Chapter 198 I'm almost scared to death
On a hot night, the air was still filled with heat that made it hard to breathe. Even at one o'clock in the morning, the temperature was still as high as 38 degrees Celsius.
The whole world is like a huge oven.
Tan Zhaozhao had cut her hair short two days ago. Sitting in the car, even though she had turned on the air conditioner, she was still so hot that her clothes were soaked with sweat.
"It will take us about fifty minutes to get to the resettlement site in the south of the city." Su Mingyue was driving a large truck. Apart from her, Tan Zhaozhao and a cat, the back of the truck was filled with daily necessities.
Xingxing squatted on her mother's legs, facing the cold air outlet of the air conditioner in the car, and her soft hair was blown back.
"I don't know how long this batch of supplies can last..."
Tan Zhaozhao wiped the sweat off his face with a tissue and frowned, "The temperature is too high. There are only a few areas in the city where power can be restored, and the network base stations cannot be repaired. The temperature will continue to rise tomorrow... The asphalt on the road has begun to melt. The high temperature will affect and melt many things."
"What I'm most afraid of is water shortage." Su Mingyue responded, "The temperature is so high now, and everyone needs clean drinking water. If the high temperature causes a water shortage... I'm afraid it will cause a big mess."
The two of them couldn't come up with a quick solution to the problem. They were just chatting casually because they were feeling hot on the road. Xingxing squatted on her mother's knees. After a while, she saw four wet sweaty paw prints on the fabric on her mother's knees.
There are only so many ways to cool down, and the country has made preparations in advance, so now everyone can still try their best to endure it, but it is not so easy for creatures other than humans.
Xingxing turned her head and looked out the window at the roadside trees, whose leaves had already dried up and curled, rapidly retreating.
As early as during the rainstorm, these plants were almost drowned, but the branches and roots were still standing there. Perhaps they could have found a glimmer of hope, but now due to the continued high temperature, there is no green on the branches at all.
These bent and stretched dry branches, illuminated by the darkness and the occasional car lights, look like tall and thin ghosts poking out from the night, twisted and grimly looking down at every life that passes by in the high temperature.
In order to get back before the temperature rose at dawn, Su Mingyue drove very fast.
Occasionally, we would encounter other vehicles on the road, all of them like fugitives walking alone in the dark. No one knew where anyone else's destination was, just like no one knew their own fate at the end of the world.
Sometimes, Xingxing can also see people walking slowly outside some resettlement sites. Although the temperature is very high, humans are not used to being completely locked up in one place. They always want to go out for a walk, even if it is just to breathe the fresh hot air, so the gradually cramped and hot heart cavity seems to finally squeeze out some room to breathe.
When they arrived at the target resettlement point, Tan Zhaozhao put Xingxing in the car, and he and Su Mingyue went down to negotiate with the comrades in charge of the resettlement point, and then asked them to hurry up and arrange people to transport the supplies.
Xingxing squatted on the driver's cabin of the truck, looking through the glass at the humans who were coming out one after another to carry supplies.
All of them were middle-aged males. They almost all wore loose white old man's shirts and baggy shorts, with bare arms. They would lift up their shirts from time to time to wipe the sweat, and they all had red volunteer badges on their shoulders.
Although they are volunteers, the people in charge of the resettlement site will not really let them work in vain.
"This is just like the work-for-relief policy in ancient times." Tan Zhaozhao sat back in the car, unscrewed the half-empty water bottle and took a sip, then wiped his palms and poured some water for Xingxing to drink. While feeding the cat, he said to Su Mingyue, "If these people are not stabilized in this way, they will become the most unstable factor that is most likely to cause chaos among the survivors."
"I just don't know how long this situation can last." Su Mingyue also raised her head and drank water madly. Just after waiting for the supplies to be delivered for a while, the two of them were sweating again.
Just as they were about to leave, the car was suddenly stopped by someone.
Several elderly people with their children blocked the car.
Su Mingyue was glad that she didn't have time to pull the handbrake to start the car, otherwise, all these people would have been hit to death in front of the car!
She was so frightened by the sudden appearance of the person that she broke out in a cold sweat and her heart was pounding.
Tan Zhaozhao sat in the passenger seat, looking solemnly at the elderly and children who were blocking the way and even began to kneel down.
"They are organized." She whispered, "Be careful and bring your weapons. If any extreme behavior occurs, we must find a way to escape as soon as possible."
