Chapter 64

They were very happy that Xu Ming came back. Although Mu Nan had only come into contact with Xu Ming during this period, he still had a good impression of Xu Ming. After all, being handsome was a plus for human nature's love of beauty. In addition, Xu Ming had a very good personality and was tolerant and steady like an older brother. It was very comfortable to get along with him. They lived close to each other and had gone through a period of mutual care. It was always better to have more feelings for each other than with strangers, so naturally they hoped that the other party could be safe.

The interactions between Jian Chu, Yu Zibai and Xu Ming are even longer than those between Mu Nan and the others. The two families are close to each other, and unlike Mu Nan who lives in his own world and doesn't pay much attention to the outside world, they would sometimes say hello when they meet, and sometimes give each other some specialties from their hometown during festivals. As a result, they have become friends. In the current situation, it is natural that having more acquaintances around can give them a greater sense of security.

Soon, Daniu and his family found out that a doctor had returned from next door, but they didn't say anything, although they still felt that there was a risk that he might be carrying the virus. After all, the medical staff in the medical tent were at the center of the patients and were among those at highest risk of infection. But now that he was back, Daniu couldn't bring himself to kick him out just because he had saved people and had contact with patients. He was still a little scared, so he became more and more afraid to go out casually. Even if there was some movement outside, he would not easily open the door to check.

After two or three days of commotion, their building finally returned to peace. Basically, those who could move in did so, and there was nothing that could be done for those who couldn't. However, the noise of Qin Huai and Yu Zibai's air conditioners being turned on was still discovered by people upstairs and downstairs, mainly Jian Chu's family. Their air conditioner was installed on the balcony, and the upstairs and downstairs families did not have enclosed balconies, so as long as you were in the living room, you would hear some noise. Especially now that it was so quiet outside, the noise was even more obvious.

In the past two days, someone had been specifically wandering around their floor and looking inside. If there hadn't been a security door installed in the stairwell, they would have probably come and knocked on the door. But even with a security door installed, it couldn't stop people upstairs and downstairs from wanting to borrow electricity. They originally thought that since they lived close to each other, it would be a simple matter to connect an extra power strip from the window. At most, they could give some food or water. If they wanted money, that would be even simpler. They had money or gold at home, so as long as they connected a power strip so that the family could use an electric fan, it would be fine. Unfortunately, both Yu Zibai and Qin Huai refused outright, without any room for negotiation.

Yu Zibai was relatively easy to talk to. He explained in a gentle voice that it was not easy for them to generate electricity and they really could not handle too much. If they agreed to one order, there would be a second one. When they all came to them, how would they refuse?

The tenant who lived upstairs from Yu Zibai's family was also a tenant. He used to do business here and was accustomed to being calculating in everything he did. Seeing that Yu Zibai seemed easy to talk to, he said, "Turn off the air conditioner at home. You can survive with a fan. Then sell electricity. You can exchange the electricity from a battery for a bottle of water or some food. People can survive without electricity. If there is no food or water, how can people survive? You can just keep warm for a while, but if you exchange it for food and water, you can stay at home more at ease and not even go out."

Yu Zibai didn't want to waste time talking to anyone: "Sorry, please don't knock on our door again. We don't sell electricity."

As a result, before this person left, another family came down from upstairs. They probably heard the noise here and thought that if they talked together in large numbers, they might be able to get the upper hand. The family that came down lived upstairs from Qin Huai's house. The air conditioner in Qin Huai's house was installed on the patio. In fact, not much noise could be heard in the house, but the environment was too quiet now. As long as you prick up your ears and listen carefully, you can still hear the buzzing sound of the air conditioner. Maybe these two families are the only ones in the whole building with electricity. They live close, so it would be better if they could be closer to the water.

"Whose generator is yours? How come only your two families have electricity? If you don't sell electricity, can you call the kid from the Qin family and ask him for help? We have been neighbors for many years, and I watched the kid from the Qin family grow up. It's just a matter of having an extra power strip. We can just give him some more food."

Yu Zibai frowned and didn't want to pay any more attention to them. He turned around and prepared to go back. However, the family refused to give in and even knocked on the anti-theft door they had installed with an iron rod they picked up from somewhere.

Yu Zibai was about to persuade them not to do this when Qin Huai from next door came out. Before he could say anything, Qin Huai opened the security door and kicked the person who had just knocked loudly away without waiting for anyone outside to speak. He even pointed the crossbow at his head and said, "Old neighbor, did you give me face? I rejected you once so you should know when to stop. The electricity is mine. If you have the ability, you can go to the ruins and dig a generator. I got something with my own ability. Why should I sacrifice myself for you so-called old neighbors? We don't use air conditioning to save electricity for you? Are you so shameless? If I hear the noise outside again, I will shoot through the hand that knocked!"

