Chapter 94
As for taking the girls from next door to collect wood, Xu Ming and his friends had no objection. They lived in the same yard, so they would help if they could. Besides, compared with boys, girls' biggest weakness was physical strength. They were not necessarily worse than boys in other aspects. Since they said they were responsible for themselves and just hoped to be emboldened by the presence of others, they would not refuse so unkindly.
When they were soaking their feet in the evening, Mu Nan told Qin Huai about this. After a brief discussion in the small group, they unanimously agreed. Mu Nan stepped on Qin Huai's feet and tried to pinch the back of his feet with his toes, saying, "I'm quite curious. They never left the house before. What did they eat? I didn't see them prepare any supplies. I thought they stayed like this for the whole winter."
Qin Huai was not very interested in the affairs of those girls. He did not have the time to think about how others survived the winter. But now that they came to him for help, he did not mind doing anything convenient. In order to avoid any problems outside, he asked Mu Nan to remind them, "Tell them first that the wood that can be burned around here has basically been found. We will go to a farther place tomorrow. If they want to go together, let them prepare themselves."
After Qin Huai finished speaking, Mu Nan tagged one of the girls in the group chat of the firewood-collecting team that was later established, and repeated what Qin Huai had just said. She quickly replied with an OK gesture, and soon Xu Ming told them in the group about the precautions they should take when outside, especially now that the temperature is low and the snow and wind are very strong. If you walk outside for a while, icicles will form on your eyelashes. Even if you are wearing a lot of clothes, you may be frozen to death if you don't keep moving. This is really not an exaggeration, so don't think that going out to collect firewood is an easy task. It can be fatal if you are not careful.
Mu Nan watched Xu Ming explaining science to them in the group chat, and couldn't help but say, "You said that before the weather got colder, if we had found more wood in the ruins of the business district and stored it, we could have avoided the winter safely now."
They actually hauled back some wood at that time. There was no electricity here at that time. Although they had solar energy and could use induction cookers, he and Qin Huai asked Jian Chu and others to prepare some burnt wood in case of power outages. It was normal to have some reserves. If they were asked to reserve a whole garage, that would be too strange. However, the previous reserves, if used for heating and avoiding the cold, might only be enough to burn for ten days or half a month at most. But it has been cold for more than half a year, and it has only been cold for more than a month. There is no way they will be able to keep enough wood for the rest of the time. They can only continue to search outside.
Qin Huai clamped the feet that were making trouble in the foot bath tub and said, "It's actually good now. We do have some reserves, at least some backup, but the quantity is not enough. In order to survive, we must adapt to the current climate. Only by adapting ourselves can we avoid being eliminated."
This is also why they have a lot of fuel in their space, even more than enough that it is a much easier way to survive the winter than building a kang, but he still follows his neighbors and tries to use things like heaters, electric blankets, generators, and fuel. No matter what, these can help them survive the cold winter months, but being too greedy for temporary stability will only make them fall behind others.
Mu Nan couldn't help but sigh: "It seems that it's not easy for the four girls, but fortunately, the four of them are together and help each other so they are not isolated and helpless."
Qin Huai chuckled: "You mean you want me to take better care of them outside?"
Mu Nan said quickly: "No, I was just sighing casually. You, you are not allowed to take care of them too much, just treat them the same as others." He was not so generous as to let Qin Huai take care of others outside. Qin Huai's peach blossoms were already very prosperous.
Qin Huai smiled and pinched Mu Nan's chin, then kissed him lightly on the lips: "Hmm, a little sour?"
Mu Nan slapped him on the back of his hand and said, "You big-headed ghost, let go. I'm done with my foot bath. You pour the water!" After saying that, he picked up the towel to wipe his feet and climbed directly onto the bed.
Qin Huai smiled and cleared the area without complaint.
