Sinan had a very long dream. In the dream, she experienced various natural disasters over and over again. She saw her loved ones and relatives die in front of her one by one, and she could only watch helplessly.
The feeling of pain and powerlessness made her cry in her dream.
"Anan, Anan?" Cheng Suming heard her crying and quickly turned on the light to wake her up. "Are you having a nightmare?"
Si Nan woke up from her dream and saw Cheng Suming's familiar and handsome face. She couldn't tell the dream from reality for a moment and reached out to touch his face with trembling hands.
Feeling the warmth on his face, she said with red eyes: "I dreamed that you died, everyone died, and I was the only one left. That feeling was so uncomfortable and painful."
"That was just a dream, not reality." Cheng Suming hugged her from behind, stretched out his bony fingers to gently wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes, and gently comforted her: "I am alive and well. We are on a very safe ark built by the country. You are not alone."
ark?
Si Nan looked around the room, which was ten square meters wide and about two meters high. The walls were made of silver metal. On the left side was a one and a half meter wide spring bed. Daily necessities were placed around it. There was no window or toilet, so it looked very cramped, making people feel a little gloomy and suffocated living in it.
She suddenly came back to reality. Yes, she was on the Ark.
Three years ago, they finally reached the Himalayas when her cargo ship ran out of fuel.
At that time, the Himalayas were about to be submerged, with only one peak remaining. They saw two giant arks made of solid silver material, as huge as those in science fiction movies, appear in front of them, so they boarded the arks.
The process of boarding the ark was relatively smooth. Although the three natural disasters three years ago caused the deaths of most of the world's human beings, the powerful ancient Eastern country had already built two arks by then, and secretly boarded nearly 20 million people.
Among these people, one third are scientific researchers, technical workers, and industry leaders from all walks of life. The rest are mostly state organs and organizations, relevant leading staff, the military, police force, firefighting, armed police officers, etc., and there are very few ordinary civilians.
The Ark also stores a large amount of food and drinking water, various instruments, seeds, soil, daily necessities and other items. It also has planting areas, production areas, animal husbandry areas, research areas, etc., which is equivalent to a mobile base.
The Ark Project originally estimated that the maximum number of people on board each Ark would be no more than 10 million. The three natural disasters occurred suddenly, and many powerful families in the capital hid in their own secretly built safe places during those days. After the natural disasters stopped, they took helicopters and drove to the Himalayas to board the Ark.
The number of people on the arks was suddenly overloaded, so the two arks remained at the foot of the Himalayas and did not sail to other places to take in survivors from other places.
When Sinan and his crew's ship appeared in front of the Ark and asked to board the Ark, everyone was shocked. No one expected that half a year after the entire world was almost submerged, there would still be survivors driving a boat to the Himalayas to board the Ark.
Cheng Suming informed the Ark guards at that time of their ID information, explaining that he had rescued a leader in charge of the Ark project and obtained the qualifications of more than 30 people to board the Ark.
The other party reported the matter to higher authorities for verification and finally confirmed that what he said was true. Only then were they allowed to board the Ark.
Because the habitable areas of the Ark were already crowded with people, Si Nan and his group were assigned to the staff dormitory in the planting area.
Although the place they live in is very small, their bed is obviously much more comfortable than Liu Dalin's family of six who are squeezed into a room of less than ten square meters.
They have lived on the Ark for three years now. There is no idleness on the Ark. If you want to eat, you have to work. Just like the original Shishan Base, according to the type of work and working hours, corresponding points will be issued every day, and then the points can be used to exchange for the food and supplies you want to eat and use.
Cheng Suming is a doctor, so he naturally joined the field hospital on the Ark to work. The points he earned alone were enough to support him and Si Nan.
Si Nan didn't want to be an idler, mainly because he didn't want to stay in a cramped room all the time, doing nothing and living a depressed life. So, like Liu Dalin and Si Yufang's other families, he joined the planting area to work.
However, she is not a full-time worker, but a part-time one. Because she contributed a lot of crop seeds and chicken, duck and goose eggs when she first came to Ark, the heads of the planting area and poultry and livestock breeding area all hired her as a part-time worker.
