Do you believe in gods?
In her sleep, Jiang Xi frowned, muttering, "Who? Who is a god?"
There was only silence in response.
Then she suddenly opened her eyes and sat up in a panic.
My heart was pounding.
Jiang Xi took deep breaths with all her might to relieve the suffocating feeling in her chest.
After a short while, her intuition told her that something was wrong.
I subconsciously looked around and all I could see was greenery. There were trees everywhere, with strange shapes, their branches and leaves intertwined, twisted, and hunched over, making it look like a forest.
Or more accurately, it's a forest, with ancient trees that are vigorous and their branches and leaves are dense, letting through dappled patches of light and shadow.
In the distance, the ground roots creep and twist, their surfaces covered with yellowish-green moss and lichen due to the dampness.
The air was filled with the smell of fallen leaves and fermenting rotten wood, making it feel suffocating.
Where is this?
All her memories were stuck at the moment before she fell into a deep sleep.
Not long ago, there was that terrifying heavy snowfall.
All the abnormalities started that day.
That day, it was early July, the beginning of the hottest period of summer, and the daytime temperature reached as high as 41 degrees Celsius.
Jiang Xi is usually very busy with her work at the research institute and rarely eats dinner at home. The cold wave arrived on Friday night.
After get off work, I had dinner with some colleagues from the research institute. By the time I got home, it was already 9 p.m.
The air conditioner broke down last week and hasn't been fixed yet. It's been so hot for several days that I can't sleep, so I have to open all the windows to let the air circulate.
When she got home, she was glad that the temperature was just right, with a gentle breeze blowing, and thought she could finally get a good night's sleep.
Unexpectedly, I was suddenly awakened by a cold wind at around 1 a.m., and when I looked out the window, it was snowing heavily.
The snow outside was falling heavily and rapidly, and as far as the eye could see, the ground outside the window was covered in white frost.
She fell into a vicious cycle of self-doubt and doubt about the world.
The one-bedroom apartment was like an icebox without a trace of heat, with biting cold wind whistling into the room from outside the window.
Jiang Xi used the blanket to shield herself from the wind, picked up her phone, checked the date, and confirmed that today was July 29th.
When I saw that the temperature on my phone was minus ten degrees Celsius, an indescribable fear suddenly rose in my heart, even though it was summer.
Without thinking twice, she got up and hurriedly closed all the windows, took out the thick quilts, put on a sweater and down jacket, and even dug out the thick fleece pants that she had kept at the bottom of the closet in previous years, putting on two layers on her legs.
The water in the water dispenser had frozen into a thin layer of ice. Fearing that it would freeze and there would be no water to drink, Jiang Xi quickly set up a pot to boil water. Fortunately, there was still gas and electricity available.
Snow in July—she truly encountered all sorts of strange and unusual events.
Mobile apps are flooded with news about the heavy snow, with reports saying that the snow has swept the globe, sparing most tropical regions.
Jiang Xi soaked a packet of noodles in hot water and ate it while trying to call her parents in X City. Although the call went through, no one answered.
After making more than a dozen calls, half an hour later, a cold, mechanical female voice came from the other end of the line: "Sorry, the number you dialed is not in service."
At this moment, a huge sense of panic suddenly arose in her heart, and her eyes began to sting for no reason.
Jiang Xi opened the websites for booking airline and high-speed rail tickets again, but without exception, they were all suspended due to heavy snow and extreme cold. For a moment, she felt as if her whole body was frozen, and even her fingers were stiff and unable to curl up.
She snapped out of her daze. She quickly opened the news in X city and saw those striking words. She felt her stomach churn and her eyelids burn.
News reports stated that the disaster was severe in coastal areas, with snow accumulation reaching a depth of one meter in the city where the parents lived, and the signal network completely paralyzed.
Jiang Xi tried to stay calm and reassure herself that the outcome might not be so bad, but another voice in her mind told her that the situation might be even worse.
My parents live at my maternal grandmother's house in the countryside. There are only single-story houses there. Even if the roof doesn't collapse under the weight of a meter of snow, the heavy snow can block the door.
