Chapter 38 p2
Early March 2061
The temperature had already reached minus ten degrees.
This was the current temperature in the air. The temperature underground was much higher than on the ground. The government had detected that the ice and snow at the bottom seemed to have started to melt, so they had accelerated the action of hoarding ice.
When Luo Laosan came to see Ji Yang, he also brought this news to her.
Even though she didn’t need anything here, Luo Laosan still came regularly. Each time, he would bring some small things he had received as gifts. When asked, he would say that it was Xie Muzhi’s order, and he had to carry out the order.
Ji Yang was still very interested in the news he brought and was not repulsed. When she heard this news, she couldn’t hold it in anymore.
Since the bottom had started to melt, it meant that the heat was coming up.
Then she could also hoard some ice. In addition, she would see if she could get some fish and shrimp.
But she had to wait until he had left.
Ji Yang called out to Luo Laosan. Besides giving him some fruit as usual, she also handed over the three guns and bullets she had received before.
Luo Laosan was stunned. “For… for me?!”
Ji Yang smiled. “What do you think?”
Luo Laosan sighed in feigned disappointment.
Ji Yang explained the origin of this thing and then said, “You can either wait for Xie Muzhi to come back and deal with it, or you can find a way to hand it over yourself. Of course, you can also keep one.”
Luo Laosan’s expression was grim. “I know.”
It would be too late to wait for Xie Muzhi to come back. This time when they went, he had also heard some rumors. It was to help the Hai City government base get some ships, and also to get some small ships for them here.
It was said that the floods would last for at least five or six months. During this period, they couldn’t just stay at home.
But Changnan City was not by the sea, and there were not many sea transportation tools. The ones that had been collected during this period were far from enough for so many survivors. Anyway, all sorts of things were related to ships, so when Xie Muzhi came back, it would at least have to wait until the ice had melted.
Ji Yang didn’t ask much more. After Luo Laosan had left, she took Xixi and went out directly, to a rural reservoir in the opposite direction of the base.
This was a small reservoir. Ji Yang had heard about it when she was hoarding supplies. The location was relatively remote, but the water quality was very good.
She hadn’t gone before because she had thought that with such a low temperature and the freezing rain, how thick would the ice in the reservoir be? She would have complained that the saw blade was not long enough even if she had been carrying an electric saw.
Now was the perfect time.
There were no people here anymore, and Ji Yang arrived at the reservoir very smoothly.
Perhaps because it was far from the city, the ice here was exceptionally clean. At a glance, it was quite beautiful. The reservoir was also covered in ice at this time. Ji Yang parked her motorcycle and was reluctant to step on it for a moment.
Such clean ice. If only it could all be preserved.
She was regretful for a moment, but in the end, she still stepped on it. Xixi had long since jumped down, but she had been strictly forbidden from going to the reservoir. But she seemed to have overthought it. Even after so long, Xixi had still not adapted to the tragedy of slipping on the ice. It would fall twice in three steps, but it would still continue to struggle with a huff.
Ji Yang watched for a while and walked to the edge of the reservoir.
Due to the freezing rain, the area of the reservoir had increased a lot, but it was still lower than the surrounding height.
She could directly step on it. After jumping a few times to confirm that there was no problem with the thickness of the ice, Ji Yang took out an electric saw and began to cut the ice.
The huge noise startled Xixi. Seeing that it was its owner, it continued to struggle on the ice.
Ji Yang, on the other hand, watched the ice shavings fly and worked hard to cut. However, at this temperature, the saw blade was still a little too short to reach the bottom. She could only rummage in her space and find the largest oil saw and cut again.
This time, she successfully separated a whole piece of ice.
She reached out her hand, and the ice block directly disappeared.
In its place was a cylinder that looked like a small wellhead, with a pool of clear water at the bottom.
At a glance, she didn’t see any fish.
Ji Yang was a little disappointed, but she still continued to cut.
With an opening, she knew where the bottom was, which was much more convenient. The speed of cutting increased in a straight line. Basically, she could cut a large block of ice in fifteen minutes.
It wasn’t until two hours later that the ice surface had been reduced by a small half, and the small half of the water surface that was exposed also rippled with the movement of the environment below.
Ji Yang sat down to rest. Only then did she find that at some point, there were fish swimming under the exposed water surface!
I’m going to cry.
There are actually still live fish.
Ji Yang couldn’t help but admire their vitality, but it was better to go to her pond!
She didn’t rest anymore and excitedly took out a fishing net to catch fish.
She first put the fish food she had prepared in advance in it. After the fishing net was cast, she didn’t have to worry about it. She continued to cut, trying to clear a larger area to cast the net.
About ten minutes later, she tried to lift the first fishing net.
Just as she had lifted half of it, she felt a heavy weight in her hand. Ji Yang took a deep breath and lifted the fishing net with one go. She saw that there were half a net of fish inside!
So many have survived?
Ji Yang untied the net and took a closer look. There were several kinds of fish. The common carp and crucian carp were all there, but they were all very small, which was normal. They hadn’t been able to eat anything for so long, so it was lucky that they were alive.
Besides fish, there were also some river shrimp, but there were no crayfish or crabs.
The temperature of the reservoir was generally low, and crayfish happened to be afraid of the cold.
But this was already abundant enough.
She carefully transferred all of these to a bucket. The bucket had been half-filled with water from her pond in advance. At this temperature, it wouldn’t freeze immediately. After they were all transferred out, she threw the fish and the bucket into her pond.
With a few “plops,” the bucket was empty.
In its place was a pond that finally had living things!