It is not easy to find wood that can be burned. The residential area has been cleared before. There used to be green areas here, but later even the soil was cracked by the sun. The flowers and plants could not survive. They were uprooted and thrown away long ago. So the only places where wood can be found now are the ruins that have collapsed but not been flattened. The largest ruin in this area is the business district that has been turned upside down.
The low temperature and snow made their journey more difficult, but fortunately the military knew that many people wanted to look for things that could be used for burning, so they used a bulldozer to shovel the road leading to the business district every day. They probably also hoped to rely on the power of the people to find out everything that was of some value there, so that it would be less labor-intensive to level and rebuild it later.
In the past, it might take less than an hour to go back and forth, but now, due to the obstruction of wind and snow, it takes nearly two hours to go back and forth. Not all the girls went, only three of them went, because they were wearing thick clothes and covered tightly, except that they were obviously much shorter, it was actually hard to tell whether they were boys or girls. Although they said before that they were responsible for themselves, since they were together, the boys still took some care of the three girls. However, even if they accommodated their physical strength and abilities, they were still very tired after the first day.
It was obvious that the girls had never worked outside, and they probably didn't do any special exercise when they stayed at home, so their physical fitness was really not good. However, even so, Qin Huai and the others did not soften their hearts and said to take a day off before going again. If they took a day off, they would be able to retrieve less wood. Time and the decreasing temperature would not wait for anyone.
Qin Huai had the most complete stuff among all the people. Although compared to others, he might only have an extra windshield goggles on the outside, but in fact, Qin Huai had hot packs stuck all over his body inside his clothes. Even his shoes were electric heating shoes that could be charged and generate heat. It was not like he didn't have the conditions at home, so it was better to suffer less from the cold wind outside. But even so, Mu Nan felt sorry for Qin Huai who had to eat snow and wind outside every day. Therefore, they ate winter tonic food every day at home, and they ate whatever could warm their blood. The consequence of this was that a harmonious life became more frequent.
Jian Chu saw that Mu Nan had stopped rubbing his waist three times in a short while, and couldn't help but say: "Young man, you'd better be more restrained."
Mu Nan blushed, unable to refute, and turned around to cover up her shame with water.
Song Jia, who was sweating from the pile of kang, said without thinking, "What do you mean by moderation?"
Jian Chu smiled but said nothing. Song Jia wiped the sweat off his head and looked back. It took him three seconds to react. Question marks popped up in his head: "Someone is single? Who is with whom?" He had been chopping wood and making kangs with them every day during this period, and he didn't notice anything!
Mu Nan coughed lightly and glared at Jian Chu: "Don't lead the child astray!"
Jian Chu was overjoyed and said, "You are a few months younger than him."
Song Jia: "??? What's going on?"
Jian Chu said: "Qin Huai used to be Mu Nan's brother, and now he is his boyfriend."
Song Jia: “!!!” Shocked!
Mu Nan was not to be outdone: "Yu Zibai used to be Jian Chu's senior, and now he is his boyfriend."
Song Jia: “…” He knew this. He had noticed it when they were running all the way here and when they were working outside, but he really didn’t know about Qin Huai. He always thought that they were brothers with a very close relationship.
Looking at the two of them, Song Jia was silent for a while and said, "My brother was my brother before and will still be my brother in the future. He will not become my boyfriend."
Jian Chu laughed loudly, put his arm around Song Jia's shoulders and said, "If your brother is no longer your brother in the future, that would be exciting."
The wood they picked up did not thaw as fast as they could chop it. When the wood was frozen hard and could not be chopped, they could not just sit at home and wait for it. The bricks and cement they had bought happened to be delivered by the soldiers, so Jian Chu simply took Mu Nan and Song Jia to make a kang. Anyway, Qin Huai had made a copy of both the simple and complex drawings, so they just had to figure it out themselves.
