In her previous life, Qiao Qingqing was lucky. She was at home when the accident happened. She stood on the balcony and watched the tragedy outside one after another. Humans were powerless in the face of natural disasters. She hid at home and dared not go out even when she was hungry, but in the end, her habitat was taken away.
"Is it early this time too?" Shao Shengan appeared behind her.
She nodded slightly.
"Don't look at it."
He turned her body to face the window, took the rag from her hand, and said, "Let me do it. You take a rest."
"I'm not tired. I can smell the kitchen. I'm going to help mom cook."
Water from the tank gurgled out from the outlet, sheets and pillowcases were soaked in the large basin, and the soap bubbles reflected the colors of the rainbow under the not-so-hot sunlight.
Qiao Qingqing and the others had dinner in the kitchen. Except for Shao Shengfei, no one else had much appetite.
The movement of the ice outside never stopped. The whole world was like a cup filled with ice cubes. All I could hear was the sound of ice cubes colliding. One sound after another was like a heavy stone dropping on the hearts of the people in the building.
Qiao Songzhi put down the bowl: "I can't eat."
"I can't eat either. Alas, this is too sudden." Shao's mother sighed.
"I feel so sad." Shao's father was not a considerate person, but he couldn't bear it anymore.
"It's delicious, why don't you eat it?" Shao Shengfei looked at them strangely, his eyes full of innocence.
"Let's eat now, big brother, eat quickly." Shao Shengan said softly.
"oh!"
In the end, the uneaten food was stored by Qiao Qingqing in the space.
Four hours after the temperature rose, in the evening, the sun hung in the west, leaving the world still in light.
Looking outside at this moment, the outside world is like a big bowl of iced milk tea. The turbid water is sparkling, with countless unmelted ice cubes floating in the middle. Large pieces of ice are colliding and squeezing each other, and occasionally a corpse is squeezed up and pushed down by the ice.
The world is rising and falling, cold and heat are intertwined, and the hot wind carries the mournful cries and flies everywhere.
Qiao Qingqing's family sat in the living room. No one spoke much until the sun reluctantly set and darkness came. Qiao Songzhi spoke: "I'm going back to my room. You should go to bed early too."
"Fei Fei, come on, go upstairs with mom and go to bed. Sheng An, you and Qing Qing should also go to bed early."
Everyone went back to their rooms. After a few hours, the moisture in the house had almost disappeared, but the stench outside was getting worse. Shao Shengan closed the windows and told Qiao Qingqing that it would be enough to leave the escape window on the balcony for ventilation.
"I'm not very sleepy." There was a smell of disinfectant in the room. Qiao Qingqing lay on the cool mat. She didn't know whether it was because of the heat or the irritability, but she couldn't fall asleep for a while.
"It's only half past six. If you can't sleep, don't force yourself to sleep. Just lie down and rest." Shao Shengan said, "Let me check the temperature."
"How much?"
"It dropped a little, to 30 degrees Celsius. The highest temperature in the afternoon was about 33 degrees Celsius. Mom saw it."
"The sun will definitely rise again tomorrow, and the temperature will continue to rise."
Shao Shengan hung the thermometer outside, climbed onto the bed, and fanned the two of them gently with a fan.
"You fan yourself. I'm not that hot."
"It's a simple matter. Just close your eyes and relax. Turn on the air conditioner when it gets hotter."
"This temperature is bearable, but based on my experience, I should turn on the air conditioner at noon tomorrow." In her previous life, it was too hot at noon on the second day of the temperature rise. Qiao Qingqing didn't have a thermometer at the time, but she felt it was over 37 degrees Celsius.
Qiao Qingqing turned over and said to him: "It's a good thing you have a day off today. I'm scared just thinking about it." Shao Shengan did find a job as an electrical repairman later. Sometimes he would be sent to shelters in other districts to do power maintenance. If the place was far away, he would have to stay outside overnight.
"Don't be afraid, I'm here with you." Shao Shengan said gently.
"Many people will die today, many, many people." Qiao Qingqing closed her eyes.
"Many, many people will survive."
Qiao Qingqing opened her eyes and the room became completely dark. She couldn't see Shao Shengan's face, but a sense of peace of mind surrounded him.
"Are you looking at me?" Shao Shengan asked.
"How do you know?"
Shao Shengan fumbled in the dark and stroked her forehead: "I can feel it, silly Qingqing."
The couple whispered to each other, and then Qiao Qingqing fell asleep. The dream started with the sound of ice breaking, and then all the sounds disappeared. She felt a cool breeze blowing gently across her cheeks, and she fell into a deep sleep in the coolness, and nightmares no longer bothered her.
