Chapter 165

After playing skateboarding for a while, Jian Chu and Song Jia finally pulled a trailer loaded with several barrels of water, and Mu Nan pulled Niu Niu and Qin Huai, who were sitting on skateboards, and walked home side by side. Their clothes were soaked with sweat, and their faces were flushed from the heat, but it was a rare opportunity to relax, and it was even more enjoyable than secretly eating hot pot at home.

Song Jia, who was walking in front, suddenly turned around and asked, "Have you seen the news about the wolf before?"

Mu Nan shook his head: "There are wolves again?"

The previous incidents of animals attacking people happened in winter. After the weather got warmer, I didn't seem to hear such news. And it seemed that not many people went hunting. This is different from winter. In winter, if you go out, no matter how cold it is, you can just hide in the car without turning off the engine. Now in the daytime, if you can't find shelter, you can't endure it at all. Even if there is shelter, the heat in broad daylight is hard to endure for those with slightly weaker health, so you dare not go out easily.

Song Jia: "It's not that there are new ones, they have always been there, but those animals are afraid of the heat and dare not come out during the day. At night, there are reconstruction sites everywhere in our area, and the industrial noise is too loud. It's not like in the winter when it's freezing cold and we can't start work. It's very quiet. Animals seem to be born with a fear of these noises and dare not get close. So we can't see any animals in the residential area. But there are still some, just like that group of people, young men in their twenties who went to Monkey Mountain. They said there were caves in Monkey Mountain and they could hide in the caves to avoid the sun if they couldn't come back during the day. In the end, none of them came back. When they were found, their bodies were incomplete, and there were wolf hairs."

Jian Chu was surprised and said, "Isn't Monkey Mountain sealed? The cave on top has become a warehouse, and there are soldiers guarding it."

Song Jia shrugged: "I don't know either. I just saw someone else post it before. I don't know if it's true or just made up for publicity."

Mu Nan: "Are there any photos, or just text?"

"There are no photos, just gossip group chat information, not even soft articles."

But speaking of Monkey Mountain, Jian Chu said, "After a whole winter of reproduction on the mountain, aren't there a lot of rabbits, pheasants, and the like?"

Mu Nan: "During the previous flood, I didn't see any animals in the mountains."

Others would never go out if they could stay in the cave every day. But after the heavy rain stopped, he and Qin Huai strolled outside every day to eat secretly. They even climbed up the mountain, but they didn't see any animals at all. They didn't know if it was because they were always on the edge of the mountain and didn't go into the mountain. Anyway, they never encountered the scene of wild rabbits running everywhere as they imagined.

Jian Chu sighed, "It's useless even if there is one. If there is one, it probably won't be our turn. I don't know what those people who went to the city to pan for gold got. Thinking back to the joy we had picking up things in the business district back then, I don't know if we will have it again in this life."

Song Jia pushed open the courtyard door and walked in, breaking Jian Chu's dream: "Don't think about it. It probably won't happen in this lifetime, unless you want an earthquake of that magnitude."

Jian Chu immediately said, "Bad things don't work, but good things do. Can you say something nice?"

Song Jia also followed suit and slapped his lips: "Children's words are not to be contemplated, children's words are not to be contemplated."

Mu Nan on the side laughed happily: "You're almost 30, and you're such a big boy, hahahahahaha."

As soon as they entered the yard, Niuniu, who was sitting on a skateboard, jumped off and waited in front of her own front door with her tail wagging. Seeing that she didn't care about him at all, Mu Nan couldn't help but pull her ears and said, "I feed you and play with you, but in the end you still have to go home. I love you in vain."

Song Jia laughed, waved to them, and went into the house.

As soon as the door opened, a gust of cool air rushed towards him. Mu Nan sighed comfortably: "It's heaven for a second."

Qin Huai put the skateboard away for him and brought in the bucket: "You are afraid of the heat and are still playing outside and don't want to go back."

