Chapter 29
It is not difficult to rent an ice storage. Although they are not a coastal city, the seafood industry is not well developed, so there are not many special warehouses like ice storage. However, they have several large seafood transshipment markets, which are equivalent to seafood transfer stations for the sea city to the inland. In addition, many fresh food markets need ice, so the amount of ice in and out is still very large. He is not too conspicuous to deal in it.
After Mu Nan added thermal insulation film and thermal insulation curtains to the windows of the houses on both sides, Qin Huai also handled everything properly. Such large trucks are not allowed to go on the road during the day. In addition, it is quite hot during the day, and Qin Huai does not want to take Mu Nan out in such a hot day, so he just takes Mu Nan to transport goods every night. The ice storage needs to hire workers to help with ice loading. After loading the ice into the freight ice truck, he will drive the truck away and drive to the rented warehouse on the other side to let Mu Nan collect the ice into the space. Running two or three times a night can smuggle several tons of ice into the space.
The oil was even simpler. They didn't even need a fake certificate. After contacting a private buyer, they drove a small truck to load the oil. They told others that they were just a middleman. People didn't bother to ask them any more questions. There were many people who transferred oil from private oil dealers like them and then found buyers to make a profit. As for how others sold the oil and whether they would be investigated if there was too much noise, it was none of their business.
But because Qinhuai bought goods frequently, they could take a few trucks away from them almost every day, which made the oil seller curious: "Your business is good?"
Qin Huai smiled and handed over a cigarette. He looked at the workers who were helping to load the goods and said, "If I hadn't had trouble with the last source of goods, I wouldn't have looked for a new source. I never have trouble selling the goods I have, I only worry about not having enough."
The oil dealer was a little surprised to hear him say that. He didn't expect that this young man was actually a veteran. Seeing that the other party seemed to have many subordinates and was very straightforward and happy to pay every time, he asked tentatively: "You just deal in oil?"
Qin Huai glanced at him and said, "Why, do you have other goods?"
The oil seller said, "Yes, do you want some liquor?"
Qin Huai had asked someone to get a few boxes of Baijiu in City B before, but he didn't drink, and he prepared those boxes just for future use. Of course, if the price was right, it wouldn't hurt to get some more to keep. "What's the brand and what's the price?"
The oil dealer said the brand, took out his phone, opened the calculator, and tapped a few numbers. Qin Huai saw it and shook his head: "It's too high. I can't make much profit at this price. It's not worth my trouble."
The oil dealer saw that there was a chance, so he smiled and started to negotiate with him. Finally, he almost got the other party's low price. Qin Huai finally said, "Okay, I have never dealt in liquor before, so I will give it a try. I will take a batch of goods first. If it sells well, I will come to you again."
The oil dealer was immediately happy and started to treat Qin Huai as a brother. As long as there is money to be made, they are all brothers! Moreover, liquor makes more money than oil. After all, the price of oil is there, and you can only make so much money. Liquor is different. The channels are different and the purchase price is different. It can be said that selling one or two bottles of liquor can make much more money than selling one or two barrels of oil. Merchants like Qin Huai seem to have many downstreams and can sell any goods. Naturally, he is happy to make friends. If the liquor line can be stabilized, the losses in the past few months of the epidemic can be made up.
It’s a pity that the oil dealer has good ideas, but he doesn’t have enough time to make money.
On the day when the temperature in their city broke 40 degrees for the first time, a car exploded while driving. Fortunately, there were no casualties. The car first started to smoke. When the people in the car saw it, they immediately stopped and ran to the back seat to get a fire extinguisher. Some passing vehicles also stopped to help. Unfortunately, the fire could not be put out and the car exploded in the end. When they realized that something was wrong, the people who helped put out the fire and the car owner subconsciously ran a little further away. Just as they ran away, the car exploded with a bang.
