Chapter 44
The gunshot in the dream was hazy, but the two shots after waking up were clearly heard. When it seemed quiet outside, Mu Nan withdrew from Qin Huai's arms and took out his cell phone to check. It was eleven o'clock in the morning, when the sun was at its hottest and most violent outside. After taking a moment to calm down, Mu Nan asked, "Is it from our building?"
Qin Huai said: "It's from the trumpet side, it should be in the middle few floors, so we can hear the sound here more clearly."
How could he continue sleeping after being woken up by the gunshots? He listened for a long time and vaguely heard some shouting and crying, but their door was blocked tightly and the sounds were not so clear. Mu Nan opened his phone and checked the WeChat group to see if there was any message in the group.
As soon as the group was opened, it was flooded with messages. He scrolled down from the top and saw that the first person to call for help was a resident on the 13th floor of a small building next door, saying that someone was banging on the door outside. At first, they tried to unlock the door quietly, but because there had been too many cases of home break-ins, murders and robberies recently, the family installed two indoor locks. Even if the front door lock was pried open, they still had the indoor locks as a precaution.
As a result, the indoor lock could not be opened all of a sudden, and the people outside started to bang on the door. Even if someone was sleeping like a dead pig, they would be woken up. After a panic, they quickly blocked the door with all the things in the house, and took the only few knives in the house in their hands. They kept calling for help in the group, desperately looking for the community, and calling the police. Listening to the sound of kicking the door outside, they were so scared that their hands and feet became weak and they cried and snot. But those who were still awake in the group could only help them call the police remotely, but it was broad daylight now, and even if the call to the police went through, they might not be able to come.
They probably didn't expect that the protagonist of the news they only saw online would actually come to their neighborhood. Even the neighbors who were so close to them started to block the door frantically after hearing the noise, and they wanted to carry all the refrigerators, TVs and sofas to block the door. They could do nothing except praying that the day would pass quickly and the night would come quickly, and that the gang of thugs would not target their home.
Unexpectedly, the sound of banging on the door stopped later, but they heard the sound of fighting outside. Just when they thought that a neighbor couldn't help but go out to help, they heard gunshots again. But they didn't know whether the gunshots were from the thugs or someone else, and they didn't dare to go out to check. After a long time, the noise outside subsided, and then they heard someone shouting that the thugs had been subdued and everyone should not panic.
Someone from the opposite floor of their building bravely opened the door to check. Because there was a patio between them, they didn’t have to worry about being broken into once the door was opened. Then they saw a group of people in military uniforms pinning down several people on the ground in the corridor opposite the patio. So they took a photo and sent it to the group: “It’s okay! The burglars were caught by the military brothers!”
The family whose door was kicked also saw the photo in the group chat. They were convinced that it was safe outside and someone had come to save them. So they quickly opened the door and were so excited that they almost knelt down to thank them. This time they had almost brushed shoulders with death. If the soldiers had not arrived in time, their family would have been on the headlines of the social news tonight. They had lived their whole lives and had never seen such a scene. The worst they had seen was some petty theft. Even though they were saved at this moment, they were still scared out of their wits and couldn't recover for a long time.
The situation outside finally calmed down. Mu Nan was stunned: "Those Doomsday thugs were arrested just like that?"
Qin Huai smiled and said, "They only have knives in their hands, how can they beat those with guns? It was difficult to catch them before because they were roaming around and now they can't go out during the day, which makes the investigation more difficult. Now that we have the news in advance, it will be easy to catch them. To put it bluntly, those people are just a mob, and the extreme environment now has inflated their ambition to kill."
Qin Huai pinched Mu Nan's face as he spoke: "Fortunately you recognized them. You see, you saved the lives of several people in that family. How did you see them in your dream?"
Mu Nan said: "I haven't seen them face to face. I saw them after they were arrested and their execution was broadcast live online."
Qin Huai: "No matter what, this can be regarded as a crisis warning."
Mu Nan looked at Qin Huai: "But since the smog, I haven't had those dreams again. What if there is no way to warn of crises in the future?"
Qin Huai chuckled and said, "Not everyone can have predictive dreams. If people can't dream about the future, does that mean they won't live? We'll just live our lives as we should when the time comes. It's always a good idea to prepare for the worst-case scenario in advance. It's better not to have those dreams. If you have too many of them, you won't be able to tell the difference between dreams and reality."
