When they saw the red light indicating that the power was on, all three of them were extremely excited.
Even the hand that Grandpa Lu used to press the switch was trembling slightly.
Once the switch was pressed, the next four hours were spent waiting.
It was already past five in the afternoon, and Old Lady Lu didn't even feel like cooking dinner.
But her granddaughter was too young to go hungry, so she got up and went to the kitchen to cook a small bowl of egg noodles for her granddaughter in the heat.
The adults simply cooked a pot of mixed grain porridge and ate it with pickled radish strips.
"Mommy, An'an is so hot!"
After Leng Jiajia finished feeding her daughter the noodles, the temperature in the living room was slowly rising.
Fortunately, the sun outside was gradually moving westward, and thanks to the insulation, the indoor temperature in the living room was still bearable for adults.
But An'an, who is still young, felt a bit hot.
"An'an, this ice maker is using electricity to make ice. In a few hours, once the ice is ready, we can turn the air conditioner back on!"
An'an is only two years old and doesn't understand what "ice maker" means. She just nodded obediently when her mother said that the air conditioner could be turned on later.
Seeing her daughter so obedient, Leng Jiajia reached out and patted her daughter's head, then picked up a fan and started fanning her.
After dinner and cleaning, the three adults sat in the living room until nine o'clock. When the green light on the ice maker came on, the three of them got up from the sofa and went straight to the ice maker.
Grandpa Lu was quick; he opened the lid of the ice maker and found that the side of the eight boxes closest to the lid had already frozen solid.
"Looks like it's worked!"
Old Mrs. Lu and Leng Jiajia, who were approaching the ice machine, raised their voices excitedly.
Grandpa Lu happily put on his work gloves, picked up one of the boxes, and poured the ice blocks inside directly onto the dining table.
A large ice block, over a meter long, immediately lay on the gray dining table. The ice block was crystal clear and had sharp edges. Standing next to it, one could feel the cool air coming from it.
"Jiajia, should we store these eight ice blocks in the ice maker?"
Grandpa Lu looked at his daughter-in-law, his face beaming with joy.
Leng Jiajia knew that her father-in-law made a living selling ice bricks with this ice machine. When he asked for her opinion, she thought for a moment and replied directly, "Dad, let's try using these ice bricks to cool down the room tonight!"
When she was in postpartum confinement after giving birth to her daughter, the temperature was around 35 or 36 degrees Celsius. Her bedroom was 13 square meters. She could lower the temperature to 28 or 29 degrees Celsius with just two ice blocks, and the two ice blocks could last for about four hours.
However, the outside temperature is still around 57 degrees Celsius, so the lifespan of these ice blocks will definitely be shortened considerably.
Upon hearing his daughter-in-law's words, Grandpa Lu understood what she meant and replied, "Okay, Jiajia, you and your mother can sleep on the living room floor tonight and enjoy the air conditioning. I'll sleep in our bedroom to test the effectiveness of these ice blocks!"
This test on the ice blocks will take some time.
After saying that, he poured the two boxes of ice cream into a storage box and put the storage box into his room.
As for the remaining six ice blocks, just put them directly into the ice maker, then turn on the ice maker and set the button to "ice storage".
The electricity consumed by storing ice in an ice maker is much less than that consumed by making ice. Fortunately, this solar power storage box also stores a lot of electricity on a regular basis, just in case.
To test how long the ice blocks would last at the current temperature, Grandpa Lu didn't close his eyes until the two ice blocks melted.
He would get up every now and then to check the melting of the ice blocks, then to check the temperature on the room thermometer, and then record these changes in detail with pen and paper.
After the two ice blocks had completely melted, Grandpa Lu noted down the final temperature readings and then left the room.
"How's it going, old man? Will this ice cube hold up in this weather?"
Old Mrs. Lu and her daughter-in-law, who were waiting for the results in the air-conditioned living room, heard the commotion in the living room and quickly got up from their sleeping mats on the floor.
"The test results are pretty good. In this room of about ten square meters, the two ice blocks can last for about two and a half hours!"
As he spoke, Grandpa Lu handed the recorded data to his daughter-in-law: "The room temperature dropped from 47 degrees to 39 degrees!"
"It seems that using ice blocks to cool down is a good idea!"
Leng Jiajia was pleasantly surprised when she heard her father-in-law's words.
Although 39 degrees Celsius is still very hot, it feels much more comfortable to the human body.
Especially in extreme heat where the daytime temperature reaches 60 degrees Celsius, using these ice blocks to lower the room temperature by eight degrees is a lifesaver.
The three excited individuals sat on the sofa in the living room and discussed the price of the ice bricks overnight.
Before six o'clock in the morning, the fireball in the east had already peeked out.
Half an hour later, the fireball rose completely from the horizon.
In just half an hour, the temperature on the thermometer rose by a full seven degrees.
"Sigh, when will this ever end?"
The family came out of the air-conditioned room and walked to Xu Lai's side, their eyes all fixed on the thermometer in Xu Lai's hand.
Seeing that the temperature had already reached 45 degrees Celsius before 7 a.m., the faces of the group were filled with worry.
Although their family has a space and solar power generation equipment, they hide in the space during the day when they have nothing to do, and use the electricity stored by the solar power generation equipment to turn on the air conditioner at night.
Because of the space and solar power equipment, as long as they don't go out, even in such high temperatures, their physical health is actually quite good; the difficulty lies in the mental stress.
In their Jinxiu Haoting residential community, every day through the community group chat, we see many people falling ill or suffering heatstroke and shock due to the high temperatures. Every day, quite a few people die from heatstroke or sudden illnesses caused by extreme heat.
When they woke up today, they saw in the community group chat that three more people had passed away.
More than a dozen people collapsed from the intense heat and urgently appealed to the community management in the group chat to be sent to the hospital.
One hour ago.
As usual, Xu Lai took Wanzi downstairs for a walk and encountered six people in air-conditioning uniforms carrying two corpses down from their building.
She was holding the dumpling and standing right in front of those people.
Out of respect for the deceased, Xu Lai, who was holding the meatballs, quickly moved to the right side of the stairs.
The six exhausted workers carefully placed the body they were carrying on the stairs.
Then, wiping the sweat from his face with his sleeve, one of the men, a man in his forties wearing a mask, said to Xu Lai, "Young lady, no need to let us go, we just need to rest!"
The workers who go to each neighborhood to carry away corpses before dawn these days are recruited from the public through announcements issued by the government and the stationed military.
The purpose is to carry out those who die from heat or illness at home between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. every day and transport them to the crematorium for cremation.
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