The man was really scared. He didn't expect Qin Huai to react so strongly. He took several steps back after being kicked. When the membrane was installed downstairs, Qin Huai was quite generous and gave them the remaining membrane. He originally thought that although electricity was rare, they didn't want much. After begging twice, Qin Huai would soften his heart. He didn't expect Qin Huai to take action directly.

But decades of worldview made him feel that Qin Huai would definitely not hurt anyone. This thing was probably just a bluff. Even though he was angry about being kicked just now, he endured it for the sake of using electricity: "We just want to borrow some electricity. It's not like we won't pay you. After all, you have called me uncle for so many years. It's really hot without electricity at home in this weather. If you can, help everyone."

Qin Huai chuckled when he heard that, and shot directly from the crossbow in his hand, scraping the skin off his neck. The bullet head hit the wall with a ding. The stinging pain in the neck made the man who just spoke turn pale with fear, and his legs softened and he sat on the ground. Qin Huai walked over and picked up the bullet head: "Do you want to try the feeling of this thing piercing your flesh? Or I can get some blood from the patient downstairs, soak this thing with blood, and then come back to treat you?"

As Qin Huai spoke, he pointed the crossbow at the house above Yu Zibai's. The businessman hurriedly shook his head and said, "It wasn't me who hit him. I, I don't want the electricity." After saying that, he crawled upstairs. No one knew who he was, but he had such a thing at home. It was good enough for most people to have a hammer at home.

Qin Huai glanced at the person on the ground, went straight back to the corridor and closed the iron door again.

Yu Zibai felt that Qin Huai seemed a little too irritable today, but before he could ask any more questions, Qin Huai went home and closed the door.

Yu Zibai looked at the frightened uncle and couldn't help but sigh, but he didn't say anything and turned back home. At this time, he still wanted to make trouble in order to save the old neighbor's face. Isn't that courting death?

Qin Huai returned to the house, wiped his hands with a disinfectant tissue, then returned to the bed, looked at Mu Nan with a fever-reducing patch on his forehead, and covered him with the blanket more tightly. The air conditioner at home was turned on very high, which was a bit hot for him, but it should be just right for people with a fever. Turning it off completely would not work either, as it was too hot. He already had a high temperature, and getting hotter would only make things worse.

Mu Nan opened his eyes and looked at Qin Huai. Qin Huai patted him on the back gently: "It's okay, go to sleep, don't make any more noise."

Mu Nan hummed, hugged the pillow and closed his eyes. Although he might not fall asleep, keeping his eyes open gave him a headache, so it would be better to close his eyes. Maybe he would fall asleep.

Qin Huai looked at the time and took out a new fever-reducing patch from the refrigerator to replace it for him. Fortunately, Mu Nan just had a little fever and no other discomfort. The temperature was not high, only 37.5 degrees. If he hadn't seen that Mu Nan was too lazy to get up after waking up and looked listless, he would not have noticed that Mu Nan had a fever.

Looking at Mu Nan, whose lips were pale, Qin Huai said, "You promised me that you would be fine. Tell me if you feel uncomfortable. If you told me when you had a headache yesterday, I could have taken some medicine to suppress it, and maybe I wouldn't have had a fever."

Mu Nan closed his eyes and muttered, "Then I thought I just didn't sleep well."

Qin Huai: "Does your head still hurt?"

Mu Nan hummed, and Qin Huai told him not to sleep on his side: "Lie here, I'll massage you for a while."

Mu Nan slowly moved back to the pillow, Qin Huai's cool fingertips gently rubbed his temples, which did relieve a little. Mu Nan didn't want to act sick and listless to make Qin Huai worry, so he tried to find a conversation: "Did someone outside come to ask for electricity again?"

Qin Huai hummed: "Send him away, don't worry."

Mu Nan said, "Aren't we being a bit too conspicuous? Others are dying of heat, but we can still use air conditioning. Will they gather together and come to rob us?"

Qin Huai: "Not really. How many people would be needed to gather together? How would we divide the loot after we rob it? There is absolutely no chance of that happening, but in a place like ours, the possibility of that happening is not high. Don't worry, and the electricity will be connected soon, even if it's only for an hour or so a day, our generator won't be too conspicuous."

Mu Nan thought of an idol drama he had watched when he was very young, and suddenly said, "Brother, it's still summer now, right?"

Qin Huai chuckled: "It's so hot, is it winter?"

Mu Nan: "That TV show said that people who catch a cold in the summer are stupid."

Qin Huai smiled and said, "So you are stupid?"

Mu Nan: "I don't know how the screenwriter came up with this line. It's normal to catch a cold in the summer. It's a hot cold or a cold cold."

Qin Huai: "Maybe I just racked my brains to come up with random words, just like you now, you don't want to talk but still want to find something to say."

