Chapter 8 Cold Wave (Part 2)

Although the villa has been refitted with an electrical system, Gu Nian has been thinking about stocking up on gasoline. First, she still has several gasoline engines at home, and second, energy will be extremely scarce after a natural disaster. If she wants to drive out at that time, it will be difficult to buy gasoline, so it is better to stock up now.

However, gasoline is a controlled commodity, and it is not as easy to buy in large quantities as food, clothing, and seeds. I didn't expect Jingli to have a connection, so Gu Nian wanted to see if he could stock up on gasoline.

In the afternoon, Jing Li sent a message to Gu Nian. Because of the sudden cold wave, the transportation of gasoline was affected and the price rose to 9.8 yuan per liter. He asked Gu Nian how much she needed. Gu Nian ordered 2,000 liters of gasoline. Jing Li agreed immediately without asking Gu Nian what she wanted the gasoline for. Gu Nian was going to tell him that her villa consumed a lot of electricity and she installed four gasoline generators. Unexpectedly, the prepared excuse was not used at all, which made her feel relieved.

Gu Nian wanted to transfer the gasoline money to Jing Li, but Jing Li refused to take it. He estimated that the two furs might cost about 20,000 yuan.

Soon, the gas station delivered the gasoline to Gu Nian's villa. Ten large oil drums, each of which could hold 200 liters, were neatly stacked in the basement warehouse.

In the next few days, Gu Nian stayed at home. There were more and more complaints in the community owners' group. Prices had more than doubled in a short period of time. Because of the nationwide cold wave, transportation was also severely affected. Many materials were difficult to transport into Jiangcheng, and out-of-stock became the norm. Under such circumstances, prices would only rise more and more.

The owners of the villa area are all rich people. They are not short of money. They have already spent a lot of money to stock up on food. However, they are shivering in the cold weather and can only stay at home. That’s when everyone starts to feel dissatisfied. In particular, many owners of the villa area are owners of small factories and small businesses. In such cold weather, they can only let their employees work from home. In addition, transportation is interrupted from time to time, which also seriously affects their business.

It was precisely because of this that Gu Nian suddenly realized that maybe the batch of down jackets she had stockpiled could be sold? As soon as she moved to Jiangcheng, she gritted her teeth and bought 2,000 down jackets at the purchase price of 180 yuan each. Maybe now is a good time?

Thinking that there were many local small business owners in the villa owner group, Gu Nian simply sent a message in the owner group tentatively. "Two thousand long down jackets, each with 300g of down filling, outdoor windproof fabric, all cleared out at once, interested parties please PM with price."

The owners' group was silent for a moment, and then there was a sensation. Who can live in a villa area without some connections? In the big shopping malls in Jiangcheng, the down jackets were already sold out. If it was really a thick windproof down jacket with 300g of filling, it would be sold out in minutes.

Soon, several villa owners who were engaged in clothing business or opened shopping malls contacted Gu Nian. Although Gu Nian was not good at business, it was a seller's market where she had the final say. She quickly chose the boss Chen who offered the highest price. He bought all the down jackets in Gu Nian's hands for 600 yuan each.

Boss Chen drove away all of Gu Nian's down jackets, and 1.2 million in cash was quickly deposited into Gu Nian's account. Gu Nian's cash flow had hit bottom, but now it was abundant again. She went to the flower and bird market to order a batch of automatic irrigation systems, water pipes and other tools to prepare for the small garden and farm space in the villa.

Now that she had money, she simply returned the rented van and bought a modified second-hand off-road vehicle. The tires of this off-road vehicle have been modified and have extremely strong grip, allowing it to move freely in the snow. The engine horsepower is also very strong. Moreover, the interior of the car has been modified to have a high-power socket that can even power an electric rice cooker. The back seat can be opened for people to sleep in, and the trunk space is also very spacious.

Although it was second-hand, because the car was in good condition, 90% new, and a well-known brand, Gu Nian spent a full 900,000 to buy it. But at least it was a means of transportation. After all, the temperature is getting colder and colder, and the production capacity has completely collapsed, buying such a car is no longer a matter of money. As for the remaining cash, Gu Nian saved it all.

