Reborn in the end of the world, I scavenged in the empty city and bought for free

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, apart from people like Gu Tongwan who come to visit relatives, most people choose to go shopping in various lively places to have good luck. The commercial street in the inner east district is very lively at this time, because the supply and marketing cooperative here was the first to announce the resumption of business on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Although the business hours are only six hours a day, people who got the news in advance still scramble to come shopping.

Because the regular employees of the supply and marketing cooperative are all on vacation and very few people are willing to go to work in the freezing cold during the New Year holidays, the supply and marketing cooperative can only post recruitment information for hourly workers on the forum in advance.

The two supply and marketing cooperatives in the entire block are operating normally. These two supply and marketing cooperatives are considered to be the largest in the nearby blocks. The distance between the two cooperatives is only three or four hundred meters, but even so, there are still endless streams of people queuing up.

Luo Mei arrived at the supply and marketing cooperative at seven in the morning. The cooperative was about three kilometers away from her home, so she had to leave home forty minutes in advance. She had to rush out before dawn this morning. Luo's father got up early because he was worried about his daughter, so he walked with her for a while.

"Doesn't the supply and marketing cooperative start work at nine o'clock? How come we have to get there at seven?" Luo's father's tone was full of dissatisfaction. After all, seven o'clock was just the beginning of the day, and he was really worried about letting Luo Mei, a girl, go out to work.

"The store has not been open for a long time, and we need someone to go there early to sort out the shelves. But don't worry, it's just today. There's no need to ask for it so early tomorrow. I will go out at eight o'clock tomorrow." Luo Mei not only did not complain, but was happy because she could earn two more hours of wages.

Father Luo saw what Luo Mei was thinking and could only sigh, "Actually, you don't have to rush to make money. I'll go back to work on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, and the family expenses will be fine by then. The water and electricity bills were overpaid for several months last time, and I still have more than 2,000 points transferred to your mother's card, so you don't have to worry too much in the next few months."

"I know, but I just can't sit still. Besides, the snowstorm outside has stopped, and it's boring to stay at home all the time. My craftsmanship is not as good as my mother's, so I can't knit a very beautiful sweater. So it's more practical for me to go out and find something to do. The boss's wife will not resume work until after the Lantern Festival, which is still ten days away. It just so happens that the supply and marketing cooperative here is recruiting temporary workers. I calculated that I can earn 20 points an hour, six hours a day, which is 120 points a day. Their employees will return to work on the tenth day of the first lunar month. If you calculate it this way, I can earn 700 points in six days. Wouldn't that cover our family's food and electricity bills? Moreover, there are a total of hundreds of people who have submitted resumes, and in the end they hired me because of my rich experience." Luo Mei sounded quite proud.

Seeing her eagerness to try, Luo's father had nothing more to say.

When Luo Meida arrived at the supply and marketing cooperative, he found that the store was already open and two busy figures were moving things inside.

The store where she was going to work was more like a small comprehensive supermarket than a supply and marketing cooperative. It was at least twice the size of an ordinary supply and marketing cooperative, about 130 to 140 square meters. In order to prevent people from stealing things in the store, there were usually at least four to five employees watching over the store.

This time, except for the store manager, the remaining five people are temporary workers, three women and two men in total. They are all quite young, with an average age of around 20 years old. Among them, Luo Mei, who is not yet 18 years old, is also the youngest.

Luo Mei was assigned to the vegetable area, and she organized the shelves neatly and efficiently.

Since the supply and marketing cooperative here only recruits hourly workers, lunch is not included. However, the supply and marketing cooperative is just across the street from the commercial street, and you can see many restaurants across the street that are already open for business.

Today, among the five temporary workers, except for two boys who did not bring their own lunch, the remaining two girls, like Luo Mei, brought their own lunch. After all, a simple fast food meal across the street would cost nearly thirty points, which was too luxurious for them.

"We're planning to go buy some buns and soy milk. Does anyone want some? We can buy some and bring them back."

The two boys were quite warm-hearted and asked everyone about their wishes before leaving.

"No, you guys go eat." Several girls shook their heads and declined. Seeing this, the boys left without asking any further questions.