Mu Nan snorted, hugged the pillow, turned over, and lay on his side on the edge of the bed, away from Qin Huai.

The medicine Qin Huai gave Mu Nan contained a certain sleeping pill, so Mu Nan fell asleep after a while. When he woke up, it was almost dawn. Mu Nan tossed and turned in bed, and now his day and night were reversed, which messed up his entire biological clock. When a person is sick, things become even more chaotic.

However, he didn't lie in bed for long before Qin Huai pulled him up: "Eat something before going to sleep, and take your temperature."

Qin Huai used a mercury thermometer for Mu Nan, which was more accurate than an electronic one. When Mu Nan was holding the thermometer, Qin Huai was cooking noodles and cut a tomato into the soup base. Soon, the slightly sour aroma spread in the air. Mu Nan said, "There are a lot of noodles in the space. Just take out a bowl. Why do you have to make it so troublesome to cook it yourself? Look at you, you are sweating."

Qin Huai: "Those are bought outside, they are heavy in salt, you should eat something lighter."

Mu Nan: "But it's too light. I don't want to eat it. My mouth already has no taste, and I still want to eat light food. I think this is a paradox. The sicker you are, the more you should eat something heavy to stimulate your appetite."

Qin Huai glanced at him and ignored his twisted logic.

While the noodles were cooking in the pot, he watched the time pass and checked the thermometer. It was thirty-seven degrees. "Does your head still hurt?"

Mu Nan shook his head: "It doesn't hurt anymore, but I feel a little weak."

Qin Huai: "Your fever has just subsided, so it's normal to feel weak. Eat some noodles and then take some medicine and take a nap. You'll be fine when you wake up. Let's see if you still want to sit under the air conditioner and enjoy the cool air."

Mu Nan said nothing, feeling guilty.

There were no body bags. The bodies cleared from the rubble were transported to the crematorium one by one by trailers that were so blood-stained that their color could not be seen. The place where the bodies were burned was an area that had been previously divided for demolition. In the past, there was a flattened piece of land, which was used as a parking lot for a while because no buildings had been built. Later, the temperature was too high. Even if the cars were not on the road during the day, it would be too hot to park in the open air. Gradually, no one dared to park their cars in that area where there was no shade at all. Now, that piece of open space, which was not very large, has become a crematorium. Burning the bodies one by one is a waste of fuel. Even though there is not too much shortage of wood now, and one can get a cartload of wood by just digging out the rubble, there are too many bodies to burn, so they can only be burned one by one.

As for the identities of the dead, there is no condition to check now. They can only wait until this disaster is over and do a census to calculate how many people in their city have died in this disaster.

Just last night, the military contacted the headquarters via satellite phone, but the news they received was chilling. The earthquake affected not only their province, but it was known that no one in their hemisphere was spared, and many small countries even disappeared in the earthquake. As for the other hemisphere, they could not be sure because they had not yet contacted them, but it was obvious that the situation would not be very good.

No province or city in their country was spared, so there was no rescue. Some coastal cities not only had to deal with earthquake rescue, but also suffered from a tsunami. Those who managed to survive the earthquake were not able to escape the tsunami. Moreover, because of the sudden attack of the tsunami, they did not even have time for rescue. Those who were trapped under the rubble eventually drowned in the rising sea water.

Compared to here, they are really lucky. At least there is only high temperature, which gives them some relief at night. If you think about the city that is currently experiencing a tsunami, it is truly despairing.

There will be no outside assistance, and everything from now on can only rely on themselves. The government and the army begin to control the overall situation of the entire city. The first thing is population migration. The survivors must be transferred away from densely populated areas as much as possible, otherwise when the plague begins to rage, no one can escape.

The first places to be relocated were cities surrounding the province and city, because they were close to the outer ring road, on the national highway, and in sparsely populated villages, trying to avoid densely populated areas. But those living in the city center had no choice for the time being, as the roads were blocked. Unless a large truck leveled a path, the only way to leave was by foot. But it was so hot, and there were only a few hours at night. It was obviously an impossible task to get all the survivors to migrate on foot. So those living in the city center could only survive on their own.

But the surrounding cities try their best to transport medicines to the city center. After all, they have escaped, so they can save some medical supplies. People in the city center are now in a semi-self-isolation state. Those who have left should be kept as safe as possible, so the virus cannot be spread from the city. But they can't give up on the people in the city. There are millions of people. If they really give up all of them, there will be very few survivors in their country. They can only rely on how the people in the city center are deployed. They just hope that half of the population who survived can be left.

Mu Nan and his family lived on the 17th floor, which was considered a high-rise building. But according to Jian Chu, they could faintly smell some rotten smell at home. It was not very obvious, but if you smelled carefully, it was indeed there. Mu Nan didn't smell it much, but people's senses are different. Some people have a particularly developed sense of smell, some have good vision, and some have sensitive hearing. Mu Nan thought that Jian Chu might be a person with a developed sense of smell. For someone like him, it should be considered that his sixth sense is stronger than that of ordinary people, which is more or less a specialty.

