Chapter 35
The government's control over people's hearts is still very accurate. It knows what decisions to make at what time periods to calm the restless people's hearts to the greatest extent.
When it became difficult to get water in Mu Nan's neighborhood, their local news station and the community also announced that starting from Monday, residents of each community would go to a specific location to collect state-subsidized daily necessities at the time of the announcement. Everyone would bring their own ID card and no proxy collection would be allowed. If there were special people with mobility problems who were unable to go out, they had to report to the community, which would collect the supplies and distribute them to their homes.
At the beginning, the supplies were selective. Each person had to choose between three one-liter bottles of water, two kilograms of rice, or a bag of five small packets of instant noodles. There was really no other way to choose the dishes. It was extremely hot now, and it didn't rain. Almost only one in ten vegetables or grains grown outdoors survived the sun. Although there were some high-end vegetables grown indoors, those that specialized in soilless cultivation, the amount grown indoors was limited. Not to mention that it couldn't supply a city, it might not even be enough for a district. It was so scarce that the authorities really didn't have the resources to distribute it to the masses for appeasement. Moreover, these supplies were collected every three days, which meant that this little bit of food was a person's three-day ration. This completely excluded the daily expenses and only provided the minimum survival needs.
But even so, many people are still comforted. At least they can eat something for free. Even if the quantity is small, it is good enough as long as they are not starving to death. After all, many people are now forced into a corner by high prices, and even if they are willing to spend money, many things are simply not available.
When it was Mu Nan's turn to collect the money, except for the Zhang family, everyone else on their floor had agreed to act together. Now it was a bit chaotic outside, with people driving fast, blocking the road, breaking into houses, and all kinds of robberies becoming even more blatant, but the binding force of the law was still there, so those people would mostly target those who were alone, or looked easy to bully, and then run away for fear of being caught. They were a group of big boys, all tall and strong, and looked like they were not easy to mess with, so if they went together, they would feel safer.
Ever since Mu Nan got food poisoning last time, Qin Huai had not let him go out again, but now since he couldn't pick up things on his behalf, he had to let Mu Nan go out as a walk. At the agreed time, the three families went out together at about the same time and met at the elevator entrance.
As soon as they met, Jian Chu asked the other two families, "Are there many cockroaches in your house?" He felt that he had developed cockroach anxiety and always felt that there were cockroaches everywhere in the house.
Xu Ming smiled and said, "Fortunately, I got a lot of pet deworming medicine from the hospital. It is somewhat effective against cockroaches, but the hospital is currently out of stock. A new batch will arrive next week. If you need any, I can help you order it first."
Mu Nan glanced at Qin Huai, and when he saw Qin Huai nodded, he quickly said, "We want it! Can we just take a box?"
Xu Ming said: "It depends on the quantity of goods arriving at that time. We will see when the time comes. If I can get more, I will try to get you a box."
Jian Chu was more realistic. Even though he wanted it very much, he still asked, "How much is a bottle?"
Xu Ming said, "I can directly take the current purchase price of the hospital, 360 per bottle, 500 ml, mainly for removing odors and repelling insects, such as cockroaches, mosquitoes, and some fleas and ticks that pets are more likely to attract. The purchase price of these was very cheap in the past, 70 or 80, but now the price of anything related to insects has skyrocketed."
Hearing the price, Jian Chu couldn't help but sigh: "It's too expensive, forget it, it's more economical to kill the insects manually."
The elevator arrived soon. Fortunately, it was relatively empty. After all, they came out a little late. Because people could get free things today, many people went out as soon as it got dark, so there were fewer people going up and down the stairs at this time.
Jian Chu looked at the spray fan in Mu Nan's hand and said with a smile, "This one of yours is pretty good. Spray it and fan it. The wind blowing on your face feels cool with the water vapor. Why didn't I think of buying this before?"
Mu Nan took the spray fan and sprayed it at Jian Chu twice: "I used to draw comics at home. In the summer, I could stay at home for several months and stay in the air-conditioned room. Even if I turned on the humidifier, it was still dry. Then I saw this fan that can spray water, and I thought it was interesting, so I bought it."
He had indeed bought this fan before, but he did not expect that it could relieve summer heat much better than ordinary fans. So after his rebirth, he specifically looked for this kind of fan and bought a lot of them. However, Qin Huai would rather use a hand-cranked fan than hold such a cute little fan with its own spray.
Looking at Qin Huai who was fanning himself with a hand-cranked fan, Mu Nan took the spray fan in his hand and sprayed it on his face a few times, adding some water to help him cool down.
Qin Huai just glanced at him and followed him.