These days, the temperature in Jiangcheng has been hovering between minus 20 degrees and 15 degrees Celsius, but because the electricity is now supplied as usual, people use air conditioners to blow hot air, and they buy baseboard electric heaters, small suns and other heating equipment from electrical appliance malls. Although life is hard, people can still get by by gritting their teeth.

Suddenly, a piece of news broke out in the villa area.

That afternoon, a message popped up in the homeowners’ group: “Is there a doctor? I’m the owner of Building 28. My son suddenly has hypothermia and the ambulance hasn’t arrived yet. If there is a doctor, please come and help as soon as possible. I will reward you handsomely.”

Gu Nian hesitated for a while, then put on her fur coat and woolen hat and walked towards Building 28. She wanted to see what was going on. Outside Building 28, some residents were indeed gathered there despite the severe cold. One of the owners was actually the chief surgeon of the local Third Hospital, who came to help rescue the patient.

A middle-aged man in his forties muttered: "Old Huang is so pitiful. His eldest son finally bought a plane ticket and came back from the north by train today. The family was about to reunite, but he didn't expect something to happen that afternoon!"

Seeing that the middle-aged man seemed to know the inside story, the other neighbors gathered around him and asked, "What happened? How could a healthy child suddenly become ill?"

The middle-aged man said, "They say it's hypothermia. After staying in the cold for a long time, the person looks fine, but suddenly the body temperature is getting lower and lower, but the brain feels hotter and hotter, and then hallucinations appear. He must take off all his clothes and roll in the snow. Old Huang didn't keep an eye on him, and the eldest son was led by the hallucination to run out of the house, took off all his clothes and shouted, saying it was hot, hot, but when Old Huang dragged his son into the house, his son's whole body was frozen!"

Everyone gasped. What kind of strange disease is this? They have never heard of it! At this moment, the chief of surgery came out of Building 28. Everyone was about to gather around to ask about the situation. The chief shook his head tiredly, and there were hoarse cries from inside the room.

Everyone knew the result and felt heavy. The middle-aged man sighed and told the neighbors to disperse.

Gu Nian returned home and immediately searched the Internet, only to find out that there have been many cases of death from hypothermia in the north. The name of hypothermia sounds ordinary, but the harm is very terrifying. If the patient stays in a cold area for a long time, he may appear fine on the surface, but in fact the nerve center has been completely paralyzed, trying to regulate the human body to send blood to various parts of the body for heating, causing the brain to produce an illusion of heat. As a result, the patient's nerve center is damaged and sees hallucinations, and he will also feel hot and take off his clothes, and finally die completely in the low temperature.

Jiangcheng is located in the south, and the temperature is already -20 to -25 degrees Celsius. The temperature in the north has dropped to -30 to -60 degrees Celsius. Hypothermia has become a common disease, and countless people have been killed by the cold. Now many people want to buy tickets to escape to the south, but because of the cold wind and snow, the plane can't take off at all, and they can only rely on the train. But on snowy days, as long as the train is running fast, it is easy to derail, so many lines across the country have been suspended, and the remaining train routes are now hard to get a ticket.

This was the situation in Dragon Country, and other countries were not much better. In the tropical Elephant Country, the blizzard covered the entire country for the first time. In the cold zone, the temperature in the Bear Country dropped to minus 60 degrees Celsius, and the entire land was covered with ice and snow. There was no trace of soil. People could not leave their homes at all. Once they went out, they would be killed by the blizzard.

The Eagle Country also welcomed the severe cold weather, and electricity prices soared to sky-high levels. People had no choice but to arm themselves fully and go to the forest to cut wood, returning to the era of burning fires for heating.

Everyone was shouting on social networks, what on earth is going on? Some people were silently praying that the cold wave would pass soon.

Gu Nian knew clearly that this was just the beginning, and the temperature would soon drop drastically again.