Jing Shu still had to be grateful, in a grim way, that the temperature had not shot past fifty degrees Celsius all at once. Otherwise, many more people, especially the elderly and those without shelter, would've died from heatstroke on the spot. Even so, the cumulative damage from extreme, unrelenting heat was enormous. The most obvious signs were the parched, cracked earth visible between buildings and the rapid disappearance of any remaining green, turning former parks and riverbanks into barren, dusty flats. China was entering a period of severe, structural water shortage. Water would become even more precious than gold, a truth everyone was slowly, thirstily learning.
As Jing Shu was thinking about what ecological and social collapses would happen next, the group of five reached Zhang Bingbing's apartment building, its concrete facade radiating stored heat. They climbed to the ninth floor, the stairwell an oven, all of them panting, shirts plastered to their backs with sweat. With how much they had sweated just climbing, they would've collapsed without at least one full bottle of water to replenish them. The act of intervention itself was a physical tax.
Jing Shu wasn't tired from carrying her massive spiked club that weighed over one hundred jin (about 50 kg). She was just unbearably hot, her skin prickling. At least eating that much every day was good for something, raw strength and endurance.
"Jing Shu, we're not prying the door this time," Wang Qiqi said between ragged breaths, wiping his forehead. He was still spooked by how fierce and final Jing Shu had been the last time they forced an entry. "Put your weapons away first, just hold them low." He sought to de-escalate initially.
Wang Qiqi knocked on the scarred metal door for a while, his knocks echoing in the stifling hallway, but no one answered. "Zhang Bingbing, are you there? I'm Wang Qiqi. I know you're inside. If you don't answer, I'm going to have to pry the door." He kept his voice firm but not shouting.
"What are you yelling for? Do you know you're trespassing on private property?" a middle aged man's rough voice came from inside, muffled by the door.
"Open the door. As residents' representatives of the community, we have an obligation to check on a neighbor's safety. If you don't open, we'll force the door." Wang Qiqi's tone left no room for bluff.
The door suddenly swung open with a creak. A bald, middle aged man in stained shorts stood there with a rusty kitchen knife held loosely in his hand. Behind him was a younger, lanky man, also in shorts, holding a cheap flashlight that he shined into the faces of the people outside, sizing them up.
"Where's Zhang Bingbing?" Wang Qiqi demanded, looking the pair over. One was a greasy, paunchy middle aged uncle, the other a young man who looked about twenty, with a sullen face.
In the dim light from the hallway window, Jing Shu caught a glimpse of the older man's wrinkled, leathery skin and sagging flesh. It was an eyesore, a portrait of dissipation.
The bald man scratched his crotch unabashedly and shouted impatiently over his shoulder, "Zhang Bingbing, get out here."
A woman emerged slowly from the dark interior of the apartment, completely naked. With her haggard face and sunken cheeks, no one could guess what horrors she'd gone through in the past few days. Her eyes were unfocused, glazed. She moved like a walking corpse, showing no reaction at all to the arrival of Jing Shu and the others, no shame, no relief.
Jing Shu remembered the first time she'd met Zhang Bingbing, when the Earth's Dark Days had just begun and water was becoming scarce. Zhang Bingbing had used the last of her bottled water to carefully wipe down her body, insisting on cleanliness. Zhang Bingbing had asked Wang Cuihua for a ride and for water, and had later cursed out a few aunties who'd ridden in her car because they didn't help or sell her water. She'd been sharp, prideful, struggling to maintain a façade.
Later, no matter how dire the shortage, the old Zhang Bingbing had insisted on staying clean and had cared deeply about her image, not like now, appearing naked and broken in front of everyone without a flicker.
"Zhang Bingbing, do you recognize me?" Wang Qiqi frowned, his voice softening slightly.
There was a flicker of confusion in Zhang Bingbing's dead eyes. "Wang… Qiqi?"
Wang Qiqi nodded and gently pulled Zhang Bingbing to his side, shielding her with his body. "Who are the two behind you? Are they coercing you? Don't worry. We're here now. They won't dare to do anything to you." He glared at the two men.
Zhang Bingbing turned her flat gaze on the two men behind her. Suddenly, a stark fear flashed in her eyes, a visceral reaction. "They… they're my elder husband and my younger husband." The words were robotic.
The bald middle aged man sneered, an ugly sound. "Hear that, you busybodies? Zhang Bingbing, get back here and serve us." It was an order.
To the group's shock, Zhang Bingbing shoved Wang Qiqi away with surprising force and retreated behind the older man, cowering slightly.
Young Master with Baby, who'd come along, stepped forward, unable to hold back his anger. "Why're we wasting breath on them? Grab those two strays first, then we can ask what's going on." He hefted his metal pipe.
"No, you can't," Zhang Bingbing cried out, a sudden, sharp sound. "Don't hurt the father and son. I'm pregnant with their child. The baby can't be born without a father. Go, hurry and go. Don't touch them." Her words tumbled out, frantic and illogical. She shoved Wang Qiqi out toward the hallway, pushing everyone back with desperate strength, then slammed the door shut with a definitive bang.
The group stared at one another in the sweltering hallway, speechless, the encounter leaving them bewildered and uneasy.
Three giant question marks floated through Jing Shu's mind. "What's going on? Has Zhang Bingbing completely lost her mind?"
Wang Qiqi sighed, the sound heavy in the heat. "If I'm not wrong, those two slipped into her apartment during the chaos of the Earth's Dark Days last time and raped her. She couldn't handle the shock and broke down. She may've developed a severe mental illness, Stockholm syndrome, trauma bonding, and has been brainwashed and controlled by those two ever since. That's why she's acting like this, defending them." His analysis was bleak.
