Chapter 49: Good News

The property management had scattered several air conditioners in a few corners.

The families with babies and elderly people were mainly arranged around these air conditioners.

But looking at the people inside, almost everyone was wearing very little, their faces flushed red from the heat, and beads of sweat still on their foreheads.

It seemed the air conditioners weren’t making much of a difference.

After all, regular household air conditioners only have a cooling capacity of two or three horsepower at most, covering an area of thirty or forty square meters.

But this underground parking lot was several thousand square meters.

Plus, maybe there were just too many people.

Still, it was clearly much better than the scorching 60-70 degrees upstairs.

Someone even took a few photos of fresh bloodstains left on the walls and posted them in the group chat.

It was probably from when the blood mosquitoes came in that afternoon, with some flying in through the pedestrian passage.

Naturally, the group chat was soon filled with a barrage of curses and swearing.

There was also a photo of thick, rolling smoke and blazing flames.

It looked a bit eerie, because amidst the raging fire, you could clearly see the silhouettes of bodies stacked on top of each other.

Jiang Yan looked closely and finally recognized it as the dried-up pond in the center of the community garden.

It seemed the property management had turned it into a temporary cremation site.

After all, with the temperature rising and the number of blood mosquitoes increasing, quite a few people had died that afternoon. They probably didn’t have the energy to transport the bodies outside the community anymore.

Scrolling further down, there was even a video.

The person filming narrated as if they were livestreaming.

People were either sitting or lying on makeshift bedding.

Some were hunched over, covering their ears and trying to sleep.

But there were also people playing cards together, chatting, or nursing babies alone.

A few families seemed to be wailing in grief.

They had probably lost family members during the blood mosquito attack that afternoon.

In this kind of environment, hoping for peace and quiet was clearly a luxury.

At least, no one was smoking.

Or maybe they’d already run out of cigarettes at home.

After Jiang Yan got a general sense of the situation, she was about to exit the residents’ group chat when her gaze stopped at the number of members at the top.

Shanshui Bay Residents’ Group (306).

Jiang Yan: ""...""

She remembered the group used to be full, with 500 members.

Good grief!

In just one day, nearly two hundred households were gone.

That meant the population had dropped by at least six hundred people.

Wasn’t that a bit too outrageous?

Jiang Yan couldn’t help but recall that surveillance footage in her mind.

Also, she seemed to have caught a glimpse of the owner of those shoes again in the video shot by a resident.

At the time, the security supervisor was handing out compressed biscuits or something to the residents.

Now, looking at the sharply reduced number of people in the group, a strange suspicion suddenly popped into her mind.

*

In the days that followed, cell phone signals became intermittent.

The temperature steadily climbed from the previous sixty-seven or sixty-eight degrees up to over seventy.

Every day, the telecom providers would send out encouraging text messages.

The authorities also gradually announced new temporary shelters and sent out the addresses to everyone.

At the same time, they opened up some temporary supply depots to the public for free.

But due to limited resources, people had to go collect supplies themselves.

Also, government personnel joined all the city’s residents’ group chats.

But not many—just one or two people per group.

Jiang Yan suddenly understood why, after so many apps crashed, WeChat was still working.

Most likely, the authorities were supporting it behind the scenes to make sure information could reach people as quickly as possible.

There was much less idle chatter in the group, but all sorts of fierce arguments started breaking out.

Most likely, the food delivered by the authorities wasn’t enough.

Once resources became scarce, conflict was inevitable.

Some suspected that the property management and the residents’ committee were colluding to pocket supplies.

But they had no proof.

The officials in the group were mostly there to calm people down—they couldn’t magically produce more supplies.

Or rather, there were supplies, but in these conditions, they just couldn’t be delivered.

Also, according to updates in the group, even when the temperature rose above seventy degrees, the mutated blood mosquitoes were still swarming everywhere.

Only when it hit seventy-five degrees did their numbers finally start to drop.

Gradually, the mosquitoes became fewer and fewer, until they disappeared completely.

On the tenth day of the heatwave, the authorities sent out a mass message through the telecom providers, and it was truly uplifting:

The blood mosquitoes have disappeared from the entire world!

And if we can just hold on for another ten days, there’s an 80% chance the heatwave will be over.

This was the first piece of good news since the heatwave hit the world.

Even though the next ten days would only get hotter, at least it gave the survivors a glimmer of hope.

After that, the intermittent cell phone signal vanished completely.

The power in the Shanshui Bay underground garage seemed to have run out even before the signal was lost.

The residents’ group chat was dead silent.

During this period, Jiang Yan spent almost all her time in her space, studying.

Her daily schedule was packed from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Apart from meal times and a half-hour nap, she rotated through flying, yachting, excavator operation, shooting, and farming.

Like cramming for an exam.

But since she didn’t have access to water, yacht and boat practice was stuck at the “landlubber” stage.

The Lego sets and all the movies, TV dramas, variety shows, and anime she’d downloaded to kill time now seemed a bit redundant.

She only watched a bit during meals or before bed.

But she knew, deep down, she was enduring hardship now for a better future.

The heatwave had isolated everything, giving her the perfect environment to study.

Once the heatwave ended and those hiding underground returned to normal life, the world around her would no longer be so quiet and safe.

Sometimes, Jiang Yan would leave her space and return to her apartment.

Partly to acclimate herself to surviving in high temperatures, and partly because, after the signal was gone, she had no more sources of information and wanted to see if anything had changed outside.

Or maybe, she hoped that one day, she’d see signs of official rescue teams on the streets.

On the eighteenth day of the heatwave, the temperature suddenly dropped to sixty degrees.

Still scorching, but Jiang Yan was a little delighted.

It was very likely that in two days, the heatwave would end.

On the nineteenth day, the temperature continued to drop, reaching the fifties.

That evening, as dusk fell, Jiang Yan stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window and finally saw vehicles moving on the street.

She quickly grabbed her binoculars.

Sure enough, several trucks with unusual paint jobs were delivering supplies.

Judging by the color, the trucks were probably coated with heat-insulating material, and the tires were special, able to withstand high temperatures.

The trucks stopped at the entrance to Shanshui Bay.

To prevent a stampede for supplies, armed soldiers jumped out first.

Soon, a group of people who looked half-dead staggered out of the underground garage.

The authorities hadn’t given up on a single citizen.

Even though the forecast said the temperature would likely return to normal the next day.

Delivering supplies now was clearly a race against time.

After all, many people might not survive another day.

Besides, the heatwave had come so suddenly—there was only so much they could do.

Later, when Jiang Yan came out of her space again, she heard the “thump thump thump” of helicopters overhead.

She hurried to the window.

Several military helicopters flew slowly and low across the night sky.

Hanging beneath them were huge, double-sided, glow-in-the-dark banners.

They read: “The authorities will carry out citywide disinfection in one day. Residents still in buildings, please make sure all doors and windows are tightly closed.”

Actually, even without the warning, hardly anyone would leave their doors or windows open.

Of course, in this kind of heat, it was hard to say if anyone was still alive in the buildings.

The next day.

The temperature, as if it had gone mad, plummeted to thirty-seven or thirty-eight degrees in a single day.

People who had been hiding underground for so long rushed to the surface.

But to be safe, no one dared go home.

Those on higher floors were afraid they wouldn’t be able to come back down.

Those on lower floors were still traumatized by the blood mosquitoes.

There was still no signal or electricity.

But soon, the wind picked up.

And, at long last, raindrops began to fall from the sky.

Babies, our book has successfully advanced to PK2! Thank you to every single one of you for your support during this time!! Mua!!!! Let’s keep working together and charge toward PK3!!! (～￣▽￣)～"