Chapter 251: "I'll Marry You When Your Hair Reaches Your Waist"

As soon as the turtle-snake wine was ready, Li Yutian began clamoring to pick it up, but Jing Shu told him she would deliver it to him the next morning.

One sip of the turtle-snake wine—bitter with the taste of Chinese herbs and burning like fire in her throat—made her whole body heat up. In the freezing temperatures of -70°C, this would definitely be the perfect way to warm up, but the taste was unbearable for Jing Shu.

However, Grandpa savored it, smacking his lips in satisfaction and exclaiming, "Good wine!"

Since Jing Shu only had one turtle, which her cousin Su Long had found, she hadn’t been able to find any more turtles when she last went to Xishan. She would have to find more old turtles later. For now, she made turtle-snake wine for her family, while the rest of the batches were just regular snake wine.

Jing Shu removed the snake’s organs, added it to white wine, and then mixed in appropriate proportions of Chinese herbs. In total, she brewed 10 bottles, each stored in a 1-liter glass bottle. By the time she was done, she had used up nearly all the white wine she had stored.

Jing Shu thought it might be a good idea to start brewing more wine. After all, the grapes in her spatial storage had already ripened several times. She planned to make red wine, white wine, and rice wine when she had some free time. Compared to white wine, a glass of red wine every day didn’t sound too bad.

On a day when the temperature finally reached 34°C, after a hearty breakfast, Jing Shu donned her fully enclosed raincoat, grabbed a bottle of wine, and walked to the big mall near the Banana Community to deliver it to Li Yutian.

The temperature in Wu City had started to drop gradually. In a few months, it would fall to around ten degrees, and the rain would make people shiver during the day. Even though the government was handing out free plastic raincoats, nobody would want to go outside by then.

As Jing Shu walked through the pouring rain, she noticed that everyone around her was slowly trudging along in their plastic raincoats. In areas where water had pooled on the road, older women crouched down to collect red worms, hoping to exchange them for meager points.

At this time of day, most people were heading to the food halls to collect meals for their families, as many preferred to eat at home rather than venture out. Some didn’t even bother wearing proper clothes anymore, opting for just a raincoat.

The continuous rain meant that clothes and bedding were always damp. Some people who had managed to dry their clothes after a week didn’t want to go outside and get soaked again. Sleeping in the cold, wet weather was unbearable.

Jing Shu, having lived through all of this once before, knew what to expect. She understood why people wore plastic raincoats even when working or fetching meals—like the women collecting red worms. With everyone shaved bald, it was hard to tell men from women unless you had sharp eyesight like Jing Shu.

The first floor of the mall housed three large food halls. One of them, Aijia Food Hall, was under the supervision of Jing Shu’s aunt. It was known for its specialty dishes like "Salt and Pepper Insect" and "Pan-Fried Mushroom Eggs," which attracted middle-class customers among the poorer population.

Aiguo Food Hall, on the other hand, was known for its affordable and generous portions, drawing in large crowds.

At this very moment, Aiguo Food Hall was packed with people, and loud shouting could be heard, followed by gut-wrenching screams. Many people stood around to watch the commotion.

Jing Shu didn’t pay attention to the chaos. She headed straight to the second floor, to Li Yutian’s office. The world might be unjust, but it wasn’t her responsibility to fix everything.

"Hold her down! Somebody shave her head, and let’s see if we can break this curse!"

"No! Please, no! I won’t come back, I swear! Let me go!"

Jing Shu, who had been about to leave, stopped and turned back. She hurried towards the source of the commotion, wine bottle in hand, rushing toward Aiguo Food Hall.

"It must be her—it has to be her!" Jing Shu’s heart raced. After months of rain, there was only one person she knew who would stubbornly refuse to cut their hair and still come to the food hall.

Last month, Jing Shu had asked her aunt to keep an eye out for a woman with exceptionally long hair who refused to cut it. She had instructed her aunt to inform her if this woman showed up, and to make sure she stayed. But there had been no news, and her aunt confirmed that no such person had come to the food hall. As for the other two food halls, Jing Shu wasn’t sure.

Jing Shu had also asked Wang Qiqi, who had risen to the position of distribution director for the Banana Community, to search for anyone with the name "Zi Jin." While they had found a few, none were the right person.

In her previous life, Jing Shu had met this woman at Aijia Food Hall, but in this life, no matter how hard she searched, she couldn’t find her.

It was possible that the massive population of the Banana Community—ten thousand people—had caused some data to be misplaced, and Jing Shu had started to lose hope. But now, unexpectedly, she had heard her voice.

Jing Shu smacked her forehead in frustration. Aijia Food Hall served tastier but more expensive meals, while Aiguo Food Hall was cheaper. Given her frugal nature, it made sense that she would eat at Aiguo Food Hall.

Moreover, because Jing Shu’s rebirth had caused a series of butterfly effects, her aunt had become the manager of Aijia Food Hall and had introduced the famous dish, "Pan-Fried Mushroom Eggs," driving up the food hall’s prices. That must have caused the girl with the waist-length hair to stop going there altogether.

Jing Shu’s hand, gripping the wine bottle, trembled slightly as she quickened her pace. Dressed in her fully enclosed raincoat, she looked like a domineering CEO, charging through the crowd. "Move! Make way!" she shouted.

Her strength was intimidating, and she shoved aside two groups of people. Those who were about to protest fell silent upon seeing her figure and the item she was holding in the dim light.

In the apocalypse, those who could afford such rain gear and a bottle of alcohol were people you didn’t want to mess with. Most people stepped aside to let Jing Shu pass.

This was the harsh reality of the apocalypse.

At this moment, the woman from Jing Shu’s memory—whose boyfriend had once told her, "I’ll marry you when your hair reaches your waist"—was fighting to keep her hair. She had grown it out only to receive the heartbreaking news that her boyfriend had died during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake rescue efforts. Since then, she had refused to cut her hair.

She used to say, "As long as I keep my hair long, one day he’ll come back and marry me. That’s my reason for living."

This was the same woman Jing Shu had once resented for not cutting her hair, leading to an infestation of red worms that spread to Jing Shu. But this woman had also saved Jing Shu and her family from starvation by sharing the little food she had saved through her frugal lifestyle.

Later, this woman had even led Jing Shu to dig up corpses to eat, and together, they had survived a migration that was like a modern Long March. They had endured the most difficult times together, but tragically, this woman hadn’t survived until the end.

Before she died, she said:

"I feel like he’s always been watching over me."

"I know."

"You’re the only one who ever believed he was with me."

"Is that why you saved us?"

"Yes."

In truth, Jing Shu had merely humored the woman at the time, never expecting the events that followed. She certainly never imagined that a few words of affirmation could earn her life-saving food in the apocalypse.

...

No matter what, Jing Shu felt indebted to this woman. She was determined to help her live a better life in this second chance at life.

"Stop!" Jing Shu yelled just as the security guard was about to shave the woman’s waist-length hair. She stormed forward and snatched the electric razor from his hand.