Because more people are out at night and stay at home during the day, the street lights outside have been reinstalled. They are not as bright as daylight, but they are definitely denser and brighter than before. In addition, some street lights have mosquito traps installed above them, and the swarms of mosquitoes surrounding them make crackling sounds.
As they walked out of the community, they saw many people returning after receiving the supplies. Some said the government was stingy and gave them such a small amount of supplies, which was not enough to fill their stomachs. Some lamented that the government provided the supplies in a timely manner. If it were not for the distribution of these supplies, their families would have run out of food. They just didn't know how long these supplies would be distributed. Many people hoped that they would be distributed until their lives were back on track. Otherwise, they would be laid off, unemployed, suffer from high temperatures, and lack of food. Without these subsidies, they would not be able to survive.
Jian Chu said as he walked: "I heard that some communities have started to install solar power generation. With the current amount of solar heat and sunshine time, it is really easy to generate electricity."
Xu Ming said: "That kind of community should be a villa area. If you want to supply solar energy to a residential building, unless you cover the entire exterior wall of the building with solar energy, that may not be enough. Only the roof of the villa area is suitable. For a community like ours, if we want to rely on solar energy to generate electricity, the electricity we supply may only be able to maintain the consumption of elevators and street lights."
Yu Zibai said: "But if the current high temperature and sunshine will become the norm in future life, then the popularity of solar power generation is absolute. I just don't know if this is just temporary or it will be like this in the future."
Jian Chu said: "It's too scary if it's like this. There's so little rain and so much sunshine. The water on the earth will be dried up and people will have no way to survive."
As they walked, Xu Ming asked them, "It seems that there has been a trend of returning to the countryside. Many people who can't stay in the city want the government to arrange for them to farm in the countryside."
Qin Huai hadn't seen similar news online, so he asked, "Is it like the old days of educated youth going to the countryside?"
Xu Ming: "It's definitely not the kind of educated youth going to the countryside. Even if the country wants to make such an arrangement to relieve the pressure in the cities, people living in the countryside may not be willing to accept it. Besides, where are the extra fields for people to farm now? It will take a long time to develop wasteland. What's more, who among the city dwellers who were born and raised knows how to farm? In the current high temperature, they may not be able to farm even if they have land."
Jian Chu was also curious: "How does that happen?"
Xu Ming: "Maybe there will be a household registration check, and those with rural household registration will try to return to the village. Some people will seize this opportunity and want to spend money to follow those who can return to the village and settle down in other people's villages. Many people are now looking for such resources around them. It is said that if they can help them settle down, they don't need to settle down, just have a place to live and get some land, they can get a thank-you fee of millions."
Jian Chu was even more confused after hearing this: "With so much money, why not just buy a house in the countryside? It's not a big deal. Do you need someone to take you there?"
Xu Ming smiled when he heard this: "Do you think only city people are smart now? Seeing that the situation is getting worse and worse, let alone other things, in our old concept of thousands of years, as long as you have fields and land, you will always have more opportunities to survive than others, especially in natural disasters like this. Once the water and electricity are cut off, those living in the city will be almost dead. Those rural areas that were looked down upon before have suddenly become popular. But if a large number of city people flock to the countryside, it will be equivalent to dispersing the resources and interests of the original rural people. At the very least, the wasteland that they could have reclaimed by themselves will be occupied by outsiders. If you run to the countryside without connections at this time, do you think people will accept it? They have long united together and are anti-foreign."
What Xu Ming said was indeed correct. Mu Nan had also heard about this in his previous life. Later, he had visited those private bases and heard the people there say that when the temperature was high, some people saw that the situation was not right, so they wanted to move to the countryside. As a result, no matter whether they went early or late, if they did not have relatives or friends in the village to help them, they would eventually be ostracized and driven out. There were also many people who bought connections with money at this time, but later on, money was worthless, so those who bought their way in were also driven out.
When he was reborn, he had no intention of settling down in the countryside. First, farming was not something you could do just by thinking about it. Second, even if he went to the village a year before the order collapsed, he might still be driven away as an outsider. By that time, he would have no home in the city and could not live in the countryside, so it would be a waste of time.
Hearing Xu Ming's words, Jian Chu sighed, glanced at Yu Zibai, and said with some regret: "We don't have such a relationship. We don't have the good things of urban village demolition, and we can't enjoy the poverty alleviation policy. Now farmers don't have the conditions to make a living. In the past, a city hukou was so popular, but now it's useless."
Yu Zibai said: "My grandfather is from the countryside."
