9: Chapter 9 Unconscious concern is the beginning of falling in love.

Lu Zhiyu glanced at Song Yunqing, then looked at Xu Wanning, "Ningning, I want to talk to my family this weekend. If they believe me, maybe they can give us more funds."

"We can buy more power generation equipment, construction materials, and other things that won't be able to resume production quickly after The Apocalypse."

Xu Wanning thought for a moment, "Okay, let's do it. I'll go home on Saturday too, to talk to my parents in person."

Lu Zhiyu smiled and took out her phone, "I'll tell my brother to come home this weekend too."

By the weekend, they should have finished hoarding what they needed, so it would be fine to tell her brother.

Just as Xu Wanning was about to book her ticket, Lu Zhiyu suddenly let out an "Eh?", "Why did my brother change his profile picture?"

Xu Wanning opened wechat and took a look. It had indeed changed. Before, it was a fire truck; now, it was a sun.

She said nothing, only glancing at her own moon profile picture. Was this man quietly setting up a couple's profile picture?

Was it intentional or unconscious? It was so hard to guess.

She casually took a photo of the trees outside and added the caption, 'Spring is here.'

He liked it, being the first one to do so.

The corners of Xu Wanning's mouth curled up. Unconscious concern is indeed the beginning of falling in love.

Lu Zhiyu shook her phone, "I told my brother, and he said he'll be home this weekend."

Song Yunqing also showed her ticket booking page, "I'm going home on Saturday too, to talk about this. If they believe it, they believe it; if not, I'll just make sure they don't go back before May 1st."

Wen Shuyang turned around and proudly showed her balance, "Ta-da! Look, I got 300,000 from Jiang Lei. I've spent so much money on him over the past three years, so this is just compensation."

Song Yunqing blinked, "He's so stingy, how was he willing to give it?"

Everyone in their dorm knew how stingy Jiang Lei was. In the three years he dated Yangyang, Yangyang paid for all their meals, and she even bought his clothes and computer.

Wen Shuyang snickered, "I told him I found an investment opportunity that could double in half a year, but I didn't have enough money and needed 500,000 to invest. He took it out for the sake of money."

Xu Wanning and the others gave her a thumbs up. Now that her love-struck brain was cured, her mind was working well too.

Lu Zhiyu patted her notebook, "Come on, let's see how to use the money we have."

Xu Wanning glanced at the list she had written earlier, "We should use a portion of this money to buy food. This time, we'll buy Spam, instant noodles, biscuits, bread, ham sausages, hot pot seasoning, and self-heating hot pots—things we can eat directly."

"The rest will be used to buy durable and dirt-resistant clothes, pants, shoes, protective gear, walkie-talkies, lighters, candles, various repair tools, as well as fuel, spare tires for the car, engine oil..."

As Xu Wanning said each item, Song Yunqing wrote it down.

Wen Shuyang raised her hand, "Ningning, don't you think something is missing?"

Xu Wanning stared at the list again, "What?"

Wen Shuyang picked up a roll of toilet paper from the table, "This! Daily necessities!"

Lu Zhiyu and Song Yunqing looked up in unison, "Sanitary pads!"

Xu Wanning paused, "I actually forgot such an important thing."

She quickly added daily necessities to the list: sanitary pads, toilet paper, wet wipes, shampoo, body wash, and so on.

After writing a huge amount, she gave up, "Zhiyu, why don't you just have your family's procurement department replicate everything in your supermarket and we'll buy it all? Since the supermarket sells it, it must be useful."

Lu Zhiyu nodded, "Alright, that's the fastest way." She sent a message to the procurement department, and they quickly sent back a list. 2.6 million was gone.

Only 320,000 remained. She still needed to get her parents over, so she would keep this money as a reserve and spend it a few days before The Apocalypse.

Lu Zhiyu stretched, "I'll have the procurement department place the order first, and we'll go buy whatever else we can't get tomorrow."

"Okay."

Just as they were preparing to wash up, Lu Zhiyu's phone rang. It was her father, "Hello, Dad."

Lu Father's roar came through the phone, "What the hell are you doing? Why are you ordering so much stuff? You ordered a batch this morning and now you're asking for another one. Are you planning to open your own supermarket?!"

Lu Zhiyu picked at her ear, "Dad, I'll tell you when I come home this weekend. It's a big deal. Just have the procurement department order it for me, put it in our warehouse, and let me know when it arrives."

Lu Father scolded her a bit more, but he still agreed. After all, the one doing this was his precious daughter.

After washing up, Xu Wanning took a photo of her hand with fingers spread against the moon—slender fingers, rounded nails—and captioned it 'Good night.'

It was purely used as bait. Lu Chengyue was definitely a hand fetishist; she didn't believe he wouldn't take the bait.

Sure enough, just as she lay down in bed, someone liked her post, and he even commented 'Good night' below.

Xu Wanning happily turned off her phone and went to sleep. Hehe, progress was going quite smoothly.

The next morning, the group went to class as usual, planning to go to the warehouse to load the goods at noon.

Unexpectedly, as soon as they entered the classroom, they ran into Wu Na and her friends from the neighboring dorm. Song Yunqing instinctively took a step back.

Wen Shuyang glared at Wu Na and pulled Song Yunqing inside.

Wu Na, who was about to greet them, was stunned, "Did Wen Shuyang just glare at me?"

Xu Wanning put on a fake smile, "How could that be? She's just having a disagreement with her boyfriend and is in a bad mood, that's all."

Wu Na nodded in realization, "That's good. I thought I had done something to offend her."

Lu Zhiyu rolled her eyes. Someone who stabbed their savior to death was acting like a little white rabbit—hmpf.

During class, Xu Wanning switched to zoning out mode.

Wen Shuyang nudged Lu Zhiyu's arm, "Zhiyu, it's your birthday tomorrow. Why don't we invite your brother and his teammates to go out and get something to eat?"

"It's probably the last chance before The Apocalypse. If we build a good relationship with them, they can team up with us when The Apocalypse comes. They are all Firefighter soldiers; think of how much of a sense of security that would be."

Lu Zhiyu thought about it, "Okay." She looked at Xu Wanning, "Ningning, in the past life, did you ever see my brother and his team?"

Wen Shuyang and Song Yunqing also looked over curiously.

Xu Wanning nodded, "Yes. After The Apocalypse started, your brother brought his teammates to the school to find you. We were rescued by them, and later we teamed up to complete missions."

"During that time, people sacrificed themselves one after another until another Acid Rain arrived. Another batch of survivors in the base mutated into zombies, the base was breached, and the remaining people died one by one while fleeing. No one survived."

Wen Shuyang hugged her, "Ningning, you must have been so sad, watching us die in front of you, wuwu."

Xu Wanning hugged her back, "Fortunately, we have a chance to start over. This time, we absolutely cannot die again."

To avoid turning into a zombie during the Acid Rain three years later, the best way is to hide underground. We must seize the time to build an underground Safe Zone.

She must possess a high enough status to make everyone listen to her, and forming a super strong team is one of the ways to achieve that.