Chapter 12
At this point, binoculars were useless.
The wind raged outside, and countless snowflakes, like grains of sand, floated in the air, forming a thick barrier. Visibility was already less than twenty meters!
With a thought, she took out an Antarctic-grade thermometer. At the same time, she dressed warmly, putting on thick, windproof gloves. Then, holding the thermometer, she stuck her hand out the window.
Even over that short distance, Ji Yang could feel her hand shaking in the wind, and it seemed she could barely hold onto the thermometer.
After waiting for a while, she pulled her hand back, quickly closed the window, and immediately checked the temperature—minus forty-five degrees Celsius!
As expected, the blizzard was accompanied by a sharp drop in temperature.
In the next few days, the temperature would surely continue to drop, all the way to over minus fifty degrees.
However, the blizzard wouldn’t last forever. It would probably stop after about five days. At that time, there would be a few days of calm. Although the snow would be thick and the temperature low, it was a much more comfortable time to go out and look for supplies.
After the calm period, the blizzard would return intermittently, interspersed with hail, thunderstorms, and tornadoes. They would come suddenly, without any warning, and could pop up out of nowhere while one was out collecting supplies.
Countless people would die.
From that time on, cries of misery would be heard everywhere. Later, when people died, their families would be too tired to cry.
Seeing the blizzard again after so many years, Ji Yang was momentarily dazed. She stared out the window. She was clearly standing in a warm room, with both the air conditioning and the fireplace on, yet she still felt a chill all over her body.
Really, if I didn’t have the space…
She couldn’t believe how she had found the courage to survive in such a world.
Ji Yang was lost in thought when she suddenly felt a warmth at her feet. She looked down and saw that Xixi, seeming to sense her mood, was tentatively rubbing against her.
She squatted down, and the little one immediately flopped onto the ground.
It exposed its soft little belly, its big, clear black and white eyes staring straight at her.
In the past two months, Xixi had grown a lot. It was now a half-grown dog of almost five months, having shed its baby fat and entered a slightly awkward, ugly phase.
Ji Yang unceremoniously rubbed its belly. The texture was superb. As she rubbed, the corners of her lips curled up, and her cold and detached face softened a lot. She whispered, “Don’t worry, I haven’t even used so many of my supplies yet. I’m not ready to die.”
After rubbing it enough, she stood up and decided to have hot pot today.
Ji Yang directly took out the bottled water she had hoarded, poured some into a basin, and then put it back into her space. Although the living room was warm, she was still afraid the water would freeze, which would make it very inconvenient to use.
First, she took out the vegetables she wanted to eat—lettuce, bok choy, spinach, and youmaicai, half a plate of each. Then came the meat dishes. Ji Yang didn’t need to prepare these; she had bought semi-finished products directly. They were already marinated by the merchant—spicy beef slices, tender beef slices, cumin lamb, lamb rolls, beef rolls, and various sausages.
Ji Yang didn’t take too much. With a variety of items, a little of each was enough to fill her up.
As for Xixi, it couldn’t eat spicy food, so she cooked meat for it in its own special pot.
Finally, she put on a tablet, playing a popular variety show. Paired with the show and the dipping sauce she had mixed to her exact liking, a bite of meat, a bite of vegetables, and then a piece of meat for the little dog—it was perfect.
—
A blizzard might be somewhat familiar to northern cities, but for a southern city, it was a once-in-a-century event.
Almost everyone watched the terrifying sky, shaken and with no appetite. It wasn’t until late at night, when their stomachs were growling, that they remembered they should eat.
The Li family was the same.
Li Yi was already terrified, hiding in her mother’s arms.
The Li parents were also scared. One comforted their daughter, while the other comforted their parents.
Suddenly, a cold wind blew in through the ventilation window, extinguishing the candle.
“Ah!” A scream rang out.
The Li family was in a bit of a panic for a moment, but Mrs. Li quickly reacted. “Light the oil lamp, and don’t blow it out tonight. Keep it lit!”
“Right, right, the oil lamp!” Mr. Li also remembered.
This was his daughter’s idea. She had specifically bought sesame oil lamps. They were expensive, but there was a good supply. Cooking oil was already hard to come by; you could only get a pot by fighting for it on the day the military delivered goods.
Mr. Li fumbled around for it, but the more anxious he was, the harder it was to find. In the end, Mrs. Li couldn’t stand it anymore and pushed her husband aside. “Let me do it!”
Then, with a casual touch, she found it.
Mr. Li: …
Grandpa and Grandma Li looked at their son, too tired to even scold him. Then they looked at their daughter-in-law and granddaughter, feeling comforted. At least there were two capable people in the family.
Their granddaughter had a strong sense of crisis and had led them to hoard a pile of things. Their daughter-in-law was calm in the face of danger and in control of the situation. It was a blessing.
The oil lamp was lit, and the dim light illuminated the pale faces of the family of five. Grandpa and Grandma Li patted their chests, still shaken. “Oh my, this wicked old sky is trying to kill us!”
“It’s too scary…” Li Yi nodded, still shaken, but also relieved. “Good thing we bought enough things before.”
After realizing something was wrong at the supermarket that time, Li Yi had decisively dragged her parents out for three consecutive days, visiting all the surrounding supermarkets, convenience stores, and pharmacies.
They bought everything they could.
Later, when the military escorted supplies, their family also went out, buying things almost every day.
Prices had skyrocketed, and they had spent over a hundred thousand during this period.
Fortunately, their family’s savings were not thin; otherwise, the heartache would have kept them up at night.