As soon as he said this, everyone looked at him, even Jian Chu. Although he and Yu Zibai had known each other for many years, he didn't know much about Yu Zibai's family. He knew that Yu Zibai's mother had passed away for many years, his father had remarried, and he had a half-brother who was ten years younger than him. That was already a new family, so he had nothing to do with Yu Zibai anymore. However, Yu Zibai never mentioned much about his grandfather.
Seeing their gazes, Yu Zibai shrugged and said with a smile: "It's a pity that I have never even met my grandpa. My grandpa passed away very early. My mother was still young at that time and lived under the care of others. Later, she struggled to get out of the countryside and never went back."
Jian Chu sighed: "What would those people who have worked so hard to get out of the countryside think, only to find out in the end that it was best to stay in the village?" Especially those who have worked so hard to take root in the city, but did not expect that their final hope is in the countryside. I wonder if they will feel sad that they have been played around by fate.
Xu Ming smiled and said, "Who knows? This is fate."
Walking out of the community gate, there are already some scattered sales stalls on the road leading to the supermarket. I guess they have seen an increase in the flow of people on this road due to the subsidies they have been distributing in the past few days, so they are looking for an opportunity to do some business and make some money. In addition to selling some light toys, there are also clothing and daily necessities. Some people even bring freezers and generators to sell popsicles directly on the roadside.
Mu Nan glanced over there. There were two signs on the freezer, one for thirty and the other for fifty. It was probably divided into two sides, one for thirty yuan and the other for fifty yuan. He walked over curiously to see what was being sold there. He looked inside and saw that the popsicles that used to cost two or three yuan were now sold for thirty yuan, and those that were slightly more expensive, which cost four or five yuan, were sold for fifty yuan.
They had been out for a while, and Qin Huai was afraid that he would feel hot, so he asked, "Buy one?"
Mu Nan just shook his head, he was just taking a look, besides, he already had enough storage for these things in his space, couldn't it be better to eat them at home in a low profile? Why did he have to buy expensive food outside and only be able to eat ostentatiously on the street? He was not stupid.
Mu Nan directly pulled Qin Huai away. As soon as they left, a child ran over from behind, leaned on the freezer and pointed at the popsicle inside: "Dad, I want to eat this."
When the child’s father saw the price listed, he reached out to pull his son away: “Hurry up, let’s go get the stuff and go home. It’s so hot!”
The little boy insisted: "I want this, Dad, I want ice cream, I want it, I want it!"
The kid's father was probably hot and irritated, and was not happy with his child's stubbornness, so he slapped the kid on the back of the head and said, "What are you eating? You can't even afford meals, and you want to eat expensive ice cream. Can you be more sensible?"
The child was beaten and cried loudly, and his father dragged him away without any mercy. The passers-by just turned their heads and looked, no one said anything. As for the ridiculously expensive popsicles, no one said much. Now anything that can cool down, whether it is popsicles or water, is not cheap. Thirty or fifty is considered normal, and in some places, they are sold for one or two hundred.
When they finally got to the supermarket, there were still a bunch of people queuing at the door, and the people distributing the supplies were all men in camouflage uniforms, with two gunmen beside them, who were obviously not supermarket employees. There was also a large advertising cloth placed next to them, and several headlights were shining on the cloth, making the words on it clear.
Qin Huai and Mu Nan both had good eyesight, and they could see the contents clearly from a distance. It was written about the rules for the distribution of materials. The materials could be collected once every three days, and could not be collected on behalf of others. If there were children under the age of twelve, the parents could collect the materials with their household registration books, but they must be direct relatives of the parents. If they were over twelve, they had to bring their children to collect the materials. There was no upper age limit for the elderly. Those who could move could come by themselves, and those who could not move could report to the community, and the community would collect and distribute the materials.
Mu Nan took a small fan and sprayed it on Qin Huai's face and neck, so that the wind blowing on his body would not be so hot: "Brother, do we want rice or noodles?"
Qin Huai: "It's the same for each of us. You get the rice and I get the noodles."
Yu Zibai, who was standing behind them, said to Jian Chu, "We are all alone."
Xu Ming, who was standing at the front, looked back at the four people behind him and said, "Looking at you, I suddenly feel that the freedom of being alone is not so attractive anymore."
Mu Nan comforted her: "It's okay, you still have a dog, even if it belongs to someone else."
Xu Ming said: "Speaking of dogs, did you know that many cats and dogs in the community have been beaten to death recently?"
Jian Chu frowned: "Do you eat meat after beating it? Do you eat cat meat too?"
Xu Ming also had a disgusted look on his face: "People are so mean, they even eat grass roots, what's a cat." That being said, he really hated this behavior. Although he knew that this was also a helpless situation for survival, some people who have never raised a pet will never understand the feeling of treating a pet as a family member. In peacetime, there are still many people who criticize those who don't hesitate to spend money on pets, let alone now.
