Chapter 12 The End of the Century Begins
On her way home, Yu Miaomiao noticed that the heavy snow had stopped, but hail mixed with rain was washing over the icy roads.
The end of the world has come.
She sneaked out and then quietly returned, locking the fire door to their floor's common area staircase as she came back. She then secured it with a chain and added another lock, the double layer of protection making her feel safer. The elevator didn't go up to their floor, and with the power outage, it was practically useless. But tomorrow, they still had to seal off the elevator to prevent anyone from climbing up the shaft.
The moment the heavy bulletproof door was opened, Lu An was seen dozing on the sofa, and Ma Jiang was lying to the side, but her ears were perked up and she was looking around alertly.
Ma Jiang doesn't like to make noise, but she rushes up immediately when there are bad guys around. When she sees it's Yu Miaomiao, she puts her big head on Lu An's lap and continues to sleep.
Lu An woke up after she left, and also woke up when she quietly returned. After Lu An awakened her superpower, all five senses were enhanced, and she could smell a faint bloodstain on her body. However, understanding and trust were the tacit understanding between them over the years. Not probing each other's secrets was a sign of respect, so she didn't say anything, and she didn't ask anything.
"You should have told me you were going out in the middle of the night. I was worried about you, really." Lu An scolded, handing the hot water bottle to Yu Miaomiao. "It's so cold outside, why didn't you wear more clothes?"
"An'an, the apocalypse has begun."
Yu Miaomiao's hair ends were wet with rainwater, which froze into strands of ice.
The outside temperature has reached minus sixty degrees Celsius. Breaths of warm air are instantly frozen into ice crystals. Coupled with the rain, it is difficult for ordinary creatures to survive outdoors.
With the freezing weather and continuous rain and snow, the first floods and a sharp drop in temperature are expected to arrive around tomorrow.
Everything is about to fall into chaos.
"We've done our best to prepare, and now we'll do our best to live. We'll take turns on night duty starting tomorrow." Lu An's calm and collected demeanor was incredibly reliable.
The underfloor heating kept their house at around 15-20 degrees Celsius, and the two of them also turned on the baseboard heater, so the room was still warm enough.
Lu An originally had a separate room, but in order to save energy, he moved to Yu Miaomiao's bedroom. The two cats huddled in their nest in front of the heater without moving. Ma Jiang was also shivering because it was too cold. Yu Miaomiao found a few pet down vests in her space and helped them put them on.
All three were somewhat reluctant to wear clothes, but the vests were too warm, and they soon gave up resisting. Although they had gained intelligence and their physical strength had increased, they were still not fully adapted to the extreme cold, so they would continue to drink the spring water as a tonic to strengthen their bodies.
Rainwater accumulated on the ground and soon flooded the community's green belt. The sky was already dimly lit, and soon the residents on the first floor would experience the devastation of being submerged.
Yu Miaomiao looked out the window and yawned. She quickly fell asleep and woke up around noon.
A quick glance at my phone revealed a chaotic scene in the residents' group chat. Many residents on lower floors were frantically tagging the property management company, accusing them of inaction and demanding compensation.
The property manager is a woman in her forties named Cai Yunxia. She usually has a cold and aloof demeanor, and it's harder than climbing to heaven to get anything done from her. But when it's time to pay the property fees around the Lunar New Year, she changes her attitude completely. She becomes so polite that you feel bad for delaying even a day. Once you've paid the fees, she immediately reverts to her original attitude.
Since this is a new community, many residents haven't seen her two sides yet. And since it's almost the end of the year, she has to pretend to be happy to keep the residents entertained.
Property management is all the same; relying on them to solve problems is less reliable than relying on yourself. Even in the upscale community where Yu Miaomiao lives, the property management service is still a mess.
"Dear residents, we are already handling the emergency. Please remain calm. Residents on the first and second floors, please go to the upper floors for temporary shelter." In reality, there was no one to handle the situation. The municipal services had been shut down, so what could the property management do? The water flooded two floors, and the entire building froze almost immediately.