"Did I hear that right? They're father and son?" Young Master with Baby asked, disgusted.
"It seems so, from what she said."
"Animals." The word was spat out.
In the apocalypse, there were plenty of things that shattered the bottom line of humanity. Jing Shu could only think that in a big, dark forest, there were all kinds of twisted birds.
If they killed the two men on the spot, how would the shattered Zhang Bingbing survive alone with her mind in pieces? Even normal, sane people could barely live now.
But if they didn't kill those two scumbags and let them continue to harm and control the already broken Zhang Bingbing, wouldn't that just prolong and deepen her suffering? It was a brutal dilemma.
Jing Shu's own thought was simpler, colder. Scum doesn't deserve to live and waste food and air. But the practical complications stayed her hand.
"Forget it for now. Let me think more about how to handle Zhang Bingbing's situation properly," Wang Qiqi said, rubbing his temple. The responsibility of leadership was weighing on him.
So the matter was left unsettled, a festering wound in the community, temporarily walled off by a closed door.
That night, over a dinner of simple stir fry and rice, the family couldn't help sighing as they talked about it. Everyone was also quietly, deeply grateful for Jing Shu's earlier ruthless methods in fortifying their home and establishing a reputation. Otherwise, the ones being violated and broken now might've been their own people.
Was Zhang Bingbing innocent? Maybe. In another world, yes. So what? A young white collar woman living alone was targeted, violated, and now she was mentally penned up and broken. In this world, as Jing Shu knew too well, perceived weakness was the root of disaster. Compassion without power was a luxury few could afford.
Whenever they had time now, everyone practiced with their crossbows in the basement, the thwack of bolts hitting straw targets a regular sound, to improve accuracy. Grandpa Jing checked the perimeter traps and early warning systems again and again and kept quietly expanding them around their property, his paranoia a prudent shield.
Later, from the crackling radio and the official Wu City news bulletins scrolling on phones, the next phase was announced:
"According to the latest report, new mutant corrosive carrion scavengers have been discovered at Lake Kana in Wu City. They've begun reproducing on a large scale within the city's drainage systems. The citizen tip line's now open. If you discover an unprocessed corpse, you may call the 130 body removal hotline. After verification, you'll be rewarded two points.
In view of the frequent home invasion robberies in Wu City and insufficient police manpower, neighbors and nearby residents may call 110 or submit photos and a description of the suspect and any casualties via the official WeChat account. After verification, you'll be rewarded one to one hundred points depending on the severity."
From the news, it was clear they were casting the net wider, step by step, enlisting the populace. The power of the people, directed and incentivized, was great. With food points as a reward, the masses could outdo Sherlock Holmes, turning every street into a potential surveillance network.
"According to international reports via CCTV, temperatures in parts of North Africa have reached 60 degrees Celsius, breaking historical records. Governments are filing emergency plans to dig underground houses several meters deep. During the day, people will shelter underground from the heat, and at night, when it's marginally cooler, they'll return above ground for limited activity.
At the same time, domestic reports confirm temperatures in Hainan have also surpassed 60 degrees Celsius. With a red alert from the meteorological bureau, the extreme heat's predicted to last at least ten days. The state has issued an emergency plan and's urgently mobilized cargo ships and trains nationwide to begin the first major evacuation of Hainan residents. The first wave of evacuees are expected to relocate to the Northeast.
All non essential passenger trains nationwide will be suspended until the first wave of evacuees reaches their destination. Citizens are asked to cancel all unnecessary travel."
When Jing Shu saw the news scroll by on her phone screen, she narrowed her eyes. These were the famous, disastrous first wave migrants from her previous life. Sadly, the logistical casualties had been countless, heatstroke, dehydration, riots on overcrowded transports, failure to integrate. It'd failed spectacularly, which made the later, more ruthless nationwide migrations several times harder to enforce.
===
Hey guys, just a quick heads-up about my recent activity. I've actually been caught up in a totally different project—fonts. Yeah, fonts.
So, on my Android phone I've been using Droid Sans since like ever. I used to be on Roboto back in my college days (around 2017/2018 when I got my first phone), but somewhere around then I switched over and just never looked back. Even when I change phones, I always reinstall Droid Sans because I've gotten way too comfortable with it.
Recently, I suddenly thought: "What if I make this my default system font on my laptop too?" Sounds simple, right? Well… nope. The font is smaller than the default, which meant I had to spend two whole days adjusting things—editing CSS through Stylus so websites like YouTube, ChatGPT, Claude, and Deepseek, etc, don't look microscopic, plus tweaking buttons, menus, and other elements. Windows Explorer was easy (thanks to Advanced System Font Changer), but websites were another story.
On top of that, Droid Sans doesn't support certain characters out of the box—no Hanzi, no Katakana, no Hangul. And don't get me started on Pinyin diacritics, which looked totally messed up since some glyphs were pulled straight from Calibri and slapped on without adjustments. The result? Absolute chaos.
I've been patching it together by pairing Droid Sans with Microsoft JhengHei for Hanzi, which looks way better now. But the real headache is editing and building the Pinyin glyphs manually so they actually match the font style. As I'm writing this (Sept 18 at night), I'm still knee-deep in glyph editing. My brain is fried, and all I can think about is fonts instead of translations.
Hopefully, I'll finish all this by tomorrow and get back to translating. If not… it'll mean I've gone four days without translate anything, which feels super long to me. Normally that's enough time to crank out a bunch of chapters, so yeah, I'm kinda anxious about it.
Anyway, I think I'll share some screenshots of the "disaster phase" (my cursed ChatGPT/Claude/Deepseek screens) and the CSS edits I made on the comment section. Wish me luck—I really love this font, but wow, it's been a ride.