The used car lot sprawled beneath a sky the color of bleached denim, hazy and bright with the late morning sun. The air smelled of hot asphalt, warm engine oil, and the faint, sweet scent of air freshener emanating from a dozen polished vehicles. When the Number 2 bus hissed to a stop at the corner, Michael stepped off, the familiar, slightly chaotic energy of the place washing over him. He was greeted not by a salesman in a cheap blazer, but by the owner herself: A-Juan, a woman whose age was as difficult to pin down as the final price on one of her vehicles. She emerged from a small, cluttered office, her smile as bright and polished as the chrome on the pickup truck behind her.
"A-Biao! No, wait—Michael!" she called out, her voice a cheerful chime that cut through the lot's low hum. "Back so soon? What good fortune brings you to me this time?" Her eyes, sharp and assessing, missed nothing, from the determined set of his shoulders to the way his gaze swept over the rows of vehicles not with idle curiosity, but with a specific, hungry intent.
A few days and one substantial gold-to-cash conversion later, Michael's financial footing was marginally more secure. But fiscal prudence, hard-learned from his days as a struggling salesman, dictated his current strategy. Buying a brand-new vehicle for the brutal transit between worlds felt as sensible as wearing a silk suit to a mud-wrestling match. A used workhorse was the only logical choice.
He offered a practiced, easy grin. "Can't stay away, A-Juan. Business is picking up. That pig farm I mentioned needs a proper feed truck. Something with a bit more backbone than the last one. You'll give me a good price, right? Do right by me, and there might be a whole fleet in it someday." The lie slipped out smoothly, a cover story woven from rural entrepreneurship that felt both plausible and utterly removed from his actual, reality-shattering circumstances.
A-Juan's smile widened. She placed a hand on her hip, a gesture that was both friendly and subtly proprietary. "For you? Of course! A-Juan always takes care of her best customers." She led him through the orderly rows, her patter a continuous stream of praise for each vehicle they passed. But Michael's attention was already snagged. Parked near the back, looking stoic and functional, was a four-year-old Isuzu truck. It wasn't pretty. It was boxy, painted a utilitarian white that was fading to a dull cream, and it sat heavily on its axles. But its cargo bed was a sealed, metal box, 4.2 meters long. He did the math instantly. Nearly eighteen cubic meters of space. A cavern compared to the pathetic capacity of his battered Wuling Sunshine. It was a tenfold increase in his logistical capabilities.
He saw the drawbacks, of course. This vehicle was designed for paved roads, not the trackless, rubble-strewn wastes of another world. Overload it, and it would be about as mobile as a brick. But a plan was already forming in his mind. Tires were the key. As long as they held air, the weight wouldn't matter. And for the inevitable moments when the truck would bog down in sand or refuse to climb a grade… well, he had a solution for that. He had a team of human draft animals, their strength augmented by full bellies and the faint, burgeoning hope he provided. A stuck truck was just another team-building exercise for John and the Night Crew.
The negotiation was brisk. A-Juan started high; Michael countered low. They met in the middle at 72,000 yuan. As Michael counted out the cash, A-Juan clapped her hands together. "Perfect! It's almost lunch. You must let me buy you shaoye—Roast Goose! The place down the street is fantastic. My treat, to celebrate your new business venture!"
The offer, so generous and unexpected, sent a cold spike of suspicion through Michael's gut. Oh, hell,he thought, a wave of chagrin washing over him. I paid too much. She robbed me blind. This woman wouldn't buy a stranger a cup of water if she could charge them for the ice, and she's offering me roast goose? I've been had.
But the money was gone, the paperwork signed. The only recourse, he decided with a grim sense of capitalist justice, was to recoup his losses calorically. He accepted with a gracious nod.
An hour later, A-Juan's professionally cheerful smile was frozen in a rictus of stunned disbelief. She watched, fork hovering in mid-air, as Michael methodically dismantled his second entire roast goose. The pile of clean-picked bones on his plate resembled a miniature archaeological site. He ate with a focused, relentless efficiency that was neither rude nor gluttonous, but purely functional, as if fueling a furnace. The initial delight on A-Juan's face had melted into open-mouthed awe. Her calculation was simple: a good customer deserved a small investment in future business. She had not anticipated catering to a metabolic event of this magnitude.