Ji Yang used her consciousness to check. She saw that this group of little guys had suddenly entered the water. The ones who were not used to it fell straight down, but they quickly realized that this was a very comfortable body of water and immediately wagged their tails and swam around, scattering.
In an instant… they disappeared.
A seven-thousand-square-meter pond, with so few fish and shrimp, was not enough to look at.
Worried that they would be hungry, Ji Yang quickly put some fish food in it, and then continued to cast the net, cut the ice, and lift the net. After a few times, the number of fish and shrimp quickly decreased.
By the fifth time, there were only two small fish and a turtle left.
She estimated that it was about enough. The ice in this reservoir had also been cut by more than half. Ji Yang didn’t continue. She took Xixi, who was tired from playing and was resting on the ice, and went back with a satisfied heart.
—
When she went back that day, Ji Yang didn’t even bother to rest.
She had just gotten so many live fish and shrimp, and she was so afraid that these guys would be raised to death by her. You had to know that she had never raised anything alive since she was a child. The fish that her grandfather liked to raise had even been killed by her a few times.
Xixi was the only living thing she had raised well.
But dogs were very easy to raise in the first place.
So, she had specially searched through that pile of data for a long time and had read all the data about raising fish and shrimp. Then she found that the environment of her pond was quite good.
The pond was very large, and the bottom was the common mud and sand bottom of a pond in reality. It was relatively clean in itself, and there were no other creatures in it.
The water quality was also very clear, but it lacked things like water plants.
Those who fed on this might be a little unaccustomed, but she could supplement with fish food from the outside, which could also make up for it. Anyway, the fish food she made was all edible for these freshwater fish and shrimp.
The next day, Ji Yang continued to set out to hoard ice and fish and shrimp.
However, the harvest was even less than the small reservoir she had gone to on the first day. Perhaps these had already been caught by many people before the water surface had frozen, and in the cold environment, the fish and shrimp had stopped breeding.
For three consecutive days, she had hoarded a lot of ice, but not many fish and shrimp. Ji Yang didn’t go out anymore and began to concentrate on making fish food.
She couldn’t make it fresh every day. She liked to hoard many things and use them directly when needed. It was too dangerous to cram at the last minute.
At this time, the seven-thousand-square-meter pond, with a few hundred fish and shrimp in it, still looked a little empty. Ji Yang had made the fish food and didn’t even know where to throw it. In the end, she simply scattered it like she was sowing seeds.
Soon, some fish and shrimp noticed the food and swam to the surface to snatch it.
They were full of vitality, and seemed to be even more alive than at the reservoir yesterday.
As a breeder, Ji Yang was very gratified.
After getting a positive return, she wanted to get more fish and shrimp, but the remaining reservoirs she knew of were all relatively large. The government had to hoard ice for the coming extreme heat, so these were definitely one of the targets. So, she still gave up.
For the next few days, she was busy at home. Besides making fish food, there was also a batch of medicinal herbs in the planting area that needed to be harvested and processed. She was so busy that her head was spinning. And outside, because the temperature was rising step by step, it was also extremely busy.
Once the temperature reached minus ten degrees, the speed of the rise seemed to have increased a lot.
In just a few days, it had reached above zero.
Everyone had taken off their heavy jackets and changed into thin clothes, feeling much lighter.
The time the sun appeared was also getting longer and longer. When the temperature had reached over ten degrees above zero, it was no different from before the apocalypse. The solar panels that many families had gotten could all be used, and they had returned to a life where they could use electricity at will. But before they could be happy, a large area of ice melted, and many reservoirs burst their banks, breaking through the obstacles and rushing madly towards the places with slightly lower geographical locations.
This scene happened at night.
The rumbling sound was like thunder.
Xixi was awakened and looked outside with its tail between its legs, warily. It thought it was being sneak attacked and kept barking.
It also woke up Ji Yang. She looked out the window, but it was pitch black and she couldn’t see anything. There was no reflection from the ice and snow, and she couldn’t see the moon at night. It was too dark.
Through the night, she seemed to still be able to feel the turbulent world outside.
When she woke up the next day, Ji Yang found that the flood had completely come.
The originally crystal-clear ice and snow ground had turned into yellow-brown dirty water. The surging water was like a turbulent river, carrying countless unknown things through this city. Layers of waves hit the buildings. Some buildings that had been frozen for a long time and were of poor quality directly collapsed and were quickly washed away by the overwhelming flood so that nothing could be seen.
Occasionally, there were cries for help, but it was impossible to see where they were, and they quickly disappeared.
The water level also rose rapidly, directly reaching the height of a six or seven-story building!
When she opened the window, Ji Yang immediately felt a wave of moisture rush at her face.
Along with it was the faint stench in the air.
In just a second, she quickly closed the doors and windows again.
Although the virus had not yet become a climate, and it was not to the point where you would be infected by just breathing in a few mouthfuls of air, the smell still made her dream of her previous life, and she was very repulsed by it.
After the window was closed, Ji Yang had no mood to eat breakfast.
She silently stared at the messy world outside. After a long period of silence, even Xixi thought something was wrong with her. It was panting because of the increasingly hot temperature and even ran over to rub against her with a “awoo awoo.” Last night, this child had thought someone was sneak attacking and had been terrified for a long time. But today, it already knew that they were very safe here, and Xixi had also returned to its usual liveliness. It was just a little hot and not used to it.
So good.
Ji Yang rubbed its fluffy head. The next second, she sneezed several times. When she looked at her hand, it was covered with fur that had fallen from Xixi’s body, and most of it was fine fluff.
Damn it!
She couldn’t care about anything else now. She immediately held Xixi and went to her space.
Shave, shave!
Xixi: Awoo?