Chapter 51: Torrential Rain (Part 2) (PK ongoing, please keep reading! Please vote!)

As soon as Su Dai heard this, she looked worried and tugged at his hand. “Honey…”

Sun Jingtao squeezed her hand in return, comforting her, “Babe, I can still hold on. Wait for me downstairs for a bit, and we’ll go home together in a while.”

“Yeah, let’s all pitch in! We’re all neighbors in the same community—now more than ever, we need to unite and work together!” Zhang Qiming echoed, his words full of official-sounding encouragement.

He looked much more haggard these days, his beard unkempt.

Most of the remaining supplies at home, as well as those distributed by the authorities, he’d left for Zhang Qiqi.

But he had a feeling that all the effort and investment he’d put into Zhang Qiqi this month would finally pay off tonight.

The thought made him feel a faint excitement and impatience.

The two of them followed a few security guards to move sandbags.

A few other men from the lower and middle floors quietly joined in as well.

Liu Dahong, however, walked at the back, frowning and silent.

Most of the remaining people hurried toward the entrances of their own buildings.

The first group to go in had barely taken a few steps before they were hit by the overpowering stench of rotting corpses and dried blood.

Outside, the rain was pounding down, while inside the corridor was pitch black.

A few people tripped over a corpse that hadn’t been disposed of in time.

“Thud!”

The moment their faces and hands touched the mummified body, the acrid stench of decay rushed up their noses, and the strange, clammy feel of the skin sent chills down their spines.

Some even saw swarms of maggots wriggling out of the corpse’s mouth, nose, eyes, and ears.

“Ugh—!”

“Damn it!!”

“Aaaah!”

Someone stepped right on a blood mosquito corpse.

*Splat!*

No one could tell if it was leftover blood spurting from inside the mosquito, or if the body had just rotted into a puddle of yellow pus.

The foul, bloody stench in the air grew thicker and thicker.

Panic spread among the people.

Screams, curses, and sobs rang out one after another.

“Boom!”

After a deafening clap of thunder, lightning streaked across the sky, and flashes of white light shone through the windows.

Bloodstains on the walls, blood on the floor, mummified bodies, severed limbs, and faces twisted in fear—

At a glance, it was like being in an immersive horror movie.

Half an hour later, the people on the lower floors finally made it home in a panic.

Those living higher up were still slowly climbing the stairs.

Everyone was so weak now that after just a few flights, they had to stop and catch their breath.

Jiang Yan stood silently by her bedroom window, watching the scene outside.

In some buildings, faint lights flickered in the windows.

But most windows were pitch black.

Maybe those homes had run out of power and candles.

Or maybe the whole family hadn’t survived this disaster—wiped out, gone.

The rain was still pouring down, growing heavier by the minute, soon submerging the pool where they’d burned bodies.

The sloped road leading to the underground parking lot had turned into a wide river.

Sewage, garbage, and blood mosquito corpses quickly floated to the surface.

At this rate, by midnight, half of the first floor would be underwater.

Earlier, the first-floor residents had been excited, thinking they had the advantage of being close to the water—they could just grab a basin or bucket and easily go out to collect rainwater.

But half an hour later, fear set in as they realized their homes might be flooded and they’d have to evacuate immediately.

But that wasn’t Jiang Yan’s concern. She frowned for a moment, then looked away.

The room was pitch dark—she hadn’t turned on any lights.

She recalled her memories from her previous life.

The heatwave had lasted less than a month, about the same as last time.

And from what she’d overheard from Song Deming and Zhang Qiqi, the torrential rain had lasted for over a month straight.

If all these disasters were repeating from her last life, just happening a month earlier this time—

Then there was still a tough battle ahead.

What’s more, every natural disaster brought with it secondary disasters.

And those secondary disasters depended a lot on the specifics of each city.

For example, when the global heatwave hit, people in Anming—where it was spring all year round and almost no one had air conditioning—were clearly less prepared than those in tropical or subtropical areas where every home had AC.

Even though all the cities eventually lost power and AC became useless, the latter group at least had more time to prepare.

And now, with torrential rain everywhere, cities with good underground drainage systems or higher elevation would fare much better than those with old, inadequate drainage and low-lying terrain.

Anming had neither advantage.

With its mild, spring-like climate, Anming was like a flower in a greenhouse—its people were well protected in normal times.

Everyone lived comfortably in such a pleasant climate.

But when these extreme weather events hit, they were clearly less able to cope than those in harsher climates.

And that’s not even mentioning extreme cold or heavy snow.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a single snowplow in the whole city.

And now, with the coming torrential rain, the city was about to face a serious test.

From what she remembered, Anming’s drainage system had always been a problem—a regular heavy rain could flood the streets.

People used to joke about swimming to work, and honestly, it wasn’t far from the truth.

On top of that, in recent years, the city seemed to be endlessly digging and burying things under the roads, as if there were ancient treasures hidden below.

All that digging and refilling only made the secondary disasters from heavy rain worse.

Despite all these problems, Jiang Yan still hadn’t chosen to leave the city.

Because, for her, these weren’t really problems.

Rather than move to a strange city, she’d rather stay on her own turf.

Still, no matter where she was, surviving alone in the apocalypse wasn’t just a matter of hiding and waiting it out.

But those were problems to face one at a time.

For now, she needed to solve her immediate food problem.

She’d spent the whole afternoon secretly playing “observer” and hadn’t even had dinner yet.

“Achoo!” Jiang Yan sneezed reflexively.

She glanced at the thermometer—the temperature had dropped again.

In just an hour or two, it had quickly fallen to around 21 or 22 degrees Celsius.

Normally, that would feel comfortable.

But after getting used to 60 or 70 degrees for a while, this sudden drop actually felt a bit chilly.

She got up, drew the blackout curtains in her bedroom, and turned on a small night light.

Then she took out her tablet and pulled up the surveillance feed.

First, she checked the first floor.

The water had just reached the bottom step of the building entrance, and some residents were already dragging suitcases out.

With the lights out in the hallway, the cameras had switched to infrared mode.

On screen, those people turned and headed for the stairwell.

Most likely, they were about to start knocking on doors upstairs, looking for a place to stay.

She was on the 32nd floor, so it would be a while before anyone reached her.

And even if they did, she was determined not to open the door, no matter what.

Still, Jiang Yan guessed some people might try to “nest in the magpie’s nest”—taking over empty apartments.

After all, a quick look at the owners’ group chat would tell you which units were completely abandoned.

She checked the seventh floor, where Zhang Qiqi lived.

It was empty.

As soon as she switched to the 32nd floor feed, He Chunmei’s thin, bitter face appeared right outside her door.

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