After everyone left, a girl said, "I just went to the public restroom across the street and took a look. A steamed bun costs eight points, and a cup of soy milk costs five points. The prices are really outrageous."

"This is a commercial district, and everything is expensive during Chinese New Year. To be honest, if the hourly wages weren't high enough this time, I wouldn't want to come." Another girl pouted with an unhappy look on her face.

"By the way, the salary this time is actually quite high. I just quietly asked another person and they found out that their regular employees only make 800 a month, and they only have one day off a week. The store manager said they make 300 more than them."

"This salary is good enough. My uncle works as an accountant in a company and only makes a little over 900 yuan a month. The only good thing about it is that he has two days off a week."

"That's right. The supply and marketing cooperative is under the jurisdiction of the base government after all, so at least there is some security. I don't know if they will recruit people in the future. It would be great if I could become a formal employee."

Hearing this, the girl next to him couldn't help but sneer: "It's really just wishful thinking. How can someone get a job at a supply and marketing cooperative without any background or connections?"

"Hey, let's not talk about this anymore. Let's eat. I'm starving. I left home at six this morning and didn't even have breakfast. My hands almost shook when I was working just now."

What Luo Mei brought today were some leftover dishes from last night. She simply stewed all the dishes in one pot. She only needed to reheat them slightly in the morning. However, the lunch boxes were not heat-insulating in this kind of weather. The store manager who knew the situation generously suggested that she could use the charcoal stove next to it to heat the rice.

Luo Mei started to heat up the rice only after the other two waiters had finished heating it up. Because it was an aluminum lunch box, she could just put the lunch box on the wire mesh and heat it up directly.

Two girls next to me were eating and chatting. It was the first time they met each other, but because they were of similar age, they got along quite well.

One of the girls smelled something delicious while eating, so she followed the smell and found that it came from Luo Mei who was heating up her meal. She couldn't help but stretch her neck and ask, "Luo Mei, what did you eat for lunch? It smells so good."

Luo Mei quickly stirred the stew in the lunch box with her chopsticks and said a little embarrassedly, "It's just a normal stew, left over from last night's New Year's Eve dinner."

"That smells so good. Let me see what's in it. It smells so good." The girl said as she took action and walked straight to Luo Mei, staring at the lunch box on the charcoal stove.

"Let me see. There are meat, vegetables, and vermicelli. They look pretty much the same as ours. Why do your dishes smell so good?"

What the girl brought today were the leftover dishes from last night's family. After all, no one will eat up all the dishes at the New Year's Eve dinner every year. One reason is that there are too many dishes to finish, and the other is to seek a good omen, the so-called "abundance every year". Although most people do not have the problem of not being able to finish the food in the end times, the folk customs deeply engraved in their bones still make everyone leave some dishes on New Year's Eve.

The family conditions of these two girls are not particularly bad, at least they don't have to worry about three meals a day, but they work during the Chinese New Year just to earn some pocket money for themselves.

"Yeah, Luo Mei, what did you put in this dish? It smells so good." Another girl came up curiously. To be honest, she was not interested in Luo Mei's lunch at first. After all, everyone ate their own leftovers at noon. Even if someone's meal was a little richer, it was just so-so. After all, the meat at the base would have a strange smell no matter how it was cooked, unless it was marinated with special seasonings or with a lot of spices. Not to mention vegetables. The taste of dehydrated vegetables was average, and fresh vegetables were unaffordable for ordinary people. Moreover, potatoes, pumpkins, and winter melons were the most common dishes on most people's tables.

Luo Mei felt a little embarrassed by being stared at. She could only quickly pickle the leftovers in the lunch box and then smiled awkwardly: "Nothing special, maybe my mother pickled the pork before. After all, there is only one New Year's Eve dinner a year, so I spent some time thinking about it."

"Then your family is really willing to spend. My mother said that seasonings are very expensive now. Soy sauce and oyster sauce are sold for more than one hundred yuan a bottle. Sometimes half a bottle is gone when cooking a meal. Sichuan pepper and cumin powder are also hard to buy. I only have a little left at home. I put a little seasoning on the pork for the New Year's Eve dinner yesterday, and it tasted amazing." The girl felt helpless and funny when she thought of the family's difficulty in picking up their chopsticks last night.