Mu Nan put the bucket into the space to avoid the trouble of carrying it to the third floor. "Year after year, I feel that my resistance to heat has really improved a lot. How many degrees is it today? Is it 60 degrees? Back then, when the weather was 40 degrees, we couldn't even step out of the door. Now it's 50 or 60 degrees at night, and we can still play outside. If it continues to get hotter year after year, maybe I can evolve to the point where I can feel cool even at 50 or 60 degrees without air conditioning."

Qin Huai said with a smile: "Don't worry, you won't be able to evolve to that level in your lifetime."

After returning to the cool place, Mu Nan couldn't wait to take a shower. If he didn't take a shower to cool down, he felt that he was going to be cooked from the inside out. He didn't feel it when he was playing, but after the play, the aftereffects of the heat came up and even his breathing was like fire.

When the temperature dropped completely, Mu Nan collapsed on the bed. Qin Huai came out of the shower and saw his hollowed-out body. He smiled and sat next to him: "You only play for five minutes, but it takes three days to recharge?"

Mu Nan turned over and calculated the time: "Didn't the temperature start to drop by this time last year?"

Qin Huai glanced at the time on his phone: "It's not a drop in temperature. It was already snowing at this time last year."

Last year, the temperature dropped around June, and a few days after the temperature dropped, we started to have continuous heavy snow. The entire cold winter lasted for half a year, and this year it is already July.

According to the normal climate in the past, the weather would only start to get hot in July, but from January till now, it has been extremely hot for seven months. As for rain, except for that flood, the number of times it has rained can be counted on five fingers.

Mu Nan said, "Will this year be hot again? Just like the first year when it got hot, this will be the pattern from now on: hot for a year and a half, snow in the second half of the year, and then hot for another year and a half."

Qin Huai tapped his forehead and said, "Who knows? The climate is no longer regular now. It will be hot if it's hot, and cold if it's cold. But we still need to prepare firewood and coal."

There is no firewood as the survival rate of plants is too low. There are still a few green forests on the Monkey Mountain, but there is only a little green left, not to mention the green lotus. Originally, there was still some green on the top of the mountain, but now it has all been burned down, even cleaner than Monkey Mountain. If you want wood, you may have to go to the city center to find it.

Coal can be bought, but it has to be reserved. I guess many people calculated the time, thinking that it started to get cold in June last year, and it might be the same this year. So in May, the price of coal rose to sky-high prices. Of course, the price increase was due to private connections. The official price increase was not made, but people were lining up to buy coal. By the time they got their first line in the queue, they were afraid that the winter would be over and they would not be able to buy it at all.

As a result, by the end of June, the temperature had not changed at all. Although it did not continue to climb, it did not drop at all. The enthusiasm for buying charcoal then subsided.

Regardless of whether winter will come this year, Qin Huai feels that it is time to start storing coal.

When Qin Huai contacted the person who delivered the coal last year to inquire about the availability and price, the price of coal had dropped a lot due to the impact of the city center market.

After experiencing such a severe winter, many people would rather prepare more supplies for the winter this year rather than crowd into a large greenhouse. Although they will not freeze to death in it, living together with thousands of people for several months is not much easier to endure than a cold winter.

Those who go to the city center to pan for gold, who have power and teams, target some industrial objects, such as machines and steel. If they can come across other valuable things, that will be some extra income.

But in addition to teamwork, there are of course some people who work alone or in groups of two or three to pan for gold, and these people's goal is to obtain fuel wood.

Wood is not afraid of the sun. Even if it has been soaked in water, it can still be burned after being dried. In the urban area, whether it is office or residential, most of the furniture is made of wood. After processing, these can be turned into burnable fuel, and it is free. And it is stuck in the timeline of the arrival of last winter, so the market is still huge.

Large piles of wood were transported over, and a few people were hired to split them manually, and then they were sold by pound, and there were many people buying them.

As wood impacted residential areas, the price of coal naturally dropped. When there was cheap wood available, who would be willing to buy expensive coal? However, no matter how low the price of coal was, it could not be lower than the free wood in an entire city.