She doesn't have to do any manual labor, which means she is a guerrilla supervisor. She can help out with her two geese and a black dog. Her work is much easier than that of a regular worker, and she only gets a few fewer points.
Si Nan wiped away tears and said, "Maybe my period came these two days, and I was not feeling well. I was thinking about all sorts of things during the day, and that's why I had those nightmares at night."
"If you're not feeling well, take a day off from work today. Just lie down at home and play with your phone or watch TV." Cheng Suming stood up and took out a box of painkillers from the small medicine box hanging beside the bed. He then poured her a cup of hot water from the thermos. "Take one. You'll feel much better."
Si Nan shook his head. "No, I'm not in so much pain that I'm dying. My stomach just hurts. It's nothing. Now one painkiller can be sold for 100 points on the Ark, which is equivalent to 100 kilograms of sweet potatoes. I can't waste it."
After a pause, she continued, "Although the Ark has hydroelectric, wind, solar and network signal equipment, the electricity bill is not cheap. One point is required for each kilowatt-hour of electricity. There is only one TV channel, and it plays old movies and TV series that have been played many times. I am tired of watching them. It is better for me to go out to work, which can not only save electricity bills, but also earn wages."
Cheng Suming watched her reach out to turn off the only dim incandescent light in the room. He helplessly hugged her to his chest in the darkness, covered her with a thin blanket and said, "You don't have to be so frugal. The points I earned are enough for the two of us to spend."
"I have hands and feet. I can't let you support me all my life and be an idler all my life. I don't know what the future will be like." Si Nan said, leaning against him tightly.
"You are too anxious." Cheng Suming sighed: "Everything will be fine in the future."
"I hope so."
When Si Nan woke up again, she was awakened by the alarm clock. She pressed the alarm clock in a daze, and Cheng Su Ming was no longer in bed. He wrote a sticky note and stuck it on the wall opposite the bed, saying that he was on the early shift today and asked her to remember to eat breakfast.
Sinan had become accustomed to his working hours being reversed day and night, so he quietly put on his clothes, combed his hair, took ointment, toothbrush, water cup, ID card, and opened the door to go out.
Everyone who boards the Ark will receive a new ID card, which contains information such as work card, access to area restricted gates, salary performance, etc.
Anyone entering or leaving any area must carry their ID card with them. Every time they pass through a gate, they must swipe the card to authenticate their personal information before they can enter or leave freely.
Si Nan had just left the house when Cheng Wei from next door also left the house. She yawned and greeted her, "Good morning, sister-in-law."
"You got up so early today, are you going to the hospital for a prenatal check-up?" Si Nan's eyes fell on Cheng Wei's round belly.
"Yes, last night when I was lying down to sleep, I felt a little short of breath. Wentao was worried that something might happen to me and the baby, so he asked me to go to the hospital to get some oxygen today." Cheng Wei touched her belly and said with a worried look on her face.
Si Nan nodded: "It's time to go check it out."
Yang Wentao came out carrying a package of medical records and supplies needed for prenatal checkups. When he saw Sinan, he called out to her, "Sister-in-law, we're in a hurry. We'll leave first."
He turned around and held Cheng Wei's arm with his hand, his fierce face showing a gentle look: "Xiao Wei, walk slowly, there is no rush."
Si Nan looked at the two people slowly walking down the stairs, and the corners of his mouth curled up unconsciously.
Cheng Wei was found to be pregnant nine months ago, but Yang Wentao did not plan to have the baby because their lives were already difficult enough and it would be too sad to have another child and let the child suffer with them.
But when Cheng Wei saw that Sheng Youbin and Xu Xiao both had children, she asked Si Yufang to help take care of the children every day. Si Yufang held their chubby daughter and smiled when she was teased, which melted her heart. She was unwilling to abort the child and cried in front of Yang Wentao every day. Yang Wentao really couldn't stand it and had to let her do what she wanted.
Now that Cheng Wei is about to give birth, Yang Wentao, who is about to become a father, is probably both nervous about Cheng Wei and looking forward to the birth of the child.
