Chapter 81 Transfer of Shelter Spots, for those in need...
Besides inquiring about the number of available spots, some people also intruded, tentatively asking if pets were allowed.
I've had my dog since elementary school; he's like family to me, and I really don't want to be separated from him.
[My cat is the same way. My Ragdoll seems to have absolutely no survival skills in the wild. I'm so afraid she'll starve to death.]
[My cat is different. My parents have fed him so much he's practically round and fat, like a starving ghost reincarnated. He eats everything, and despite a year of trying to get him on a diet, he's gained two pounds instead. I'm not worried about him starving to death now; I'm afraid he'll be used as food by starving humans (crying)]
These posts are both funny and sad, but they also reveal the deep concern that pet owners have for their furry friends, hidden beneath the jokes.
They really can't bear to leave their pets.
The owner of the chubby orange cat even posted a photo; the round, fat cat looked innocently at the camera, its face suggesting it had never experienced hardship.
Zombies don't attack animals unprovoked; leaving them outside is actually safer.
[By then, humans will be busy escaping, and those who abuse cats and dogs will no longer exist. There won't be many natural predators for them in the cities. Didn't we see that when we were playing simulation games? Three or four years after the apocalypse, there will be more stray cats and dogs than people in the cities, and they'll all be healthy and live very comfortably.]
+1, if you're really worried, you can leave some cat and dog food in advance and hide it in a cool, dry place like an underground parking garage. In the apocalypse, it's very risky for ordinary people to go out. When they go out, their goals are very clear; they're aiming for places like stores and supermarkets where there might be supplies. They won't go to underground parking garages to look for food. Those cat and dog food items won't be easily discovered, and the cats and dogs will be safe there.
Once they've eaten their fill, and the early stages of the apocalypse are mostly over, they can come out and forage for food on their own.
In other places, these seemingly irrelevant questions would probably be ignored or even met with a disdainful look. But in student forums, all sorts of things are discussed, and as long as a question is raised, someone will generally give serious advice.
The homepage posts refreshed very quickly, and just then, a post was pushed to the top as soon as it was published.
Title: [Transfer of shelter spot, private message if interested, first come first served.]
Everyone who came across this post was initially stunned, thinking they had misread it.
Shelter spots are so rare, each spot represents a life, and would be fiercely contested even in a post-apocalyptic novel. How could anyone be willing to transfer one?
Clicking through, the main post further explained the situation.
Main post: [My family passed away a long time ago. I was passed around by various relatives since I was a child. I moved to a different place every now and then and kept changing schools until I moved out at the age of eighteen. Only then did I stop being ridiculed for eating a few more bites of food.]
Because of family reasons, I was bullied a lot when I was in school and didn't have many friends. All my current friends are people I made after coming to Fangzhou.
Coming to this school, I realized what it's like to go out with friends on weekends, and that campus life can be so much fun. It's funny, when school first started, everyone was complaining about how tiring the training was, but actually, I looked forward to each new day, and I would even secretly laugh out loud under the covers at night.
Knowing that everyone has a shelter spot, I thought about it for a long time but couldn't think of a suitable recipient, so I decided to just share it with everyone. This spot isn't very useful to me, but if I give it away, it might save someone important to my classmates, someone they don't want to lose. Thinking about that makes me happy.
My score should be enough to qualify for two spots.
If you're interested, please send me a private message with the person you want to give it to and a brief reason. I will select recipients in the order I receive your messages.
After reading the main text, everyone's doubts turned into sighs.
When the end of the world comes, and you don't even know who to choose to live with... how lonely would that be?
The first few people to reply didn't mention those two coveted spots.
1L: [Hugs to the original poster]
2L: [I don't know if you're male or female, but it's the last month before the apocalypse, how about we hang out? Murder mystery games, werewolf games, escape rooms, karaoke... I'm open to anything! I've also got vouchers for several highly-rated restaurants, we need to go eat there soon!]
3L: [I feel the same way as the original poster. Although the days of training together were painful, I really made a lot of good friends.]
Everyone in Fangzhou is so talented and speaks so well. I love it here!
4L: [After reading this, I don't know what to say. The future will definitely get better and better (saying this before the end of the world feels a bit strange)]
7L (the original poster) replied to 2L: [Thank you, but I still want to remain anonymous in this thread, so I can't contact everyone privately. Sorry.]
8L: [I breathed a sigh of relief seeing the eighth floor. It seems the original poster is still mindful of keeping things confidential. To be honest, I was startled when I first saw this post.]
10L replied to 7L: [What does that mean? I don't understand.]
13L replied to 10L: [The original poster has two extra shelter slots. Exposing their true identity is somewhat dangerous. It would be much safer to just go online.]
Just a reminder to the original poster: you can give up your spot, but please, absolutely do not meet the other person in person!
