It all started with a rain.
No one thought that the rain would not stop and would get heavier and heavier. A month later, when the city's drainage system could no longer handle the load and the water became deeper and deeper and could not be drained away, it was too late.
The terrain of Flower City is high, and the community where Qiao Qingqing lives is the highest in the area. When it was developed, the advertisements said that one could enjoy the scenery of Flower City and take in everything.
In such a community, the flood reached its peak and submerged the sixth floor, while in other low-lying areas, it had already submerged up to the 10th floor.
The floods lasted for nearly a year, and then the temperature dropped by 40 degrees Celsius, from 22° in autumn to below 20°. The temperature continued to drop, even to minus 80 degrees Celsius.
After that, disasters came without warning. When people recalled the beginning of the apocalypse, they found that the disasters were relatively "gentle" at the beginning. The floods did not appear suddenly. At least the rainfall in the previous month gave people enough time to react. The state machinery was able to cope with it at first, until the water level rose higher and higher, and all places were soaked in water... According to news reports, except for the provinces and cities with high terrain in the west, all other provinces and cities were caught in floods.
When the temperature drops sharply, the Flower City in the south will be more than 80 degrees Celsius below zero. It is hard to imagine how horrible the temperature will be in the north of the country.
When shopping online, Qiao Qingqing first bought the necessary supplies for disaster relief, and placed an order for a large number of bottled mineral water. Because the order was too large, she negotiated a discount with the store. After placing the order, she rented a factory warehouse in the suburbs and sent the address to the store.
Then she ordered rice, noodles, flour, down jackets, quilts and other warm items. It was more cost-effective to buy them from grain production areas and wholesale markets. It was drizzling this week, and it would take a week for the rain to get heavier. When the flood formed, there would be half a month to make ends meet. But Qiao Qingqing didn't dare to take the risk. What if she got stuck on the road and couldn't get back? It was inconvenient to rent a warehouse in another place to receive the goods after buying so many things. It was better to buy them in her own territory, where she was familiar with everything. She specially rented a warehouse from a closed-down clothing factory in the suburbs, paid a monthly rent of 10,000 yuan, and paid a deposit of 4,000 yuan. The nearest residential house to the factory was 800 meters away, so she didn't have to worry about being spied on.
In her previous life, she had seen too many vicious incidents of people being greedy for money. Even this house had been targeted and robbed. She must not be noticed when she collected so many supplies.
There is no need to save money at this time, because money will be waste paper in the future anyway. In order to buy a house, the family has saved 1.2 million yuan, so let's use it all to buy supplies!
An hour later, the masters who were installing the floor heating and solar generator arrived, and Qiao Qingqing welcomed them in. She started work on the house. She put all the movable things in the master bedroom, such as the bed and cabinets, into the space. The floor was not tiled, which saved the effort of removing tiles. This house is more than 20 years old, but the materials used when the community built the house were good. After more than 20 years, the quality is still very good. At least in the last life, it was soaked by floods for a year and frozen by ice and snow for nearly two years. When the hot summer came, the ice and snow melted and the floods reappeared, Qiao Qingqing was driven away, and the house was still good.
"Build a good partition so as not to affect the downstairs." Qiao Qingqing gave instructions to the master who was doing the floor heating, and then took the master who was installing the solar energy to the terrace.
Her house is on the eighth floor, which was a bonus attic when she bought the house. There is also a 15-square-meter terrace outside the attic. In the past few years, the drainage was not good and it would flood when it rained. After Qiao Qingqing got married, the house was used as a wedding room. Shao Shengan and his master improved the drainage of the terrace and attic, and it became better.
She bought a 10KW solar generator, which came with free installation. The final price was set at 110,000 yuan, and she paid a deposit of 20,000 yuan in advance.
Seeing that the rain was light and the workers were doing well, Qiao Qingqing went downstairs. She looked around the attic, which was low, only two meters at the highest point. It was cold in winter and hot in summer and not suitable for daily living. It was usually used to store sundries. She saw a box and went to pull it out. It was already covered with dust. The lid was opened, revealing a stack of old photos. She flipped through them one by one. They were all family photos of her and her parents, from the age of one month to seven years old. With a sneer, she threw the photos back and planned to find a time to cut out her and her mother.
At noon, she ordered seven takeout meals and ate the same food as the chefs.
After dinner, my husband sent me a video invitation: "Look, I'm on the plane. The plane is delayed for an hour. I'm going to turn off my phone in a while. Wait for me. I will arrive in Yuecheng around 5 pm local time. Then I will transfer to the high-speed rail and will be home around 8 pm."
"Okay, come back quickly." Qiao Qingqing answered the video call on the balcony. Shao Shengan only heard the noisy background noise, but didn't think too much about it. The flight attendant came over to remind him, and he reluctantly reminded her to cut off the video.
