On the way back, more and more people were going out, and everyone was sharing information with each other, all of which was bad news.
Downstairs in the community, a group of residents were also chatting.
"My whole family next door froze to death, including the elderly and children. I heard that their son and daughter-in-law were out of town and couldn't come back. Who would have thought that they would freeze to death!"
"Everyone in my family has a cold. Do you have any cold medicine?"
"This weather is so horrible! How could the temperature drop so much? I've lived in Flower City for twenty years and I've never seen weather like this!"
"The temperature in Huacheng has never dropped below minus ten degrees Celsius! Isn't this a ghost?"
"One of my neighbors is a frogman. He loves to fish things out of the water in the middle of the night. Who would believe that he could fish anything out at night? He must have gone out to steal things. When I woke up in the morning, I heard a commotion next door. They said that the person had not returned. Now the whole family is outside looking for him. I think this is his retribution. He is frozen under the water!"
"What did you say! What are you talking about! How can you be so vicious and cruel? My son Taotao has called you uncle for more than ten years, and you curse him like this!"
Shao Shengan pulled Qiao Qingqing away: "A fight has started."
"That guy is too mean, he deserves to be beaten." Chen Binggang frowned, and everyone moved around him and went back to their own buildings.
"Why is there a fight downstairs?" asked Qiao Songzhi.
"There was some quarrel among the people in the building next door. Everyone is in a bad mood now and gets angry easily. The delivery of materials has been delayed. If there is nothing else, we should not go out to avoid unnecessary disaster." Shao Shengan said.
"That makes sense. We have enough things at home, so we don't have to go out." Shao's father said quickly.
"The supply ship was also affected. The soldiers didn't prepare any warm clothes, so they just wore autumn clothes with cardboard stuffed inside. Sigh."
"How can this be possible? People will be frozen to death. Can we send them some clothes?" Qiao Songzhi asked hurriedly.
"I just delivered some food. If you want to deliver clothes, please pack them now and I will deliver them." Shao Shengan looked at Qiao Qingqing.
"I'll pack it up, let's go together later." Qiao Qingqing entered the room and packed out fifty sets of fleece underwear and fifty pairs of fleece socks. Shao Shengan was packing beside her, and Qiao Qingqing said, "We don't have that many coats, we can give away at most twenty."
"good."
After everything was packed up, Qiao Qingqing also put two boxes of cold medicine and two boxes of antipyretic medicine in it. She insisted on going together, so the couple went out again together and successfully threw the supplies near the supply ship, attracting the attention of the soldiers and then running away.
After returning home, Shao's mother showed concern for Qiao Qingqing: "Are you tired, Qingqing? Hurry up and change your clothes. I feel your coat is cold."
"Okay, I'll go change it now."
Her and Shao Shengan's clothes were draped over the bed and felt warm to the touch. When she turned them over, she saw two kettles under the clothes, and the water inside had already become lukewarm.
"It must be my mother. She helped me warm my clothes like this in winter when I was a child." Qiao Qingqing changed her shoes, socks, trousers and coat, and only felt more comfortable after she got dressed again.
Shao Shengan smiled: "Mom is so nice to us." He also quickly changed his clothes.
"I bought a few bamboo baskets and will bring them out later."
"Bamboo basket? Want to put something in it?"
Qiao Qingqing smiled and said, "You can cover the coal stove, light the coal stove and boil water. You can put clothes on the bamboo basket and dry and warm the wet and cold clothes while boiling water."
Shao Shengan understood and praised it as a good idea.
Qiao Qingqing took out two kettles. Qiao Songzhi came over to take them and touched them: "It's not cold yet, just right to drink. There's ginger sugar water in it."
On the first day of the temperature drop, the family drank ginger and sugar water for the second time, and the burps were filled with the spicy taste.
Qiao Songzhi and Shao's mother prepared lunch. One made fried rice with egg, the other stewed pork ribs and lotus root soup, and steamed a tray of buns. Everyone was very full. After eating, they had to work. Qiao Qingqing took out the plastic film and asked Shao Shengan to deliver it to the neighbors. This thing was not valuable. She had hoarded a lot of it, and she didn't feel bad about giving it away as a favor.
