Chapter 14
With a goal in mind, Ji Yang set out early the next morning.
She left so early this time that she still didn’t see anyone. It wasn’t until she had emptied out two stores that she encountered the first group of people.
However, this time, the other party wasn’t just out looking for supplies.
They had the same goal as Ji Yang: to take advantage of the power outage and lack of internet for some zero-yuan shopping!
Of course, their target wasn’t gold and jewelry, but the mobile phone stores on the street…
Ji Yang: …
She hoped they wouldn’t regret it so much in the future that they’d slap themselves twice.
At least gold still had some use. Although its value had depreciated a lot, it could still be used to buy things. Mobile phones, on the other hand, were truly worthless.
The two parties made eye contact, but Ji Yang was on a snowmobile, moving at high speed, and her body was completely covered. So, this group of people only looked on with envy before continuing with their own business.
Similarly, their faces were also completely covered, making them difficult to recognize.
At noon, Ji Yang still used her cassette stove to cook some soup and have something hot to eat. She was out for a long time today, so Xixi also needed to eat. Fortunately, she had cooked a lot of meat in her space in advance. Now, she just took it out. She took a bite, and with her left hand, she fed Xixi a piece of meat.
The harmony between the human and the dog was remarkable.
But as they were eating, Xixi’s ears suddenly perked up. It didn’t even move for the piece of meat offered to its mouth. Its round eyes stared at the entrance, extremely vigilant.
Having been together for so long, Ji Yang knew that this reaction meant a stranger was approaching.
At home, even with the good soundproofing, Xixi could still keenly sense any movement in the corridor. Occasionally, when someone went up to the rooftop to get snow, it would notice.
However, if the person just went straight up and down, it wouldn’t pay too much attention. It was a super smart puppy.
Now, several seconds had passed, and it was still vigilant. It even twitched its paws, as if wanting to get closer. Ji Yang knew that the person approaching was probably heading her way.
She had just about finished eating anyway, so she quickly packed everything up. Every time she took things out of her space, she would find cover, even if the cameras had no power. So, the place where she was eating was also blocked by a cabinet, making it impossible to see.
Therefore, Ji Yang directly stored everything in her space.
Then, she burrowed into the snow, quickly dug a hole, and waited inside with Xixi.
Ordinary people were fine, but if it was official personnel, it would be a bit tricky. It wasn’t the time for casual zero-yuan shopping yet, especially for jewelry.
So, it was better to hide if she could.
After waiting for a while, after a rustling sound, a group of people appeared through the snow tunnel she had dug on her way in. There were six of them, all strong men.
One of them arrived, immediately sniffed the air, and then smacked his lips. “Who the f*ck is eating instant noodles here? It smells so good.”
“Huh, it does smell good. But why don’t I see anyone?”
The few of them looked around and, after confirming that they couldn’t find anyone, became even more uneasy. “Big brother, someone has been here. Do you think we should still do it?”
Even without cameras, they were still scared.
The leader, Kong Zifu, slapped the back of his subordinate’s head, tugged at his balaclava, and said fiercely, “Do it, why not? If you don’t say anything, I don’t say anything, and they don’t say anything, who’s going to know it was us?”
Just then, one of them who was checking said, “Big brother, look, the door of this store has been pried open!”
The few of them immediately ran over to check, then exclaimed, “Holy crap, even the safes have been pried open! Who did this? They’re so well-equipped!”
“Impressive!”
“We’re screwed. Are all the things in safes? Can our axes even break them?”
The leader, Kong Zifu: …
The others: …
The six of them looked at each other. One of them raised his hand and whispered, “Why don’t we go for something else? We didn’t bring any tools, we can’t open the safes.”
After a moment of silence, Kong Zifu was still unwilling. “No, let’s give it a try. There must be some that didn’t put their jewelry in the safe!”
No sooner said than done, the group of them started prying at the door with all their might.
Ji Yang, listening from her snow hole, felt the corner of her mouth twitch.
It had been a long time since she had seen such a dim-witted robbery gang. As expected of the beginning of the apocalypse, they were all “naive and sweet” from being protected by the country.
Seeing that this group was now focused on prying the door, she didn’t delay and quietly left from the other side.
Xixi also obediently kept its mouth shut and followed without a sound.
It wasn’t until the sound of a motorcycle started that the few of them were startled. Just as they were getting scared, one of the subordinates used all his strength and pried the door open. He pointed at the counter in surprise. “Holy crap, there are still some gold chains that haven’t been put away! Big brother, we’re rich!!!”
—
After that, Ji Yang didn’t run into anyone else.
She smoothly rode her snowmobile, visiting half the city, and pried open four more jewelry stores before returning, exhausted.
The main reason was that it was too cold.
If it weren’t for the cold, she could have kept going!
Although the quality of these jades was average, many a little makes a mickle. Today, she had emptied out nine stores and successfully gained five hundred square meters of black land!
The seeds she had planted yesterday hadn’t even sprouted yet, but today, Ji Yang already had a new plan.
Five hundred square meters of black land sounded like a lot, but it wasn’t actually that big. One mu of land is six hundred and sixty-six square meters. But for her, it was more than enough.
While taking a bath, she planned the land in her mind. The first step was to divide it into sections.
For now, the breeding area didn’t need to be expanded, so each plot was roughly divided into fifty square meters, making a total of ten plots. She could plant ten different crops. Originally, she hadn’t decided what to plant. While sorting through a pile of seeds, her eyes lit up when she scanned over the medicinal herb seeds.