Without much time to feel sad about autumn, Qiao Qingqing kept placing orders. Large quantities were sent to the warehouse, and small quantities and short distances were sent to the city for urgent delivery. The couriers delivered her parcels in the rain one after another. There was no elevator in the old community, and the couriers were exhausted and sweating. Qiao Qingqing gave five-star reviews to each one and also rewarded them on the platform.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, the worker who came to install the water tank and the worker who came to modify the doors and windows also arrived. For a while, the house was filled with the sounds of construction.
At four o'clock, the master who came to measure the size of the balcony and terrace came to the house, and he quickly measured the size of the balcony and terrace with his apprentice. Because it was introduced by an old friend, the master was also direct: "The balcony is a small problem. It will cost a lot of money to enclose your terrace. I see that you are still making solar generators, so it is indeed necessary to let light in. But you don't have to use tempered glass. You can use ordinary aluminum alloy or stainless steel to seal the surroundings. The price is lower and more affordable. I will connect the top from here to the attic for you, and it can be enclosed."
"It's OK. I want five layers of tempered glass. I want to cap it. Can you calculate the price? How much deposit do I need to pay in advance?" Installing stainless steel anti-theft is certainly economical, but when the flood reaches the sixth floor, and when the cold winter freezes the flood into a 20-meter-high ice layer, the eighth floor actually becomes the second floor, and malicious people can easily climb up. If stainless steel anti-theft is installed, wouldn't it be convenient for them to climb up? They should install tempered glass to seal the entire balcony, so that they can climb to their heart's content.
After paying the deposit, the master left and said he would go to the factory to place an order.
The eighth floor was busy all day, and the neighbor downstairs finally came.
"It's Saturday, why don't you take a break to do the renovation? Oh, you are tearing the house down. Didn't you just renovate your house when you got married a few years ago?"
The one who came up was Grandma Wang. It could be said that she had watched Qiao Qingqing grow up. She wasn't a bad person, but she loved to nag her, and what she said was a little unpleasant to the ears.
"Well, the roof is leaking again. I'll ask the master to fix it."
"It's leaking again. I told your dad not to buy it. The top floor hasn't been sold for a long time, but your dad insisted on buying it because he wanted to save money. Who can stand it leaking every day?" Grandma Wang kept saying, "Your husband is not at home? How can you let someone fix it when he's not at home? It doesn't look good with so many people coming in and out. Why don't you wait for him to come back?"
"Grandma Wang, isn't that too loud? I'll ask the chefs to lower their voices. Please come downstairs slowly."
Grandma Wang waved her hand and said, "It wasn't that loud. I just saw strangers coming in and out of the stairs. I came up to see that it was your family doing renovations."
As he was speaking, the workers carried up the water tank.
"The pipes are ready, just connect the water tank."
Qiao Qingqing helped Grandma Wang to the side and nodded to the workers: "Then you guys install it."
Grandma Wang stared and counted: "Oh, how many water tanks are you going to install at home? One is enough! You installed three more?"
"Well, Grandma Wang, let me help you down the stairs." She helped the man down from the seventh floor and said apologetically, "My family still has a lot of work to do these days, and I guess the workers will be coming in and out frequently. I'm really sorry for disturbing your family. So, when my husband comes home, I'll ask him to come to our house to apologize."
Grandma Wang liked to hear this and clapped Qiao Qingqing's hand: "Men still have to be the masters of the family. You can't be like your mother and push your man away..."
"Goodbye, Grandma Wang." Qiao Qingqing turned and left.
"I still don't like to listen to the old man. What the old man said is true--" Grandma Wang sighed and went into the house to watch TV. She only closed the security door, but she could still hear the noise of people coming in and out of the stairs. She heard someone going up to the eighth floor again. She walked to the door with her crutches to see what was going on. As soon as she saw it, she couldn't help but scold: "This young man just doesn't know how to save money. He buys so many things, doesn't have children or raise them, and spends money recklessly..."
The new master came to measure the size of the indoor wall. While he was measuring, the water tank was installed. There was originally a water tank on the terrace of the house. Because the floor was high, the water pressure was sometimes not enough, so a booster pump was installed. Today, three 0.5-ton stainless steel water tanks were installed, one on the balcony and two on the terrace.
When checking out, Qiao Qingqing asked, "My factory needs a large water tank. What is the capacity of your largest stainless steel water tank?"
The worker counted the money and said with a smile: "That's huge! It's four meters in diameter and one meter high. It can store ten tons of water!"
10 tons? Qiao Qingqing was satisfied as soon as she heard it. Things put into the space would be in a static state. As long as enough water was stored, there would be clean tap water to drink in the tenth year of the apocalypse.
"How much is one?" The worker knew she really wanted to buy one when he heard her tone, and said happily, "Boss, wait a moment, I'll ask you."
I called to ask and told Qiao Qingqing, "The factory still has eight in stock, the market price is 5230 each."
"Give me the phone number and I'll talk to your boss."
After some bargaining, we finally decided to order ten at a price of 48,000.
"This is the warehouse address. You can deliver it there when the time comes. Tell me when you arrive so I can go there to pay." Qiao Qingqing wrote a note to the workers.
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