"I'll deliver it right away."
The neighbors on both sides were very surprised and thanked me repeatedly. They rushed to seal the windows, leaving no corner unsealed, otherwise the cold wind would have penetrated everywhere and really frozen people to death.
Qiao Qingqing sealed the windows at home with her family, and finally only left the exhaust window in the bathroom for air circulation. When the bathroom door was closed, the blinds under the door were sufficient for ventilation.
"I saw on the news that this is how people in the north spend the winter. After doing this, the house is much warmer. I'm just worried that the temperature will drop tonight."
"Don't be afraid of the temperature drop, we have floor heating at home. I think the dark clouds in the sky seem to have dispersed a lot. If the sun comes out in a few days, the solar generator will come in handy, and then we can save gasoline to generate electricity." Father Shao looked at the sky in a trance, praying that the sun would come out soon. Qiao Qingqing didn't say anything. In her previous life, there were three consecutive years of extremely low temperatures and cold weather, and there was no sun at all.
The solar generator she prepared was to generate electricity to supply air conditioning in the hot summer climate after the low-temperature apocalypse. In the past three years, if you want to use electricity, you can't do without a fuel generator.
In the evening, Qiao Qingqing and her family attended the funeral of Grandpa Wang downstairs. Due to the special circumstances, there was no way to cremate the body, so the Wang family had to hold a simple funeral and then temporarily buried the body in the community.
"We'll send it to Fushan later." Grandma Wang said in a daze.
Fushan is the local cemetery, and the terrain is high, so it must not have been flooded. But Fushan is also far away, and there is no means of transportation now, and it is freezing cold, so it is impossible to walk there, and people may die on the way.
Qiao Qingqing held her hand and felt sad when she felt her palm was cold.
"Grandma Wang, we have to work hard to survive. Even if God doesn't allow us to live, we have to live anyway."
Grandma Wang said this to Qiao Qingqing in her previous life. At that time, Grandma Wang touched Qiao Qingqing's face and said that she was pitiful and was bullied by others: "Come live in my house, and in the future... there will always be a way to survive."
Grandma Wang's eyes were red, and all her tears had flowed away. Hearing this, she pulled the corners of her mouth and sighed faintly, "Live, live."
On that day, more than a dozen bodies were buried in Jinyuan Community. Zheng Tiehui and the volunteer team leaders of other buildings arranged to mark an area in the direction of the original power room as a temporary burial site. The ice was chiseled to bury the relatives, and the broken ice was shoveled back. Soon, more than a dozen graves were built in the power room area.
Some residents objected, saying that burying the body in the community was unlucky. The grieving family members of the deceased rushed over and beat them up, and blood splattered on the snow.
"If you have the guts, don't let anyone die in your family anymore!" Wang Jiale, who always had squinting eyes and a simple smile, suddenly burst out with astonishing cruelty. If everyone hadn't held him tight, he would have really beaten the man to death.
"Okay, okay, don't let Grandpa Wang worry about you, go home!" Shao Shengan held his arm tightly and worked with other neighbors to pull him back.
Wang Jiale shook off the others and knelt in front of the grave, crying: "Grandpa, Grandpa, wuwu..."
Qiao Qingqing's family sent some condolences to the Wang family. The gifts given during this special period were also special. They were two large cotton-padded jackets for the elderly and a coal stove.
Wang Jiale came up to thank them, his eyes red: "I know your family has always taken care of my family, and those things can save lives now, so I won't be hypocritical and refuse. I will accept them. I, Wang Jiale, will remember this kindness in my heart!"
Qiao Qingqing repeatedly reminded him to remember to ventilate the room when making fire.
After watching Wang Jiale go downstairs, Qiao Qingqing locked the iron gate and turned around to see Zheng Tiehui's son standing at the door, looking at her grimly.
This young man, who is not even 20 years old, has been depressed ever since he was discharged from the hospital last time.
Qiao Qingqing ignored him, went into the house and closed her security door.
