Chapter 24: Contradictions Emerge in the Rain
By the evening, the heavy rain and strong winds had not abated at all. Fortunately, the water and electricity had not been cut off, otherwise who knows what would have happened.
Emergency notices were issued on official news, major social media platforms and even community radio.
[Emergency Notice: Due to heavy rains in recent days, water levels in various places have risen rapidly. Please go to high-rise buildings as soon as possible to wait for rescue. Please uphold the spirit of mutual help and overcome difficulties together. ]
Due to two days and one night of continuous heavy rain, the water depth has reached nearly six meters and half of the second floor has been submerged.
There was chaos outside. The rescue team was busy rescuing people trapped in the floods in rural areas, mountainous areas, and low-lying areas. They had no energy to take care of the situation in the city for the time being.
The night was as dark as ink, and the stars and the moon were all hiding behind the dark clouds.
The federal building, police station, courthouse, and library in the distance were brightly lit. Through the heavy rain, rescue workers could be vaguely seen busy at work, and even several speedboats were seen shuttling through the city streets.
"After all, the official manpower is limited. Besides, the higher-ups already know that the doomsday is coming. The disaster will not be resolved in a day or two. I'm afraid they won't expend a lot of energy on rescue operations all the time." Qiao Huizhou said, looking at the rescue team in the distance.
"In addition to the rainstorm crisis, the food problem is even more serious," added Qiao Xinghe.
The room suddenly fell silent, as everyone knew that food shortage would be the primary problem in their future lives.
Moreover, the gray fog has just ended and no one has had time to stock up. It is unclear how long the existing storage can last.
"Hey, don't think about it. It's getting late. Go to bed." Qiao Huizhou glanced at his watch. It was already past nine o'clock.
Since the frequent power outages some time ago, people have become accustomed to going to bed early and getting up early in order to ease the pressure on the power grid.
"good evening."
"good evening."
The thirty-fourth day of the end of the world.
The heavy rain has not abated yet.
The people who are suffering the most now are the residents on the third floor.
They never expected that the accumulated water would completely submerge the first floor so quickly and overflow to the second floor. They were even afraid that the second floor would collapse tomorrow.
The two households on the third floor hope that the building owner and the property management company can hold another meeting to discuss how to solve their problem.
However, the heavy rain blocked the practice between the buildings in the community, and even the mobile phone often had no signal, and it was impossible to contact the property management. The owner did not dare to make a decision alone, so he had to call the owners together again, and they were still on the unrenovated 11th floor.
"See, conflicts are coming one after another." Qiao Xinghe said as he went downstairs.
Qiao Qiao: "I hope there will be more peace."
When we arrived at the 11th floor, the meeting had already begun.
Qiao Qiao looked around and found that only her brother Tang Zhijie came from the opposite side, and her sister Tang Mingli did not come. She didn't know whether she didn't want to come or because she was outside the rescue because of her police identity.
"At this rate, the water will reach the third floor tomorrow. Let's work together to find a solution." Living in 301 is a young couple with a 3-year-old child.
"Did you try to call for help?" asked a man who lived on a high floor.
"Of course I called, but there was no signal on my cell phone and I couldn't get through." The person in room 302 was a single man in his 30s who lived alone.
Others took out their cell phones to check, and sure enough, everyone's cell phone showed no signal.
The building manager stepped forward and said, "There are only two empty rooms on the eleventh floor now. You can see that they are both rough-finished and have not been renovated yet. If you can accept them, you can move in. If not, I have no other options."
The man who lives alone slammed the table and stood up, "Why can they live in a renovated vacant house, but I can only live in an unfinished house? This is not fair."
Ji Bu sat in the corner with his legs crossed, looking nonchalant, "Who asked us to move in first?"
The lone man had always looked down on Ji Bu, and he got even angrier after hearing this, "You little bastard, shut up."
After hearing this, Ji Bu immediately stood up and grabbed the collar of the man living alone, "Who are you scolding?"
"Don't hit me, don't hit me."
When others saw that they were about to take action, they rushed forward to stop them.
A young couple from 301 said, "It's ok for us to live in a rough house, but it's not OK for our children. Can someone kind-hearted enough to take us in? We'll pay 1,000 a day."
Liu Lanxiang stopped helping her son fight and said, "Sister, it's not easy for everyone. Come to my house."
Granny Li was originally bored at home and came down to watch the fun. When she heard this, her eyes lit up and she quickly said, "Come to my house. I have a small family, just me, my daughter-in-law, and my granddaughter."
Liu Lanxiang was not to be outdone, "Come to my house, my family is so lively."
Grandma Li continued: "Alas, there are five people in your family, where is there room for others to live? My family is small, and we three share one bedroom, so one bedroom for the three of you is just right."
The other residents were also tempted when they heard the price of one thousand yuan a day, but reason temporarily prevailed. They still remembered the situation outside and did not rashly let others live in their homes.
The young couple discussed and chose the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law's house on the ninth floor. Liu Lanxiang gnashed her teeth in hatred, thinking that it was Granny Li who prevented her from making money.
The young man in 801 said to the man living alone, "Brother, if you give me one thousand a day, you can live in my house."