Qin Huai was driving, following the flow of traffic and turning around the roundabout. The car behind him exploded, and once it exploded, it blocked all the cars behind him. If he hadn't been in front, he would have been stuck in the middle of the road. Although Mu Nan said that he dreamed that many vehicles and some electronic devices would suddenly explode when the temperature rose, it was still frightening to see it with his own eyes.
As soon as his car drove off the bridge, Mu Nan called him: "Brother, where are you?"
Qin Huai: "On the way back, we have reached Qingchuan Avenue."
Mu Nan on the other end of the phone seemed relieved: "Come back as soon as you've finished your business. If you need anything else, I'll go with you tonight. I just saw the news about a car exploding on the airport bridge. I was scared to death."
Qin Huai said, "It's on the news so soon? The car behind me just exploded. I saw it too. Don't worry, I'll be back soon and will be home in ten minutes."
Mu Nan urged: "Then hurry up, I'll wait for you at home."
Every day, Qin Huai would tell him where he was going and what he was going to do because he was afraid that he would worry if he didn't take him with him. Mu Nan was making dumplings at home when he saw someone in their community group posted the news about the explosion of a vehicle on the Airport Bridge. He was so scared that he quickly called Qin Huai because the Airport Bridge was the only way for Qin Huai to go home. Hearing that Qin Huai was coming back soon, Mu Nan felt relieved. He felt that he couldn't let Qin Huai go out again. The temperature was starting to rise, so he couldn't run outside with luck. Anyway, they had accumulated enough things, so they didn't have to spend the money. Life was more important.
Qin Huai parked his car in the underground garage. It took less than five minutes for him to take the elevator from the garage and go home. His body was already drenched in sweat, which showed how high the temperature was.
As soon as I entered the room, Mu Nan handed me a wet towel: "Hurry up and wipe off the sweat to cool down. Wipe off the sweat first, then go take a shower. It's so hot, let's have cold noodles later. Do you want ice cola or ice beer? I put a few bottles in the freezer, and they are probably frozen into smoothies by now."
Qin Huai: "Beer."
After washing off the heat, Qin Huai sat in the cool air-conditioned room, eating cold noodles while saying, "I'll go collect ice again tonight. I'll return the ice storage and not collect the oil. It's so hot, and if we can't collect it in the space right away, it will be too unsafe on the road. The things we prepared are enough for daily consumption in a few years. We have to go out again tomorrow night, and the car we ordered can be handed over. We'll drive it directly into the warehouse to collect it first. Otherwise, if we have more RVs in a community like ours, it will definitely attract onlookers and be too conspicuous."
Mu Nan asked: "How much money do we have left?"
Qin Huai took out his mobile phone and looked at the account. Apart from the remaining balances that needed to be settled, "There are almost 300,000 left." The RV was bought with a loan. The first thing he did when he was able to go out was to take Mu Nan to see a car and then apply for a loan. Probably because of the economic recession after the epidemic, the loan was processed quite quickly, and it was approved in about ten days. However, the car had not arrived yet. He kept urging the 4S store, and finally the car arrived.
Mu Nan bit his chopsticks and sighed: "There is still so much money."
In the more than half a month since they came back from City B, they have been constantly receiving goods into the warehouse almost every day. The most troublesome thing was ice cubes, but everything else was fine. They bought a lot of mineral water, beverages, various frozen foods, fresh meat, and several varieties of vegetables and fruits. For fear of attracting attention, the quantity purchased was not too large, but they accumulated a lot day by day. In addition, they bought some clothes and shoes, a bunch of quilts and other bedding, and a lot of large items such as generators, solar panels, and batteries. They spent money like water every day, but they still had more than 300,000 yuan left. They never felt that spending money was a difficult thing. If they were not afraid of attracting attention, it would be much easier to spend the money.
Qin Huai said: "It's a pity that there is not enough time, otherwise I could modify a car and put it outside. A modified car will be more durable than an ordinary car if anything happens. But the money I have left may not be enough." During the epidemic, people couldn't go out. Even if they had money, no one dared to risk their lives to modify the car at that time. Now that they can go out, time is too tight, so they can only give up the idea of modifying the car.