—That's the advantage of anonymous forums.
The redemption method announced by Fuqing is very simple. First, students use points to redeem [blank spots]. Then, after the apocalypse, there will be a month to determine who will move into the shelter.
During this month, they can enter the other person's identity information at any time through their student wristbands. Only after binding can the other person enter Fangzhou.
In other words, once the account is linked, even people from outside the school can enter Fangzhou on their own without needing a designated student to escort them. The school will organize patrol and security teams, and the system will monitor those entering the school. In case of an accident, the security team will arrive at the scene immediately.
In other words, students can directly tell the host the name of the person they want to bring in via private message, and the host can then redeem the person in their own smart bracelet. The two parties do not need to meet in person, minimizing the risks faced by the host.
13L made a comment, and those who didn't realize it at first suddenly understood.
They trust their classmate, that's true, but one should always be wary of others. The original poster is already doing a good deed, so they shouldn't take any risks because of it.
User 2L, who uses a fixed account, reappeared and apologized: "[I didn't think things through earlier. I didn't mean anything by it. Sorry TAT.]"
The original poster quickly replied: [No need to apologize, thank you very much. How about sending me the list of restaurants you've been eyeing? I can invite my roommates to go eat there together.]
Original comment #2: [Okay, okay! I've already sent a private message!]
...
20L: [I'm a little curious, why didn't you give it to your roommate?]
27L (original poster) replied to 20L: [I already asked them, and they didn't want anyone. They were the ones who suggested I put my spot on the forum.]
Everyone understood after thinking about it.
With such a valuable spot, how could the poster's roommates possibly not want it?
The original poster is a rare exception. For the vast majority of students in Fangzhou, there are never enough shelter slots, only a shortage.
If they really offered a spot, of course everyone would want it—who wouldn't?
However, there are three people left in the dormitory after deducting the host, but there are only two spots. No matter how they are distributed, it is not fair. Those who do not get a spot will inevitably feel resentful, and the others may also feel guilty.
According to the original poster, the roommates have a good relationship, so it's highly likely that after discussing it, they felt that rather than dividing it up like this and causing internal discord, it would be better to share it.
For example, someone might have poor grades or perform poorly on an exam and only be able to get the minimum number of spots, but their parents can't let one of them go—an extra spot is obviously more valuable to them.
Fangzhou's students are all hardworking and excellent, but with more than two thousand students in a school, there will always be some who are at the bottom.
After figuring it out, someone couldn't help but say: [OP's roommate is a good person too.]
[I'm a little touched; you must be very important to them.]
52L (Original Poster): [Yeah, I'm also very fortunate to have met such a group of good friends (grinning silly.jpg)]
This is the first time the original poster has used emojis in their writing, and mentioning a friend has suddenly given the otherwise understated text a touch of warmth.
It makes anyone who clicks on the post smile knowingly.
Although their experiences may not be as profound as the original poster's, the friends they met in Fangzhou are equally invaluable to them.
This post was continuously pushed to the top of the homepage. Although the original poster did not reply, several other people who were also offering their spots appeared intermittently in the comments.
[I only want to take my mother with me. I can also give up one spot. Please DM me.]
[I'm offering one spot in the same way as the original poster; I believe there are people who need it more than I do.]
Although there aren't many of these people, their appearance in the same post is still quite striking.
*
The midday air was stifling and scorching, and the blazing sun made exposed skin sting. Shen Qingqing, wearing a large straw hat and carrying a bunch of green beans, walked home along the country path.
She was wearing her old clothes from junior high school. The T-shirt, which had been washed many times, was loose and had long lost its shape. Because she felt hot, she rolled up her short sleeves to her shoulders, revealing her arms, which were tanned to a wheat color. Even without exerting any force, the lines of muscle undulations were still visible.
Shen Qingqing was somewhat absent-minded, recalling the situation of her own vegetable garden.
Her mother, Zang Lijun, and her grandmother took good care of the vegetable garden. It was a lush green patch that could be seen from a distance. Since Shen Qingqing came back, she had fresh fruits and vegetables from their own garden to eat every day.
However, the vegetable garden is quite a distance from the family's courtyard and is not within the courtyard's boundaries.
They can't guard the vegetable garden 24 hours a day, which means that it will leave an opportunity for other villagers to take advantage of them.
—Actually, you don't even need to wait until the end of the world. Yesterday evening, when Shen Qingqing went to pick vegetables for dinner, she saw some naughty kid from the village secretly pinching her tomatoes with his butt sticking out. When he saw Shen Qingqing approaching, he ran away in a flash.
Originally, most families in the village had vegetable gardens, but after the news of the resettlement housing came out, many families gradually stopped tending to their vegetable gardens and just waited to move.