The lone man rolled his eyes and said, "You're trying to steal my money! Get lost!"
The young man was just trying it out, so he didn't get angry after being rejected. He just shrugged and left.
Seeing this, Qiao Xinghe and Qiao Qiao took the opportunity to leave.
When they were going back, Qiao Xinghe said, "We won't come down for this kind of meeting in the future."
Qiao Qiao nodded in agreement. "I think so too. The fighting has already started before the water reaches the third floor. If the water reaches a few more floors, there will be bloodshed."
Qiao Qiao found out about the final result from the owners’ group. The man living alone was still reluctant to spend money and ended up moving into the unfinished house in 1102.
He felt unbalanced and insulted everyone in the group for not helping others in need, valuing money more than life, and being cold-blooded and heartless.
But no one paid any attention to him because everyone was facing more serious problems. The federal government still hadn't come to rescue, and there was not enough food.
On the thirty-seventh day of the apocalypse, the third floor was flooded and the water level was about to reach the fourth floor.
In the next few days, precipitation across the country will remain above 100 mm, and in some areas it may even reach 250 mm.
Due to heavy rain, groundwater seeped in and even the toilet could not be used.
Qiao Xinghe could only use cement to temporarily seal it completely, and usually used a portable toilet and black water tank prepared in advance.
During this period, while the power has not been completely cut off, the three members of the Qiao family tried to prepare as many meals as possible. Anyway, the grids in the system backpack are in a time cooling state.
However, the signal is extremely poor, making it almost impossible to make calls, and even surfing the Internet is very slow.
Most of the federal rescue efforts were deployed in the south, where the water system was well developed, while the north took the lead in rescuing rural areas.
As for residents living in lower floors of the city, although rescue teams will also provide rescue, they have limited manpower after all, so they encourage everyone to help each other and find places to live in higher floors on their own.
The people's anxiety is growing as they gradually realize that the federal government does not seem to be doing its best to rescue the disaster-stricken areas.
Many times people can see through the windows that officials outside are busy working, but they don’t know what they are busy with. Sometimes they ignore the victims’ calls for help.
What caused the social unrest was a video posted online by someone unknown:
A man in his forties or fifties was swept downstairs by the flood. He happened to meet an official wearing an orange life jacket nearby. He asked for help but was ignored and eventually drowned. Before he died, he did not give up reaching out to them for help.
Even though the Internet connection is not good, there are still many people who have seen this video. Unfortunately, the federal government will not come out to explain the situation now, and everyone can only curse online.
But this also proves one thing, that the end of the world is not a rumor out of thin air, and the Federation no longer cares about its people.
For a while, theft and robbery occurred frequently.
The community where the Qiao family lives held another meeting, but this time, except for the fourth and fifth floors involved, almost no other residents went.
After some arguments and discussions, the two households on the fourth floor, which were currently in the most critical situation, moved together to the only empty house "1101".
At this time, all the rooms in Building No. 3 were full.
I heard that other buildings are selling well and there are not many vacancies, so the resettlement issue of owners on the lower floors has become a big issue.
One could even see that many people from the building opposite were already living in the corridor, and quarrels and fights were happening repeatedly.
In this situation, no one was willing to accept outsiders and everyone was short of food.
After all, this is not the beginning. After experiencing fog and heavy rain, and the inaction of official personnel, everyone has faced the reality and started to save themselves.
However, there are always some people whose minds are blinded by money. With this mentality, these short-sighted and money-conscious people extorted a large sum of money and let others live in their homes.
Little did he know that he was letting a wolf into the house.
In addition to this, a major incident occurred not only in her community but in all areas: food and water shortages.
Due to the influence of previous gray fog that accelerated food spoilage, many people did not prepare large amounts of food at home.
It's raining heavily and we can't go out now. The supermarkets are closed. It's okay for a few days, but over time, more people will be short of food.
In addition, the groundwater is seriously polluted and the tap water is affected.
Although it has been raining, people who tried to drink rainwater directly had stomach upsets. It was only possible after boiling it that it worked, and people with good physical constitutions had less reaction.
Power outages occur frequently, and nowadays the electricity is only available for 3 or 4 hours a day.
With their living conditions threatened, the usually friendly neighbors have recently had a lot of conflicts.
Fortunately, Qiao Qiao's family is not short of supplies. They stay at home every day. If they draw the curtains and don't look outside, it seems that they are living a peaceful life.
Qiao Qiao had just finished a set of exercises on the yoga mat next to the balcony when she felt the building shaking.
"Earthquake?" Qiao Qiao quickly hid in the corner and shouted to his parents, "Hide quickly!"
Without giving it much thought, the two hid in the bathroom when they heard the sound.
After a few minutes, nothing happened.
“…”
"?"
The three of them stood up and looked at each other.
"Was it just an illusion that I was too tired?" Qiao Qiao was a little unsure.
"No, because I also felt the shaking, and I thought it was caused by standing up after watering the nutrient solution." Qiao Huizhou put down the watering can he had been holding due to nervousness.
"Me too!" Qiao Xinghe looked out the window in shock before he finished speaking.
"What's going on!" Qiao Qiao and Qiao Huizhou also looked over.
No need to answer, they already got the answer.
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