"Forget it, let's go out for a walk at night these few days and buy some things. We can go to wholesale some ice cream later."
Mu Nan nodded and asked again: "You're not going out this afternoon, are you?"
Qin Huai: "I won't go out. I'll make dumplings with you in the afternoon."
Mu Nan smiled and said, "I have finished packing the thawed meat. Let's take a nap in the afternoon. The days of hiding during the day and coming out at night are about to begin again."
Qin Huai looked at him: "Again?"
Mu Nan paused for a moment, then smiled and said, "I have more inspiration at night. I used to draw at night and sleep during the day."
Qin Huai frowned: "If you don't sleep at night and don't get up during the day, your body will be damaged."
Mu Nan snorted, ignored Qin Huai's preaching, put down the bowl of food, climbed onto the bed, held the computer and started looking for TV series to pass the time.
The two of them took a nap together in the afternoon, had dinner, did some housework, and when they saw that it was almost time, they went out together. Feeling the warmth of the two separated by a door, Mu Nan sighed, "It's melting, the whole person is melting."
Qin Huai said with a smile: "You know how hot it is outside, but you still want to go out."
If he could stay at home, Mu Nan would not want to go out either, but now he could still hide in the air-conditioned room, but what if there was a power outage later? Although people have strong adaptability, there is always a process of adaptation, so that when the hottest time comes, he will not be unable to accept it all at once. So it is better to go out every day, feel the heat outside, and give yourself a process of adaptation.
There were more people in the supermarket than I expected, but many of them were walking around pushing an empty cart. It seemed that there were not many people buying things, and most of them were just there to enjoy the air conditioning.
Hearing someone lament that the price of something had gone up again, Mu Nan subconsciously took another look. He was not sensitive to the prices of things, unless it was something he knew based on common sense, such as a bottle of mineral water that cost two yuan, but suddenly sold for five or six yuan, he would then realize that the price had gone up.
Qin Huai was much more sensitive than him. He held up a bottle of yogurt that Mu Nan liked to drink and said, "This bottle used to be 23.6 yuan."
Mu Nan glanced at the price tag and said, "This bottle is now 27.5 yuan. The price has increased by 4 yuan."
Qin Huai put a few more bottles in the cart: "The weather is hot, the sales of this kind of thing are high, the transportation cost may also increase a little, the price will naturally go up."
Mu Nan picked up a Yakult candy and asked, "How about this one? Has the price increased as well?"
Qin Huai hummed: "This one has increased by two yuan, it's okay, do you want it? If you want, take a few more."
Mu Nan naturally wanted some. Although he already had many boxes of this stuff in his space, he still wanted more. He just took some yogurt and some snacks, and filled up the shopping cart. When he went to check out, he saw that there were still many sandwiches in the refrigerated area that he often ate. Mu Nan walked over and took a few of them: "There is also microwave rice here. I haven't tried it yet. Do you want to buy a few boxes to try?"
Qin Huai pushed the cart to his side and said, "Buy it."
There were only a few microwave lunch boxes left on the shelf, all with different flavors, so Mu Nan simply took them all. When he got the last one, he heard someone next to him say with a smile: "Can you give me the last box?"
Mu Nan turned around and saw that it was the doctor who lived on the same floor as them. He quickly said, "Doctor Xu, what a coincidence. Which flavor do you want? It's okay to take a few more. We just haven't eaten it before so we want to try something new."
Xu Ming took the last black pepper flavor on the shelf: "One is enough, thank you."
Qin Huai asked, "Dr. Xu, did you just get off work?"
Xu Ming nodded and sighed, "The temperature has been too high recently. Even if we avoid going out during high temperature periods, some pets still get burned. In serious cases, their paws are burned and rotten. There are also many who suffer from heat stroke, so the hospital is very busy."
Mu Nan was puzzled: "Pet?"
Xu Ming smiled and said, "I'm a veterinarian."