Because Song Jia's garage was the emptier, and Jian Chu's garage and Mu Nan's garage were both filled with firewood waiting to be thawed and chopped, the bricks could only be piled in Song Jia's garage. In addition, Wu Zheng was still a person recovering from injuries, and he was already severely injured by the cold. Once the power was cut off, it would be even more detrimental to his recovery. So they simply made a kang in Song Jia's house first, so that as soon as the power was cut off, they could get on the kang immediately and the injured would not be frozen.
It is actually not difficult to make a kang, especially with the accumulated experience of predecessors. There are two methods, with and without a smoke pipe. They don't have a smoke pipe to use now, so they can only make a pipe themselves. They chose a place that can protect against cold and wind and can be connected to the stove in the shortest distance, and then started knocking down the wall to make the stove.
As Jian Chu was building the stove, he sighed, "Who would have thought that this part-time skill of mine would become a means of survival? I just hope that all this is unnecessary and that I can just keep the power on."
Mu Nan said: "It's a bit difficult to keep the power on. My brother said that he is going to put the greenhouse into use now."
Song Jia looked back in confusion: "Heathouse? Like the ones that used to provide cooling or heating?"
Mu Nan said, "You were rushing to build a resettlement site, and you only worked in this area. But near the military base, some people are building a greenhouse, and the area is not small. It is said that they are planning to do indoor planting. They built a layer of brick house outside to block the outside, and covered it with a layer of plastic film inside to keep it warm. Whether it is hot or cold, the internal temperature can be adjusted. If you don't find a way to grow crops, what will you eat?"
Jian Chu said: "Is it used as a place to avoid the cold?"
Mu Nan nodded. "That's right. The site is very large, but because it's a planting area, it can't be converted into partitions. It seems to be planned to be a boiler greenhouse. There is a large boiler outside, and the hot air will be sent into the greenhouse after it is heated. In other words, if the power is out, but there is fuel, people can still have a place to avoid the cold."
Song Jia said, "It should be like a cold place, with many people living together, and it's airtight. They can't take a shower for several months or even the whole winter. They might even get fleas. If one person gets sick, it will spread to other people on a large scale. A greenhouse must accommodate at least a hundred people. In the past, a classroom had about thirty people, and the feeling of closing the doors and windows in winter and summer was unbearable. A hundred people, or even more, is suffocating just thinking about it."
Mu Nan shook his head: "It's very big. Just think about how big an acre of land is. A greenhouse is several acres of land. A hundred people are too few. A greenhouse can accommodate at least a thousand people."
Jian Chu felt uncomfortable just thinking about it: "We should build our own kang and find fuel ourselves, and wrap ourselves in a few more quilts at home so that we can suffer better."
Song Jia said: "It's so troublesome to have a heating pipe like this. Why can't we just make the stove into a bed, sleep on it and burn fire underneath? At worst, the fire can be burned from the outside, and the temperature inside can be kept high. Then when the doors and windows are closed, the bed will be warm, and there will be no need to worry about carbon monoxide poisoning due to lack of air circulation. Isn't it more convenient?" What's more, the stove was originally built outside, and it would be so troublesome to have to build a heating channel to supply the kang.
Mu Nan and Jian Chu looked at him together. To be honest, they had thought about this idea before, but they gave up trying it. Since their ancestors did not choose this method to keep warm in cold areas, it proved that there must be some disadvantages. As for what the disadvantages were, they had no Internet to search, no experienced people to ask, and no enough bricks and time to verify it in practice. So they might as well just build the kang honestly.
Although building a kang is not a difficult task, for the three people who only had the blueprints and had never even seen the real scene, they could only rely on themselves to figure out everything. Therefore, it took more than a week to complete the kang in Song Jia's house.
Even though Qin Huai and others went out every day during the past half month, the amount of wood they could find was getting less and less. In addition, the temperature was getting lower and lower, almost dropping to minus 50 degrees Celsius. They couldn't bear it anymore and had to give up. As for how long the wood they found could burn, they could only take it one step at a time.