After saying that, she lowered the car window, stuck her head out and looked at the growing crowd outside, and finally her eyes fell on the person in charge of the resettlement site who had just negotiated with them.
"What's going on?" she asked in a deep voice.
The person in charge did not expect this to happen. He was also confused when he was suddenly asked. Then he walked towards the kneeling old men and asked them in a hoarse voice what they were doing.
"Comrade! Little comrade! I know you are the most kindhearted! Please save my grandson. He can't stand the heat. He is so young. Please save him and give him some ice water. I know you must have ice, right?"
An old man wailed and kowtowed, begging.
The others followed suit and loudly asked the two people in the car who were delivering supplies if they had any ice water. They wanted ice.
Tan Zhaozhao looked at the water bottle in her hand.
The water just poured out is warm.
Ice water? Ice cubes?
Of course she has it at home.
But it is not included in this batch of supplies, because Song Qianyi has just taken the team to the ice factory in the city. The country will try its best to distribute large blocks of ice to each resettlement site every day for cooling, but the demand always far exceeds the output. This is something no one can do about it in extreme high temperature weather.
"We don't have ice. Aren't there other teams delivering ice to you?" Tan Zhaozhao asked after calming down.
Someone in the crowd shouted, "Who the hell is that little bit of broken ice going to be for? There are so many of us, why are you only giving us that little bit of ice?! Who knows if the people delivering the supplies secretly embezzled the money and sold the ice and supplies at a high price? Anyway, if you don't give us an explanation today, don't even think about leaving the resettlement site!!"
This man's words were like a drop of water splashing into a frying pan. The crowd instantly boiled over, and everyone was clamoring for ice and an explanation. They surrounded the truck from front to back. No one was calm. The high temperature made them even more agitated and angry. Soon, dirty insults were directed at Su Mingyue and Tan Zhaozhao in the car.
Xingxing looked at the humans who were surrounding her in a black mass, shouting and cursing, and in a trance she seemed to see the scene of humans being surrounded by zombies.
Although these are humans and not zombies, they look... more terrifying than zombies.
Xingxing squatted quietly on her mother's knees, not feeling panicked.
With it, it gives Mom and Su Mingyue, two women, the confidence to deliver supplies.
The commotion quickly spread across the crowd, and in just a minute or two, the empty outer walls of the truck were already clanging with bangs from people knocking against them, and noisy curses were heard everywhere. From the moment these people ran out to stop the truck, it seemed that they had never thought of calming down to discuss the matter properly.
They used a loud and noisy voice to force the two women who were delivering supplies to them.
The person in charge was sweating profusely and shouted until his voice was hoarse, but he did not calm them down. Instead, he himself was pushed and squeezed by the crowd and soon felt suffocated and had difficulty breathing.
"We can't let them go on like this." Su Mingyue's face was gloomy, but she was not angry because of the questioning and coercion. She suddenly lowered the car window, pushed away the man who had climbed onto the car and tried to open the door and pull her in, and shouted: "Don't squeeze in anymore! You will cause a serious stampede and people will die. Do you know that?! !"
"Give us ice! Don't even think about leaving without ice! We just want ice, get us the ice and we'll let you go!"
Listening to the endless noise and clamor lingering in his ears, Tan Zhaozhao finally clenched the thick iron rod that he had been holding in his hand since a while ago, then stretched out his hand and exerted force - smashing it hard on the top of the truck window, making a loud noise.
The crowd was silent for a moment.
Tan Zhaozhao seized this moment and said to them loudly, "If you still want ice and supplies, just listen to me first. Otherwise, even if you block us here, nothing can be solved, and you will be blacklisted for supply distribution. I don't think you want to accept only this time's supplies, right? Will you all die after eating them?!"
Her voice was not as gentle as usual. Instead, it was a little hoarse from excessive effort, yet exceptionally firm and powerful.
Xingxing rummaged around in his own space, and with the help of Qiuqiu, he found a trumpet and secretly put it in his mother's hands.
Tan Zhaozhao picked it up and opened it, and the hoarse voice immediately reached the ears of everyone at the resettlement site.
"Everyone, step back!!!"
Her voice was unusually stern.
The crowd paused for a moment, perhaps because they were sobered by her previous words, but they actually began to slowly retreat.
Not until the crowd relaxed a little did those who were squeezed to the point of suffocation and had begun to roll their eyes finally take a deep breath, and then break down and cry because of the fear of struggling on the brink of death.
