The world hadn't yet tipped entirely into savagery. There were always good people. Even in the gathering shadows, sparks of selflessness flickered. Those who were selfless and willing to sacrifice themselves were the reason the nation hadn't collapsed after the apocalypse. They were the unseen pillars, holding up a crumbling sky for others. For ordinary people, simply surviving was already considered fortunate. To get through a day without a new catastrophe was a victory.
The reprieve was brief. In less than two days, Wu City's temperature climbed back up to 43°C. The oppressive heat returned, a heavy, dusty blanket. Many companies and businesses resumed operations, but for safety reasons, all schools were dismissed early for winter break, except for the senior year students who were still in classes. Life attempted a stumbling, feverish march forward.
But everyone faced an awkward problem, cars couldn't get fuel. The gas stations stood like silent, empty sentinels. Public buses and subways were too crowded to board. The scenes at stations were chaotic scrums of desperation. Even taxis, though the fare had tripled, were nearly impossible to hail even when sharing rides. As a result, the streets of Wu City were noticeably emptier of vehicles. The familiar roar of traffic was replaced by the shuffle of feet and the occasional, lonely horn.
Those willing to pay such high prices for transport were clinging to one belief, the darkness would soon be over. Everything would return to normal. Just endure a little longer. It was a mantra, a fragile hope that justified any expense.
Official notices explained the situation. Gasoline and natural gas were now only supplied to public vehicles like buses, special line coaches, and taxis, until the end of the darkness. The statement carried a quiet, ominous qualifier. If the darkness never ended, well, that was another matter.
This was when the advantages of energy powered electric cars became obvious. They became kings of the road. As long as you found a place to charge, a full battery could last two or three days. No need to stand in the scorching sun, choking on dust, waiting half an hour without getting on a bus. An entire new economy sprang up overnight. Many owners of energy cars had even started driving ride hailing services, earning two to three hundred yuan per trip.
A new divide opened, based on battery power. The wealthy went out and bought energy cars directly. For them, it was a solution. Those without money could only wait for the darkness to pass, because the prices of energy cars had skyrocketed. The bitter irony was plain. It was just as the saying went, in the past, people couldn't afford energy cars so they didn't buy them, but now, they still couldn't afford them.
Jing Shu's family was on the fortunate side of that divide. Jing An drove his energy car every day to take Su Lanzhi to work. Their commute became a spectacle of privilege. Whenever they passed the crowd waiting at the community gate for the special line bus, countless envious eyes followed them.
Their location compounded the problem. Their community was rather remote. Although almost every household owned a car, once fuel ran out, they could only rely on those temporary special line buses. The cost was steep. One ride cost 30 yuan, two trips a day, and they were never on time. Miss one, and you might as well not go to work at all. The only concession was that because of the weather and traffic conditions, the government had also announced a reduction of two working hours per day.
The community group chat, ever the barometer of local need, lit up with a new request.
[Luxury Cars Sales, No. 5]:"Whose BYD Song is parked in the community? Could you give me a ride sometimes?"
[Wang Dazhao, No. 1]:"Same here. Is the owner of that Song running rides? If you pick up from our community, I'll definitely take it. It's a seven seater, can squeeze nine people."
Reading these messages, Jing An felt a stir. Jing An felt very tempted after reading this. He had already been idle at home for a month and wanted something to do. Driving rides for a day could earn him thousands. It was easy money in a time when money still seemed to mean something.
Jing Shu rolled her eyes. Her perspective was brutally longer term. In a few months, money would be worthless.
She didn't lecture about currency collapse. Instead, she appealed to immediate, visceral comfort. Jing Shu quickly countered, "In this heat, those people haven't bathed for seven or eight days. The smell will be unbearable. It's not that I look down on them, but if the car reeks of sweat and dirt, I can't stand it."
Her mother was quick to agree, her own experiences fresh. Su Lanzhi nodded in agreement. "Exactly. The stench in the office, feet, breath, and that other smell, is already killing me. At least leave me a little clean space in the car."
Su Lanzhi had her own headache. To avoid appearing special, she had not washed her hair in three days. Even her boss went to work with greasy hair caked with dust, so she could hardly show up looking clean and fresh. Conformity now meant embracing collective grime.
The root cause was inescapable. Since water resources had been polluted, the entire city of Wu City had shut off the taps. Water was now only supplied through water trucks in limited rations. The logic was dire. If they used water as freely as before, the city would soon run completely dry. What remained had to be diverted to save crops that hadn't yet withered, otherwise even after the darkness ended, the water shortage wouldn't improve.
The shelves told their own story. Bottled mineral water and all beverages had disappeared from supermarkets. The official line was one of control. Although the news kept reporting arrests of criminals and encouraging citizens to report injustice, large quantities of mineral water had already been taken by those with power and influence, stored away for life saving use. Ordinary citizens had no idea just how severe the water shortage truly was.