Xu Ming could only be thankful that although he was a veterinarian, he did not have a pet. Otherwise, he really could not accept that the pet he had raised would become someone else's food.
The line moved quickly, and soon it was their turn. When it was Qin Huai's turn, he handed in his ID card and asked, "Can I still go into the supermarket to buy things now?"
The soldier in charge of delivering supplies said, "Yes, scan the code over there and follow the prompts to enter the online supermarket. After you get the pickup number from the online transaction, you can pick it up directly at the store. Remember whose ID card was used to purchase it. You must pick it up in person with your ID card. You cannot pick it up on someone else's behalf. You can only purchase once a week, and the items you buy are also limited. You will know the specific number by scanning the code."
Qin Huai took back his ID card, took the water and instant noodles, thanked him, and went to the side to scan the code. Soon Mu Nan received the water and rice. Qin Huai opened his bag and asked him to put the things in the bag. Mu Nan also took out his mobile phone to scan the code, intending to take a closer look when he returned.
When he turned around, he saw Yu Zibai putting the water that Jian Chu had brought into his bag, and saw Qin Huai carrying two people's worth of things directly, and he couldn't help but laugh.
Qin Huai packed his bag and looked up to see him smiling at him. He couldn't help but smile as well, "What's wrong? What are you laughing at?"
Mu Nan picked up the fan and fanned Qin Huai: "I laughed when I thought of something funny."
Qin Huai did not ask further questions. He took out a wet towel from the outside of his backpack and wiped the sweat off Mu Nan's forehead and neck. He wiped with the wet towel and fanned himself with air, which made him feel much cooler. "I told you to wear a vest, but you insisted on wearing short sleeves."
Mu Nan looked at those who didn't even wear shirts: "Those without clothes are sweating all over." With his skinny body, thin arms and legs, he couldn't bear to wear a vest outside.
After Yu Zibai and the others also scanned the supermarket code, they returned. On the way, Jian Chu couldn't help but register the app he had just scanned the code on. He wanted to see what was on it. He opened it and couldn't help but said, "A bottle of water is 25 yuan, and the purchase is limited to five bottles. You can only buy it once a week."
Yu Zibai asked, "How many liters?"
Jian Chu: “500 milliliters.”
Xu Ming sighed, "It seems that water resources are really tight. Even the official supermarkets are charging this price. Did you notice the people distributing supplies today? They are all soldiers. The closure of the supermarket more than ten days ago caused a panic. Later, they said it was for rectification and would reopen soon. As a result, when it reopened, there were no ordinary employees."
Jian Chu also sighed, "The situation is serious." Soon he would become an unemployed vagrant again. When the smog had not yet dissipated, he was working as a runner in this supermarket. Later, when the smog dissipated, the weather was too hot, and the supermarket no longer needed runners to deliver goods, so he found a job in logistics, mainly loading and shipping goods. Now their logistics company seems to be closing down, and they haven't found a new buyer yet. With the current prices, those who have jobs cannot afford it. When they lose their jobs, they can only rely on the supplies distributed by the government to survive.
Knowing Jian Chu's stress, Yu Zibai patted his shoulders twice to comfort him. Although he didn't have much money left, it was better for two people to be together than to endure it alone.
When they were queuing up before, they had just talked about killing cats and dogs for meat. On the way back, they heard a dog's violent screams, and then saw a motorcycle. The person on the back seat of the motorcycle was holding a golden retriever's hind legs tightly. The entire front half of the golden retriever was forced to drag on the ground as the motorcycle moved forward, and it screamed and rubbed a dark mark on the road.
The motorcycle was going very fast and passed by them in an instant, but the dog's screams caused almost all passers-by to stop and watch.
After the motorcycle dragged the dog past for a while, a girl who must have lost her shoes came running behind, holding a half-cut leash in her hand, crying and shouting as she chased the dog. She probably ran away because she had no strength left and fell to the ground, unable to get up. The girl's hands and feet were covered in blood, and she was still shouting "Ruby" heartbreakingly.
The despair and helplessness in his voice made the listeners feel heartbroken.
Qin Huai put his arm around Mu Nan and placed one hand on the back of his head, forcing him to turn his head away and stop looking.
Xu Ming handed the backpack to Yu Zibai: "Please take it back for me. My clinic is very close to here. I will take her to treat her wound." It was obvious that the dog could not be retrieved, but people should help if they can.
Yu Zibai responded and couldn't help but sigh. When he saw Xu Ming walking towards the girl, he said, "Let's go home." When he got home and closed the door, he wouldn't see so many suffocating tragedies.
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