If the snow keeps falling and gets too thick, it will block the windows, and there's no need to think about what awaits the parents in the bitter cold.
Gradually, the temperature dropped, and the network in her city went down. She kept refreshing and searching for news, but without exception, all the messages were from an hour ago.
With roads closed nationwide, the idea of going to see my parents is clearly no longer feasible.
She pulled out her thick boots, put them on, grabbed her keys, slammed the door, and headed straight for the supermarket while making a phone call.
First, survive; make sure you survive first.
There's not much food at home, and takeout delivery is definitely not going to be available. The water pipes might also freeze and burst, so we have to buy some food and drinks to stock up.
If it's this cold and there's no food, the situation will only get worse.
She was afraid to take the elevator, because if there was a power outage at this time, the elevator would stop working.
I ran down the stairs with a thud, and as soon as I got to the second floor, I could hear a lot of voices below.
Everyone was crowded in the stairwell at the entrance of the building, but no one dared to open the door. Thick snow blocked the way outside. Without any tools, everyone anxiously looked out the door and made unanswered phone calls.
Jiang Xi understood that in this special period of society, the more people there were, the more dangerous it was.
She cautiously circled the crowd and went home to wait. With the roads blocked by heavy snow, the city's snow removal team would definitely prioritize clearing the snow from the roads.
She felt the temperature seemed to have dropped even further. She took out her phone and checked the temperature; in just one hour, the outdoor temperature had already fallen to minus thirty degrees Celsius.
Snow in July—even the most oblivious person knows disaster is coming.
Thank goodness there was still gas. Jiang Xi quickly poured all the water into the pot and put it back on to boil. She then wrapped the pot in thick clothes to keep it warm and prevent it from freezing.
With no food left at home, she had no choice but to bundle up in thick clothes and hide under the covers, even wearing her newly bought sneakers to keep warm and conserve her energy, hoping to wait for rescue.
At this time, the crops in the fields were in a state of transition, large swathes of wheat had frozen to death, and frozen birds were falling from the sky from time to time.
As dawn broke, tens of thousands of livestock calves had already succumbed to the cold wave, dying beneath their mothers.
A heavy snowfall claimed countless lives, and shattered millions of families overnight.
Jiang Xi stayed at home for two days, and as the temperature dropped, her phone eventually lost signal.
The water in the pot remained frozen. She neither received the good news that the snow had been cleared away nor received any rescue.
While she was in a coma, the elderly people upstairs went door to door asking for food. Jiang Xi had no food and dared not open the door, so she could only hide and pretend that no one was home.
She didn't know how much time had passed. She huddled in the blankets, constantly refreshing her phone's network. The two thick blankets on her body made it hard for her to breathe, leaving only a small opening for her to breathe, but she was still cold, very cold.
The cold air blowing in from the vents made her fingers numb, and her nasal cavity often felt stinging from the cold air.
Perhaps because she hadn't eaten for too long, she felt dizzy and short of breath, but she had no strength in her body. She could only force herself to stay awake and kept refreshing her phone, which had no signal.
Heavy snow blocked all roads, cities lost water and electricity, and underground water pipes burst due to the sudden drop in temperature, paralyzing cities around the world for a time.
The cold snap extinguished the city's vibrancy; from day to night, the only faint sound was the falling snow.
She had lost count of how many days and nights had passed. Jiang Xi was in a deep sleep, her declining bodily functions making her feel like she was in hell one moment and like she was in the clouds the next.
Suddenly, her phone caught a signal and made a "ding" sound, waking Jiang Xi from her deep sleep. With heavy eyelids, she strained to look at her phone.
After reading the message, the tense expression on her face finally relaxed.
He muttered to himself, "Okay..."
It was filled with deep resentment and regret, but also a hint of relief.
When Jiang Xi woke up again, she found herself here, lying under a broad-leaved tree with a diameter of more than one meter, which looked like a camphor tree.
She leaned weakly against the tree trunk, her trousers soaked with the wet grass beneath her feet, which was also stained with some green grass juice.
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