Chapter 16: Global Shopping Spree

Jiang Yan did a quick calculation—she still had about 2.2 to 2.3 billion yuan left, so she was feeling pretty confident.

But when converted to US dollars, it was just over 300 million.

She had no idea how much weapons would cost; she was a complete novice in that area and would have to make decisions on the fly once she was abroad.

In the meantime, she’d used every channel she could think of, but only managed to exchange a few million US dollars.

Her black card supported automatic currency conversion, but even maxing it out, she could only get about four million.

For the rest, she’d have to use some special methods.

On June 1st—Children’s Day—after stashing away 30,000 ready-to-eat meals ordered from five-star hotels, Michelin restaurants, various long-established eateries, as well as barbecue joints, hotpot places, and braised food shops, plus 8,000 cups of bubble tea in different flavors from several famous chains, Jiang Yan boarded an international flight to Maple Country.

Jiang Yan was already a travel and food blogger, traveling all over China and abroad.

Her passport was filled with visas from many countries, most of them valid for a year with multiple entries.

She chose Maple Country first because she needed to buy a large amount of supplies there, and her visa for that country was about to expire.

As for the other countries she planned to visit, her visas were still valid, so she could take her time.

Even though her physical fitness had improved greatly thanks to the space in recent days, the constant running around and a long-haul flight of over ten hours still left her a bit exhausted.

Luckily, she no longer had to worry about jet lag.

Her destination in Maple Country was Vancouver.

There were a lot of Chinese people there, and it was right next to the US, so she could get a lot of resources sorted out.

But the first thing she did after getting off the plane was buy a second-hand iPhone and several anonymous SIM cards.

Then she found a café, ordered an iced Americano, and logged onto several major Chinese websites. She registered accounts and anonymously posted a warning:

#Attention!! A natural disaster will strike in early August. All Chinese citizens are advised to stock up on supplies in advance!!#

She also included some simple suggestions for household stockpiling.

The post was sent successfully.

Whether it would be deleted or if anyone would believe it was no longer her concern.

She might seem a bit laid-back, but during her time abroad, she planned to keep posting these anonymous warnings for Chinese people every day.

She’d wanted to do this back in China, but was afraid of causing unnecessary trouble, so she’d given up.

After finishing all this and grabbing a quick bite, Jiang Yan began her day of shopping and exploring in a foreign country.

She’d already arranged a warehouse remotely from China, and had researched and contacted all the places she needed to buy supplies from, just in case they needed to transfer stock at the last minute.

Because of its cold climate, Maple Country was famous for cold-weather gear and outdoor survival equipment. It also had the world’s largest fishing industry and was rich in timber.

Plus, they sold the world’s lightest mosquito helicopters, which you could easily fly after just fifteen hours of actual flight time.

Jiang Yan already had a private pilot’s license. When she was a travel blogger, she’d even filmed a few episodes of herself flying a plane.

So piloting this little helicopter was a piece of cake.

Speaking of cold-weather gear, the “Fighting Nation” (Russia) also made great products, and they had abundant natural gas reserves.

But with things going “boom boom boom” over there every day, it just wasn’t safe, so she gave up on going.

As for the fishing industry, the island nation (Japan) had the most and the best quality.

Unfortunately, that was in the past. Ever since they started dumping nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean, she wouldn’t buy from them even if it was free.

The first thing Jiang Yan bought was cold-weather clothing.

Down jackets, cotton coats, fleece tops and pants, outdoor T-shirts, windbreakers, hiking boots, mid-calf outdoor boots, snow boots, waterproof jackets and pants—she bought a couple hundred of each style and size, two hundred per category.

For accessories—face masks, crampons, combat boots, snow chains, goggles, earmuffs, etc.—she bought three thousand of each.

She’d already bought a lot of cold-weather clothing in China, but the same brands were cheaper here, so she still ended up spending over ten million.

Mainly because the down jackets were so expensive—over ten thousand yuan each—and the rest added up too.

After clothes, she bought a ton of seafood.

Most of Maple Country’s seafood was unpolluted, and the ocean currents from the island nation hadn’t reached here yet, so the seafood tasted great, especially raw.

Lobster, abalone, king crab, geoduck, tuna, yellow croaker, coral trout, sea cucumber, salmon—she bought a thousand kilos of each, plus another thousand kilos of regular seafood.

She also bought five hundred bottles each of ketchup and chili sauce.

When she went to the lumberyard, she wasn’t sure if she was thinking of Bald Qiang (a cartoon lumberjack) or just acting on a whim, but she bought three logging machines, two log grapplers, one wood cutter, and three excavators.

After buying five hundred tons of timber and two mosquito helicopters, Jiang Yan crossed the border from Vancouver into the US.

The US was the main focus of her trip.

After all, weapons, yachts, helicopters, amphibious boats—according to her stockpiling plan, she’d get them all here.

Although some states in the US didn’t ban guns, you still needed paperwork to buy weapons through legal channels.

Jiang Yan had gone to the shooting range with friends to practice with real guns a few times, but that was just for practice.

She wasn’t a citizen or a green card holder, so she couldn’t get a gun license.

But when she first went abroad, her parents had worried about her safety and hired a top security agency to find her some elite bodyguards.

That agency was said to be extremely well-connected.

Naturally, this time she contacted the same agency’s representative.

Although it was called an agency, in the US they operated in both the legal and illegal worlds.

Rumor had it they even had their own private army and were involved in some gray-area deals—like being a behind-the-scenes supporter of the dark web.

But Jiang Yan didn’t care about any of that—as long as they could get her the weapons she needed.

She didn’t want to deal directly with shady arms dealers; that would be like handing her wallet and her life over to a tiger.

She’d worked with this agency before, and they had a decent reputation in the industry.

All she had to do was pay a hefty commission.

Compared to her life, she was happy to pay.

Of course, exchanging large sums of US dollars was also handled by them.

Before leaving the country, Jiang Yan had opened several securities accounts in Hong Kong as required by the agency, and transferred in 150 million yuan through various channels in advance.

The weapons were soon delivered to the warehouse she’d specified."