Mu Nan said "oh", he thought Xu Ming was a human doctor.
As he was talking, Xu Ming remembered something and said to them, "Are you in the community group? Can you invite me? I don't have time to go to the community during the day because I'm at work. I haven't joined the group before, and now I can't receive some community notifications."
This is not a big deal, so Mu Nan took out his phone and said, "Let me add you first, and then add you to the community group. Weren't you at home during the epidemic?"
Xu Ming shook his head. "I lived in the hospital for several months. If it weren't for the kind volunteers who occasionally sent me some food, I would have starved to death. I didn't expect things to turn out like that. At that time, there were several cats and dogs in the hospital who had just undergone surgery and needed to be taken care of. It was raining heavily and there was smog, and I was worried that something might happen on the way. So I thought about staying in the hospital temporarily, but I ended up staying there for several months."
Mu Nan sighed: "It's not easy either. I'll add you to the group and wait for the group owner to approve it."
Xu Ming smiled and said, "Thank you."
Xu Ming probably just came to buy dinner, so he took the microwave rice and went to pay the bill. Mu Nan then said to Qin Huai, "When I heard about the surgery the other day, I thought he was a human doctor. I thought he was amazing that he could already perform surgery at such a young age."
Qin Huai smiled and said, "When you were little, you wanted to be a veterinarian when you grew up. At that time, your aunt didn't allow you to keep a dog. You said unwillingly that you wanted to be a veterinarian when you grew up. If you were a veterinarian, you could have countless cats and dogs."
Mu Nan also laughed: "I had many dreams when I was a child. I wanted to raise pets and become a veterinarian. I wanted to open a snack shop. I liked riding in the bus so I wanted to be a bus conductor. The egg pancakes at the school gate were delicious, so I also thought about becoming an egg pancake owner. I also wanted to sell fried chicken and make milk tea. Dreams change at any time according to my preferences."
Qin Huai smiled even more: "Then your dreams are quite down-to-earth. They are scientists, astronauts, and at the very least, big bosses."
Mu Nan said, "The facts prove that people still need to read more. In the future, scientists and astronauts will definitely have an easier life than big bosses. After all, they are talents that have been cultivated with great difficulty, and they are also the foundation of the country. As for the bosses, unless they can shake up the people's livelihood and still have some savings after a fight, otherwise they can only squat on the roadside and dig up tree roots."
There are not many wealthy businessmen and bosses in the country who can achieve that level. The development is similar to that in Mu Nan's previous life. Several wealthy overseas Chinese and several big bosses, famous or not, have donated several huge sums of money, saying that they are supporting the country's space projects. Where the money is actually used, of course, ordinary people like Mu Nan don't know, but later the government has been able to take out some supplies, which shows that the people above are probably already preparing for the future.
It would be irrational to stockpile large quantities of things at this time. Even if it is just a small amount for the higher-ups, maybe no one will notice it. But there are always unexpected events, so staying at home and doing nothing is the safest thing.
Although they say they do nothing, Mu Nan and Qin Huai still spend a lot every day. They go to the supermarket every one or two days, drive a little further away at night, put away the things they buy as soon as they get in the car, and they won't attract attention when they return to the community empty-handed. They also buy some things online, spending a few thousand yuan a day, and receiving a few express parcels of daily necessities doesn't attract attention.
Although the temperature is a bit strangely hot now, it is still hovering around 42 to 43 degrees Celsius. Even though it is so high that some people are already alert, most people just sigh that this year is really unlucky and it is ridiculously hot.
Until the news of an old man who fainted from heatstroke came out, passers-by hesitated for a moment, and waited for more people to testify and then carried the fainted person to a cool place. However, the fainted person's skin that touched the ground was burned red, and even after being sent to the hospital and given emergency treatment in the first place, he ultimately could not be saved. Only then did people realize that this high temperature is not only strangely hot, but can also be fatal.