The reality was bad enough. If he experienced it again in his dream, he was really worried that Mu Nan would not be able to bear it. After a long time, even the strongest people would probably face collapse. So he really hoped that Mu Nan would not have this kind of so-called predictive dream again.
Mu Nan breathed a sigh of relief. As expected, one lie required countless lies to cover it up.
Qin Huai suddenly moved closer to Mu Nan and looked at him seriously: "Nan Nan, are you hiding something from me?"
Mu Nan pushed him away guiltily: "What can I do? No matter what I do now, you are watching me."
He dared not look people in the eye when he felt guilty, and this had not changed since he was a child. Qin Huai sighed silently, and it turned out that he had a little secret.
Such a big thing happened here, anyone who is not deaf should be awake by now. Jian Chu looked at the constantly updated messages in the group and suddenly said to Yu Zibai, "Do you think Qin Huai found something? His reminder before going home was a bit strange." Yu Zibai was also frightened. Fortunately, this crazy thug was caught. "Maybe, anyway, our neighbor's brother is quite mysterious. We haven't seen him since we moved here. Now he suddenly comes back and seems not to leave after coming back. Now it's such an environment. The timing is just right."
Jian Chu wet the washcloth with water and wiped his face: "It's good to have some ability. In this world, it's hard for those with little ability to survive."
After washing their faces, they put the face towel on the rack. Now they can't even use towels because a towel absorbs too much water. So they can only use one face towel repeatedly, one for washing the face and one for wiping the body. Under this condition, they don't ask for anything else. It's good enough to be able to be a little clean like a human being.
Every time this happened, Jian Chu felt a little regretful: "Why didn't we buy more wet wipes at the beginning? When food was sky-high in price, wet wipes didn't seem to increase in price much." It is so hard to get a wet wipe now. One wet wipe is equivalent to taking a shower, which saves so much water.
Yu Zibai said: "Who would have thought of going there? They were all busy grabbing food at that time."
Jian Chu sighed, rubbed his stomach, and couldn't help but look a little unhappy, "I don't want to go downstairs to the bathroom."
They haven't used the restroom at home for a while. There is really a water shortage. Where is the water to flush the toilet? They are so frugal that they only use a face towel to wash their faces and take a bath. Where is there so much water to flush the toilet? But people always have to go to the toilet. If they can't go at home, they can only go outside. There is a public restroom in their community. Since the water shortage, the stalls are full. But the disgusting level inside is enough to make people vomit stomach acid before they get close. Just passing by can make people cry. No matter how hard Jian Chu and the others try to endure, they can't bear it anymore. They would rather go hungry than go to the restroom.
Yu Zibai said, "How about using cat litter?"
They had brought this cat litter back from Xu Ming's clinic. They wanted to sell it at a stall, after all, they didn't have a cat, so why would they need cat litter? But Mu Nan asked them to keep it, saying that they would need it one day. Now, it's time to use it.
Jian Chu was suddenly a little embarrassed: "This is too much."
Yu Zibai calmly went to find a basin, opened a bag of cat litter and poured some into the basin, then found a plastic bag and put it in the bathroom, then pushed Jian Chu in: "Go ahead, there's nothing to be embarrassed about."
When Jian Chu closed the bathroom door with a bitter face, Yu Zibai couldn't help laughing. It seemed that it was not a bad idea to have a chattering cat.
The existence of doomsday thugs has a great impact on the current world. It will cause some people who already have weak legal awareness to break through the last layer of moral bottom line and embark on a path that harms society. Since the behavior of doomsday thugs has become rampant and unscrupulous, they even have a group of supporters on the Internet. They think that the world is already like this, and they should live one day at a time. If they don't let go and make themselves happy, they may be depressed all their lives until they die.
Most of these people have encountered various setbacks in life, or have suffered setbacks, felt social injustice, and have been suppressed for a long time. Once the constraints from society are gone, the outbursts of these people are insane, and there are quite a few of them.
Therefore, in order to sound a wake-up call to the world and to make people more clearly aware that this is no longer the lawful and peaceful society of the past, the trial of the Doomsday thugs was finalized very quickly. After several accomplices of the thugs were arrested, a total of nine people were executed without exception, and just like Mu Nan in his previous life, the entire execution process was broadcast live on the entire network.
The words "death penalty for doomsday thugs" instantly became the hottest topic on the entire Internet. You have to know that the government, which even mosaics the bloody scenes, actually broadcast the execution live. This also made people deeply realize once again that the world is really no longer the world they once lived in. Perhaps this time the strange heat will not suddenly disappear like the smog. Maybe this is the normal state of their lives in the future.