When the temperature broke minus 40 degrees Celsius before, the water pipes had already frozen and the water supply in the house had been cut off. However, the impact of the water outage now is completely different from that in summer. You can just dig a few buckets of snow outside and melt it into water. If you think the snow on the ground is not clean, you can melt the snow on the roof. People like them who live in low-rise buildings in villas have roofs, so it is easy to get snow, but it is difficult for those who live in apartment buildings. As a result, they have a new way to make a living, which is to sell clean snow. As for whether the snow is from the roof, no one knows. Some people are willing to spend this money to buy psychological comfort, while others are not willing to do so. They carry buckets downstairs every day to look for clean snow.
But soon it became difficult for those in the apartment buildings to go downstairs to get snow, because the temperature was too low, so low that there was no way to supply electricity normally. On the third day after the kang in Song Jia's house was completed, the entire residential area was completely cut off from electricity.
The consumption of electricity is within the plan, so there is advance notice of the time of power outage. At the same time, the greenhouse is open. Of course, the greenhouse is not open for free. The people who are open for free are the elderly who have lost their ability to work and the young children who lost their parents after the earthquake. As for other people, they naturally consume points. There is consumption, but of course there are also gains. For example, cleaning, guarding the boiler, and even a few planting sheds that have been planted, all of which require people. In addition, clearing the snow outside the greenhouse every day requires a lot of people. As long as you are willing to move, the higher-ups will arrange a job for you to make a living.
The higher-ups have done their best to consider the people's living needs after the power outage. Anyway, as long as they obey the arrangements, although it is difficult, at least they can still survive. However, many people are unwilling to go. Although that kind of environment can guarantee survival, the quality of life is worrying. Those who have a little bit of conditions are not willing to do so. For example, some of them have converted the house into a kang, and some even have a fireplace in the house. Those who live on high floors really have no choice as the living environment restricts them. However, those who live in villa areas started to think of ways to improve the environment early, so that they can still have heating conditions after water and power outages.
Therefore, not many people have left the villa area. At least half of them are still there. In order to prevent the hard-rebuilt living environment from being destroyed, and also to prevent the extreme cold winter from forcing some people to do things beyond the bottom line of human nature, daily inspections are still carried out, which greatly reassures those who choose to stay.
It took them more than a week to build a kang before. This was because they had to figure everything out by themselves. They had never done it before and had no experience. When they made the second one, they were much faster. With Qin Huai and the others coming back, six grown men together, with experience, they were able to build a kang in three or four days. As for the days when there was no electricity and no kang, they could only wear warm clothes and rely on a brazier to keep warm.
However, only Jian Chu, Xu Ming and others were so miserable. After everyone went back to their homes at night, Mu Nan and Qin Huai climbed directly onto the bed covered with an electric blanket. There was also a heater in the room. Although it was still cold, at least they were warm when wrapped in the quilt.
Mu Nan lay flat on the bed with the electric blanket turned to the highest temperature. After being frozen all day, he could finally stretch his limbs comfortably.
Qin Huai was fine, not as afraid of the cold as Mu Nan. He picked up the clothes on the floor and hung them up, and tidied the room a little before going to bed. He looked at Mu Nan, who was like a pancake, heating up the back and then the front. He patted his head with amusement, "Let it hang overnight, and you can heat it tomorrow. When it's heated, we'll live on the first floor."
Mu Nan half popped his head out from under the quilt and looked at Qin Huai: "Brother, I feel a chill on my head."
Qin Huai reached out and touched it: "You are so afraid of the cold, why don't you wear a hat when you sleep?"
Mu Nan moved closer to Qin Huai and asked, "What do you think the indoor temperature is now?"
Qin Huai glanced at the wall: "More than twenty degrees below zero."
Mu Nan hissed. When it was the coldest here before, the temperature outside never reached minus 20 degrees Celsius. Now the temperature inside was this low. No wonder he felt a chill on his head. "Jian Chu and the others only have a brazier. Can they endure this cold?"