Mu Nan's community is relatively lucky, because it is an old community, and many equipment have reached the maximum service life, so there are safety hazards. When the old community was renovated for the second time last year, their community was the first to be renovated. In the past, they used groundwater in the middle and lower floors, and water from the water tank in the upper floors. After the second renovation, all of them were changed to groundwater. The power supply box outside and the cables in the entire community were all replaced.
The community next door to them had just begun to renovate the water supply when the epidemic stopped work. Now the water pipes have not been renovated yet, so naturally they cannot touch the electrical box. So one afternoon, there was a loud noise, and the transformer of the electrical box in the neighboring community exploded. The two buildings that shared that electrical box, with nearly 600 households, all lost power.
The explosion happened at around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Mu Nan and Qin Huai, whose daily routines had become reversed, were awakened by the explosion. They opened the curtains and saw that there was nothing unusual downstairs in the community. They breathed a sigh of relief. Soon someone sent a photo of the transformer on fire to the group.
Mu Nan said: "It was so loud, I thought something happened to our building."
Qin Huai was also startled: "Last night, the transformer in the Civil Aviation Dormitory exploded, and today another one exploded here."
Mu Nan fell onto the bed again: "Fortunately, the equipment on our side has just been replaced, otherwise it might have exploded three times."
Qin Huai also lay back on the bed, but after being frightened awake, he lost his sleepiness and started looking at his phone.
The most talked-about topic on the Internet right now is the global high temperature. Some people say that the polar glaciers are melting at a speed visible to the naked eye. Once the glaciers melt, there may be another unsolvable virus. After all, in addition to the corpses of many ferocious beasts from ancient times, there are also ancient viruses from tens of thousands or even millions of years ago in the frozen layers of the glaciers.
In addition to the virus, the rising sea level caused by the melting of glaciers will greatly threaten the existing living environment of human beings, and may even cause some cities or small countries to disappear forever in the rising sea water.
Of course, these future or foreseeable crises are still a little far away from their current lives. The biggest problem they are facing now is the renewed shortage of medical resources.
The high temperature makes it difficult for people to travel, but they have to go out for a living. Not everyone has such good conditions to stay indoors. The previous epidemic has already put many people in debt. If they don’t work and make money as soon as possible, how can they live? Many people think that it’s just a little hot, as long as they don’t get exposed to the sun and drink plenty of water, there won’t be any big problems. However, those who overestimate their own conditions will end up in the hospital with heat stroke at the least, or even death at the worst.
Some people even died before they were even sent to the hospital, and there were quite a few people who died from the heat. Of course, the exact number of deaths cannot be announced. It's not that we are unwilling to give the public the right to know and let people consciously stockpile supplies to resist disasters, but we are afraid that once the number is announced, it will cause greater turmoil and chaos.
There are many rational and orderly people, but there are even more crazy people who cannot bear the pressure. There are even more people with ulterior motives who are willing to use some public opinion traffic to make money. Those who are for profit, who cares whether others will do something harmful to society because of their inflammatory words? As long as the profit is in hand, the life and death of others is not important.
So many times some people blame the higher-ups for concealing the truth, but if they hadn’t concealed it, the situation would only have been worse.
There is a nurse in their community. She may not know much, but because of her job, she sees a lot of cases, such as people suffering from heatstroke and dying from heatstroke. Since she is exposed to so many cases every day, she pays more attention to the severity of the high temperature. So she told everyone in the community group that if possible, they should stock up on food and drinks, especially water, and stay at home during the day if possible. Even if you go out at night, try to stay with relatives and friends to avoid fainting from the heat and no one noticing. By the time someone finds you, you may have died long ago.
If it was before the outbreak, facing such high temperatures, perhaps not everyone would be vigilant, and even if they stocked up, they would only stock up enough to last a month or so. But now people have just survived the last deadly disaster, and even without such high temperatures, some people would probably start to consciously stock up on food and drink out of fear. Now the abnormally high temperature makes people even more panic.
As a result, a stockpiling boom started across the country, and even in some foreign countries.
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