The blazing sun hung in a pale, cloudless sky, beating down with a ferocity that felt unnatural for the season. This was the last day before the apocalypse when the sun could still be seen, and it seemed to be making a final, brutal statement.
For the seventeenth day in a row, Jing Shu's family had come to the Ai Jia supermarket. Starting two days ago, long S shaped queue barriers made of cold metal had been set up at the entrance, and the line now stretched all the way out into the vast parking lot. Only a few people were allowed in or out at a time, a measure meant to maintain order inside and prevent the chaos that could come from a panicked stampede.
Her family had already been waiting for more than half an hour, and they hadn't even reached the security gate at the store's entrance.
"Mom, let's not bother picking up the free rice today," Jing An suggested, wiping a river of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Let's just go home. It's the middle of winter, but it's thirty degrees Celsius outside. This sun's brutal, and with so many people packed together, the air doesn't circulate at all. Look, several elderly people over there have already collapsed from heatstroke." Fortunately, his daughter had been thoughtful enough to bring two portable high stools for the grandparents to sit on. People standing around them looked on with a mixture of envy and silent jealousy.
"It's the last day to collect the free government rice. Just hold on a little longer," Grandma Jing insisted, fanning herself with a folded flyer. She was hot, certainly, but otherwise she felt surprisingly energetic. In fact, she found it odd. She could actually feel her body becoming healthier and stronger by the day.
As for Grandpa Jing, he wasn't bothered by the wait at all. He was enthusiastically chatting with a young man in his twenties about the merits of different fishing lures.
Grandpa Jing: He could chat five yuan's worth with anyone, it seemed, just not with his own son.
Jing Shu stood with her eyes half closed, her mind partially focused on the task of squeezing pomegranate juice within her Cube Space. In her physical hand was a large, frosty cup of watermelon juice, which she slurped at leisurely through a straw. Jing An complained that she had been sipping the same drink for half an hour and still hadn't finished it. Jing Shu just cheekily stuck out her tongue before finally handing him the nearly empty cup to finish off.
Another ten slow minutes later, the family finally passed through the security check and entered the supermarket. Inside, it was a sea of people. Since it was a Saturday, entire families had come together. The air was a cacophony of overlapping sounds. Some people were asking about prices, others were chatting idly. Children whined for snacks, and when people ran into acquaintances, they would stop for a lengthy, friendly talk, blocking entire aisles. Overhead, the loudspeaker repeated a recorded message on a loop, urging customers to finish their shopping and leave quickly to make room for others.
The faces around them were still largely relaxed and smiling. People simply wanted to buy just a little more food to stock up on this final, sunlit day. Those who had already collected their free bag of rice usually carried out another five or six bags of rice they had purchased as well.
With the 500 yuan daily purchase limit per person, one could still buy six or seven 10 kilogram bags of ordinary rice. For an average household that also ate vegetables and snacks, and who occasionally ate out or ordered takeout, one 10 kilogram bag of rice could last for months.
Buying six or seven bags meant enough for an entire year, in most people's calculations. But they failed to consider that without side dishes, vegetables, or fruit, plain rice would be consumed far faster out of sheer necessity.
Large signs in the supermarket boldly boasted: All Goods Available Without Purchase Limit! The stock on the shelves looked plentiful, a carefully maintained illusion, but the prices printed on the tags were anything but cheap.
The meat counters for pork, beef, and lamb had the longest lines. Prices had risen higher each day, and people feared that soon meat would become completely unaffordable, so everyone wanted to buy a few precious kilograms while they still could.
Prices at the seafood counter had also climbed sharply. After all, live seafood like fish and crabs could be kept in a tank at home for a week or two, ensuring fresh meals whenever needed.
Technically, a single month without sunlight wouldn't affect frozen meat or seafood supplies much. But with vegetables becoming scarcer and more expensive, demand naturally shifted to meat, seafood, and even calorie dense snacks. As demand grew, so too did the prices.
Snack foods had gone up by about ten percent. Even humble instant noodles were several cents more expensive per packet.
The vegetable section was the most crowded of all. Customers bought basket after basket, their carts piled high with greens. But no matter how quickly stock disappeared from the displays, it was immediately replenished by workers bringing out more crates from the back. The government had spent months preparing for this in advance, cracking down on supply chain corruption to ensure reserves. They wanted to avoid true shortages, prevent unscrupulous merchants from hoarding and price gouging, and stop public panic from spiraling out of control.
The strategy was one of guidance rather than blockade. Everyone in charge knew that Chinese people always, always stockpiled food in the face of potential disaster. Fine, then let them hoard until they felt secure. Let them buy to their heart's content, and when they saw the shelves still full day after day, they would naturally begin to calm down.
Cabbage alone filled an entire warehouse section. People were buying it by the sackful. Cabbage was filling, it kept well, and it was relatively nutritious, so of course it was popular.
