Chapter 75: Community on Fire
I was dragging a quilt full of locusts home, and before I even reached the gate of the community, I saw a thick smoke rising from the location of the community from a distance.
Xia Xiaoman got a start, picked up the quilt and ran away. From behind, it looked like a big sack moving quickly with its legs spread out.
I prayed silently in my heart, hoping that there would be no fire in the community, and that the fire would not burn to their Building 3. Even if it was unlucky enough that the fire did burn to their Building 3, I hope that the fire would not reach the 15th floor.
It didn’t matter if the supplies were gone; the important thing was that the chickens and rabbits that she had worked so hard to raise for two days must not be burned to death.
Now the locusts have eaten everything edible. If chickens and rabbits are burned to death, it is not certain whether you can exchange them for chickens and rabbits. Even if you can, it will definitely be a sky-high price.
Running to the gate of the community, Xia Xiaoman breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that there was no smoke coming out of Building 3.
"Xiaoman! You're back." Zhou Qiuyang walked over dragging a snakeskin bag.
Xia Xiaoman saw a bruise on the corner of his eye and asked, "What happened to your eye? Did you have a fight?"
Zhou Qiuyang scratched his head in embarrassment. "Someone saw me catching a large bag of locusts and secretly cut up my bag. I beat him up and stole his bag."
He followed Xia Xiaoman's example and risked everything to fight against two people. Although he was at a disadvantage at the beginning, he soon beat the two men and made them flee in all directions.
But he still got beaten up, so he didn't dare to tell Xia Xiaoman the details.
Seeing that Zhou Qiuyang didn't suffer any loss, Xia Xiaoman didn't ask any more questions. He pointed at the thick smoke not far away and said, "What's going on over there? Is there a fire?"
Zhou Qiuyang nodded, "Yes, there was a child in Building 7 who was ignorant and thought that these locusts were edible. He was greedy and lit a fire to roast the locusts. As a result, he accidentally set the curtains of the house on fire."
The weather was hot and dry, and a spark could set a forest on fire. The curtains were set on fire, and within a few minutes, all the furniture in the house was on fire. By the time the child's parents reacted, the fire had spread to the entire floor.
The adult got so angry that he beat the child in public. The child cried and howled and told the child about his craving for roasted locusts. At that time, everyone was catching locusts downstairs. In a short while, the news spread throughout the community.
Xia Xiaoman looked at Building 7, which was emitting thick smoke, with a worried look on her face. "Will the fire spread to our place? Have you called the firefighters to put it out?"
Zhou Qiuyang: “…”
"Where can we call the firefighters now? The water pipes are not working, so the firefighters can only watch and watch."
"However, residents living near Building 7 have tacitly cleaned up the flammable items downstairs of Building 7, and people in the community have also arranged people to guard their homes. If they find sparks floating into their homes, they will put them out immediately."
Xia Xiaoman was worried when she heard this. "Then I'll go home right away. I still have some cloth hanging on my balcony. If sparks fly in, or if a burning locust flies into my house, all the supplies I've worked so hard to save will be gone."
Xia Xiaoman picked up the bulging quilt and turned to leave. Zhou Qiuyang did not go back. With Su Ran watching over him at home, he could catch locusts downstairs without any worries.
When I got home and looked out from the balcony, I could clearly see the fire in Building 7.
Billowing black smoke surged up from the fifth floor of Building 7. The fire was extremely fierce, and the bright red flames spread rapidly, as if they were going to engulf the entire building.
The residents who escaped from the building stood downstairs in panic, staring blankly at the building, with fear and despair written all over their faces.
Some people cried and bemoaned the injustice of fate. Life was already so difficult, why did something like this happen? The fire burned all their supplies. How would they live in the future?
Some people glared at the culprit who caused the fire, cursing at them and demanding compensation for the losses.
Some people quickly adjusted their mindset, accepted the fact that they had become paupers, and turned to catching locusts, hoping to catch more locusts in exchange for supplies and rebuild their family fortune.
The fire was merciless and lasted for a day and a night. The firefighters did not come, but the security team did. However, when the security team came, they only maintained public order and did not take any measures to put out the fire.
It's not that they don't want to put out the fire, but there is no way to put it out. There is no water and no firefighting equipment. With such a big fire, they can only wait for it to go out on its own.
The fire was gradually extinguished around four o'clock in the afternoon of the next day.
Fortunately, the fire did not cause any casualties and did not spread to other buildings.
But what made Xia Xiaoman a little unhappy was that there were many more residents who moved from Building 7 into the building, and the floors above 15 were almost full.
There are many gossips where there are many people. This is unavoidable. After all, not everyone is a simple, kind and friendly person. Most people have their own little thoughts and calculations.
Let’s not talk about anything else, just talk about personal excrement.
There were not many people living upstairs before, and those who lived upstairs knew that the 15th floor was not easy to deal with, so when they threw their excrement down, they would deliberately throw it far away to avoid it falling on the balcony or windowsill on the 15th floor.
But the new residents don't care about these things. They open the window and throw their excrement down without even looking.
Xia Xiaoman lived on the south side and it was better off. She only had one balcony, and there were several other families’ balconies blocking her way, so the excrement could not be thrown over here.
But Zhou Qiuyang and Wen Jianfeng lived on the north side, and their balcony was also on the north side. When people upstairs threw their excrement down, if it was windy, the balcony would be more or less stained with some indescribable disgusting filth.
Wen Jianfeng and Zhou Qiuyang went upstairs to negotiate several times, but the results were not very obvious.
Thinking that less trouble is worse than more, both families endured it.
They have good tempers and can tolerate it, but the residents downstairs cannot.
In the past, although people living upstairs would throw their excrement downstairs, they would tacitly throw it into the flower bed in front of the building, and would always wrap it up in bags or other things.
But the new residents are too unrespectful. They throw out whatever they poop in. The downstairs is stinking badly, and there is feces everywhere. The road is impossible to walk on.
Just two days after the residents of Building 7 moved in, the residents on the lower floors unanimously decided to drive them all out.
For several days in a row, there was a lot of noise upstairs, all filled with the sounds of quarrels and curses between the residents on the lower floors and the new neighbors who moved in from Building 7.
The people in Building 7 felt aggrieved. They didn't want to dump their excrement everywhere, but all the things they could store their excrement were burned by the fire.
We are so poor that we can only deal with our excrement in this simple way. We can't just keep it at home, right?
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