Wu City had thirteen districts. Su Lanzhi was just an insignificant speck of dust in one of them, so insignificant she was nowhere near the edges of those privileged circles. Her past life knowledge was stark. In her previous life, it was only through sheer coincidence of Jing An's connections that they had managed to secure a small batch of mineral water.
Now, they had no choice but to depend entirely on the water trucks that came once every two days. The water was barely enough for drinking and cooking. As for bathing, washing faces, washing clothes, or even dishes, it was out of the question. The reality was a slow, sticky degradation. In the sweltering heat, sweat quickly built up, leaving everyone smelly but unable to wash.
A grim new fashion trend emerged out of necessity. Don't be fooled by the trendy slicked back hairstyles or hats that people wore. That was only because their greasy hair clumped together in strands, and the only way to deal with it was to push it back.
Back in the group chat, the questions about the BYD Song went unanswered. Then, another solution presented itself, at a price.
[Green Pine, Not Yet Moved In]:"I own an Audi energy car, though I live in the city. I can drive out there too. One trip is 500 yuan. You can carpool, fits six people, with air conditioning. Call me if you need it."
Regulations had crumbled. The traffic police no longer cared how many people crammed into a car. Roads that used to be the worst bottlenecks were now completely clear. The arithmetic of survival had changed. Out of Wu City's four million private cars, only a few hundred thousand energy cars were still running.
The cost was secondary to the hope it represented.
[Wang Dazhao, No. 1]:"Expensive or not, I'll take it. The Earth's Dark Days will be over in a few days anyway."
[Luxury Cars Sales, No. 5]:"Count me in too."
Soon, six people signed up. They agreed to depart at 10 every morning, which was far better than standing at the community gate at 8 hoping for the special line bus.
The authorities were visibly straining. The government had truly done its best in recent days, distributing all kinds of resources. But the scale of the disaster was overwhelming. But the sweltering heat had accelerated energy consumption nationwide and caused massive die offs of poultry and crops. The United Nations had stopped supplying crude oil. Dustfall and water pollution had pushed the entire country into a dire water crisis.
They had hoped to weather the hardships until the Earth's Dark Days ended. That hope was officially scaled back on a specific, grim date. Yet, on January 24, the government officially announced a nationwide reduction of energy supply until the darkness passed.
The new rules were stark. From that day on, electricity would be supplied only between 7:00 and 15:00. Eight hours a day. Just enough to ensure people didn't die from the heat and to keep refrigerators from spoiling food.
The message, repeated like a prayer, was the only glue holding morale together. Endure a little longer. The Earth's Dark Days would soon be over. Everyone believed this. Preparations were made around this faith. Every household had at least half a year's worth of grain stored. As long as they had food, the lack of water and electricity could be tolerated.
While others clung to the dream that the Earth's Dark Days would end soon, Jing Shu sat comfortably in her villa, air conditioning on full blast, sweat dripping as she cooked two large pots of spicy hotpot on the gas stove. She was having the time of her life. Her preparation was a furious, fragrant rebellion against the future she knew was coming.
She worked with systematic intensity. Whole pots of beef meatballs, shrimp dumplings, fish balls, and fish tofu were cooked and eaten while she continuously added more sliced beef, lamb rolls, vegetables, fish, shrimp, and meat into the pot, then stored them inside her Cube Space.
By the time Jing Shu finished her meal, the Cube Space already held a full cubic meter of cooked food. Her planning was meticulous. When the electricity and natural gas were finally shut off and no one else could cook, she would simply take out a pot of hotpot from her space and eat it directly. She would claim it was made with coal.
They had stored several tons of coal at home. Whether it was enough to last through the ten years of apocalypse was uncertain, so Jing Shu made sure to carefully ration and precook food to store in the Cube Space.
There was another, crucial advantage to her method. Another benefit was that food taken out of the Cube Space no longer spread fragrance far and wide. Otherwise, when supplies became scarce, cooking something like chicken with mushrooms would attract people from hundreds of meters away.
Her days fell into a productive, savory rhythm. These days, Jing Shu was constantly busy cooking and stocking her Cube Space. She listed her inventory mentally with satisfaction. Two boxes of curry had been turned into one cubic meter of potato curry rice with chicken, another cubic meter of spicy duck blood stew, a cubic meter of braised black pork ribs, a cubic meter of tomato prawns, a cubic meter of steamed hairy crabs, and a cubic meter of fried fish chunks. She even processed the convenience foods.
She had also processed the bulk frozen KFC products she had bought earlier, turning them into ready made fried chicken nuggets, wings, drumsticks, popcorn chicken, fries, and more, taking up two full cubic meters. Each cubic meter was a fortress against hunger, a tiny pocket of normalcy preserved against the unraveling world.