The plantation dormitory where Sinan lived was a suspended three-story dormitory. Each floor had about a thousand small rooms of about ten square meters. Some of them were occupied by couples, some by families. There were very few single dormitories, and usually there were five or six people living in them.
There are very few people like Cheng Suming and Si Nan who live in the same room. One reason is that Cheng Suming has a quota on the Ark, and the other is that Cheng Suming is a doctor, which is considered a special profession, so he is given a couple's room as a benefit.
The total height of the three-story dormitory is only six meters, and the bottom of the building is about four meters from the deck. Below is a large area of soil where many crops are planted.
It was around seven in the morning and most people in the dormitory were up. They lined up in the water room and toilet at the end of each floor, which was less than 30 square meters, to get water.
Mao Pingzhen and her daughter got up early today and took their children to the toilet. Seeing Si Nan queuing at the back of the line, Mao Pingzhen waved to her enthusiastically: "Xiao Nan, why are you queuing? Come over and join us."
There were people in the crowd who I didn’t like and I wanted to say something, but then I remembered that Sinan’s husband was a doctor and many people went to see him when they were sick.
Sinan was treated specially by the person in charge of the planting area and was asked to do the work of a supervisor. Even if Sinan cut in line, they couldn't say anything and just let it go.
They had lived in the same dormitory for three years, and Si Nan knew what these people were thinking. She declined politely, "No, auntie. I don't want to go to the bathroom now. I'll go later."
There are only a few toilets on each floor of the dormitory building, and with thousands of people squeezing in, it's hard to tell how long it will take for everyone to finish using the toilets.
Every time she would put a small bucket in her room, and when she felt very uncomfortable, she would go to the toilet there. When there were not many people around, she would pour the excrement in the bucket into the toilet. So she would not cut in line by relying on her job.
She didn't cut in line, but Si Yufang's family was not polite and led the children to cut in line directly. The main reason was that the children had a lot of feces and urine and couldn't hold it in, so they had to queue up honestly and didn't know how long it would take.
They cut in line to use the toilet, which naturally caused a lot of dissatisfaction, but everyone did it. If one family grabbed the toilet, it was not uncommon for their relatives and friends to take turns cutting in line to use it.
Many people have participated in this, and after complaining a few words, they only blame themselves for not getting up early to occupy the toilet.
By the time Sinan finished queuing up to get water and brushed his teeth, forty minutes had passed and he was less than twenty minutes away from work.
Sinan hurriedly put the towel and toothbrush back into the room and went downstairs. He first used his ID card to swipe through two gates and went to the poultry and livestock area next door to see if the gatekeeper couple Dahei and Dabai had run around or urinated or defecated.
When she brought the couple Dahei and Dabai to the Ark, the heads of various areas on the Ark were shocked. They did not expect that she could still keep three pets in such a difficult doomsday environment. They even handed over nearly fifty chickens, ducks and geese when they were on the Ark.
This made the person in charge of the poultry and livestock area, which was already short of live poultry for breeding, very happy. He took the initiative to say that the place where Sinan lived was too small, so he could raise the couple Dahei and Dabai in the poultry area.
Seeing that Dahei was quite clever and could understand what people said, he applied to his superiors to hire Dahei as a dog security guard, responsible for guarding the gate of the poultry and livestock area.
The Dabai couple followed behind Dahei, and Dahei protected them from being caught and eaten, but Sinan was responsible for their eating, drinking, defecating and urinating.
Fortunately, the Dabai couple did not urinate or defecate randomly today. It must be because Dahei was watching over them and driving them to the designated area, so she didn't have to deal with it.
Si Nan touched the big black head that was wagging its tail at her enthusiastically and praised him: "You did a great job, Dahei. I'll give you an extra chicken drumstick at noon."
Turning around, I saw Dabai standing at the fingerprint clocking entrance next to the gate of the breeding area, with his goose neck stretched out and his fat butt sticking out, he was biting the legs and feet of the people working there one after another. The people working there were dodging him with a smile as if it was nothing.
