went to the bathroom to fill them while waiting.

One outlet was too slow, so Bai Xiao went to the hardware store downstairs and bought two water hoses. She extended the faucets in the kitchen and the washbasin, filling from three outlets simultaneously. It took about eight minutes to fill one water tank.

By the time she had filled six tanks, the delivery arrived. Bai Xiao had the workers stack them at the door, and she moved them into the room at the same time. After several elevator trips up and down, the goods were all delivered.

At this point, twelve water tanks in the room were full. Bai Xiao put the water tanks away, detached the hoses, and left the apartment.

If she didn't set off now, she would hit the evening rush hour again. With the heavy fog combined with the evening rush, she couldn't imagine how congested the traffic would be.

Driving back to the mall near her new home, Bai Xiao didn't browse much. She found several skincare and makeup brands she usually bought and packed ten bottles of each of her commonly used categories.

In fact, given her current skin condition and the fact that she could buy enhancement potions in the Game Mall later, she didn't need to buy expensive anti-aging skincare at all. She only selected some basic functional creams and body lotions for moisturizing and repair, packing five bottles from each brand.

When passing by the makeup section, Bai Xiao hesitated for a moment but still purchased a batch of cosmetics.

She thought of the masks in the Game Mall that could change one's physical appearance; in case she needed to disguise herself in the future, she would still need makeup.

Leaving the personal care and makeup area, Bai Xiao went to the second floor to browse several fast-fashion clothing brands, picking out some casual clothes, pants, shoes, socks, and intimate apparel.

Finally, she filled all ten storage slots. Of the remaining 500,000 in her bank card, only 100,000 was left after the day's spending. Although the money was running low, Bai Xiao felt completely at ease.

Leaving the mall after eight o'clock, she exited the underground garage. Even at this hour, the evening rush hour wasn't over. The heavy fog and the night led to obstructed vision, and with so many cars driving slowly, the entire city center was jammed into a mess.

The traffic had been jammed from 5:30 to 8:30—the evening rush lasted an hour longer than usual. Only now was it starting to ease slightly. Even so, for a place that usually took ten minutes to drive to, she literally drove five meters and stopped for two. It took over fifty minutes of gridlock to return to her residential complex.

It was nearly ten o'clock by the time she got home, yet this was actually the earliest she had returned in several days.

However, she couldn't rest yet; there were still two things to do.

Bai Xiao had bought a lot of fresh fruits, vegetables, and meat today, all piled into one storage slot. She didn't know how long they would last before spoiling.

She could only stuff the refrigerator as much as possible. The indoor temperature was currently in the 20s—not exactly hot, but it was summer, so the temperature wasn't low either. After thinking for a bit, Bai Xiao decided not to take the fresh supplies out.

She should first test the preservation function of the storage slots. There were no ready-made hot meals in the new home that she could use to test if they would spoil after being left inside for a while.

Bai Xiao had to settle for taking two cups: one filled with hot water and one filled with ice cubes. She placed them into a storage slot like that, intending to take them out tomorrow to see if there were any changes.

She thought that if the storage slots really couldn't keep fresh ingredients, she would just have to go buy several more large refrigerators tomorrow.

The second thing was to fill the empty water tanks. This was a massive project: there were 130 water tanks in total, and she had only filled 12, leaving 118. With three faucets filling simultaneously and taking eight minutes per tank, it would ideally take over five hours. This didn't even count the time to swap buckets, and one person couldn't swap buckets in three different places at the same time, so the actual operation would take much longer.

This task was very tedious, requiring action every few minutes. Bai Xiao didn't plan to finish it in one day; the water wasn't going to be cut off yet, so there was no need to stay up for it.

If she spent an hour or two each day filling twenty or thirty tanks, she could finish in less than four days without delaying other matters.

Having made up her mind, she connected the two water hoses and released another batch of water tanks. Bai Xiao moved a small round stool to the door of the guest bathroom and began the water-filling work.

With nothing to do, she could only scroll through her phone.

The local trending news today was this fog. It had progressed from a light mist and had lasted for nearly three days now, with no sign of dissipating. There were countless complaints under the popular videos.

【Watching Melons on a Rainy Day】: Because of this damn fog, the city center was jammed like crazy tonight. It even caused me to get into a rear-end collision.

【Glittering Large Lightbulb】: Luckily I worked overtime and didn't hit the evening rush [doge][doge].

【A Cat】: Help, what kind of dark humor is this?

【Lord Orange】: The unluckiest person is right here. Even with fog this thick, the company didn't say anything about a holiday. I still have to go to work tomorrow, Saturday.

【Seven Up Eight Down】: +1

【Messy in the Wind】: +1

【User 2863517524】: +1

【Wind Blowing Cornfield】: Is no one going to the Supermarket? I originally wanted to go buy some food and drinks to hunker down at home for two days over the weekend, but I didn't expect it to be crowded everywhere. My new white shoes got several big footprints on them. I'm disgusted.

【Dozing at Work】: You're telling me. Thirty minutes to buy things, then an hour in line to check out, and two hours stuck in traffic on the way home.

【Doudou Wants to be Happy】: I thought of that already, so I plan to go early tomorrow morning.

【Shout My Name Out Loud】: +1

【Drinking on the Rooftop, the More I Drink the More I Have】: +1

...

After filling water tanks for over an hour, including the ones from the apartment, she had only filled 39 in total. This work was truly grueling.

The moon hung high in the sky; a dreamless night passed.