In truth, Michael's assessment was overly cynical. A-Juan's profit margin, while healthy, was not the highway robbery he imagined. His repeat business, in a notoriously fickle market, had marked him as a valuable asset. The roast goose was a sound investment. She had simply failed to anticipate the sheer scale of the investment required.
Settling the bill with a slightly trembling hand, A-Juan bid him a hurried farewell. Michael, feeling pleasantly full and morally vindicated, climbed into the cab of his new-old Isuzu. The engine turned over with a confident, diesel rumble that was music to his ears. He had a tight schedule. The gateway would be active again at nightfall, and he had a mountain of supplies to acquire and transport before then.
His first stop was the real estate agency, where he spent three frantic hours viewing storage units. He needed a base of operations, a secure airlock between his two lives. He finally found it on the edge of a vast, sprawling logistics park: a single-story, corrugated steel box, five hundred square meters of empty space tucked away in the farthest, quietest corner. The surrounding units were vacant, the area silent except for the distant, muffled sounds of container trucks. It was perfect. The anonymity of the bustling park meant his comings and goings would be invisible. The isolation of his specific unit provided the privacy he needed. The rent, however, was a gut punch—13.5 yuan per square meter, per month, with a mandatory six-month payment upfront. He signed the contract, and another 40,500 yuan vanished from his dwindling cache.
With the keys to his new secret lair in hand, he began the real work. He drove to a freight forwarder to collect his order: a massive crate of promotional T-shirts and straw hats, the first standardized uniforms for the citizens of Cinder Town. Then, it was on to the wholesale market. He bought in bulk, with the ruthless efficiency of a general provisioning for a campaign. Three hundred pairs of flip-flops. Three hundred pairs of loose-fitting shorts. The people of the Wasteland, who considered a matched pair of shoes a mark of status, would soon be the best-dressed post-apocalyptic society on the planet.
The shopkeeper, a round-faced woman who remembered his previous purchase of cheap stockings, added a bonus gift with his order. She pressed a flat, plastic-wrapped package into his hand with a conspiratorial wink. "A little something extra, handsome," she whispered. "High-quality replica JK uniform. Very popular. They say it's even better with twin tails." She mimed tying her hair into pigtails.
Michael took the package, a slow, wicked grin spreading across his face. He gave the woman a thumbs-up. This was an idea. A terrible, wonderful, potentially catastrophic idea.
By seven p.m., the Isuzu was loaded to the ceiling. The only item left on his mental list was the most daunting: the medicine for Old Man Hock. This was the task that filled him with the most anxiety. He understood the market for gold, for rice, for flip-flops. The pathophysiology of hemorrhoids, however, was a complete mystery to him. He had never suffered from the condition himself—a point of personal pride he felt the need to vehemently assert.
He parked outside a well-lit chain pharmacy and took a deep breath, steeling himself. A white-coated attendant approached as soon as he entered the sterile, brightly lit space. "Can I help you, sir? What do you need?"
Michael drew himself up, adopting an expression of grave concern. "I need some common medicines. But most importantly," he said, his tone lowering to a confidential murmur, "it's for a… friend. A close friend. He has a… pilessituation. A rather severe one. What would you recommend for… him?"
The attendant, a woman in her forties, offered a knowing, slightly patronizing smile. "A 'friend.' Of course. I understand."
"You don't—" Michael began, but she was already leading him to a dedicated display. He stared, dumbfounded, at the shelf. It was a fortress wall of remedies, a bewildering arsenal of creams, suppositories, and oral medications, each box promising rapid, miraculous relief. The variety was staggering. The situation down there, it seemed, was far more complex and varied than he had ever imagined.
The attendant launched into a detailed explanation of active ingredients, application methods, and durations of efficacy. Michael's head swam. How could anyone know which one was best? It was a matter of personal, deeply intimate trial and error.
Finally, he held up a hand, cutting her off. The sheer scale of the problem demanded a comprehensive solution. "Stop," he said, his voice firm with newfound resolve. "I'll take them all. Every different product. Ten boxes of each."
The attendant's jaw went slack. She stared at him, her professional composure shattered.
Michael met her gaze, his expression one of grim determination. He wasn't just buying medicine; he was procuring experimental data. How else was he to discover the most effective treatment for Old Man Hock's affliction, and by extension, secure a lucrative trade monopoly, if not by field testing the entire damn inventory?