But now that this situation had occurred, Li Yi no longer felt the heartache, only immense relief. With enough supplies and medicine, they could at least survive for a long time.
Wait!
Li Yi looked at the room, where only the area illuminated by the oil lamp was bright, and felt the temperature seem to drop even more. She bit her finger and thought about what else might happen.
Because of the power and water outages, the family of five was already sleeping in one room. Flammable items had been moved out, and a large and a small bed had been moved in. At night, they only needed to burn one charcoal basin.
Everything had been considered, and it was completely sufficient for now.
But the charcoal they had bought, at this temperature, how long would it last?
But with the blizzard raging, they couldn’t go out. They could only worry anxiously, constantly praying that the temperature wouldn’t drop any further.
But prayers were useless.
That night, many people were woken up by the cold.
Some who didn’t pay attention to keeping warm froze to death in their sleep.
—
The first case of someone freezing to death due to the extreme cold occurred in the community.
It was a very old man.
By the time his family found him, his body was already stiff.
For a time, there was wailing and crying. They even went to the property management group chat to complain, but the property management could do nothing. They offered a few words of comfort over the internet, and when that had no effect, they retreated into their shells.
At this time, most of the property management staff had simply stopped coming to work. You probably couldn’t find anyone if you went to the property management office now.
The other homeowners also offered their condolences. Some were willing to send some supplies, which was a rare warmth in this cold temperature.
Ji Yang just glanced over these things and paid them no mind.
Because from now on, this situation would continue.
By the third day of the blizzard, the temperature had already reached minus fifty degrees. The property management group chat, on the other hand, had fallen silent. The internet was down, phones had no signal, and with no electricity, it was impossible to send messages out.
But Ji Yang could still faintly hear some crying, carried to her ears through the howling wind.
There were several cases every day.
And this was just in Jiafu Community, what she knew of.
The unknown situation was even more severe.
Before the internet went down, Ji Yang would check the relevant news on various platforms every day.
Ever since the blizzard appeared, the hot topics on various apps had all revolved around it. At the beginning, there were even trending searches about celebrities asking for help. Later, all that was left were reports of disasters in various places.
After the blizzard, the situation was like a landslide.
[Heilongjiang Province’s temperature plummets to a new low of minus seventy degrees.]
[Southern Province’s temperature reaches minus forty-two degrees, tens of thousands freeze to death overnight…]
[Three large ships frozen in a certain canal, crew members’ limbs frostbitten while calling for help…]
[…]
In her previous life, Ji Yang’s phone had died early on, so she couldn’t see these messages. Seeing them now, she still felt a tightness in her chest.
It was much gentler than in some novels where the temperature dropped by thirty or forty degrees overnight, causing people to die of hypothermia without even realizing it. But it still exceeded the range that humans could withstand.
Without enough warmth, accidents could happen easily.
Losing limbs to frostbite was very common, and many also froze to death. Those who survived were the lucky ones.
Normally, these comments would have at least tens of thousands of replies. But when Ji Yang looked, there were only a little over a thousand comments. The number of people with phones and internet access was also decreasing.
Until the internet went down, Ji Yang could no longer get any outside news.
Fortunately, on the fifth day of the blizzard, it began to subside.
On the eighth day, there was only a light wind, and the snow seemed to be on the verge of stopping. It was the calmest period in recent times, but the temperature had reached a terrifying minus fifty-nine degrees, almost matching the historical low of Heihe!
At this point, almost no one would go out.
It was too cold. At this temperature, you would have to go back inside to warm up after just a short while outside; otherwise, your body simply couldn’t take it. Going out at this time, the chances of dying outside were extremely high.
Ji Yang occasionally went to the balcony to look throughout the morning. As expected, she didn’t see anyone.
The vast white outdoors was so quiet it was as if she were the only one left.
No, there’s also a dog.
Ji Yang stroked the dog’s head. “Xixi, you’ve grown up too. It’s time for you to go out and see the world.”
The puppy Xixi tilted its head, not understanding.
Ji Yang chuckled, stood up, and began to get dressed. Thermal underwear, cashmere sweater, cold-proof suit, hat, scarf, arctic boots, goggles…
With a full set of gear, she looked at the dog hesitantly.
I wonder if this little dog needs gear?
But she didn’t seem to have prepared any for a dog.
Ji Yang decided to give it a try. If it didn’t work, she would just put it in her space. The temperature in the space was suitable, and it wouldn’t be affected by the outside world.
However, every time she had gone out before, she hadn’t taken Xixi with her. This time, as she was about to leave, Xixi obediently squatted by the door, wagging its tail and looking at her eagerly.
“Come here!” Ji Yang called out.
Xixi’s eyes immediately lit up, and it ran out.
The next second, with a “yowl,” it jumped up on its feet.
The tiled floor of the corridor was no different from the icy and snowy world outside. The little dog’s paws couldn’t take it!
“Pfft!” Ji Yang laughed. She wanted to go over and pick it up, but unexpectedly, the little dog was quite stubborn. It dodged her and, after running a few steps, seemed to have adapted. It then ran back to Ji Yang, wagging its tail and looking at her.
That’s good.
Ji Yang nodded in satisfaction, closed the door properly, and went down the stairs.
The blizzard had just passed, so even the official personnel wouldn’t dare to act rashly. Moreover, the previous frantic hoarding meant that most people were even less likely to go out at this time.
It was the perfect opportunity for her to make a move.
All the major jewelry stores, here I come!