Upon hearing this, the people gathered at Jinxiu Huating Community instantly erupted in excitement, knowing that the government-arranged drilling team would be arriving the next day.

Upon hearing this good news, they walked back home to get their buckets with much lighter steps.

Xu Lai, who had come out to investigate, breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing this.

Yesterday, military personnel came to the community and distributed a week's worth of food—a mixture of wheat bran and various beans—to every household free of charge.

The drinking water problem has been temporarily solved, and people are able to struggle to survive. In addition, the high-pressure management by the government and the military means that there aren't many extremists who do bad things.

There were still a few hours before the daily power supply was due, and Xu Lai didn't want to climb the stairs home to get a water bucket, so she called her father, Xu Haiguo, to bring down two clean water buckets.

Xu Lai was at the front of the line, and it was just as Xu Haiguo brought down the two red buckets that it was Xu Lai's turn.

Seeing this, Xu Lai quickly took the two buckets from her father and placed them under a water pipe that had been attached to the water tanker.

Watching the fairly clear water flow from the pipe into the bucket with a thud, Xu Lai and Xu Haiguo instantly felt much better.

That afternoon, Xiao Rui, who had finally gotten a day off, brought his wife Li Qingya to the Xu family to ask if they wanted to go to Wangtai Mountain.

"Brother Xiao, what are you going to Wangtai Mountain for?"

At this point, Wangtai Mountain was probably left with only some dead trees.

"Our dean privately revealed that the significant rise in global temperatures is causing the polar ice caps to melt continuously. Coastal cities are already experiencing a substantial rise in sea levels, especially some low-lying coastal cities that have been submerged. An island nation to the east of our country has already been completely swallowed by the sea..."

"What? The global environment has become so deteriorated?"

As soon as Xiao Rui finished speaking, the entire Xu family looked surprised.

Since two months ago, when they lost access to information from the outside world, they have been focusing solely on living their own little lives.

Global warming, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and coastal land being submerged by seawater are disasters that anyone with a modicum of common sense can foresee.

I just didn't expect this disaster to come so quickly.

While Xu Lai felt a secret smug satisfaction that his motherland's mortal enemy, a certain island nation, had been swallowed by the sea, he was also worried about how many more lives would be lost to the boundless ocean in the southeastern coastal areas of his motherland.

No wonder that two months ago, when her phone could only make calls and send text messages but not access the internet, Xu Lai even asked Lu Ping, who worked in the government's network department, for the reason.

It wasn't until he was on leave and went home that he hesitantly told her that the central government had instructed network technicians to block the internet in order to prevent people from being affected by the outside world.

After the internet was blocked, ordinary people like them could not access the internet at all, except for the government which used special equipment to receive the network.

Without access to information from the outside world, everyone lives in this closed environment. Without external influences, people have food and water, and their mental state can barely hold on.

If everyone has internet access, they will be constantly influenced by various negative information online, and inevitably live in fear all day long.

Xiao Rui glanced at his neighboring family, who were quite agitated after hearing his news, nodded, and continued in a low voice, "Humanity's future living environment will probably be even worse than it is now, so while I still have time, I want to go to Wangtai Mountain to stock up on some more firewood and prepare more living supplies. It can't hurt!"

Xu Lai agreed with Xiao Rui's words.

Human life is always too insignificant in the face of nature.

Even a slight sneeze from nature can be a catastrophe for humankind.

Although her family has a space where they can farm and have a well, in real life, as soon as it gets dark, her space will automatically eject people from it.

Therefore, they also need to prepare in advance before the next round of natural disasters.

"Okay, Brother Xiao, we'll go too. I'll also call Brother Lu to ask if he's coming. We'll meet downstairs in fifteen minutes!"

Upon hearing this, Xiao Rui and Li Qingya hurried home to prepare.

Fifteen minutes later, Xiao Rui and Li Qingya, wearing sun-protective clothing and hats, carrying ropes for bundling firewood, water, and food, came downstairs and saw a silver-gray van and a blue electric tricycle parked downstairs.

"We'll ride our electric tricycle over too; it can carry even more firewood at once!"

This time, the Xu family sent Xu Lai and Xu Haiguo to Wangtai Mountain to chop firewood, the Xiao family sent Xiao Rui and Li Qingya, and the Lu family sent Grandpa Lu and his daughter-in-law Leng Jiajia.

The group consisted of six people: Xu Lai drove a minivan, Xiao Rui rode an electric tricycle, and the others sat inside Xu Lai's minivan.

The van had air conditioning, so the five people inside were fine, but Xiao Rui, who was riding the electric tricycle, almost suffered heatstroke from the scorching wind.

So Xu Haiguo, Grandpa Lu, and Xiao Rui, who were sitting in the van, took turns riding the electric tricycle.

This time, Xu Lai and his group planned to take a shortcut by crossing the Changyan River via the bridge.

Along the way, the vegetation had long since died from the heat and drought, and the moisture in the soil had long since been evaporated by the scorching sun.

Vast tracts of land are gradually turning into desert. Two cars drive one after the other on the bumpy road, their bodies enveloped by the yellow sand raging in the wind.

"Luckily, we always wear masks when we go out, otherwise we would get our mouths full of sand when riding an electric tricycle."

When passing the stone bridge over the Changyan River, Xu Lai, who was driving the van, deliberately slowed down.

The people sitting in the car looked out through the blast-proof glass windows, which were covered in yellow sand, at the long-dry, cracked riverbed of the Changyan River.

The cracks in the riverbed are large enough for a four- or five-year-old child to lie horizontally inside.

After crossing the stone bridge, the two cars continued driving for another thirty minutes until they reached the foot of a mountain in the Yangtaishan Forest.

The group parked the car in a secluded spot and then began climbing up the stone steps at the foot of the mountain.

Upon reaching the depths of the forest, one finds that the trees have withered and died due to extreme heat and drought.

The once lush forest is now completely bare and lifeless, except for the trees that were not burned to charcoal by the wildfire.

In this arid forest, a lone little bird perched on a dead tree.

Its feathers had lost their former luster, and its eyes revealed despair and helplessness. It used to sing joyfully here and forage for food with its companions, but now, everything seemed so strange and terrifying.

Although meat was scarce at the time, no one thought of catching the listless little bird.

Xu Lai even reached into her backpack and took out a bottle of water and a disposable cup, poured a cup of water and placed it under the dead tree where the bird had perched.

Li Qingya also took out some of the multigrain pancakes she had eaten at noon, broke them into small pieces with her fingers, and sprinkled them next to her water glass.