Fortunately, Qiao Qiao was quick to grasp new things. If it was something she was already familiar with, a bit of guidance was enough for her to pick it up. Still, the day was getting late, and for Qiao Qiao, who was learning for the first time, it had already reached her limit.
That evening, when they returned home, Qiao Qiao collapsed the moment she walked in. "Mama, Qiao Qiao so tired."
"If you're tired, rest for a while. But Qiao Qiao, the steps of learning must never stop. Today was only the beginning. In the decades to come, you need to learn just like today."
Qiao Qiao froze at Lan Jin's words. She seemed to understand, yet also seemed not to. In that instant, a wave of sadness welled up in her heart. She didn't cry. It wasn't as if she hated learning, but she was still so young, and sitting still in one place was difficult. At just over three years old, even she knew when it was time to adjust.
When Lan Jin softened her tone, Qiao Qiao immediately tried to strike a bargain. "Mama, sit long, tired."
"You call that sitting? You lay down the whole time! Don't worry, I won't make you study from morning till night. We'll do one lesson in the morning and one in the afternoon, then we're done." The length of each lesson would depend on the day's situation. For now, building the habit mattered most.
Lan Jin didn't wait for Qiao Qiao to agree. The decision was made. "Relax, we'll rest two days every week. Mama won't work you to death."
Qiao Qiao gave another dramatic sigh, then flopped onto the sofa and didn't move again.
The next morning.
Lan Jin got up early and went to the thirty-first floor entrance to check whether Father Ren and Mother Ren had left. To her surprise, the two were still there. They were huddled together, completely frozen stiff.
Lan Jin stared, speechless. "These two really are stupid. It's not like the rope was tied permanently. Just undo it and they could—"
Yeah, no.
She had thought Lao Gao had simply tied them up to make them give up. But the knot was done with real skill. While bound like that, it would take at least an hour to undo. It seemed Lao Gao had given them just enough hope, only to freeze that hope out of them entirely.
Now this was her kind of handiwork.
Lan Jin had no intention of dealing with corpses at her doorstep, but she couldn't leave them lying there either. Without hesitation, she grabbed them each by the collar and tossed them over the railing, then went back upstairs, locked the door, and carried on as if nothing had happened.
After a week of hard work, the four of them had built up a small mountain of charcoal. But as they looked at the pile in the corner, hesitation set in.
"Should we trade it?"
Would it really be worth going to the black market to exchange charcoal for supplies?
They already had plenty of supplies. Was it necessary to risk going to the black market again?
Lao Gao spoke first. "Even if we didn't have enough supplies, next month we can use contribution points to trade for more. I don't think it's worth taking the risk. Even if something goes wrong next month, what we've got now will last for months. But charcoal—once it's gone, it's gone. It's not like we can just go to the building next door and rip up wood. By now, other people have probably burned through theirs already."
In moments like this, their thinking was surprisingly in sync.
If they had thought of tearing down their own unit for firewood, so had others. And after such a long cold spell, there probably wasn't much usable wood left in the area.
They had been lucky to start early. There was still a good stack of wood at home, but wood burned quickly and couldn't be replaced. Who knew when the extreme cold would end? No wonder they were reluctant to trade it away.
"In that case, we'll just keep it for ourselves. We never planned to rely on it for long-term trading anyway," Lan Jin said. "But… can we modify the generator? Why does it have to be hand-cranked? If we could run it on electricity, we could just use a heater. That would save charcoal and be a lot more convenient."
"The one I made is a basic model. It can't be modified. If we had a large generator, it could power all four apartments just fine. But it runs on diesel, and diesel's harder to find than wood. Even if we got the generator, we couldn't afford to run it," Lao Gao explained.
Lan Jin frowned. "That's for the ones sold outside. You can make anything, right? So make one that runs on charcoal. Burn charcoal to generate power. We make charcoal and power at the same time."
Charcoal from one household, electricity for four.
Lao Gao stared at her in disbelief. "Sister Lan, I think you may have misunderstood my abilities."
Before he could continue, Ling Jiang perked up. "That's actually not a bad idea. And if not charcoal, then water. We don't have to use our drinking water. There's ice outside. Melt it, you get water, and water can generate electricity. Having power would be way better than not having it. That hand-crank thing really is inconvenient. And if we had power, we could finally use those electric appliances we hauled back. Didn't we pick up a lot of bread flour? If we had electricity, Sister Lan, I'd bake you bread."
"I want bread too," Huang Jinghe chimed in.
And just like that, whether realistic or not, the task was dumped on the man who was supposedly good at everything—Lao Gao. He was the only one who knew it was actually impossible.
Charcoal-powered generator? That was nonsense.
Water-powered generator… Well, water could produce electricity. The question was how to make it work. That might be worth thinking about.
After several days of burning charcoal, fatigue was inevitable. Lan Jin suggested, "I feel like going to the market. It'd be good to get some fresh air. I haven't left the house in days. Do you want to come? We can see if there's any new information."
Ling Jiang nodded. "Sure, I want to get out too. We've been busy, but I still feel sluggish."
"You're just stiff from not moving. Beat a few people up and you'll be fine," Lao Gao said bluntly.
"Now that you mention it," Huang Jinghe said slowly, "things have actually been pretty peaceful lately. We've hauled supplies back so many times, and no one's come looking for trouble."