But there's still no news about moving, and life has to go on. Sometimes when I'm cooking, I realize I'm missing ingredients, so I have no choice but to borrow some from my neighbor.
Some less respectable families would directly instruct their children to secretly pick the fruit from the fields.
Shen Qingqing's family has a large vegetable garden, and since there are only two women in the family who manage it, they are usually the biggest suckers.
Zang Lijun didn't mind at all. She felt that they were all fellow villagers, and it was fine to pick a few tomatoes or beans.
Little did she know that Shen Qingqing was worried about what would happen after the apocalypse.
Now adults are too embarrassed to pick them, so they only let the children come. But when there is a food shortage, who cares about being dignified?
During her winter break, she persuaded her parents to rebuild the fence around the yard, and of course, she also took good care of the vegetable garden. She did all this not so that she could become a fat sheep to be slaughtered.
Unfortunately, she couldn't extend her fence all the way to the vegetable garden.
Having not yet come up with a good solution, Shen Qingqing could only do something else for the time being.
—Ever since she returned home and saw other people's abandoned vegetable gardens, she cleared out a large space within her own yard, dividing it into sections to plant bok choy, green beans, and many other things. She also drove a rented car back and forth to the nearby county town several times, and intermittently stored a lot of grain seeds and other supplies in the cellar.
She dug up the once beautiful courtyard, turning it into a pitted mess where you could easily trip over it, and it reeked of fertilizer. Grandma Chen was furious, standing at the door with her hands on her hips every day, yelling at her, but that tactic was no longer effective against her granddaughter.
Ever since Old Man Shen was splashed with excrement, he has been listless and dispirited. The story of his embarrassing incident at such an old age has spread throughout the village. He rarely leaves his house now, spending his time at home smoking in melancholy and occasionally making sarcastic remarks, which are often ignored.
Even Zang Lijun learned to carefully ignore him.
In short, no one in this family can stop Shen Qingqing now.
The Shen family couldn't understand how their usually quiet granddaughter, who had lived for eighteen years, could suddenly seem to have developed a second personality. She was always fighting wild boars, climbing on roofs and tearing off tiles, and now she wanted to plant rice seedlings. She was full of energy and jumping around every day, and she didn't stop even when they came home twice.
Shen Qingqing took the green beans home and went straight to her little vegetable garden in the corner of the yard.
The bok choy she planted when she first got home is ready to be harvested after almost a month of careful tending. She picked a few to make soup.
Zang Lijun stood under the eaves cooking, glancing at her daughter's back out of the corner of her eye.
After Shen Qingqing returned, she did many things. To outsiders, repairing the wall, building a vegetable garden, and stocking up on groceries at the supermarket were all signs of her caring for her family. Shen Mingjiang would even occasionally whisper to her with a relieved tone after turning off the lights late at night that his daughter had become more family-oriented since starting university.
However, Zang Lijun felt that this was not the case.
When Shen Qingqing was doing these things, she rarely communicated with her family. Occasionally, Zang Lijun would see her daughter halfway through her work, suddenly looking up in a certain direction, her silent profile as if she were carrying a lot of thoughts, or as if she was longing for something, which made Zang Lijun feel both heartache and unease.
It wasn't until the last two days that Zang Lijun suddenly realized where her unease came from.
She felt she was going to lose her daughter.
Shen Qingqing's every move after returning home was less about "taking care of her family" and more about saying her final goodbye to her home.
Every time she gazed intently in that direction, and then returned to her work after snapping out of her reverie, her eyes would become even more resolute.
Zang Lijun was flustered by this speculation.
After lunch, Shen Qingqing got up to help her clear the dishes, when Zang Lijun suddenly grabbed her daughter's hand: "Qingqing."
Shen Qingqing was somewhat surprised. Zang Lijun looked into her eyes and suddenly realized that the child who had grown up by her side since childhood had grown up in a place far away from her and had become a completely different person.
She really wanted to ask her daughter where she wanted to go and if she could take her with her.
But what came out of her mouth was: "Are you happy with your life at school?"
Although Shen Qingqing was surprised, she still thought about it carefully, and then a smile appeared in her eyes: "Yes, I'm very happy."
"That's good..." Zang Lijun forced a smile. "After graduation, why don't you just stay in S City? Big cities offer better development and a higher standard of living. Don't listen to your grandparents and go back to the village..."
When Zang Lijun noticed Shen Qingqing staring intently at her, her heart skipped a beat, and she quickly added, "Of course, there's no need to rush into a decision. I'm not putting pressure on you. You can think about job hunting in your junior or senior year..."
Her words were interrupted, and Shen Qingqing took Zang Lijun's hand in return.
She glanced at the calendar on the wall; today was August 1st.
Turning her gaze away, Shen Qingqing gently asked her mother, "Mom, when school starts, would you like to come with me to visit my school?"
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