"Close the door quickly, I'm freezing!" Mrs. Zheng shouted.
Zheng Liangdong then lowered his eyes and closed the door. He walked slowly. Zheng Tiehui had just come down from the terrace and got angry when he saw him: "How can you be so lifeless at such a young age! The family is in such a big trouble now, and you can't be relied on at all. Your sister caught a cold while looking for firewood, and you didn't even help!"
Zheng Liangdong glanced at him, swam into the room with lifeless eyes, and slammed the door shut. Zheng Tiehui vaguely heard him say, "You'll die no matter how hard you struggle, so why bother?"
"Look at him, look at him!" Zheng Tiehui got angry at Mrs. Zheng. Mrs. Zheng frowned, "He has been like this since he was sick last time. You know he has suffered a lot, why are you still arguing with him? Collect firewood! I will collect firewood tomorrow!"
"Just indulge him. We don't know if our whole family can make it through tonight." Zheng Tiehui shuddered and turned around. "Why is there a leak there?"
Mrs. Zheng said hurriedly, "Xiaoying said the room was a bit stuffy, so she opened it a crack."
Zheng Tiehui was furious: "It's not like there is no gap. There is an exhaust vent in the toilet. Why is it still stuffy? He will catch a cold soon. Let's see what you will do!" He angrily blocked the gap.
In the room, Zheng Liangdong lay on the bed weakly, wrapping himself tightly. It was cold, he felt extremely cold, and he felt too desperate to experience this kind of cold for the second time.
He closed his eyes, as if he could still feel the huge rock falling on his head in the earthquake. It was so heavy and so sharp that it seemed to shatter his soul while hitting his body.
It wasn't like an earthquake, it was like the whole sky had collapsed. He ran everywhere but couldn't escape. There was no place to escape.
It’s too difficult, living is too difficult.
No matter how hard you struggle you will still die in the end, so why waste your energy? It’s better to live one day at a time!
Thinking of the completely different situation of 801 next door from the previous life, Zheng Liangdong thought that Shao Shengan must have been reborn, so everything changed. The next door was so motivated. In the previous life, Shao Shengan died during the flood. He must not have seen the cruelty in the future. Later... In the future, Shao Shengan will know that everything he does is in vain.
In room 801, Qiao Qingqing went into the kitchen to help Shao Shengan.
"What's for dinner tonight?" she asked.
"I want to make spicy beef rice and cook some chicken soup." He answered while cutting beef.
"Then I'll make the chicken soup."
"Okay, you make the best chicken soup."
Qiao Qingqing took a chicken, cut it into pieces and blanched it, added an appropriate amount of water, cut in slices of ginger, added wolfberry and red dates, and covered the pressure cooker. Normally, she would have used a clay pot to stew it, but the clay pots at home were all used to make soups and porridge and other liquid foods and stored in the space, so she had to use a pressure cooker.
"The pressure cooker is also good, the meat is soft, I like to eat soft chicken." Shao Shengan applauded.
The chicken soup cooked in a pressure cooker was equally delicious, and the meat fell apart with a light pinch. Shao's mother served the soup, gave two chicken legs to Qiao Qingqing and Shao Shengan, and the rest of the meat was served to Qiao Songzhi and Shao Shengfei.
"There's no need to do that. Just take whatever you scoop up. Mother-in-law, please don't be mean. We are all family." Qiao Songzhi moved the bowl of soup to Shao's mother and took away her bowl. "I'll eat this bowl. Please don't snatch it from me."
"Mother-in-law, please don't do this." Shao's mother wanted to change it back, but was stopped by Qiao Songzhi and had no idea how to do it.
"Mom, let's eat. Next time, just serve your own soup. It's so awkward to be so pushy." Qiao Qingqing said.
Shao Shengan also said a few words before Shao's mother sat down.
"Let's eat quickly. This beef is really good. It's spicy enough that I'm sweating after eating it." Father Shao took a big mouthful of the rice and praised it highly.
Qiao Qingqing nudged her mother gently with her knee and put the boneless chicken leg into her mother's bowl.
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