Chapter 76: Extreme Heat 17
Even at night, heat remained an unavoidable problem.
Chu Yian found an outdoor thermometer, which at that moment displayed 36 degrees Celsius. The two sat in the courtyard, and even though they were sweating profusely, no one went to the basement.
On the main road outside the gate, cars passed by one after another.
From 11 PM to 5 AM, vehicles continuously passed. And now, with the sun out, the temperature had risen to 40 degrees Celsius.
Finally, there were no more cars outside.
The two had stayed up almost all night in the courtyard, and Chu Yian’s clothes were so soaked they could be wrung out. However, compared to the heat, the immediate crisis they faced was the exodus of people from the city.
“From last night until now, about 41 cars have passed by.”
Chu Yian looked at Lu Qingyuan, “Will it be the same situation tonight?”
That was hard to say. However, as the weather got hotter, no one would dare to go out during the day.
Lu Qingyuan shook his head and turned to enter the room. He checked the basement; the cement-built water reservoirs inside were dry and could be used to store water.
Originally, tasks like storing water were done at night, but they were unsure what tonight would bring. Taking advantage of the current weather, which wasn’t completely unbearable for outdoor activities, they decided to bring in as many buckets of water as they could.
But the water level in the well had dropped again.
To make retrieval easier, Lu Qingyuan added a rope to the water bucket.
One of them drew water, while the other carried buckets, running back and forth between the basement and the well. It took them a full hour to fill one-third of the reservoir.
“Ah! I can’t do it anymore.”
Chu Yian sat on the ground, utterly exhausted.
She had endured a night outside yesterday, and now she was engaged in high-intensity work. The heat, exhaustion, and hunger made her face pale.
“Rest.”
Lu Qingyuan went out alone with the remaining two buckets. This round of the game wasn’t just the high temperature testing people’s willpower.
Chu Yian sat for a while, then scooped some water from the reservoir to wash her face. The cold, wet towel against her forehead made her feel much more awake. She plugged in the freezer and checked its contents.
In just one night, the temperature in the fresh food compartment was probably around ten degrees Celsius, and the ice in the freezer compartment had already started to melt, with water pooling inside.
If this happened a few more times, the vegetables inside would spoil.
Chu Yian glanced at the time, preparing to make some rice porridge first to settle the stomachs of the two who had been busy on an empty stomach for so long.
Rice porridge for breakfast, and a proper meal for lunch.
She took out the beef and lamb, along with potatoes, onions, taro, and Napa cabbage. First, she cut all the potatoes and taro into chunks and boiled them until cooked, placing them at the bottom of a large bowl. Then, she sliced the beef and lamb thinly and blanched them with the Napa cabbage leaves in boiling hot water, arranging them on top.
Next came the seasonings.
Chili, Sichuan peppercorns, salt, MSG, oyster sauce, sesame oil, bird’s eye chilies… she mixed them in proportion, then poured a large spoonful of hot oil over them. The aroma instantly burst forth, even making Lu Qingyuan, who had just returned, look towards the small stove.
Chu Yian was currently dicing onions. Once the hot oil cooled, she mixed the diced onions, soy sauce, and balsamic vinegar and poured them in. A large bowl of dressing for a cold dish was ready.
Chu Yian specifically found a small basin, poured the vegetables and seasonings together, stirred them, and a dish was created.
Lu Qingyuan was already sitting at the dining table, but Chu Yian put an entire plate of chilled beef and lamb with dressing into the refrigerator, and only served him a bowl of rice porridge and a small dish of preserved vegetables.
He looked up at her.
“Let it soak in the fridge; it’ll taste better once it’s marinated.”
Chu Yian said, quickly ate her breakfast, and moved two electric fans downstairs from upstairs.
The basement was cooler than upstairs, but as the overall temperature rose, the temperature inside also increased. Electric fans were needed in the morning and afternoon, and air conditioning had to be turned on from 11 AM to 4 PM.
This kind of life was tiring and hard, but it was still more comfortable than ninety percent of the people in the city.
At this moment, in the underground parking lot of a certain Hotel.
Liu Yong and Li Yunqiang had returned early to stay there. Parking spaces were very precious now, and if they didn’t return early, their spot would be taken by others.
Their spot was very ordinary, with a layer of cardboard laid on the ground, already covered with footprints.
Next to them was the water they had collected from the river last night. Even after settling, the water was murky and dark. But it wasn’t just them; most people in the underground parking lot drank this kind of water. A bottle of clean mineral water had been driven up to an exorbitant price of 500 yuan, and even then, no one might be willing to sell it.
Because they couldn’t buy anything, money began to devalue more and more. Water and food were now almost exclusively bartered.
Liu Yong stood up and scooped a ladle of water from a nearby bucket to drink. However, after just two sips, he suddenly retched.
“What’s wrong?”
Li Yunqiang looked over, finding the vomit on the ground somewhat disgusting.
“You taste that water.” It wasn’t that he wanted to throw up; the taste was genuinely disgusting.
Li Yunqiang, disbelieving, poured some into a mineral water bottle and took a sip. It was an indescribable taste: foul, a bit sour, with a faint hint of something rotting.
He tasted a little and spat it out, “This is absolutely undrinkable.”
“It’s good enough to have something to drink.”
An old man nearby, looking dirty, said, “If you go to Yuting River now, it’s almost dry.”
He had originally been one of those sheltering from the heat under the Yuting River Bridge, but as the temperature grew higher, the bridge arch became uninhabitable. The river had stopped flowing, and there were more human corpses than water.
People who died from heatstroke, from illness, from being trampled while fighting for water at night, from drowning… The smell of soaking corpses, wasn’t it exactly like this?
No sooner had he finished speaking than a cry came from a distance in the parking lot.
“Mom!”
“Grandma!”
Someone else had died, killed by the heat.
The family wept bitterly, while those around them, having witnessed so many deaths in recent days, had become numb. The family’s wails echoed through the parking lot, yet no outsider went to help, or even look, and some didn’t even have the strength to speak.
Watching more and more people die, Liu Yong scooped out another bottle of water. Regardless of its current taste, he forced himself to swallow it.
What he ate or drank didn’t matter.
Just surviving was enough. It was already the thirteenth day of the game; just seven more days! If he survived for seven days, the game would be cleared.
He closed his eyes and silently cheered himself on, telling himself to get some sleep, and then he could go out to find food tonight.
Before nightfall, a sharp pain woke him from his sleep; his abdomen felt like it was being twisted by a knife. He quickly tightened his sphincter and struggled to stand up, jogging all the way to the upstairs toilet, where he had a massive bowel movement.
When it rains, it pours.
Liu Yong had started having diarrhea because he drank the river water.
From that moment on, he frequently ran to the toilet. Having eaten nothing all day, he was only expelling water. Moreover, it was extremely hot upstairs; each trip to the toilet felt like being steamed in a hot furnace.
Even healthy people couldn’t withstand such torment, and Liu Yong collapsed.
