Chapter 79
Two hours after the apocalypse, the heating furnace in the mountain villa was still emitting a steady "whooshing" sound, and the red light from the furnace mouth shone through the cast iron grille, casting dancing spots of light on the floor.
Su Jing sat on the wool mat by the stove, her fingertips just touching a freshly scooped piece of smokeless coal, when she heard the patrol robot's electronic voice ring out with a rapid rhythm: "Outdoor temperature -30℃, a sharp drop of 28℃ from 1 hour ago, wind force increased to level 7, snowflakes mixed with ice particles, visibility less than 20 meters, infrared alarm detection range reduced to 10 meters, maximum power antifreeze activated, operating normally."
She got up and walked to the window. A fine layer of frost had formed on the inside of the thick, double-glazed glass. She scraped away a small patch with her fingertip, and the outside world was completely swallowed by white.
The heavy snowflakes turned into ice pellets, making a crisp "tap-tap" sound as they hit the glass. The snow in the yard was already above ankle-deep, and the black moat was completely frozen, its surface gleaming with a cold, hard sheen.
The distant woods were no longer visible, leaving only a blurry white silhouette. The wind whistled past, whipping up snowflakes and making a "whooshing" sound like the roar of a wild beast. Even the insulation panels on the villa's exterior walls were covered with a 10-centimeter-thick layer of snow, like being wrapped in a thick white cotton coat.
"The news of urban power outages has been confirmed. Globally, 70% of urban power grids have stopped supplying power due to freezing and cracking at low temperatures. Only some shelters are relying on their own generators to maintain basic lighting."
The housekeeping robot "Chef 1" walked over with a cup of hot milk, and the screen simultaneously displayed external news captured by the system - in the picture, the skyscrapers of Manhattan, New York were pitch black, with only a few windows showing faint candlelight.
On the streets of Paris, cars frozen solid are parked crookedly on the roadside, their windows covered in frost, obscuring the view inside.
Outside a residential building in a city in China, maintenance workers, dressed in heavy winter clothing, tried to repair frozen and cracked power lines. However, the ice on the power lines was so thick that their tools slipped as soon as they touched them, making it impossible for them to get started.
Su Jing took the hot milk; the warmth of the cup seeped through her fingertips, dispelling some of the chill.
Just as she was about to check the space energy reserve status, a light red notification suddenly popped up on the system panel that had been completely shut down earlier—not a screen full of messages, but a "Global Channel Emergency Notification" that was being pushed by the system. It read: "Current channel message volume has exceeded 100,000, including a large number of emergency help requests. Do you want to selectively view them?"
She hesitated for a few seconds, but still clicked "yes"—not because she wanted to interfere, but simply to check the extent of the chaos outside and prevent any accidental impact on the deep mountains.
After the panel was expanded, messages continued to refresh at a rate of more than ten per second, with light blue, red, and gold indicators mixed together, making it even more chaotic than before.
- Light blue "China User 215": "Our supermarket was looted! A group of people smashed the glass and rushed in, grabbing instant noodles, bottled water, and thermal underwear. All the shelves were knocked over. I managed to grab two packs of biscuits, and now I'm hiding in a corner, too scared to go out. It's too cold outside, I'll freeze if I go out!"
- Light blue "China User 678": "I saw someone frozen stiff on the roadside! An old man was sitting on a chair at the bus stop, only covered with a thin coat, his hands and feet were purple from the cold. I wanted to help him, but I only had a thick cotton coat myself, and I couldn't lift him at all, so I could only watch him..."
The message was followed by a crying emoji, and the text was broken and fragmented, clearly indicating that the person was trembling.
- Red "US User 890": "The power is completely out in Los Angeles! The generator in the shelter is out of fuel, it's pitch black inside, everyone is screaming, some people tried to rush out to find fuel, but they were blown over by the wind as soon as they stepped out and couldn't even get up, now no one dares to go out anymore!"
- Gold "EU User 456": "The water pipes in Berlin are frozen harder than rocks! I can't turn on my tap at all. The water I stored up before is only enough for one day of drinking. Now I can only rely on melted snow water, but there are ice particles in the snow water, and it makes my stomach hurt. Does anyone have extra clean water? I'll trade it for gold!"
Several other messages mentioned "monsters"—a user named "US User 345" in red said, "I saw an animal that looked like a wolf in the suburbs. It wasn't afraid of the cold, had red eyes, and chased people." But these messages were quickly drowned out by other requests for help, and no one paid any attention.
Su Jing's fingertips swiped quickly across the screen without pausing. This chaos was too far removed from her; as long as the villa deep in the mountains remained undiscovered, there would be no danger.
She clicked "Close Channel" again, this time even turning off the system's forced push notifications. The panel returned to a clean interface, leaving only the basic "Space Status" and "Device Monitoring" icons.
"Check all the surveillance footage of the villa, focusing on the entrance to the deep mountains and the area around the yard."
Su Jing gave the patrol robot a command, and the robot immediately projected the surveillance footage onto the white wall of the living room—
The image is divided into four parts: the upper left corner shows the infrared monitoring at the entrance to the deep mountains, where snow covers the path and there are no footprints.
The upper right corner is the moat on the east side of the courtyard. The ice surface is flat, without cracks or signs of climbing.
In the lower left corner is a pile of coal at the entrance of the prefab house. The waterproof tarpaulin is swaying slightly in the wind, and the coal bags are neat and tidy, showing no signs of being touched.
The bottom right corner shows the solar panels on the west side. The snow has reached a thickness of 15 centimeters, and the snow removal robot is still working slowly, but it has switched to "low power mode" to avoid wasting energy.
"No abnormalities were found in any of the monitored areas, no traces of human or animal activity were detected, the infrared alarms did not trigger, the ice surface of the moat is under normal load-bearing capacity, and there is no risk of it breaking."
"The robot's electronic voice was steady, and the monitoring screen was indeed quiet, with only snowflakes and ice particles dancing in front of the camera, and no signs of any outsiders."
Su Jing breathed a sigh of relief and walked to the coal pile—the 1,000 kilograms of smokeless coal at the door were neatly stacked, the edges of the waterproof cloth were pressed tightly with stones, and it was not blown open by the wind. The surface of the coal bag was dry and had not been damp or frozen.
She bent down, opened a bag, and took out a piece of coal. It was still heavy in her hand and had not become brittle due to the low temperature. "Luckily, I moved the coal out in advance and put it at the door so that it would be convenient to add coal to the stove. If it had been frozen in the space, I would have had to thaw it when I took it out."
She felt relieved, put the coal back into the bag, and tied the bag tightly again.
When I returned to the living room, "Chef 2" had already prepared the ingredients for dinner—pork belly with skin stored in the space, potatoes grown in the space, and the braised pork broth that I had made earlier.
Looking at the monitor, Su Jing felt particularly at ease: the heating boiler was burning brightly, and the indoor temperature was 25℃.
The surveillance showed no abnormalities, and no one approached the deep mountains; supplies were plentiful, with enough coal, food, and water to last for a long time.
With a cultivation level of the second stage of Qi Refining, he has the ability to protect himself even in the event of danger.
She walked to the cultivation area, sat cross-legged on the cushion, and did not start cultivating immediately. Instead, she felt the steady flow of indigo spiritual energy in her Qi Hai acupoint. The spiritual energy was like a warm stream, slowly circulating in her meridians, carrying a refreshing scent of grass and trees, which made her completely unaware of the -30°C cold outside.
The digital clock on the wall pointed to 2:00 a.m., just two hours before the end of the world, and the temperature was still dropping.
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