By lunchtime, Lu Qin finally saw Liang Shuyu coming back.
As soon as she entered the house, Lu Qin handed her a cup of brewed brown sugar ginger tea, "Mom, why did you take so long?"
"Oh, forget it. Those young men kept asking us to join the self-help group and hand in our food so they could distribute it to everyone."
Submit and distribute them uniformly? Lu Qin was a little amused.
Although the bases in later generations were so safe, they did not achieve completely equal distribution. They only searched a few families with a lot of grain and left enough for everyone else.
How could they dare to ask them to hand over all their food just for the sake of saving themselves?
Lu Qin asked, "Don't they have food?"
"Yes, here, this is the food distributed today. They said that as long as you join the self-help group, you will get food every day." Liang Shuyu took out a small pocket bread and a small bag of mixed nuts from his pocket and put them on the table.
Lu Qin looked at the small amount of food and thought it was only enough for one child.
"A lot of people went today. Everyone was given a small piece of bread and a bag of nuts. They said that as long as you join the self-help group, you will have a unified distribution of food." Liang Shuyu drank brown sugar tea. "But the people were obviously divided into two groups. One group is the members of the self-help group, and the other group is those of us who didn't join. We didn't get any bread or nuts at the beginning."
Judging from the situation, the self-help association is determined to gather people from the community.
"Then why did I give it to you later?" Lu Qin asked.
"It's a long story. Actually, everything was fine at first. But then, seeing that we didn't want to hand over the food, someone came out and said there's been a thief in the neighborhood lately. He stole food from a house last night and alarmed the owner, so he set fire to the house." Liang Shuyu sighed, "They said it's not safe to keep the food at home, so we should give it to them for safekeeping. If we don't hand it over, the self-help group won't guarantee our safety."
Lu Qin frowned. Xu Mingyan had just told her that the family accidentally burned down their house, so how could it be said that the fire was set by a thief?
"Then a man came and said he was the president of the self-help association. His name was Zhang Jintao. I heard everyone call him President Zhang. When he came out, he played the good guy, saying that we were all residents of the same community and there was no need to make such unpleasantness. He also gave us food."
"Aren't those things supposed to be New Year gifts for every household? He's using them as favors." Lu Qin had a hunch that this so-called Chairman Zhang wasn't a good person either.
"That thing is in someone else's hands now, so giving it to you is already a good thing." Liang Shuyu sighed, "I haven't been out these past few days. The world has changed so much. How come people have become so snobbish? Forget it, forget it. I heard from your uncle Wu and the others that no matter how they make trouble, we won't get involved. They don't dare to come and rob our house."
"Mom, if they come to our house again and ask us to join the self-help group, we won't go! Just stay home and don't open the door."
"Mom knows." Liang Shuyu nodded and sighed, "The world is really changing. Fortunately, our Xiaoqin bought some things early, otherwise I really don't know what to do."
Lu Qin smiled and asked her mother to go out for a walk. Unexpectedly, this allowed her to become aware of the sinister hearts of some people in the apocalypse in advance.
Well, it’s a good thing to get preventive treatment so that I can be more vigilant in the future.
Sure enough, within two days, someone came to invite them to join a self-help meeting.
Lu Qin declined, saying that he had a cold and couldn't go.
The third time, Lu Qin refused again, saying it was too cold outside and she couldn't go out.
The fourth time, she simply didn't respond and let the people from the self-help group knock on the door for a long time.
From that day on, Lu Qin no longer swept the snow at the door every day.
Originally, I thought that the door was blocked and I couldn't go out, but now it happened that the heavy snow blocked the door, making it impossible for those people to approach my house easily.
She also talked it over with Xu Mingyan's family, and they all agreed not to open the door for the time being.
…
Fitness center.
This three-story building was originally a high-end entertainment venue in the community, and the ground floor was a fitness center. Now many pieces of equipment are placed randomly aside. Without electricity, these devices have lost their original use.
The second floor is the property management office, and the third floor is a revolving restaurant.
At this moment, this building has become the base of the self-help association, and many people have even abandoned their own big villas and moved here.
It's nothing, there's just food here.
The second floor itself housed a large batch of food purchased by the property management company. There was rice, flour, grains, oils, and other such items, as well as various snack gift packs, all high-end goods. The third floor also happened to be a restaurant, stocked with ready-made pots and pans, as well as some frozen meats.
People who live here do it for convenience. They have food and drink, and even though there are many people, they don’t feel too cold.
However, the food is well controlled by the core members of the self-help association. Only a fixed portion is set aside every day. Two women volunteered to cook, and they only needed to make enough food for these people every day.
The core members of the self-help group had already moved the food to the third floor and did not allow anyone else to go up there.
Of course, not everyone received their food in a predictable manner. In fact, the two women in charge of cooking were trying to curry favor with the president, Zhang Jintao.
As the "President" of the Self-Help Association, she naturally had some privileges. It was no big deal to eat a few more bites while cooking.
At this moment, Zhang Jintao was smoking a cigar he had found in the upscale restaurant on the third floor. It was quite a treat. Normally, it wasn't a rare item, but when it came to times when even having enough to eat was a problem, this thing became more valuable than gold.
A total of three boxes of cigars were found on the third floor. He kept them all hidden and did not take them out easily.
He was originally a product manager at a pharmaceutical company and had some money. This community happened to be where an 18th-tier internet celebrity, whom he kept for the sake of face, lived.
Before the snow fell, he happened to be hanging out with his lover, but as the snow got heavier, he couldn't leave.
But perhaps it is precisely because he did not leave that he is now the president of this "self-help association".
Originally, they had gone out to look for the property management because they had no food at home, were cold and hungry, and didn't want to die at home. They found out that the property management had run away, and the few security guards who stayed behind had hidden a lot of food.
He immediately decided to detain the security guards who were confused and collect the food.
As expected, with food, he was able to recruit a large number of people, all of whom were those who had no food at home.
He suddenly realized the benefits of being in a superior position.
Even though he was a senior executive in the company before, he had never been so high-spirited as he is now. In the past, he had to act like a grandson when facing customers and superiors.
Now, even the wealthy and powerful people in this neighborhood were trying their best to please him just for a bite of food. He realized that as long as he could hold on to that batch of food, no one would dare to contradict him.
These days, not only did his former lover treat him like a god, but several rich ladies who used to look down on others also wanted to pay him for themselves just to snatch his job of cooking.
In the past, asking these wealthy ladies to do housework was simply a death sentence, but now they are scrambling to do it. Although the food they make is not very delicious, it is enough to fill their stomachs.
Zhang Jintao took a deep drag on his cigar. He actually quite enjoyed the feeling of being so superior. He vaguely thought that as long as the snow kept falling like this, and the outsiders left him alone, he could be the local tycoon in this community.
Just as he was fantasizing about his "bright future", someone entered his room.
Zhang Jintao was somewhat dissatisfied.
Although these people had come to him, their quality was mixed. It was really inappropriate for them to barge in without waiting for his response. However, he didn't show it on his face and only asked, "What's the matter?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
