Wang Liping was used to sending notifications and especially loved using exclamation marks.
As soon as her message went out, the kind-hearted residents in the group chat immediately replied, "I have an extra quilt at home. I'll take it to the building manager's office this afternoon!"
"I can give the elderly some rice and flour, though I can't help with anything else."
"@Wang Liping Sister Wang, please send me the elderly's Alipay or WeChat QR code. I'll transfer fifty yuan as a token of my appreciation."
Several other residents quickly chimed in, offering to donate money out of the goodness of their hearts.
Wang Liping tagged the residents offering money one by one and said, "Money is useless right now! Thank you! The main thing we need is supplies!"
Chen Momo stared at the group notification, torn.
The heavy snow wasn't going to stop anytime soon, and a temporary relief of supplies wouldn't really help the three elderly people. As for the final outcome...
After mulling it over, Chen Momo ultimately decided to abandon the idea of donating supplies.
In her previous life, when she heard there were elderly people living alone on her floor, she had donated her scarce remaining supplies without a second thought. After all, the blizzard had only been going on for a few days, and no one expected this to be just the prelude to the apocalypse. The days ahead would only get harder.
As a result, half a month later, her own supplies ran out. Yet, when she begged for help in the group chat, she was met with dead silence. Chen Momo still remembered the scene of desperately begging for help, only to have every door shut in her face.
Snapping back to the present, Chen Momo solidified her resolve. In this life, she couldn't afford to be soft-hearted; she had to be ruthless!
She knew it was cruel, but without cruelty, it was impossible to survive in this harsh apocalyptic world! A person who was too soft-hearted in the apocalypse was like a sheep thrown to the wolves—they would quickly be torn apart and devoured!
So far, many residents in the chat were still acting out of kindness.
By six o'clock that evening, Wang Liping sent a few photos to the group. They showed a dozen bags filled with supplies—steamed buns, canned food, eight-treasure porridge—along with some winter coats and thick quilts.
"The building manager's office has received a lot of items! Thank you all so much for your generosity. These supplies will be distributed to the three elderly residents living alone shortly! You guys are too passionate! @AllMembers"
A cheeky resident replied below, "Our Building Five is a loving family (Playful) (Playful)"
Most of the other residents didn't reply, perhaps because the blizzard was dampening everyone's spirits.
For dinner, Chen Momo decided to treat herself and her son to some barbecue to satisfy their cravings. The apocalypse was exhausting enough; she absolutely refused to let herself or her child suffer when it came to food.
She took ten lamb skewers and two pairs of KFC roasted chicken wings from her spatial dimension, along with some mung beans, osmanthus flowers, and rock sugar to boil an osmanthus mung bean soup.
Xiao Bao ate two lamb skewers, a pair of chicken wings, and drank a small bowl of mung bean soup. Chen Momo finished eight lamb skewers, the other pair of wings, and drank a glass of beer. The beer helped her sleep soundly through the night.
Day five of the blizzard.
In the morning, Chen Momo followed her usual routine of turning on the TV news. She made herself a glass of honey water and stood by the window, looking out at the residential compound.
The snow piles that had just been cleared yesterday were now knee-deep again. The heavy snow continued to fall in thick flurries, showing no signs of slowing down, let alone stopping.
On the news, experts were still spouting nonsense, claiming the heavy snow would stop in the next couple of days, though their tone clearly lacked the confidence they had a few days ago. Sanitation workers, bundled up from head to toe like bulky mascots, were sluggishly clearing the snow off the roads.
Suddenly, a group of people surged out from all corners of the compound. Pushing and shoving, they trudged through the knee-deep snow, racing frantically toward the compound gates.
She wondered in surprise, "What's going on?" Her eyes followed the crowd.
It turned out that the supermarket across the street had just received a fresh delivery of goods, and these people were rushing over to panic-buy.
Before long, the swarming crowd squeezed back through the compound gates. Those who had managed to snatch up supplies carried their bags with beaming faces, their steps through the snow visibly lighter. Those who had failed trudged back in dejectedly, empty-handed and drained of energy.
The successful ones showed off their hauls in the group chat:
"Just snagged five tubs of instant noodles from the supermarket. Don't have to worry about starving to death anymore!"
"Grabbed a few loaves of bread."
"Two cartons of milk, hehe."
Those who missed out complained:
"WUU WUU WUU, I didn't get anything."
"Sigh, have to wait for tomorrow again."
After reading the chatter, Chen Momo took two frozen steaks out of her dimension. She thawed and pan-fried them, pairing them with broccoli and plating them for her and her son. She then opened a carton of milk, poured two glasses, and popped them into the microwave for a spin.
Since Xiao Bao was a growing boy and needed to eat more, Chen Momo pulled a spiced meat bun from her dimension, heated it in the microwave, and gave it to him.
Xiao Bao ate and drank with gusto. Afterward, he didn't forget to sweet-talk her. "Mommy, this is so yummy! Mommy is amazing."
Chen Momo couldn't help but laugh at her son's earnest praise. She thought, "Son, with that sweet little mouth of yours, you'd be able to talk your way into a meal anywhere. Your dear mother won't ever have to worry about you going hungry!"
After breakfast, the mother and son went about their own business as usual.
Chen Momo curled up on the sofa and binge-watched shows for a while. Eventually, she figured that doing nothing but watching TV was pointless. She might as well take advantage of this time stuck at home during the apocalypse to learn some new skills—they might come in handy at the survivor base in the future.
As the saying goes, skills are never a burden. It was never a bad thing to learn something new!
Chen Momo asked her son for a piece of his homework paper and a pen. She wrote down the things she could potentially learn right now:
1. Writing novels.
This skill was quickly vetoed. Chen Momo was a huge fiction fan and had read countless web novels, but actually writing one was far from easy. Not to mention, her excruciatingly slow hunt-and-peck typing speed would drive anyone crazy. No, no, scratch that.
2. Being a cleaner.
As a housewife, cleaning was a daily, mandatory task that she could complete with high speed and quality. But a cleaner's income was far too low. She wouldn't make much money even if she worked exhaustingly hard for a month, and it was a highly replaceable job. Veto.
3. Doing design work.
Design was Chen Momo's college major, but she had been a full-time housewife since graduation. Her professional skills had rusted away over the years, making it quite difficult to pick them back up.
Uh... looking at this list, it seemed she didn't have any particularly outstanding skills.
Chen Momo wrote down a few more options, but none of them satisfied her. They were either too difficult to learn or too easily replaceable.
Bored out of her mind, Chen Momo picked up her phone and started scrolling through short videos. When she swiped to a cooking tutorial, her eyes suddenly lit up. That's it! She could learn how to cook gourmet meals!
In the apocalypse, supplies would inevitably be scarce. Whoever could make the most delicious food with limited ingredients would undoubtedly possess a powerful survival skill!