Si Nan rushed over and kicked Dabai on the butt. When it fell, he grabbed its neck with his hands, lifted it in front of him, and said to it fiercely: "Dabai, you are itching again, aren't you? You can't change your habit of biting people. Do you want to be kept in a cage, or do you want to be stewed in a pot?"
Another warning from the iron pot! Dabai understood what she said, and his goose eyes showed fear. His two big goose webbed feet slid and struggled rapidly in the air, and his throat made a low quack, indicating that he knew he was wrong and would not make the same mistake again.
Sinan threw it to the ground and saw it spreading its goose wings, clucking, and running behind Dahei, seeking Dahei's protection.
Dahei actually stood in front of it, stretched out his dog paw and placed it on Sinan's hand, signaling with his eyes that Dabai knew he was wrong and should stop locking its neck.
Si Nan said to Dahei angrily: "Just protect it. If it catches someone one day and they come to me to complain and ask for compensation, I will stew you too!"
Dahei barked and grinned at her.
Master, you have a sharp tongue but a soft heart. You can say it, but you are not willing to stew us.
Si Nan was too lazy to talk nonsense with them. Seeing that it was getting late, she hurried to the outside of the planting area, which was very large and located on the top right floor of the Ark's sixth floor. She had breakfast in the large cafeteria with good lighting, close to the Ark's super sturdy, explosion-proof and bullet-proof floor-to-ceiling windows.
Everyone had to go to work at this time, and there were fewer people queuing for meals. She took the elevator to the cafeteria and rushed directly to the tenth food window.
There was a couple in their thirties getting their meals. When they saw her, they didn't need her to say anything. They saw her swipe her ID card and deducted her breakfast points. The couple immediately put a bowl of noodles with gravy, a portion of kimchi, and an egg on her plate and smiled at her, "You're late again today."
The meals in the cafeteria are different every day, but they are the same every week.
The couple remembered the various flavors of food she liked to eat every day, and the portion size they ordered was obviously one-third larger than that at other windows.
Because when this couple lived in Shenxianyuan Community in Xingcheng eight years ago, they had received help from Sinan many times.
The woman was the one who came downstairs with a big belly, and her husband knelt down and begged Si Nan to borrow the raft so that they could row to the hospital to give birth.
When they never returned that year, Si Nan thought they had died in a natural disaster. Unexpectedly, they were not only alive and well, but also boarded Ark 2 early and did the canteen logistics work that everyone wanted to do.
Three years ago, when Si Nan came to the cafeteria for the first time, they recognized her. They thanked her profusely and told her to get her meals from their window in the future. Si Nan has been eating at this window since then.
There are quite a few people like this who Si Nan thought were most likely dead but are still alive and appearing on the Ark. For example, the Ban Tianyi brother and sister who used to live next door to them in Xingcheng turned out to be well-known hacker technical talents.
They were recruited to Ark No. 1 by the National IT Technology Department and were responsible for the electronic defense system of Ark No. 1. When the defense system of Ark No. 2 encountered an accident, the brother and sister appeared on Ark No. 2 and met Si Nan. Afterwards, Ban Tianyi used his points to exchange for a lot of supplies and came to Ark No. 2 to express his gratitude to her.
The military leadership team of the Shishan Base, including Division Commander Ye, Brigade Commander Zhou, Yan Hongyi, and Yin Peng, all boarded the Ark one after another within a year after the water level rose.
Even Zou Shichu was still alive and followed Commander Ye and his men aboard Ark One.
......
Zou Shichu has now become Commander Ye's secretary. Every few months, he would find an excuse to come to Ark No. 2 and secretly take a look at Sinan.
He thought Si Nan didn't know, but in fact Si Nan knew everything and just pretended not to know.
However, Zou Shichu has not come to see her for some time. According to the gossip that Bandina told her on a newly created chat software on her mobile phone, Zou Shichu had been very close to a woman who looked very similar to her in the past few months. The two were talking and laughing, and seemed to be in a relationship.
Ban Tianna, who has grown into a big girl, asked her if Zou Shichu knew that there was no possibility for them to be together anymore, so he sent a substitute, Wenxue?