The stairwell was a scene of ice and snow, with icicles hanging from the ceiling, sharp enough to kill someone if they fell. Several lower-floor residents were crammed into the corridor between the third and sixth floors. The residents had smashed the icicles and sealed the windows with tape to prevent rainwater from seeping into the stairwell.
Because it's a one-apartment-per-floor building, with only one household on each floor, the flooding of the first and second floors actually affected only two households: 101 and 201. Of course, the same applies to other units in the building. At this point, the first floor was almost completely frozen, and the water level was still rising.
When the water reached almost to the second floor, and seeing that the rain was still pouring down, the residents of apartment 201 set up an outdoor tent in the stairwell on the ninth floor and moved a lot of supplies into the tent, showing a strong sense of risk management.
Moreover, the preparations were quite thorough. The outdoor tent looked exceptionally professional, and there was even a heater inside. The whole family didn't feel cold even in the hallway after moving into the tent.
A family of three living on the first floor, without a tent, shivered in the frozen stairwell, their envy for the tents tinged with envy. They hadn't even managed to salvage their blankets, and now, wrapped in thick down jackets, it was all in vain.
Having no food or water and suffering from the cold, the male resident on the first floor couldn't take it anymore. He started cursing the property management in the owners' group chat and knocked on the doors of the residents on the upper floors, saying that his name was Zhang Fengqiang, that his child couldn't stand the outside temperature, and that he hoped kind people could take him in, promising a generous reward.
The residents on the third floor were already struggling to survive. The rain continued and the water level kept rising, and it looked like it was about to flood the third floor. The residents on the fourth and fifth floors refused to open their doors, no matter how hard people outside pounded on the doors, they just pretended to be dead.
No one lived on the sixth floor, while Liu Mengmei, a solitary woman who had stockpiled a lot of supplies and generously shared them with others, lived on the seventh floor.
As expected, the Holy Mother did not disappoint; she quickly agreed to let the family on the first floor stay overnight. The residents on the first floor went wild praising Liu Mengmei in the owners' group chat. Liu Mengmei sent a smiling emoji and said that in the face of national crisis, she was only doing her bit.
Some homeowners gave her a thumbs up, but most remained silent at this point.
Liu Mengmei was a little smug and even called on everyone in the group to donate supplies to others in need in the building.
Yu Miaomiao couldn't stand the hypocrisy in the owners' group chat, so she locked her phone. For now, there was no water, electricity, gas, or internet outage, so everyone was doing alright. But when the basic necessities really stopped, the saintly days would be over.
A moment later, the phone lit up again; someone had taken a picture of Yu Miaomiao.
Yu Miaomiao opened the group chat and found that Liu Mengmei had tagged her in the group.
He said he personally saw that Yu Miaomiao and her group were receiving a constant stream of deliveries every day, so they must have a lot of supplies. He told Yu Miaomiao not to pretend to be dead and to take out the supplies to help those in need.
When people in the group heard that there were supplies, they all chimed in, urging Yu Miaomiao to share the good fortune.
Ha, where did this living Buddha who's seen a ghost come from?
Yu Miaomiao replied, "I bought dog food. Do you want some? I'll pour it out at the bottom of the stairs. Help yourselves."
The group chat fell silent instantly. At this point, people hadn't reached the point of desperation, so naturally, no one paid any attention to the "dog food" (a term for public displays of affection).
Two months later, they'll all be scrambling to put the rat poison in their mouths.
Lu An was still busy in the kitchen. The power would be cut off in a few days, so she cooked all the strongly scented foods thoroughly to prevent the smell from attracting ill-intentioned people.
Also, prepare three meals for the two of them today. No matter what kind of natural disaster or apocalypse it is, we must eat well every meal.
"What are you thinking about? I've been calling you for ages. Come and eat." Yu Miaomiao was lost in thought, wondering when to deal with the father and son on the fifth floor.
Lu An walked up to her, pinched her cheek, and teased, "You're not enthusiastic about eating, there's something wrong with your thinking."