Qin Huai said, "Yes, wear something warm and sleep next to the brazier. You won't be too cold. Tomorrow, we just need to seal the two kangs in their house and leave them overnight. They can be used for heating the day after tomorrow. No problem."
Mu Nan squeezed into Qin Huai's arms, and huddled beside him before stopping: "Are the wood we picked up enough to burn?"
Qin Huai shook his head: "It probably won't be enough for such a long winter. We'll see when the time comes and see if we can buy some. Coal and other things may be available for sale, but they will probably be very expensive." The things in their space are definitely enough, but what's in their neighbors' may not be enough. But for the next few months, if they use them a little frugally, they should be able to hold on.
Mu Nan thought about the neighbors next door and said, "Those girls don't have a kang at home, how are they going to live?"
Qin Huai pinched his face and narrowed his eyes slightly: "Why do you always care about them?"
Mu Nan placed both hands on Qin Huai's body to warm them, and buried his face in his chest: "I'm just curious. It's not normal for people to be curious."
Qin Huai pinched his face and said, "No, you can't think about other girls in my bed?"
Mu Nan couldn't help laughing and kicked Qin Huai with his foot: "Don't mention it, you hit me so hard, it hurts me."
Qin Huai lifted his face and looked at it. There was no redness at all. He saw a cunning look in his eyes, and then he felt a pain in his waist. The little paw that was placed on him to keep warm was not merciful at all. Qin Huai said threateningly in pain: "You have rested enough, right?"
Mu Nan quickly retracted his claws in fear. Although some things were quite comfortable, they were only comfortable in the process. Even if the body had adapted to it afterwards, he still felt a little sore in the waist and back. In addition, he had to eat less. He still had to move bricks and build walls tomorrow, so he couldn't provoke Qin Huai.
Seeing that he had given in, Qin Huai naturally let him go temporarily. Moving bricks, making kangs and laying walls these days were already very hard work, so how could he bear to torment Mu Nan? He was just threatening him.
The alarm was lifted, and Mu Nan lay in Qin Huai's arms and sighed: "When the kang can be used for sleeping, I think I can stay on it for the whole winter."
Qin Huai reached out and touched his belly: "Then I have to say goodbye to your abdominal muscles. After a winter, I don't know when I will be able to see them again."
Mu Nan laughed out loud when Qin Huai touched him. He still couldn't stand Qin Huai's touch. He felt numb and itchy when touched, especially when he was kissed on the belly. He instantly softened into a puddle of water, just like a mechanism controlled by Qin Huai. He was afraid of being ignited by Qin Huai, so he naturally hid away. Fortunately, Qin Huai didn't mean to do that. He grabbed him back and held him in his arms: "Okay, stop making trouble. You've worked hard all day. Go to sleep."
Mu Nan glared at him: "It's obviously you who's making trouble!"
Qin Huai smiled and kissed his earlobe: "Yes, it's all my fault. I shouldn't have made trouble with you. Go to sleep. We will have to work hard for another day tomorrow and then we can close the door and live a good life. Then we will put up the insulation film on the third floor and put two braziers inside to see if we can raise the temperature inside the film. If we can, you don't have to worry about the tomatoes and peppers you worked so hard to grow freezing to death. If it works, we will do the same for the second floor. I will ask Shi Yuanfei if we can get a thicker film. Since they can build a greenhouse, they must have supplies. If they can, your planting business can be carried out openly. By then, you can't go out in the ice and snow, and I will have to rely on Nan Nan to support you."
Mu Nan laughed and said, "Don't worry, as long as you serve well, I'll give you enough free food!"
Qin Huai's eyes were deep: "Since you said so, I can only work hard to make a living." After saying that, he pounced on his food like a hungry wolf and took the meat that he had been craving for for a long time into his mouth.
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