Chapter 10: Chapter 10: The Bustling WeChat Group
After hanging up the phone, Lu Ruisheng called Dong Mingyue to find out how she was doing.
Dong Mingyue answered the call quite happily, "Panpan, do you know? Today, our homeowners' group exploded. Many households didn't stockpile food, and quite a few don't even have water to drink. The stuff you gave me has made my family the richest in this building. Even my in-laws asked me to thank you."
Dong Mingyue had been married for two years and had been trying to conceive, but she hadn't become pregnant yet. Recently, her in-laws had come over to discuss IVF treatments, and because those are not cheap, they were quite critical of her, and she hadn't been feeling very happy lately. This was another reason Lu Ruisheng had called her.
Hearing Dong Mingyue's cheerful tone, Lu Ruisheng wasn't worried about her anymore, "That's good. Oh, and Mingyue, I have a friend at the meteorological bureau who said this weather might last for a while. You have a lot of people in your family, so conserve your supplies as much as you can."
Dong Mingyue replied, "I know, my mother-in-law is calling me. I'll talk to you later when I'm free."
After ending the call, Lu Ruisheng looked at Zhuang Jie and laughed, "You know, we never have to worry about being nagged to marry or have kids."
Zhuang Jie also smiled and said, "Indeed. I never thought about those complications; I'm just happy being with you."
Right now, what the two of them had in abundance was time. So they chatted for a while and eventually talked about extending their Space's duration. Three hours a day was really too short. The panel mentioned that Gold could increase the time, so they dug out their gold jewelry from home and decided to try entering the Space with a pair of gold bracelets from their wedding to see if the time would change.
The two entered the Space, and the gold bracelet in Lu Ruisheng's hand disappeared in an instant, turning the three hours on the display screen into 3 hours and 58 seconds.
The two seconds were consumed just now, which meant the pair of bracelets only extended the time by one minute.
The bracelets were 50 grams each, which meant 100 grams of Gold only added one minute. To add an hour, which was 60 minutes, you would need 6000 grams of gold. Wasn't that too expensive?
Zhuang Jie looked at Lu Ruisheng's expression and rubbed her head, "Having the Space is already great. We can't ask for too much. Plus, with the apocalypse upon us and all the supplies we have, aren't we able to trade for gold?"
Lu Ruisheng thought about it and nodded, "Yeah, in a few months, food will be more valuable than gold."
"Remember when we scoped out the location of the malls? Once we can get out, we should go check out the jewelry stores first."
"Right. It seems filling up a day might not be that hard after all."
"Since we're free today, let's clean up the Space and put up those shelves we have; everything will be clearer once it's organized."
"Great, I was planning on tidying up too. We still haven't opened all of Zhuang Jie's boxes. There might be some surprises in there, right?"
"Let's start with opening the boxes then."
With only three hours and one minute, they couldn't do much.
At this moment, both were in a good mood, opening Zhuang Jie's boxes like they were opening mystery boxes. They found surprising items continuously, such as medications—not just the commonplace ones, but also those for treating age-related diseases, diabetes, heart disease, cancer. In short, there was an extremely comprehensive range of medications, unlike what Lu Ruisheng and Zhuang Jie could purchase at a regular pharmacy.
Many of Zhuang Jie's items were prescription medications; there were even surgical instruments and a dialysis machine. Several were stored using constant temperature boxes, showing that in this respect, he had more experience than Lu Ruisheng and Zhuang Jie. After all, Zhuang Jie's family had elderly and children in their previous life, while Lu Ruisheng and Zhuang Jie would only need the more commonly used drugs.
Apart from these, there were also many children's toys, which Lu Ruisheng and Zhuang Jie hadn't considered at all. But now, Lu Ruisheng found them quite interesting—the toys nowadays were really high-tech.
They also found a lot of baby formula, for babies at different stages. The two exchanged glances. Could it be that Zhuang Jie's family had planned to have second or third children after the apocalypse? But it just seemed like too much. How many children could finish it all?
It could also be for selling, after all, these were in high demand and would be valuable later on.
After spending three hours opening mystery boxes, they found many surprises. Not to mention anything else, Zhuang Jie really had spent a lot of money on so many imported fruits that Lu Ruisheng had not dared to buy more of before—durians and mangosteens, here were over a dozen boxes.
Leaving the Space, Lu Ruisheng also took out a durian.
Outside, the snow was falling even heavier; the sky was ominously overcast, and the streetlights were always on, with not a person or car in sight.
After coming out, Lu Ruisheng remembered she had forgotten to take out knitting needles and yarn, or a sewing machine and fabric from the Space. Those things were best for passing the time in this weather.
But after seeing the TV turned on, both of them found something to do—watching TV. The news was all about the cold snap. At least for today, everyone still thought this was just a freak cold snap that would pass quickly.
Basically, there were no presenters at the TV station; everything was broadcast online.
After watching the news for a while, they switched to live streams, since in just over ten days, the internet would be gone, and all of this would become a memory.
Since they could still openly cook, they had hot pot for lunch and didn't even have to wash the vegetables. They had ordered hot pot from three different places, a hundred servings from each, totaling three hundred servings. Definitely enough to last.
After lunch, they took a nap and were later woken up by messages in the WeChat group.
The messages they saw on WeChat were mostly harmonious exchanges of food and water borrowing.
Their community was considered one of the better ones in the city, so most of the residents were quite well-mannered. Anything undesirable in the group was skipped over, and infighting was rare.
By evening, the snow hadn't stopped—in fact, it was getting heavier, and the messages in the group were more active again.
The timid expressed fear, while the bold said that after a night's sleep, it might all melt away by morning, and they'd have to return to working 996.
That night, Lu Ruisheng and Zhuang Jie held each other as they slept, not doing much since the apocalypse had just arrived. They knew what the future would bring, so inwardly, they felt even heavier.
The next morning, they were once again woken up by WeChat. Lu Ruisheng hadn't silenced the notifications for her WeChat group, as she was worried about missing important information. After all, with a second chance, what if the butterfly effect changed some details? The WeChat group was still where the most information was exchanged, so there was no harm in keeping it.
They both knew that because they couldn't go out, many daily inconveniences had arisen. Yesterday was the first day, and everyone thought they could just endure it and it would pass. But with each passing day, it was going to become more difficult.
She picked up her phone and started reading the homeowners' group messages with Zhuang Jie.
At that moment, two households on the first floor were complaining in the group that their toilets were blocked and asked people from the upper floors not to use their bathrooms.
But there were also complaints. With no way out, where else could they go to the bathroom if not in their own homes?
Fortunately, the head of the 401 households promptly spoke up: "Let's all be understanding of each other. We are one building, one family. There's a saying that distant relatives are no better than close neighbors. This is a temporary difficulty; we can make do with plastic bags for now."
The owner of 501, who lived with their grandchild, added: "Right now, our trash is piled at the door because we can't throw it out. If we start using plastic bags for the toilet as well, what if it suddenly warms up one night and our entrance becomes a cesspool?"