But Mu Nan was not tempted by the cheap firewood. It was not because he had abundant supplies and was not short of money, but who knew if a piece of wood had ever killed someone or had close contact with a corpse. He would rather use more expensive coal.

After he said this, Jian Chu and Song Jia, who were eager to buy wood, gave up the idea.

Counting the money at home, Song Jia sighed: "Forget it, it's expensive, just think of it as spending money to buy safety."

Although I know that the government has lifted the blockade of the city, proving that the city is safe and there will be no more viruses, it is probably a psychological trauma. So many people died of the disease, and when they migrated here, many people fell down while walking and never got up again.

There was also a case where a sick person saw them passing by and rushed over to ask for help. His body was covered with burst pustules, and his face was so swollen that his facial features were distorted. He didn't have the courage to die, so he could only live in pain.

The man's appearance was so impressive that Mu Nan thought that if the wood dragged from the city was infected with some disease, it would be a waste of time. Although the wood would eventually be thrown into the fire, it must have been processed before being transported in, but it would still have to be handled by hand before burning, and it would still have to be piled up where they lived. After thinking about it, it was too dangerous, so he didn't take advantage of this small opportunity.

This time the girls also joined the joint purchase. It was estimated that their stock was indeed running low. They had probably used up all the stock they had spent staying indoors for the first two years. This year they began to work hard to make money and adapt to life outside. As for the Cai family, they were still struggling over whether to buy or not.

They don't want winter to come so soon this year. The two brothers of Wu Zheng's family are nice people. In summer, living upstairs and downstairs doesn't affect each other much. But if it is winter, it's okay if there is electricity and they can get through it by turning on the floor heating. But what if there is no electricity? How will they get through it? They can't just build another heated kang in someone else's house.

It is not known when the house application here will be approved. The speed of house construction cannot accommodate the number of people living without houses in Kangyun in the short term. So after much deliberation, the Cai family decided to buy just a little and not too much.

If winter really comes, they will find a way to get a stove to keep warm.

Watching the trucks driving into the community and Qin Huai and Yu Zibai counting the trucks, Song Jia couldn't help but ask Mu Nan, "Tell me the truth, did your brother already figure it out?"

Mu Nan didn't understand: "What is that?"

Song Jia: "Calculate the market. When we bought it last year, I remember it was still points, and it hadn't been converted to new currency yet. One point was ten kilograms of coal, which is one dollar for ten kilograms of coal. One piece of coal weighs two kilograms. Now the highest price for private individuals was five dollars for ten kilograms of coal, which is equivalent to one dollar per piece of coal. It's ridiculously expensive and in short supply."

Mu Nan: "There's nothing we can do about it. Some people are so poor that they only need one dollar to eat for three days, while others are so wealthy that they are willing to spend one dollar to buy a piece of coal to get through the winter rather than living in a collective heating house."

Song Jia: "That's why I was wondering if your brother had anticipated this. It was so expensive at the time, so many people rushed to grab it, fearing that they would miss out if they were a step slower. We also asked if we should buy some. It's expensive, but it's better than freezing to death. Your brother said we should wait and see the situation, so we didn't act. As a result, not long after the city was opened, wood impacted coal, and the price of coal fell. Of course, it's not as cheap as before when one point bought ten kilograms, but at two yuan for ten kilograms, at least we can afford it."

Song Jia felt that Qinhuai was just waiting for the wood to impact the coal before taking action. Regardless of whether winter came this year or not, the price of coal would not be lower than the current price. Moreover, because of the wood shipped back from the urban area, many people who had originally booked coal turned around and bought wood, resulting in a large number of coal orders being lost. The accumulated inventory was stuck in their hands and had to be sold at a low price.

But there is only so much wood in the city. As long as trees cannot be planted, wood is equivalent to a non-renewable thing. When the city is cleared, the subsequent heating resources will still focus on coal, and the price will definitely rise again. So at this very delicate moment, it is estimated that the price will never be low again, but Qinhuai happened to buy it at this point.

