Chapter 99: Wow, Vegetable Seeds!

Jiang Yan stopped at the landing of the stairs and didn’t go any further.

The path the crowd had made for her was narrow.

If any of them suddenly pulled out a knife to stab her in the back, she’d turn into a human pincushion in an instant.

“Good dogs don’t block the way,” Jiang Yan said coldly, raising an eyebrow as she glanced at the group.

They looked at each other for a second, but though they were angry, none dared speak up. They squeezed themselves even further to the sides of the stairwell.

Seeing this, Jiang Yan said nothing more. She set her inflatable boat down on the floor and took off her backpack.

“Maybe we should head back. It’s almost our turn to go down and fish anyway,” someone said nervously, seeing her unzip her backpack and thinking she was about to pull out a gun.

“Yeah, that’s right! It’s so dark in this stairwell, I almost forgot the time,” another chimed in hastily.

“What about Old Zhang’s body?”

“What else can we do? Just leave it there!”

...

The group gave each other excuses and started moving their feet.

Jiang Yan paused with her hand on the zipper, then stood up and watched as the group filed past her down the stairs.

Ye Qing followed behind them, picked up her inflatable boat, and said, “Let me help you.”

“Thanks,” Jiang Yan replied without fuss, and headed upstairs.

“Jiang Yan, you haven’t been back these past two days—I thought you...” Su Dai rushed over and grabbed Jiang Yan’s hand, almost crying with relief.

Jiang Yan’s lips curled in a half-smile.

Sun Jingtao glanced at his wife and said, “Jiang Yan must be tired after carrying that inflatable boat up. Let’s not stand here—why don’t we talk inside?”

“Right, and I just happen to have something for you,” Su Dai said, pulling Jiang Yan toward their apartment.

“Okay.” Jiang Yan had wanted to ask the three of them about the official boats anyway, so she didn’t refuse Su Dai’s invitation.

“Yesterday, the government boat came and handed out some supplies to each household. Everyone got a box of instant noodles and two packs of sausages. We picked yours up for you, thinking we’d give them to you when you got back.

Also, we found some alcohol and a little alcohol stove while we were out, so we’ll give you one too. That way you can have something hot to eat. There’s a bunch of other odds and ends—we’ll share some with you later,” Su Dai explained warmly.

After all, in her eyes, Jiang Yan only had a backpack, so she probably hadn’t found much in the way of supplies.

Meanwhile, Ye Qing had already carried Jiang Yan’s inflatable boat to her door. “Jiang Yan, I’ll leave the boat here for you.”

He set it down and strode over to join the three of them.

“Why don’t you put your boat and backpack away first? We’ll wait for you here,” Su Dai said quickly.

The three of them were tactful—none suggested going into Jiang Yan’s apartment.

“Okay, just give me a moment.” Jiang Yan quickly went inside to put away her inflatable boat and backpack.

When she came back out, she was holding a red plastic bag.

“Su Dai, here,” Jiang Yan said, handing her the bag.

“What’s this?” Su Dai asked, puzzled. She opened it—and then exclaimed in delight:

“Cabbage seeds?! Oh my god! And bottle gourd seeds too! Wow! Jiang Yan, where did you find these? This is amazing!”

Jiang Yan replied smoothly, “Just got lucky. I found a few bags of vegetable seeds in an e-commerce company’s office in a building I visited. There were two bags each of cabbage and bottle gourd seeds, so I’m splitting them with you.”

She only had the supplies in her backpack, so she couldn’t really share anything else.

But seeds didn’t take up much space.

Earlier, she’d seen Su Dai carrying a flowerpot upstairs.

These seeds had probably been through high temperatures, so the germination rate might be low.

But now that there was water, cabbages were easy to grow, so they’d probably get something out of them.

The only problem was the lack of sunlight and the low temperature, so the vegetables would grow slowly and require patience.

Nearby, Sun Jingtao, who was opening the door, turned around and smiled. “You two really are on the same wavelength!”

Jiang Yan looked at the couple, puzzled. “?”

“You’ll see when you come in!” Su Dai pursed her lips, pulled Jiang Yan inside, and then added with an embarrassed smile, “The place is a bit messy right now.”

“We’re all the same, it’s normal,” Jiang Yan said with a smile.

Su Dai’s apartment was laid out exactly like hers.

Outside, the rain was coming down harder, and it was getting darker.

But thanks to the large floor-to-ceiling windows, the light inside was still passable.

Jiang Yan glanced around and saw that the spacious living room was piled high with all sorts of odds and ends—food, clothes, daily necessities.

Most of the packaging was damaged, and some things were still wet—probably fished out of the water and not yet dried.

It looked like they’d had a pretty good haul on their last outing.

Near the windows, there were lots of flowerpots of different shapes, and a bunch of makeshift hydroponic containers made from cut-up water bottles.

“Wow, you’ve planted so much!” Jiang Yan said in surprise, hurrying over to the balcony.

Green shoots were poking out of the flowerpots—she couldn’t tell what they were.

In the water bottles, there were green onions and garlic sprouts.

“When I was pregnant, my mother-in-law stayed with us for a while. She was used to growing vegetables back home, so she brought some seeds with her.

She said if we ever had another lockdown like during the pandemic, we could grow some vegetables in pots to be self-sufficient. I never thought we’d actually need them.

Now, with the seeds you brought, we’ll be set for a good while!” Su Dai said, pulling Jiang Yan to sit on the sofa in the corner.

Sun Jingtao dug a bottle of mineral water out of the pile of supplies and handed it to Jiang Yan.

“Thank you,” Jiang Yan said, reaching out to take it.

Mineral water was probably pretty scarce for them.

There was rainwater outside, but it tasted bitter.

She didn’t drink it, just set it down, and looked at Su Dai. “By the way, everyone downstairs is fishing—why didn’t you join in?”

“We caught a few fish the day before yesterday with the speargun you gave us. Today, there were too many people downstairs, so it was hard to catch anything. And the water’s deep—no one dares go far, so everyone crowds around the building. There are more people than fish.

Most of them team up in groups, taking turns in the cold water and then splitting the catch.”

Jiang Yan nodded. “Oh, right—the government boat is coming to pick people up tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Su Dai replied, nodding.

“But I get the feeling no one’s really relaxed. Those people earlier...” Jiang Yan trailed off.

Logically, if the government boat was coming the next day, everyone should be taking it easy at home.

But not only was everyone busy fishing, there were even people going around stealing supplies. It didn’t make sense.

Hearing this, Su Dai sighed silently.

“Jiang Yan, you might not know—there are special conditions for getting picked up by the government boat.”"