Many people don’t even dare to think about what consequences this normal situation will bring. Apart from other things, the lack of food and water alone has already made it impossible for people to survive.
Although the execution date has not yet arrived, since the notice has been issued, there will definitely be no changes. When Mu Nan went downstairs to get water and supplies again, he found that their community had become quieter. In the past, there were some elderly people taking a walk downstairs, but now, let alone taking a walk, even when passing by acquaintances, they looked hurried and didn't even say hello.
The doors and windows of every household are closed more tightly. The vigilance towards strangers or people they once knew is directly aroused, so that any information exposed during the conversation may cause trouble.
The changes in the residents are becoming more and more similar to what Mu Nan remembered in his previous life. Those who have grabbed things in the online supermarket wrap them tightly in black plastic bags. On the way home, they are even as cautious as thieves, for fear that they will be seen buying things. People nowadays want to dig a cellar at home to store things, but at the same time they are afraid that they will buy too much and be known.
Qin Huai and Mu Nan had stopped buying things a long time ago, and they had almost spent all their money, with only a few thousand yuan left. Now they couldn't buy anything with a few thousand yuan. When everyone started to be cautious, it was time for them to keep a low profile.
There was still a queue to receive supplies, but the queues were getting farther and farther apart, a reflection of wariness towards strangers. For young people who had never experienced anything like this, this sudden change made Xu Ming and Yu Zibai panic for a while. They even felt that the country might not be able to survive this time.
Jian Chu was even more silent than the last time they met. Mu Nan glanced at them but didn't say anything. This silence was indeed a bit too depressing and suffocating, but when the familiar world was broken, it was an inevitable process.
After Qin Huai received the supplies, the soldier he had met last time glanced at him. Qin Huai followed the man to the side and talked to him. Mu Nan saw the man gave Qin Huai something, but when Qin Huai came over, he did not ask much, as outside was not a place to talk.
On the way back, Jian Chu finally couldn't help but speak: "Do you think that the future will be like this?"
Mu Nan thought that it would only get worse, but he certainly couldn't say that out loud. Instead, he consoled her by saying, "Maybe it will become a night world, and then with the development of technology, a huge energy shield will be erected in the cities where people live to block the excessive heat from the sun, and slowly develop into technology cities. No matter what, as long as humans don't become extinct, they will always find a way to survive and adapt."
Hearing his fanciful words, Jian Chu smiled and said, "Thank you for reminding us to leave the cat litter behind last time."
Mu Nan looked at Jian Chu: "Is it useful?"
Jian Chu's face turned slightly red, but he still nodded: "It's convenient." Compared to going to a public toilet, it is much more convenient. He no longer has to endure inhuman torture. There is not much cat litter, so he has to use it sparingly. As for plastic bags, luckily he saw a sale on it before and bought a box of garbage bags, but he has to use them sparingly too. Life is so difficult.
After they went home, Mu Nan quickly asked Qin Huai, "What did that person want from you just now?"
Qin Huai said: "The clue I provided has a reward, and he gave me a contact number and asked me to add him."
Mu Nan: "Reward? What can it be? It can't be money? We have finally spent most of our money."
Qin Huai shook his head: "There shouldn't be any reward money. Money is worthless now. If it's money, we don't want it, so we don't have to go out and get it. Nan Nan, have you ever dreamed about the government base? Have you ever dreamed about what it is like inside? If everyone goes to the base, will the houses like ours that were not damaged in the later earthquakes be vacant?"
Mu Nan said: "Not all of them are vacant. Not everyone chooses to live in the base."
Mu Nan turned on the computer and found the real-life map of their city. He then searched for the base that was later planned by the government based on his memory: "It's here."
Mu Nan roughly drew a circle on the computer: "It's probably this area. You can see that there are houses under construction here. These houses are equipped with floor heating equipment, but they are gas heating. It seems that they are being converted to electric heating. I remember seeing this side later. It was almost flattened, and then a solar power station was built to supply electricity to this area."
Although Mu Nan had entered a government base in his previous life, he went too late because he entered a private base at the beginning. The private base only had good treatment at the beginning and had water and electricity supply, but it was private after all and was not stable at all. Later, he had no choice but to follow others into the government base, but at that time, the places with better accommodation conditions were already full, and he was alone with limited labor, and he could not take out the food in the space to exchange for new currency to pay the rent, so he could only live in a shed on the ground.