Xu Ming planned to lock himself up at home for at least ten days, cutting off all contact with the outside world during these ten days. Because Jian Chu's family lived relatively close to Xu Ming, they were worried that Xu Ming would get sick and die at home and no one would know. So they agreed on a time every day to knock on the wall. If there was a response, it meant he was still alive. If there was no response, they would have to break in and deal with the body.

After the last warning and threat, the people upstairs from Qin Huai and his family never came again. As for what they did behind his back to curse Qin Huai, only they themselves knew. The person downstairs from Qin Huai was a teacher. The grandson of that teacher had come up before and asked if he could buy some electricity from their family and run a power strip downstairs, but Qin Huai refused. After that, he never came again. I don't know if the teacher, who should be in his seventies this year, is still here. Anyway, I have only seen his grandson so far.

Ever since Jian Chu said that he seemed to smell a foul odor, Qin Huai disinfected the house every day. He would directly mop the floor with diluted disinfectant, and then regularly disinfect the house with an ozone disinfector for an hour. Although he didn't know if this thing could eliminate the plague's poison, if the home environment was cleaner, the possibility of attracting snakes, insects, rats and ants would be much lower.

It’s okay for those who live upstairs. Just be careful about hygiene and try to seal up some cracks and holes in the walls, and the situation will be much better than living downstairs.

The residents on the lower floors had previously thought about whether they could escape the outbreak of the plague when the corpses piled up outside and they turned around to see not empty land but large piles of ruins. However, even if they lived on the third floor, the lowest floor, because the first and second floors were platforms and no one lived there, it was still better than living in the camp closest to the medical tent. So they could only try their best to completely seal the doors and windows of their homes and leave the rest to fate.

As for those who had switched houses in the first place in order to avoid climbing such high buildings, it was too late to regret now that the stench was spreading as if the air was filled with germs that could kill people. They thought that the fifth and sixth floors were not considered low, and the highest houses without elevators in other places were only the seventh floor. If others could endure it, they could do the same if they carefully closed the door. It was better than having to climb stairs for some reason, especially when encountering some emergency situations, the chances of escaping would be greater if they lived in a low place.

As a result, when the people in the community finally used the solar energy sent down from above to power the elevator, those who had moved house regretted it completely. The biggest reason for changing house before was that they did not want to climb the stairs in the hot weather without water and electricity. The temperature was too high and they could not bear to climb the stairs. But now there is electricity, which means that as long as they are careful, they can take the elevator upstairs at any time with the supplies they found in the ruins without having to endure the pain of climbing stairs.

Qinhuai didn’t know how many people had changed houses, nor did they know how many people had regretted changing houses. After all, the communication was cut off, and the only information they could get was the little piece of land in front of their house. But they knew that the Zhang family regretted it, because the day after the power was restored to the elevator, a family of four of the Zhang family came to make trouble.

The old lady of the Zhang family is in good spirits. It is not known whether they had just returned from the cooling point during the earthquake and had not come up yet, so they escaped, or whether they ran downstairs with the chaotic crowd. If it is the latter, then this Grandma Zhang is really in good health. In the previous life, Mu Nan almost died when he ran downstairs. She is so old, but now she is still full of energy. She is really better than most young people, at least much better than Mu Nan who just recovered from a cold.

There is a security door in the stairwell, which has prevented them from getting into a lot of trouble before. Now that the elevator is open, it will be much easier to come up. After all, you can't install another security door at the elevator door. Therefore, the Zhang family members came up without any hindrance.

Mu Nan was sitting on the bed eating watermelon when he heard the long-lost elevator ring. The spoon holding the watermelon could not help but tremble, and a piece of watermelon flesh fell on the bed, splashing his legs with watermelon juice: "Tsk, such a perfect piece of meat, it's okay, I can still eat it after picking it up."

Qin Huai failed to stop it in time. Seeing Mu Nan picking it up and eating it, he said helplessly: "It was just wiped with disinfectant. Aren't you afraid of being poisoned?"

Mu Nan: "Wasn't the poison killed by the disinfectant?"

Qin Huai: "...You always have a lot of twisted ideas."

Mu Nan took it for granted: "How about throwing it away? It's such a waste. It's not like we can't eat it. Was it the elevator on our floor that rang just now? Has the power been restored to the elevator?"

Qin Huai threw a tissue to him to wipe the watermelon juice off his legs and bed, then he walked outside and looked through the peephole, then went into the house and closed the door: "The Zhang family is coming up."

Mu Nan: "Oh wow, it looks like there's going to be a big fight, but I wonder if the couple can outdo the Zhang family."