Chapter 043: The Lantern Festival of the First Year of the Apocalypse
Jingshu also likes to drink soup, so she made 1 cube of seafood and shrimp porridge, 1 cube of carrot, corn and mutton soup, 1 cube of rice and mushroom stewed chicken soup, 1 cube of pork ribs and lotus root soup, and 1 cube of crucian carp and tofu soup.
In order to save electricity, Jingshu fried her own steak and sausage for supper and filled up 2 cubic meters.
Anyway, Jingshu would cook all kinds of delicious food whenever she had time at home, and then store them in her space like a hamster. She also planned to grind the soybeans and make various kinds of tofu when Jingye and Jingnai came over in a while.
Jing's mother still goes to work every day and complains every day about why the Dark Day has not ended yet. It has been more than 30 days, and she asks Jing's father to go to the wholesale market to buy some more things every day. Recently, everyone has been anxiously waiting for the end of the Dark Day while secretly storing some more food.
Forget about vegetables and fruits. Not only have the prices risen to over a hundred yuan per pound, but they are not even fresh.
Various water beverages and cold drinks were never put on the shelves again.
The shelves full of snacks, daily condiments, grains, oils and non-staple foods have been dwindling unnoticed, and it seems that they have never been replenished. Now the purchase limit is 200 yuan per person, so you can't buy much, but a mosquito leg is still meat, unless you go to scalpers to buy it at a high price.
But ever since the small supermarket had countless supplies confiscated due to crazy price hikes, there have been fewer scalpers, and the citizens didn't know where the confiscated supplies were taken. Jingshu knew that later, when people were almost starving to death, the government came to their rescue.
When some small shops saw that raising prices was not an option, they closed down and stockpiled supplies. The next day, two policemen acted as door gods, and the owners were so scared that they had to continue to open their doors and sell things.
In Wucheng's largest farmers' market, the government suspended the sale of seafood, non-staple foods, grains, and oils, and quietly took control of them. Jingshu only found out about this later. The prices of these seafood and non-staple foods kept rising to an outrageous level, so the government cooperated with the armed police to confiscate all the supplies. To put it politely, it's called: expropriation.
With no sign of the darkness ending, the nation grew anxious. The light should have gradually returned within twenty days, but it remained the same for several days. Experts estimated it would take at least another month, so the massive machinery of the nation sprang into action.
Today is the Lantern Festival on February 5, 2023. The country originally planned to move the Spring Festival on January 22 to February 5 when the Dark Day ends. The Lantern Festival is celebrated on this day for family reunion dinner, but who would have thought that the Dark Day is still not over.
But in order to reassure the public, the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival Gala started on time at 8:00 p.m. This year, all the hosts wore their original clothes: dirty suits, unshaven beards, skirts of unclear color, haggard faces and greasy hair, without makeup or dressing up.
"I'm sorry, dear audience friends, I haven't taken a shower for half a month." The female host without makeup still maintains her elegant temperament.
"What a coincidence, I haven't washed for a month either." The male host took the microphone and started his opening remarks.
Today, there is power outage everywhere, allowing every family to have a reunion dinner and happily watch the Lantern Festival Gala.
Jingshu's family of three sat at her uncle's house to have a reunion dinner today. This is a tradition. They spend New Year's Eve at her grandparents' house and the Lantern Festival at her uncle's house.
Considering the lack of vegetables, Jing's mother brought some dry goods, including eggs, tomatoes, bean sprouts, cabbage, garlic sprouts and bacon, as well as 2L of Sprite.
These seemingly ordinary things have now become hot items.
Jing's father wanted to take two more fish, but the fish in the pond had multiplied again. Jing Shu had fried a lot of crispy fish and there were still many left. Jing Shu was about to refuse, but Jing's mother rejected her first: "Okay, that's enough. My sister-in-law knows that we have so many good things but we don't give them any, so she whispers in our ears again."
In fact, Jing's mother is a little woman who holds a grudge. She still cares a lot about the matter of borrowing money.
Jing's father drove the family of three to their uncle's house that afternoon. Their uncle's home was in the old city west of the city, a place with many people, low-rise buildings, a poor environment, and high housing prices. The second year's flood didn't reach them, but the third year, an earthquake buried the uncle's family of three downstairs, leaving them in a miserable state.
In order to prevent Jingma from turning back into Baozi, Jingshu decided to let her uncle's family survive.
When Jingshu's family arrived, two groups of people had already arrived from her uncle's family.
"Oh, I'm here now, why did you bring so many things? I'm so embarrassed.
At least it’s better than some people, it’s free food.”
Aunt Wang Fang opened the door and took the pile of things from Jing's father's hand. When she saw the green vegetables, tomatoes, cabbage and bacon, her eyes lit up and she was so happy that she couldn't stop smiling. She could finally eat some vegetables during the New Year and save some.
"Come on, come in quickly. My elder brother Wang Gang is celebrating the New Year with us this year. This is my sister-in-law Liu Shufen, whom you all know. This is their daughter Wang Can, who is 25 years old and was brought to the government by my brother to work as a clerk." My aunt felt a little inappropriate right after she finished showing off.
My aunt's family had packed up for the Lunar New Year. I wiped myself clean, washed my face, and put on clean clothes, but I didn't bother washing my hair. Unexpectedly, Jingshu's family was spotless except for some dust. Their hair wasn't greasy at all, and they even smelled like Blue Moon laundry detergent.
Looking at my family again, no matter how we dress, we always look rustic.
Jingshu's family walked in and greeted her aunt's eldest brother's family. The three-bedroom, two-living-room house in her uncle's house was beautifully decorated by Jingshu's father. Now it was much more dilapidated and there was an indescribable stench. There were jars of various sizes filled with water. A freezer was stuffed into the small bedroom. Through the glass, one could see that there was half a freezer full of frozen meat.
With only the kitchen light, the TV in the living room and the air conditioner on, the light is a bit dim. Now every household has an electricity consumption quota, and the power will be cut off if the quota is exceeded.
"Sprite! Sister Jing, it's awesome that you can get 2 liters of Sprite now!" Su Long saw Jingshu holding a drink in her hand and rushed up with a hungry wolf's eyes, trying to take it away.
Su Long is my uncle's late-born son. He wore glasses at the age of 17 and was short and thin because he loved snacks since he was a child. It was this naughty child who insisted on going home to live during the earthquake, which led to the death of his entire family.
Jingshu pressed her finger against Su Long's forehead and said, "We all drink this together during the meal. You are not allowed to drink it now." In fact, Jingshu didn't want to take the Sprite, because Sprite can be paired with many things. Sprite with lemon, Sprite with plum juice, and milk have unique and stimulating flavors.
"Tsk, what's so great about that." Zhang Hanhan hugged Wang Can's arm and looked at Jingshu with hatred, whispering something to Wang Can. They didn't feel hot, and to save electricity, they only turned the air conditioner to 2, while it was 4 degrees Celsius outside.
Zhang Hanhan is the daughter of my aunt Su Meimei. She specially wore a red dress today, tied her hair into a bun, put on makeup, and sprayed some perfume to cover up the smell on her body. Jingshu always felt that people from the Art Academy all looked like internet celebrities after dressing up. She also liked to dress like this in her previous life more than ten years ago.
My aunt Su Meimei and my uncle Zhang Zhongyong are both here. Didn’t these two have a falling out? Does my uncle want to help my aunt?
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