However, seeing Mu Nan's bewildered look, Song Jia said helplessly: "Forget it, you won't know even if I ask you. It's enough for us to buy cheap coal."

Mu Nan: "So why are you asking?"

Before Song Jia could say anything, Jian Chu laughed out loud: "Now I am sure that you are definitely not my biological children."

Mu Nan: "I heard that you were mocking me. What you just said is the evidence!"

This time they bought a lot of coal, but the unloading speed was much faster because they made a special unloading elevator which was directly connected to the garage. The people in the car put the coal on the elevator, and the piles of coal slid down the slope and slid directly into the garage where they were stacked.

The garages of the four families were almost full. Because Qin Huai's family had another car, they moved half of it to the living room on the first floor. Jian Chu's family had stored coal from two families. Although Xu Ming was not there, Xu Ming gave Jian Chu the money when they bought coal, so Jian Chu's garage was almost full.

Looking at the full garage in front of him, Jian Chu prayed, "I hope there won't be another flash flood, otherwise we will really suffer heavy losses."

Mu Nan patted his shoulder comfortingly: "Don't worry, with the intensity of the scorching sun right now, I'm afraid it won't rain that hard."

After working for most of the night, everyone was dirty, especially Xiao Zhu. I don't know if he was instigated by his uncle or his aunt, but he was asked to carry a small basket and put all the broken coal slag in the carriage into the small basket. When the basket was full, he would get off the car to empty it and then climb back up to load it again.

It is really embarrassing to let an adult do such a thing, so only a child can do it. This also resulted in the fact that among all the people, only Xiao Zhuhei had no white skin on his body.

When Aunt Yin came out and saw the big coal ball, she chased Cai Wentao all over the yard with a broom: "You are such a grown-up and you still don't teach him good things! You made the innocent child so dirty! You don't want you to wash his clothes, do you?!"

Cai Wentao was hiding in the yard crying out loud. Wasn't he trying to teach Xiaozhu to be thrifty? Why didn't he teach her a little better? Those broken coal slag can be burned, too. There were several baskets of them, piled up into a small hill.

Mu Nan took a shower very carefully inside and out. Because he helped to move things, even the gaps between his nails were black. He even took out a small brush and brushed it to make sure there was no trace of black coal left. Then he came out feeling refreshed. He heard Cai Wentao and Xiao Zhu making a fuss in the yard. He was avoiding Aunt Yin's attack. Xiao Zhu was dragged by his mother to take a shower in public in the yard, and he was smiling and cheering for his beaten uncle.

The whole atmosphere was quite warm and lively.

After Qin Huai finished his shower, Mu Nan took out the fascia gun and said, "Come on, I'll relax your arm."

Although there was a freight elevator, it could not reach indoors, so they still moved several hundred kilograms of coal into the room. They had not done this kind of repetitive arm work for a long time, so they had to relax their muscles, otherwise their hands would be so sore that they would not be able to lift them tomorrow.

Qin Huai lay on the bed and enjoyed Mu Nan's service, with a few words of verbal reward from time to time. Mu Nan's praise made him more motivated. He originally just wanted to relax his arms, but ended up getting a full body service and a complete massage. In the end, he even contributed himself to it.

Qin Huai was completely relaxed from the inside out. He lowered his head with a satisfied expression and kissed the forehead of the person curled up on the bed: "The technician's service today is perfect. I am very satisfied. What's your ID number? I will choose you next time."

Mu Nan: "… kneel down and be at peace."

Qin Huai smiled, covered him with a small blanket, then got up from the bed and went to make dinner for the man who was about to cry of hunger. However, at this point, it was almost like dinner and supper, so it could be a little more substantial. After all, he had just moved coal and had some hard exercise, so he needed to replenish himself.

