Chapter 36: Do You Have a Brother Named King Eight Eight

It was the elderly couple from a few days ago who had wanted to hitch a ride to go out and buy water. The sky at seven or eight in the evening was pitch-black, so dark that one couldn’t see their own hand in front of their face, with neither moon nor stars in sight. The temperature had also dropped to 6°C. Sirens from police cars started blaring. Right after the Jing family finished dinner and heard the noise, they put on their coats, windbreakers, masks, and hats before going out to see what had happened. The number of flying insects under the streetlights seemed to be increasing, buzzing incessantly. By the time Jing Shu and her family arrived, there were already five or six security guards, six or seven residents from the neighborhood, as well as police officers and forensic experts. The auntie who had wanted a ride that day and her husband were wrapped in thick quilts, lying on their bed. Their bodies had already started to decay and were swarming with maggots, while flies continuously crawled over them, laying eggs; it appeared that a batch had already hatched. The entire house reeked of the foul stench of decay. Mrs. Jing, frightened, hid in Mr. Jing’s embrace. Mr. Jing instinctively covered Mrs. Jing’s eyes, and that’s when they remembered they had a daughter. Perhaps they were truly in love, and Jing Shu was just an accident. Yet Jing Shu looked at the bodies calmly, even feeling an urge to study them. She listened as a neighbor auntie recounted the incident: "After two days of putting up with this nauseating smell, we couldn’t take it anymore, so we informed the security. Later, they traced the smell back to their home, pried the door open, and this is what we found." The forensic expert carefully examined the bodies, pointing to the unused air conditioner, and said, "With the large temperature difference between day and night, and the temperature dropping below zero at night, they probably wanted to save on electricity and didn’t use the air conditioner. They just covered themselves with quilts and closed the windows. Then, by six or seven in the morning, the temperature rose to 40°C. The high heat combined with dehydration from heatstroke and lack of air circulation suffocated them." "Just having an air conditioner with a constant temperature would have been good. There have been over a dozen such deaths in the city already," the forensic expert said, accustomed to the sight. The auntie had been skimping on ride-sharing costs and saving on air conditioning expenses... only to end up with such a fate. The forensic expert took several photographs, and the police, no strangers to this, wrapped the bodies in body bags to be taken away, leaving two staff members to start disinfecting and dealing with the aftermath. "Hello, are you the new neighbors? I’m Wang Qiqi from building 13. I’ve created a community group with already more than 60 people. Would you like to join so we can discuss things together if anything comes up?" A tanned man in his thirties enthusiastically offered. Jing Shu and Mr. Jing joined the group. Right then, Jing Shu really wanted to ask, "Do you have a younger brother named Wang Babb?" "Which building are you from? To make it easier for everyone, please add your building number to your username. No need to specify your exact unit or floor." "We’re from the villa area." Wang Qiqi looked at the family with some surprise, then quickly noted it down for the two of them and said, "There are not many people living in the villa area yet; it’s more remote. If anything happens, just let us know in the group, and we will help out if we can." "Sure, thank you for your trouble." "No need for thanks, we’re all neighbors here. You can check the announcements for contact information for delivery services, water delivery, car hiring, supermarket numbers, and the like. If you have anything to add as well, just let me know." Wang Qiqi moved on to the auntie who had spoken earlier and a few others who were there for the commotion, even adding the security guards to the group with the respective notes. Soon, group owner Wang Qiqi @’ed everyone, recounting the incident of the aunt and uncle’s tragic death at home, and reminded everyone not to skimp on electricity, to set air conditioners to a constant temperature, and to buy an air conditioner if they didn’t have one. Young Master I Have a Baby No.13: "Damn, that scared me into turning on the air conditioner." Wang Xue Mei from building 2: "Anyone selling air conditioners in the group, or who has the contact for air conditioner sales, please share it." ... In the north, air conditioning is scarce; in the south, there’s no heating. Due to high temperatures during the day, dropping temperatures at night, and the loess-laden water, air conditioners, refrigerators, and water purifiers had sold out nationwide. Even second-hand fans from electronics malls were gone, and online orders were backlogged by two months; scalpers could deliver at a high price within three days. The initial chaos of the apocalypse had begun. The dust fall had continued for over a week, with those having snow-pushers clearing the streets with vehicles, and the others sweeping by hand. Elementary schools and kindergartens continued to be suspended, while middle school, high school students, and various units had been assigned their own areas to sweep. A single day without sweeping would accumulate a thick layer, and the slightest breeze would stir up clouds of dust. Hospitals saw many cases of heatstroke and lung diseases caused by dust; online, numerous complaints exploded. "Are they kidding me? I escaped from the north after sweeping snow for over a decade, only to end up sweeping soil every day in the south..." "Sweeping soil is still bearable, eating it is torture. Everything—food, daily necessities, even our living spaces—is coated in dust; no matter what you do, you can’t keep it out, and even the bathwater is muddy." "You all have it easy; our reservoir was filled by soil, turning into mud, and now we’ve run out of water. We now live day to day on water truck deliveries!" "Our rivers have been filled in by soil; we stand in line every day to buy bottled water. Even muddy water would do." Regions throughout the country encountered problems like power outages and burned-out circuits. This was due to the 24-hour air conditioning use needed to cope with drastically fluctuating temperatures. Some areas’ rivers and reservoirs were filled with soil, and given the extreme evaporation caused by the high daytime heat, drought ensued. Many lakes and reservoirs were shrinking at a rate of several centimeters a day, prompting the nation to implement various remedial measures. Every day, the internet was flooded with news of reservoirs turning into mud depositories, of mineral water companies having to halt production, further fueling the frantic scramble for bottled water. The price of a bottle of mineral water had soared to 10 yuan, with other beverages even more expensive. Supermarket food was plentiful, yet to everyone’s surprise, the first items to run out were water and beverages. Water plants across the country began filtering water round the clock to speed up production. Meanwhile, regions with blocked reservoirs resorted to delivering water by truck. There was also an appeal to the public to conserve water; if your taps still had water, make do with it. Be grateful for having water at all, and stop being so picky. One problem had barely subsided when another arose. With the soil and water problems still unresolved, some regions entered a phase of near 50℃ extreme heat, coinciding with the outbreak of an epidemic that killed chickens, pigs, and cattle. Heatstroke deaths had accumulated into the tens of thousands, with the highest numbers in the north. In contrast, the much hotter southern regions like Guangdong and Suzhe experienced the fewest deaths, apparently due to the locals’ tolerance to high temperatures through acclimatization. In the north, half of the places had suspended classes and work, whereas in the South, in Modu, it was business as usual. Police, Doctors, and government workers were, of course, not able to stop working; in her previous life, Mrs. Jing had continued working, which ultimately led to her heatstroke. "Mom, I put the chilled mung bean soup in the thermos cup, the cold cucumber salad and White Cut Chicken in the insulated box, and don’t forget to eat the Gui Ling Gao," Jing Shu handed the small box over. In this life, despite Jing Shu’s persistence, Mrs. Jing still went to work, but with the Spiritual Spring, heatstroke was not so easy to come by anymore. "Eat less chicken, duck, and pork; they’ve had outbreaks of the epidemic in the south."