"These black hearted merchants," Grandma Jing muttered, frowning at a plump head of cabbage. "One cabbage costs twelve yuan now. It used to be only two."
"Didn't they say on the news that price gouging's illegal?" Grandpa Jing asked. He listened to the news bulletin every day and had often heard that such practices were supposed to be reported.
Jing An shook his head, a weary look on his face. "Vegetable prices have been climbing steadily for the past ten days. They go up a few cents to a yuan every single day. On paper, it counts as normal market fluctuation. That's how it slowly rose to this point. Just watch, in a few days it will be even higher."
"Twelve yuan was still cheap," Jing Shu thought to herself. In a few months, one cabbage might cost a thousand yuan and still be impossible to find.
After picking up their allotment of rice, the family strolled around the supermarket for a short while. First, there were simply too many people, and the checkout lines snaked through the store. Second, they realized there was not much left that they actually needed or wanted to buy. So they decided to go home. They needed to help pack for Grandma Jing and Grandpa Jing, who would be staying with Third Aunt Jing Lai for a little while.
The unspoken truth was that this was a simple strategy to separate Jing An and Grandpa Jing for a time, to let tempers cool.
The older generation had lived through the harsh famine years. Days earlier, Grandma Jing had already called each of her three daughters, urging them to stockpile food, grow more vegetables, and prepare. Her reasoning was sound. Without snow in winter, next year's harvest would not be good, and food prices would climb even further.
Eldest Aunt Jing Pan said she lived in a townhouse with a small yard and already grew some vegetables. Recently she had even traded some preserved apples for grain with a neighbor. She asked when Grandma Jing was coming home so she could bring over some of this food.
Second Aunt Jing Zhao admitted she wanted to stockpile too, but she lacked the money to do so properly.
With the phone on speaker, the atmosphere in the room had turned awkward. Jing Shu's whole family could hear the exchange. After hanging up, Jing An told Jing Shu to quietly transfer one hundred thousand yuan to her second aunt. After all, the money Jing An had withdrawn from his shares had already been spent by Jing Shu to buy gasoline and other supplies.
Third Aunt Jing Lai was living in a two bedroom apartment in Wu City with her young daughter. She had been shopping like crazy in recent days, claiming she had bought enough supplies for Grandma Jing and Grandpa Jing too, so they should come stay with her for a spell.
"Grandpa, Grandma, just stay for a little while and then come back," Jing Shu said, helping fold a sweater.
"Alright. Once the Dark Days are over, we still need to come back and help you with your livestreaming," Grandma Jing agreed. "We have been here long enough. It's time to go see your third aunt and your cousin Wu You'ai." The elderly couple packed light luggage, mainly carrying precious jars of their own homemade pickles and canned goods, while Jing An added some bags of his favorite spicy beef jerky for them to share.
Jing Shu also secretly packed several containers of herbal jelly mixed with diluted Spirit Spring water for the grandparents, instructing them to eat a little spoonful each day. In this life, with the Spirit Spring and with them living closer, she was determined that her grandparents wouldn't starve or die of illness as they had before.
The spacious villa felt hollow and quiet after the grandparents' car drove away. Jing Shu lounged on a deck chair by the fish pond, shaded by a large umbrella Jing An had set up for her. She sipped a bowl of shaved ice yogurt while sunbathing, occasionally tossing a handful of feed into the pond and watching the fierce, overgrown fish scramble over each other. It was a moment of pure, idle enjoyment.
"Maybe," she thought, "this really is the last time in my life I'll ever see the sun."
Jing Shu felt a genuine twinge of sadness at the thought. She lay there, motionless, until the sun began its final descent, painting the sky in streaks of orange and purple. Then, she got up and carefully sealed the tempered glass covers over the pond and the greenhouse, a final guard against tonight's predicted falling soil and debris. She took many photos with her phone, for remembrance, before heading inside to cook dinner.
The meal was simple but hearty. Chicken stewed with mushrooms from their kits, braised seaweed and black pork ribs, and a big plate of stir fried romaine lettuce. The portions were generous, and the three of them finished everything.
Su Lanzhi had been in low spirits lately and went to bed early after dinner. Jing Shu guessed it was because her mother's colleague, that woman Yu Caini, had been making trouble for her at work again.
Jing An washed up, loading all the pots and bowls into the automatic dishwasher. He praised Jing Shu's thoughtfulness yet again, saying if not for her foresight in buying the appliance, all of this housework would fall on him.
After one last thorough inspection of their independent water source, the food supplies in the basement, and the poultry in their enclosures, Jing Shu began practicing with her Cube Space through the long night. She couldn't sleep anyway. A nervous, watchful energy thrummed through her. This time, she would witness the very beginning of the apocalypse firsthand.
Later, historians and survivors would mark January 1st, 2223, the day the sun disappeared and never truly returned, as the first day of the apocalypse.