It was still winter at that time. If he hadn't been hiding from people every night and eating high-calorie food to keep warm, he probably wouldn't have survived that winter. But even if he survived the winter, he couldn't survive the summer. It's rare to have a space and still be like him.
After his rebirth, he had thought about buying or renting a house in the circle base area, but as far as he could remember, the houses there were currently under construction and had not yet been launched for sale. He also didn't know whether the others were rebuilt after the earthquake or renovated later. Anyway, they were somewhat different from what he remembered, so he didn't dare to buy one. What if he was unlucky and the place he bought or rented collapsed?
Qin Huai looked at Mu Nan, who was silent and lowered her eyes: "What are you thinking about?"
Mu Nan looked at Qin Huai and said, "I was thinking, if I didn't have you, I would be miserable."
Qin Huai smiled and said, "It's obviously because of you that I can live a good life. Now I rely on you for support."
Seeing Qin Huai asking about the base, Mu Nan returned to the point and asked, "Do you want to exchange with them for a place in the base?"
Qin Huai said: "Apart from this, we don't really need anything else at the moment. If the houses in the base can be heated, it would definitely be better to live in. No matter how effective the heating is over there, it's better than the chilly weather here. I just don't know what the rules will be over there, whether we have to buy houses or just rent them."
Although Mu Nan was not very clear about the details, most of the bases later on were rented. They were probably getting more and more uneasy about the constant natural disasters, especially after experiencing such a big earthquake. If they bought a house with all their money and then lost it, they would really have no way to survive. So many people rented houses and used the new currency newly planned by the government. This new currency was earned by scavenging supplies outside or finding a job at the base. But how long can you scavenged supplies outside? It's not that you find less and less, and it's impossible to regenerate by yourself, so most people still do hard labor at the base. After all, this doesn't require skills, as long as you are not afraid of being tired, you won't starve to death.
After learning about the future of the base, Qin Huai took out a note with a phone number and added the other party's WeChat. He probably thought the other party was waiting for him, so he was quickly accepted. The WeChat avatar was a figure in military uniform, and the name seemed to be his real name, Shi Yuanfei. As soon as Qin Huai's friend request was approved, the person on the other side sent a message. Shi Yuanfei: "Hello, my name is Shi Yuanfei. Thank you for the effective intelligence you provided this time. The higher-ups have decided to give the informant a corresponding reward. Of course, if you have any special needs, you can also mention it, and we will report it as appropriate."
Qin Huai: "Hello, my name is Qin Huai. I want to know what rewards you give if there are no special needs?"
Shi Yuanfei: "Under the current situation, the rewards are mostly food, maybe 5,000 kilograms of rice."
Five thousand kilograms of rice, if it is based on one person's ration, this reward is really quite practical. But if the population is small and the rice is not consumed quickly, these five thousand kilograms will probably be infested with insects after a short time. Moreover, taking so much rice home is simply a shining target. No wonder they said that it can be replaced with special needs. After all, after the crazy stockpiling some time ago, although the people in their cities do not stock up as much as in the countryside, food is not so scarce at present.
Qin Huai: "Can I keep this reward temporarily? If you give me so much rice, it will be difficult for me to preserve it."
Shi Yuanfei: "Sure, you can contact me anytime if you need anything. If I am transferred, I will also hand over your work in advance."
Qin Huai thanked them, and the conversation ended neatly. Mu Nan watched the whole process from the side and sighed, "Five thousand kilograms of rice! I didn't expect to have such an unexpected harvest. Doesn't this tell us that we should still work hard to be good people?" Five thousand kilograms, even a large family can consume it for several years, and it can even be traded for other things. If converted according to the previous value, five thousand kilograms may seem like a lot, but it doesn't cost much money. But now, it is a huge fortune, and the higher-ups are really generous.
Qin Huai said: "We should be a good person within our ability. Let's do this for now. We don't need rice for the time being."
Mu Nan hesitated for a while: "What if we can't find anyone after the earthquake? Then will the rice be gone too?"
It's no wonder he thinks so. The earthquake is not just a problem in their region, their province, or even their country. There's always a chance of something happening. Besides, communications were cut off after the earthquake. Where would they find people?
Qin Huai said: "Don't worry, as long as the government is not in chaos, we can always find someone. If he is gone, there are others."
Seeing that Qin Huai had made a decision, Mu Nan didn't say anything more. Anyway, Qin Huai always thought about things more deeply than he did, so he didn't have to worry about it.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