The shrill cries could also be heard far away in the dark night.
The people who were so excited just now suddenly didn't dare to listen any further. They stepped back more awkwardly and guiltily, making more space.
Tan Zhaozhao and Su Mingyue looked at each other and saw determination in each other's eyes, so they pushed open the car door together and walked down again.
Tan Zhaozhao bent down and helped the person in charge, who was also slumped on the ground and gasping for breath, up. He then brought him and the others some water to help them breathe more smoothly. After making sure that they were all fine, he raised the loudspeaker and faced the anxious and indignant crowd again.
"We are not a team that specializes in distributing ice. If you really suspect that someone has secretly withheld the ice that belongs to you, you can report to me the amount of ice you have received recently. I will report it to the comrades who are in charge of distributing ice. Once we find that someone is really secretly taking kickbacks, we will definitely punish them severely and double the compensation to give you enough ice."
"However, because the number of people at each resettlement site varies, the amount of ice distributed is not the same. The ice factory in the city is working overtime every day and night. With such high temperatures, the comrades in the ice factory have never stopped working. I believe you can understand, right? I can assure you that if there is really extra ice, it will be distributed to you immediately."
"Besides that, we also need everyone to work together to find a solution. There are more ways to cool down than just distributing ice cubes, right? If someone can come up with another way to cool down and benefit everyone, then they can report it to the person in charge and receive sufficient compensation. We will definitely not treat you unfairly on this point."
"besides……"
Tan Zhaozhao said a lot, and tried to speak in plain language. Even though he was holding a loudspeaker, his throat was completely hoarse in such a hot day. After repeated promises, he finally cooperated with the person in charge to slowly evacuate the crowd. Then he drove away from the resettlement site in an empty car amidst bright and expectant eyes.
After they were completely out of the resettlement site, the two looked at each other and saw the relief and fear in each other's eyes.
"...I was so scared. I really thought we wouldn't be able to get out." There was still a little trembling in Su Mingyue's voice.
She served the people, but it was also the first time she witnessed the people's anger, which was like a fire that could be easily ignited and could easily burn and destroy people.
But thinking of Tan Zhaozhao's calm response just now, her eyes became bright again, and she couldn't help but praise: "You were so awesome just now! Fortunately, you and I are partners. If I were alone, I really wouldn't be able to react so quickly."
Like Li Shan, she is better at fighting and knows a little bit about boxing and kicking.
Upon hearing this, Tan Zhaozhao raised the hand that had just held the loudspeaker towards her.
When you open your palms, you can see the glaring red marks left on your palms from clenching your hands too tightly, and... your fingertips are still trembling due to sweat.
Su Mingyue fell silent.
Tan Zhaozhao smiled bitterly and relaxed his tense body. He hugged Xingxing and lay back on the seat. He closed his eyes and let out a long breath. Then he said, "I'm almost scared to death..."
But there was no other way. In that situation, someone had to stand up and stop the excited crowd. Otherwise, even if they walked out of the resettlement site alive, they would surely die accidentally due to the crowd. At that time, it would not be solved by a single commotion. It would only make the situation more difficult and spread the conflict to become more extreme.
She was able to stand out and dared to stand out at that time, all thanks to the surge of adrenaline and...
And there are stars to support her.
Thinking of this, Tan Zhaozhao lifted up the kitten who had been squatting and enjoying the air conditioning, bent down and kissed its furry little head, and said in a hoarse voice: "Luckily, Xingxing is with Mom, otherwise Mom would not have so much courage to face this kind of thing."
Just like she was hesitant at the beginning and needed Li Shan to push her before she could make up her mind to call the police.
Tan Zhaozhao is not a particularly decisive and strong person. She needs someone to support her, to have backup and a sense of security before she dares to take the risk and do something she would not dare to do before.
"Mee~" Xingxing tilted her head and rubbed her mother's cheek comfortingly.
do not be afraid.
As long as Xingxing is alive, he will always protect his mother.
Tan Zhaozhao held his own cub and rubbed it for a long time, rubbing the kitten until it became a soft kitten biscuit. The trembling in his hands slowly stopped.
She looked at the night outside the window, and suddenly at this moment of peace of mind she felt that fate favored her.
She met her best friend.
Also met the nicest kitten.
So she became brave and was praised for being awesome.
Being loved is the driving force for the timid to move forward.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com