"Oh, that's great. I had dinner with my uncle's family yesterday. The meal was supposed to be quite rich with mutton, but my aunt didn't use any spices to save some money. As a result, the whole pot of mutton was ruined. You have never tasted that mutton smell. The sweater I wore yesterday had that smell." Another girl frowned with a look of disgust on her face.

The topic the two were talking about made Luo Mei just deal with it with a smile, but fortunately the two girls did not continue to ask questions, otherwise Luo Mei, with her shy personality, might not be able to withstand such a continuous bombardment of questions.

They only have 40 minutes for lunch break, and have to continue working non-stop after lunch, because the store has to close before 4 pm. They can get off work at 4 pm as hourly workers. Then only the store manager will stay in the store to settle the accounts. After the accounts are settled at around 5 pm, the supply and marketing cooperative is considered to have completely ended its business for the day.

In fact, when Luo Mei was tidying up the shelves, she discovered that the vegetables recently put on the supply and marketing cooperative were not very fresh. Although they were sent from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, looking at the green cucumbers and wilted eggplants in front of her, Luo Mei still doubted whether these vegetables were really the latest batch picked.

"You've noticed something's wrong, too, haven't you? The same thing happened with my meat. When it was delivered, I found some of the meat had black spots on it, but the store manager cut them off with a knife. I don't know how long this meat has been in storage."

"Isn't it normal to freeze meat? The weather is cold now, and the farms probably can't operate normally. I guess they killed a batch of pigs when the weather was hot before, and then put them in the freezer for temporary preservation. Whether it's before or after the apocalypse, freezing pork is normal."

"Although frozen meat is not strange, spoiled frozen meat is strange. You didn't take care of the fresh meat. I saw several pieces of meat that looked strange this morning. The store manager said that those were discounted and would be sold at half price, but the supply was limited to 100 kilograms per day. This is a hunger marketing trick. It can sell the meat without worrying about the continued accumulation of meat that may have gone bad."

"...No way, I'll go check it out."

Seeing the two men checking the fresh meat area while the store manager went out to the bathroom, Luo Mei had some doubts in her mind but suppressed them. After all, she was just an employee and there were many things beyond her control. In addition, her previous work experience told her that it was best not to intervene too much in these matters, otherwise it would only cause trouble for herself in the end.

Sure enough, when the two girls were still standing in the fresh meat area whispering, the store manager, who had returned at some point, stood behind them with a gloomy face.

"Manager, you're back." Luo Mei raised her voice a little, which made the two girls turn around suddenly, and they were scared.

"You think this job is too easy and the lunch break is too long?"

The two girls immediately lowered their heads, not daring to meet the store manager's gaze. After all, the store manager's gaze now looked like he wanted to eat someone.

In fact, when Luo Mei wanted to remind the two of them, it was too late. Who knew that the store manager's footsteps seemed to be silent, and when Luo Mei saw him, he was already standing next to her.

"You won't be in charge of the fresh meat for a while. Go to the cashier."

The girl's face immediately fell when she heard that she was transferred to the cashier counter. After all, the work at the cashier counter is much busier than that at the shelf area, and it is more likely to be complained by customers. Originally, the store manager was in charge of this area, but today she saw the store manager sitting in front of the cashier counter and never stopped. His job was not as easy as theirs who were organizing the shelves.

The store was busy like this until almost four in the afternoon, and the vegetables and meat on the shelves were basically sold out. Some residents who came to buy vegetables around 3:30 complained about the insufficient supply and short business hours. The manager acted as if he didn't hear anything and just sat on a bench in the fresh meat area. Instead, the girl at the cashier was busy explaining various things to the customers.

When it was almost time to get off work, several people finally breathed a sigh of relief, especially the girl who had been sitting at the cashier, whose face looked a little better. Since the girls all lived nearby, they couldn't help but chat on the way.

The girl sitting at the cashier counter said, "You know what? I heard the store manager talking to another person on the phone while I was at the cashier counter. It seems that there is a problem with the pigs at the farm recently. Now the base can only think of a way to deal with the batch of frozen meat that was previously pressed."