After the extreme cold would come the torrential rains and floods. The temperature would rise, and all sorts of dirty things would be mixed together like a stew. This was the easiest time to get sick.
Due to limited conditions, it was difficult to produce Western medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine became a lifesaver, and medicinal herbs were in short supply at this time.
Ji Yang didn’t intend to save the world, but since she knew some things in advance, she could prepare some medicinal herbs first. Then, she could find an excuse to take them out and trade them for some jade, killing two birds with one stone.
Coincidentally, in her previous life, she had become a semi-barefoot doctor in order to survive. She remembered the most needed common medicinal herbs.
She carefully selected ten from the box of traditional Chinese medicine seeds. Ji Yang didn’t dare to plant them directly. After her bath, she dried herself off, came out of the space, and sat cross-legged on the soft carpet. While eating barbecue, she cautiously took out her computer and looked up knowledge about Chinese herbal medicine, checking how to plant each one.
When she had bought these portable hard drives, she had paid extra for the shopkeeper to collect all sorts of data. She had also paid for the copyright fees for those that required it. She had all sorts of impressive papers and valuable video tutorials.
Fortunately, these were all common herbs, and their planting methods were relatively simple. There were also videos to visualize the process. By the time Ji Yang finished eating, she had memorized the methods and couldn’t wait to start planting in her space.
By the time she was done with everything, it was already past ten at night.
Ji Yang hadn’t slept this late in a long time. The fatigue from the busy day and the mental exhaustion from farming at night made her fall asleep as soon as she relaxed.
The next day, she just… couldn’t get up.
She was awake, but she just felt like she hadn’t slept enough.
Ji Yang didn’t force herself. Since she was so tired, she would just lie flat.
She dozed off for a while longer. Around eleven, when she was so hungry she couldn’t stand it anymore, she got up to eat brunch. Her appetite was good today. Ji Yang rummaged through her space and found a plate of spicy crayfish.
At this point, she had to say that the timing of her rebirth was not ideal.
Crayfish were long out of season. Although they were still sold, they were far from the plump and juicy ones of the peak season.
But even so, she had still bought a lot to hoard. Since crayfish required peeling, for her other dish, she chose a steamed sea bass.
With a bowl of rice, she happily started eating!
For her dining location, Ji Yang had gotten used to choosing the balcony.
The windows in her house were not only explosion-proof and bulletproof, but also one-way. People outside couldn’t see in. However, ever since the power went out, Ji Yang had been careful to draw the heavy curtains to block the light from her house at night.
During the day, she would open them. While eating, she could also observe the situation outside.
Before the blizzard, the people in the community had basically hoarded a lot of food. Ji Yang had thought that no one would go out for a short period of time, so her gaze was directed further away.
There were indeed more people than the previous two days.
With more people, zero-yuan shopping became less convenient. Ji Yang decided to temporarily give up on it. Just as she was about to put down her binoculars, she saw a group of people leaving from the entrance of her own community.
Did they run out of supplies and go out to look for more?
Ji Yang had a gut feeling that wasn’t it.
In the afternoon, after she finished exercising, she heard the sound of a motor vehicle. She hurried to the balcony to look and saw a snow truck appear at the community entrance. Then, several groups of people appeared at the entrance, each group carrying a stretcher, which was then loaded onto the truck.
The people following behind were mostly crying their hearts out.
They were taking the dead to be cremated.
Even in the extreme cold, the dead couldn’t just be left lying around. So, even though other industries had almost come to a standstill, the crematoriums were still working.
She just didn’t know if the country had seen the email she had sent, and if they knew about the epidemics that would happen in the future.
—
A few consecutive days of calm relaxed people’s moods.
On the fourth day, there was even half an hour of sunshine.
Even though they knew the sun had always been there, just blocked by the thick clouds, feeling the sun in person was still a pleasant experience.
Ji Yang also ran to the balcony the moment she saw the sun. Xixi was already sleeping there, its belly up, its four limbs arranged in strange positions, looking extremely comfortable.
But after only half an hour, the sun mercilessly disappeared.
The temperature, which had just warmed up by about five degrees, slowly dropped again, approaching minus sixty degrees.
On the sixth day, it snowed again.
On the seventh day, the wind and snow intensified, feeling like the blizzard before. Having experienced it once, people were not as scared. They closed their doors and windows and lived as usual.
The abundant supplies at home were their courage to remain calm.
Ji Yang didn’t go out again. She collected jade to expand her space and make her life better, but if she had to go out in the wind and snow, she would rather wait.
However, to train Xixi and collect snow, she would still go out for a walk, mostly to the rooftop.
The people in the building continued to go to the rooftop to get snow for use, so the snow on the rooftop was not as thick as on the ground.
Ji Yang also collected snow as a free resource. Every time she did, she would take from the top layer. First, she would cut it with her entrenching tool, and then with a wave of her hand, a block of snow would disappear.
Where she passed, it was neat and tidy, very satisfying for her OCD.
This continued for more than half a month, and finally, the government began to distribute relief food!
In the wind and snow, a convoy of green vehicles struggled to transport goods to one community after another. Finally, amidst the eager anticipation of the crowd, it entered Jiafu Community.
Almost at the moment the vehicles entered, many people ran out from every building in the community, swarming towards them. From a distance, Ji Yang could hear their excited inquiries: “When will this snow disaster be over?”
“When will the power and internet be restored?”
“My son went out to look for supplies and hasn’t come back yet. Please, please help me find him, wuwuwu…”