Cave Refuge

Chapter 66: Remodeling the Office Building into a Refuge Center_1



Due to the electromagnetic pulse, the bank was temporarily unable to resume normal operations, and electronic payments were out of the question, so cash once again became the mainstream transaction mode.

However, because cash had been used so rarely before, the circulating cash could not fully meet the consumer demand in the market.

But this was a good thing. After all, even if we did not return to the era of a planned economy, because many things can only rely on the original stock, the circulation of cash is less, which can also slow down the sale of goods.

Especially for two non-necessities like tobacco and alcohol which rapidly got consumed, during the ice age, the originally planted tobacco leaves had all withered, and it would take some time to replant them.

Making alcohol even consumed grains, unlike earlier days when not only did the summer produce grain, but we could also import grain from foreign countries. So now both the official and private sectors have stopped brewing new wines.

Because of these reasons, the existing prices of cigarettes and alcohol have skyrocketed, and in some places, the price of ordinary cigarettes and alcohol exceed that of equal weight of silver.

That's why, after hearing that Mr. Thompson wanted to pay with cigarettes and alcohol, the other party not only agreed to Mr. Thompson's request, but also tried to propose new needs to Mr. Thompson.

The speed of elevator maintenance was much faster than Mr. Thompson and their family imagined, and within less than a week, the technicians had restored a freight elevator to normal operation according to the requirements.

During this week, the three families were not idle. Mr. Thompson contacted his own brothers and told them about the arrangements on this side, but didn't call them over, but let them find high-rise buildings to prepare in advance.

Logically speaking, there should be a greater strength in numbers, but after experiencing Dong's brothers' "peaceful parting", Mr. Thompson decided that the old saying "distance makes the affair fonder" was correct.

In addition to notifying their brothers to prepare, Mr. Thompson and Haiyang leveraged their previous connections to get some food, some compressed biscuits and some old grain, but the quantity was not much, just around a hundred to two hundred pounds.

Even if they all ate this amount of food, it wouldn't last for more than a few days. Without oil or water, the consumption of grains per meal greatly increased.

The situation of Mr. Thompson and his second brother was the same, and although they managed to get some food, the quantity was very small, basically only enough for the family to eat for two to three days.

In addition to the lack of food, in a week's time, the three prepared a lot of materials to renovate the room.

There are many supermarkets in the West District, but if everyone just left the underground Refuge Center, the supermarkets would be overcrowded. Now, however, the supermarkets have become deserted.

The food in the supermarket has been ransacked by other people, with only remnant items which are either not easy to carry or not very practical. Therefore, unless there are some homeless people, other people won't be 'treasure hunting' in the supermarket.

Luckily, the materials for home renovation were not very practical for others, so the three families got a lot of exhibits from the supermarket.

Most of these were metal products, such as exhibit stands or some semi-metallic furniture.

As for wooden furniture, it's not that they didn't want to move it, but it had already been taken away by others. After all, although every supermarket in the West City district has a furniture showroom, it is just a showroom.

The furniture exhibition areas are not in the West District, so all the supermarkets only have showrooms with a few furniture items, and the warehouse does not have any spare stock at all.

With the freight elevator, going up and down floors had become very easy. Moreover, since only these three families were using this elevator, it was even more convenient and fast.

The office building in People's Square was built quite a long time ago and became the landmark building of Pengcheng when it was built. Even though it was quickly replaced by office buildings around Pengville Plaza, it's still considered satisfactory even now.

The office building has thirty-six floors, with the bottom four floors built according to supermarket standards, so a single floor was about six meters high, while the top floors were around 3.5 meters high according to the standards of office buildings.

The three families chose to settle on the thirtieth floor, with a single floor area around 1,800 square meters. If only the three families lived there, this area would be more than enough.

After the elevator was fixed, the three families started to renovate this floor.

First, they moved the furniture from their homes. Since the space in the Refuge Center was small, the furniture wasn't moved there to begin with.

The area of this floor was evenly divided between the three families. Even after area not in use (load-bearing columns, public toilets, etc) was thrown out, each family still had more than four to five hundred square meters.

The area usable was significantly larger than their original home.

When the three families arrived on this floor, they discovered that the entire floor had been rented out by a company, and the whole floor had been transformed into several independent office areas.

Each office area had a floor area of about two hundred square meters, with the remaining areas being composted of the company's warehouse and several smaller separate offices.

Mr and Mrs Thompson, as a couple, did not choose a larger place like the two other families, instead, they chose the general manager's office which was only fifty to sixty square meters.

The reason for choosing this place was not because of the plaque hanging in front of the door, but because there was not much furniture in the room, which facilitated easy renovation for the elderly couple, and also because the room had good lighting and view.

Due to the reason of the number of people in the other two families, they would not dispute with the old couple over the occupancy rights of this room over the nameplate.

Since the entire floor belonged to a single company, there was more than one area with good lighting. The other two families also chose areas with make a broad view for habitation.

Furthermore, the rooms chosen by the three families for habitation had an implicit agreement, although on the same floor, the spaces chosen by the three families were separated and not grouped together.

When the three families moved, they did not move individually but pooled their labor together, moving one family at a time.

The means of transportation used was a human-powered tricycle found by Mr. Thompson's second brother. Luckily, the office building was not too far from the three families, even though they had to rely on manpower for transportation.

Luckily, when Dong Tianyu came home to visit his parents and saw that the three families were starting to move, he also joined in the efforts. However, other than being a bit stronger than others, Dong Tianyu did not exhibit much behavior.

In addition to helping with the move, Dong Tianyu sneakily threw all the things stored in the warehouse into the Cave mansion and absorbed them, and then put various kinds of food in the warehouse.

Compared to the doomsday supply package that had been prepared for his parents and relatives when they moved into the Refuge Center, the supplies prepared this time not only included food, but also many practical tools.


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