It was still daybreak when she woke up. She did not rush to get up but listened to the noise outside first.
The window was open, and the warm morning breeze came in through the gaps in the window, bringing the smell of outside to Qiao Qingqing's nose.
The stench, the rotten smell, the corpse odor, all the decay sealed by the sub-zero cold, all fermented again after the temperature rose, and spread domineeringly in all directions.
The smell made Qiao Qingqing feel a little dazed, as if she had returned to her previous life, but she quickly shook her head to dispel her pessimism. She got off the bed, changed her clothes, and walked to the window, and saw that it was already a vast ocean outside. The yellow-brown sewage was rippling, and all kinds of debris and corpses were floating. Wet mice were swimming in the water, and swarms of flies were buzzing on the water. With a snap, Qiao Qingqing pulled her sight back and saw a small cockroach hit the mosquito net, fluttering its wings and crawling around the mosquito net, and finally crawling out of Qiao Qingqing's sight.
Cockroaches, rats, centipedes and other creatures that were rampant during floods disappeared after the big drop in temperature, but they returned again overnight.
Throughout the winter of this life, Qiao Qingqing and her family did not suffer much. They closed the doors and windows, turned on the floor heating, and stayed at home as if they were in the Garden of Eden. Occasionally, she would think of the difficult survival scenes in the winter of her previous life, and always felt that it was so long ago, like a nightmare.
But the big temperature rise came ahead of schedule, and she knew that the real difficulty - man-made disasters would follow.
After leaving the room, Qiao Qingqing began to check every corner of the house, making sure that no cockroaches or rats had crawled in before she felt relieved.
After checking around, there was some movement upstairs and Shao's father came downstairs.
"Qingqing, you got up so early. Come with me. It's so scary on the terrace!" said Shao's father.
Hearing him say this, Qiao Qingqing had some guesses in her mind. As expected, when she went upstairs, she saw that the glass of the terrace was covered with leeches. There was a large black mass of leeches crawling and twisting. On this side of the glass, she could see their abdomens. It was very disgusting to see. Even though she had experienced it once in her previous life, Qiao Qingqing still felt extremely disgusted and could not help shivering.
"I got up and opened the door to see what was going on, and then I saw them. I was really scared. I thought they were moths at first!" Shao's father rubbed his arms, as if he could feel the leeches sticking to his skin just by looking at them.
"It's okay, they can't get in because of the glass." This is one of the reasons why Qiao Qingqing insisted on sealing the balcony and terrace. After the temperature rises, all kinds of disgusting things will fully revive, and they will reproduce faster than before the end of the world, and their vitality will be stronger. In the previous life, when Qiao Qingqing opened the door of the attic, she was scared by the leeches on the door and the terrace and screamed. Later, she suppressed her fear and nausea and got rid of them.
She looked at the drain and saw that the drain hole on the terrace was blocked.
"I blocked it in the middle of the night. The smell outside was particularly bad at night, which kept me awake, so I came out in the dark to block the drain hole." Father Shao looked scared.
Qiao Qingqing smiled and said, "Fortunately, Dad blocked it, otherwise the leeches might crawl in through this hole and cover the terrace."
Shao's mother dressed Shao Shengfei and walked over to him, saying, "It's weird! Don't these things like to grow in water? Why are there so many of them crawling on the roof? This is the eighth floor."
"The sixth floor was flooded, so the eighth floor is considered the second floor."
Mother Shao glared at Father Shao: "The second floor is weird too! We used to farm when we were in our hometown, and these leeches grow in water!"
Qiao Qingqing said: "In this situation, anything can happen. Don't worry, our house is well sealed, so we are not afraid of these things." What are leeches that like to climb buildings? In the future, cockroaches will be able to fly, and they can fly from the first floor to the third floor in one breath!
Diseases are not only spread by water, but these organisms are also to blame.
"That's right, I feel relieved. Let's go downstairs. I'll make breakfast. Is Sheng An up?"
"Not yet."
"Then I'll go call him. I can't make breakfast without him." Shao's mother hurried downstairs. Seeing that Qiao Qingqing was still looking up at the glass wall, Shao's father called her to go downstairs with him.
"Qingqing, you're still watching, don't you find it scary?"
"I want to catch these leeches." Leeches can be used as medicine. In her eyes, these leeches are still disgusting, but she tries to replace the picture in front of her with the image of the prepared medicine in her mind, so her eyes don't feel so uncomfortable.
"Ah?" Shao's father was shocked. "What's the point of catching it? It's too scary and it will bite people!"
"It can be used as a medicinal herb. Doctor Wei taught me this before, Dad. It can cure injuries from falls." Qiao Qingqing didn't explain anything complicated to Shao's father. Just the four words "injuries from falls" were enough to make Shao's father change his mind instantly.