After the family bought coal, there was nothing much to prepare. They had thick winter clothes and quilts. Even the quilts that Song Jiajianchu's family had left outside to ward off locusts and had been eaten were now replenished. When the online shopping mall launched the limited edition, they were quick to grab two quilts each.

But the Cai family had no supplies for the winter. Some of them went to work, some took care of housework, and they also had to keep an eye on the development of the mushroom bags in the mushroom room. They didn't have much time to spend with their phones every day, either browsing forums or shopping in malls. By the time they knew there were winter clothes and quilts for sale, they were already sold out online.

So after watering the vegetables and cleaning the chicken coop every day, Song Jia would help them keep an eye on the movements online. Even Jian Chu and Mu Nan were asked to buy them if they saw any. If the Cai family thought they were too expensive, they could wait until winter to sell them and make some money.

However, Mu Nan looked at the ground bleached by the sunlight and couldn't help but sigh: "I always feel that this year's winter is so far away. It doesn't seem to be coming at all. Brother, do you think last winter will be the last winter in our lifetime?"

Qin Huai passed by him and tapped him on the head: "When it's time to come, it will come. Why are you thinking about winter now? Why do you want to stay here so long?"

Mu Nan touched his head and said, "Isn't it because I'm afraid that it will get hotter and the earth will spontaneously combust without fire? I want to have a winter to cool down the temperature. It's a good combination."

Mu Nan did not dare to look outside for too long. Even pulling aside the partition to look at the ground for a while made his eyes dizzy. Looking up at the sun in the sky directly would probably make him blind. He felt the warmth of the sun through the window for three seconds, then lowered the partitions inside and outside, lay back on the sofa, browsing the forum and chatting with them in the small group.

Qin Huai started cleaning. Mu Nan didn't like to wear shoes, especially in the bedroom, so Qin Huai always cleaned the floor tiles in the bedroom very well, and wiped them bit by bit with a rag every once in a while. In order to facilitate the work of the sweeper, even the sofas were placed in a slightly European style with a slightly high footrest, just enough for the sweeper to get in and mop.

The sweeper had clearly been working diligently in the morning, but now seeing Qin Huai coming over with a basin of water and a rag, Mu Nan turned over on the sofa: "My hardworking brother is beginning to radiate the shining light of labor again."

Qin Huai threw the slightly damp rag on the floor and wiped the tiles one by one: "If I didn't have a lazy and lazy brother who doesn't like to wear slippers, I wouldn't be able to be so hardworking."

Mu Nan put on a shy smile: "No need to thank me so much, it's so embarrassing."

Qin Huai pretended to throw the rag in his face, and Mu Nan quickly grabbed the pillow to cover his face. However, there was no movement for a long time, so he pulled the pillow down and looked tentatively. The person who had just been squatting beside the sofa and wiping the floor was gone.

Mu Nan subconsciously got up to look for someone. As soon as he turned around, he was attacked by Qin Huai, who had run to the side of the sofa at some point. The wet towel that had just been used to wipe the floor slipped from his face and fell on his legs.

Mu Nan was furious: "Qin Huai! You really threw it!"

Song Jia, who was greedy and came over with two eggs, ready to ask Jian Chu to help make some egg cakes, was frightened by the roar and almost slipped his hand. It was okay to slip, but he couldn't drop the eggs that he had saved with great difficulty.

After quickly putting the eggs in the bowl, he couldn't help but look upstairs next door: "What's going on?"

Jian Chu calmly prepared: "It's okay, it's just a daily hobby for the couple, just get used to it."

Song Jia's expression was a little indescribable: "Is the sound insulation of this room so bad?"

Jian Chu smiled and said, "It's actually pretty good, provided Qin Huai doesn't get mad."

Song Jia was a little curious: "I really can't believe that Qin Huai is such a steady person."

Jian Chu smiled but said nothing. People have two sides. Yu Zibai appears to be a gentle and calm academic, but who would have thought that taking a bath together in private would make her ears blush? If he was not sure that he was the one below, this scene would have been shocking to anyone who saw it.