Si Nan felt mixed emotions at the time, but she said nothing, because in her heart, Zou Shichu was already a dead stranger. What kind of life he lived now or who he was with had nothing to do with her.
She also asked Bandina not to tell her any news about Zou Shichu, and only tell her some inside information about the Ark.
Si Nan held the plate and said to the Guan couple with a smile, "We didn't get up too late, but we waited too long in line to brush our teeth and get water, which delayed us a bit."
The man surnamed Guan understood: "The whole world has been submerged for nearly three years, and there is no sign of the water receding. The water is full of bacteria and garbage, and the fish in it have all mutated. The various water purification equipment on the Ark can only purify a limited amount of usable water. Any water used will be deducted from the salary card. It is impossible for everyone to not wash up all the time, so it is normal for there to be so many people."
"That's not all." His wife sighed and said, "The poisonous fog that appeared two years ago caused throat itching, coughing, skin ulcers and other symptoms as long as the skin was exposed to the air. This horrible weather has lasted for two years. Because of the obstruction of vision, we can't see what is happening ten meters outside. I don't know when this crowded ark will end."
Sinan agreed: "Who says it isn't? Everyone is looking forward to the day when the poisonous fog dissipates, the water level recedes, and we can leave the Ark and rebuild our homes."
She was holding her tray and preparing to sit by the window to eat breakfast when she suddenly felt the Ark vibrate and alarm devices in various parts of the Ark began beeping.
Before she could figure out what was going on, she heard the other people who were having breakfast in the cafeteria shouting in surprise: "Oh my God! The sun is out, the poisonous fog has dissipated, and I can see water outside!"
"Wow! Really! The poisonous fog has really dissipated!"
"You only see water? I also see mountains. Is that the top of the Himalayas?"
"Oh my god, it really is the top of the Himalayas. Wait, why is the top of the mountain getting farther and farther away?"
"Fuck! The water is receding at an alarming speed!"
Sinan looked out the window. The sky outside, which had been thick with poisonous fog for more than two years, suddenly became clear with blue clouds.
The Himalayas, which had disappeared in the distance for a long time and been submerged in water for many years, are now appearing clearly in front of everyone at a very fast speed.
The Ark was shaking slightly as the water level receded. After the alarm sounded, a neutral and steady voice was broadcast from the speakers installed in various parts of the Ark: "Attention all personnel on the Ark! Please do not panic and stay calm! According to the Ark's weather system monitoring, the poisonous fog has dissipated and the water level is receding. Our Ark is built with the world's strongest materials. No matter what the situation is, there will be no signs of damage and no threat to everyone's life. Please return to your respective living areas in an orderly manner and wait for the person in charge of each area to conduct a statistics. After the water level recedes, we will send people to the Ark to survey whether the exposed ground is harmful and whether it is suitable for survival. Once you are adapted to survival, please cooperate with our work, get off the Ark in an orderly manner, and rebuild a new home. In the days to come, we will always be with you!"
After listening to the broadcast, Sinan quickly finished all the food on his plate, and under the command of the cafeteria manager, he followed a group of people back to his living area.
People were talking about it, most of them were saying excitedly: "The water has finally receded, we can get off the ark and go to land. I wonder if there will be other natural disasters after we rebuild our homes?"
"No matter what natural disasters there are, our country's best resources are on these two arks. If there are other natural disasters, we can just go back to the arks to survive. What are you afraid of?"
“That’s true.”
"I suddenly feel a little bit excited about the future."
"Me too."
"Me too... I want to wait until my home is rebuilt, settle down, find a wife, have two children, and have a wife and children to sleep with every day. Just thinking about it makes me happy."
"With your appearance, who would like you?"
"Just take a fancy to me."
"Bah! You're dreaming!"
......
Si Nan looked at a handsome man with a soldier-like temperament standing not far in front of her, bickering with Sheng Youqing, and she couldn't help but laugh along.
She is also looking forward to the day of rebuilding her home.
The author has something to say:
This is the end of the article.
Thank you to all the little angels who have supported me all the time. See you in the next book.
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