"That's a really good thing! Catch it. Dad will catch it. Why don't you do it?" Shao's father rubbed his hands and went back to the attic to find tools.
Soon after the digging, nearby leeches began to crawl toward the drain. Shao's father held a stick at the drain, and when the leeches crawled up, he shook them off into the bucket held by Qiao Qingqing.
When Shao Shengan got up and went to find Qiao Qingqing, he saw her and Shao's father working together to catch leeches.
That thing really made his heart tremble at the sight of it, so he looked away: "Why are you catching this thing?"
"Qingqing said it can be used as a medicinal herb to treat injuries! Look, it's so good. It would be a waste if we don't catch it. It's so fat!"
Really fat? Listening to his father describing leeches in a surprised and happy tone, Shao Shengan didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"Let me do it. Qingqing, give me the bucket. Mom is going to make breakfast. Help me take the things down for her. I've put them in the attic bedroom."
Qiao Qingqing smiled and handed him the bucket, pretended to get something from the bedroom, and went downstairs to help with cooking.
Qiao Songzhi also got up to help look after Shao Shengfei, while Qiao Qingqing cooked with Shao's mother.
After seeing the leeches, Shao's mother felt so sick that she lost her appetite. "Your mother wanted to go up and see it, but I stopped her. I told her not to look at it, it's too disgusting!"
"Then let's not cook porridge today. Let's make some hand-pulled pancakes instead."
Qiao Qingqing turned on the gas stove, fried the eggs first, then turned the fire to low heat and put the hand-pulled pancake skin in. Shao's mother didn't know how to make this, so she washed the lettuce and cut the ham, smiling and saying, "You young people can only make these, it looks weird, but it tastes delicious."
"Mom, there's a box of braised beef. You can cut some of it too."
The final product is a very rich combination of meat and vegetables, the hand-pulled pancake plus.
"Ketchup is still the best, sour and sweet." Qiao Songzhi was very satisfied.
"I think this yellow sauce is delicious too. What is it called?" Shao's father asked.
Shao Shengan took a look and said, "Mayonnaise."
Each person had a hand-pulled pancake and a box of hot pure milk, and their stomachs were filled. After breakfast, Shao's father couldn't wait to continue catching leeches. Shao Shengfei was not afraid of this kind of thing and shouted for help, so in the end he had no choice but to let him do it.
"Then I'll go downstairs and take a look at the situation." Shao Shengan said.
The cheerful atmosphere disappeared as Shao Shengfei went upstairs. Shao's mother looked towards the balcony anxiously, took a look, looked away, and looked again...
"Don't be afraid, we are all at home." Qiao Songzhi saw her uneasiness and comforted her.
Mother Shao forced a smile: "There was a lot of noise outside last night. I heard someone crying. They kept crying... There is a saying in my hometown that people who die in the water will become water ghosts. Water ghosts will drag living people into the water to serve as substitutes. Do you think there are a lot of water ghosts outside? I always hear the sound of water outside."
Qiao Songzhi felt a chill in his heart and his face became a little stiff. After a while, he said, "The sound of water is caused by something in the water, such as a washbasin or a piece of wood. They are all debris. If there is something colliding, there will be a sound."
"Mother-in-law, you are scared too, right? I am really scared. What on earth is wrong with God?"
"Oh, I was scared. When I think about the scene of the ice cracking yesterday, I still feel scared. But I comfort myself that we are lucky. Our family is safe and sound, and we can have breakfast together this morning. That's enough."
Perhaps it was Qiao Songzhi's down-to-earth and simple words that touched Shao's mother. She thought about it and realized that since the whole family was together, why should she be afraid of water ghosts?
Suddenly, Shao Shengfei upstairs screamed. Shao's mother was startled and hurried upstairs to check. At a glance, she saw her eldest son screaming in her husband's arms.
"What's wrong Feifei! What's wrong with Feifei!"
"She's scared! Hurry up and send Feifei back to her room!" Shao's father shouted.
"Ahhhhh! Ghost! Ghost!" Shao Shengfei struggled and cried.
"Fei Fei, don't be afraid, mom is here, Fei Fei!"
It took a few minutes for Shao Shengfei to calm down, and Qiao Songzhi asked his daughter what had happened.
"Brother was scared by the corpse in the water. Mom, don't look at it, it may float away in a while." Qiao Qingqing said.
Qiao Songzhi took a breath of cold air. The word "water ghost" that Shao's mother had said echoed in her mind. She swallowed and asked, "Where is it?"
"Mom, stop looking."
Qiao Songzhi held her hand and insisted: "I'll just take a look."
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