Jing Shu figured that much of the catastrophic migration might be due to immediate climate shock, a desperate reaction. Sixty degrees Celsius was already uninhabitable for humans for any prolonged period, which was why the state decided on the drastic measure of relocating residents out of Hainan using cargo ships and trains. After all, Hainan was tropical and stayed oppressively warm even at night, but in the Northeast, nighttime temperatures at least dropped to over ten degrees below zero, offering some respite, while daytime temperatures still soared past forty degrees. It was a choice between a constant oven and a daily furnace to freezer cycle.
It turned out that the Science Channel, which had been warning about massive, climate driven floods for an entire year with grim persistence, was finally proven right. In the second year of the apocalypse, the floods came with terrifying force, and Hainan was truly submerged. Those who survived the relocation were moved to tears of hindsight gratitude, thankful that the state had insisted on evacuating them despite immense pressure and resistance from many who refused to leave their ancestral homes, clinging to doomed land.
Even the African savannas, which had been suffering from severe, crippling drought, were half flooded by the erratic, shifted weather patterns, a paradox of drowning in a former desert.
As for those underground tunnel homes that had been dug earlier in a bid to escape the heat, the scenes there were horrific when the waters came. The lucky ones who built in higher ground avoided flooding, while those less fortunate were trapped in tunnels tens of meters underground, unable to escape once the water rushed in, dark tombs.
If the underground dwellings in Africa could be described as clinging to life, then the few small island nations scattered across the globe could only be called utterly doomed, destined to vanish entirely from the world map, their stories swallowed by the rising seas.
Jing Shu absentmindedly fiddled with the small, cold Cube Space in her hands, its familiar ridges under her thumb, when she heard her father, Jing An, say from across the room, "Now that the trains have stopped running for the evacuation, your older brother called to say that the elderly man staying at Su Meimei's place won't be able to leave for the time being. Weren't you planning to see him when he left? Looks like that's not happening now." His tone was matter of fact.
Su Lanzhi said irritably, putting down a vegetable she was sorting, "Then let's find another time to visit. My brother said Su Meimei treats that old man like her own father, fussing over him. She never treated our own parents that attentively when they were alive. Hmph." The old sibling rivalry and resentment surfaced.
If Jing An hadn't brought it up, Jing Shu would have forgotten about that particular old man, a ripple caused by her own butterfly effect, the man who had been a guard at the seed bank. Given how scarce food was now, was Su Meimei, known for her calculative nature, really taking good care of him? Knowing Su Meimei's stingy, self serving character, Jing Shu found this suddenly worth investigating. A seed of suspicion was planted.
That evening, after the family's main meal, Jing Shu had her usual extra, secret meal in her room, finishing off the last few roasted quail from the space and a small pot of rich chicken soup with mushrooms. Then she went back to her daily, frustrating Cube Space training, sitting cross legged on her bed, entering a meditative focus. This rigid routine had gone on for over half a month with no visible progress. she was well and truly stuck at a bottleneck. Her mindset had shifted from determined persistence to simmering frustration, and now she felt like punching the wall every time she picked up the inert cube.
The fantasy novels she had read in her youth about breaking through bottlenecks with a burst of effort and leveling up in a flash of light? Total lies. Jing Shu was starting to doubt if she was even fit to be the owner of the Cube Space. She had been working on it diligently for seven or eight months and still hadn't advanced to the next level. Was she lacking some innate talent?
More than once, in a fit of anger, she had hurled the cube across the room, tempted to stomp on it. But each time, she forced herself to take deep breaths, calmed herself down, picked it up like the ancestral treasure it was, and kept practicing. Her core motivation was simple, primal, being able to store more food and supplies, to secure survival. That goal alone usually quelled the rage.
But lately, her temper was terrible, a constant edge. Best not to provoke her, as the family had tacitly learned.
Before bed each night, she had added a new, vigilant habit: checking the wire and alarm traps in front of and behind the villa, inspecting the poultry in their shaded coop, checking the murky fish pond for levels, and taking note that the second batch of frogs she'd been raising had finally matured. They were ready just as the predicted carrion scavenger outbreak was beginning, making this batch of pest controlling frogs even more valuable than the last.
Despite the temperature climbing higher every day, making the air thick and hard to breathe, far fewer people stayed indoors during daylight now. Everyone was out, scavenging, hunting for tradeable supplies, especially knives and iron rods. During this time, the community aunties had unleashed their formidable, ancient gossip network, knowing through whispers and observation exactly which homes had recent deaths and which families were on their last legs, visibly weakening. They had already mentally marked their targets, waiting like vultures to swoop in as soon as someone died, both to call the body removal hotline for points and to scavenge the deceased's home for any leftover supplies.
Most robbers were still ordinary, desperate people, targeting those rumored to have food stores. They had no interest in old, unattractive women with nothing visibly worth taking. Bluntly put, such women weren't even worth the risk of robbing.
Of course, there were also the bolder family gangs, whole families, young and old, robbing others collectively for food and trading stolen knives for meat. But far more people now were drawn in by the safer lure of rewards for reporting crimes, turning neighbor against neighbor.
Now, if a robbery or murder happened in any Wu City community, it'd be reported by someone within minutes, sometimes by multiple competing callers. People did it purely for the points, a new economy of betrayal.
Wang Qiqi had organized his crew efficiently: some scoured empty apartments for knives, some tracked active robbery cases by listening to shouts and screams, some followed suspicious individuals to confirm their identities and hideouts, and others specialized in handling the calls for body removals, coordinating with the official teams.
In the midst of this, Wang Dazhao sent a cryptic message, confirming that the Zhetian Gang's next target wasn't a residential area but the Petrochemical Community base near Ai Jia Supermarket. They planned to bomb the small petroleum storage facility there and destroy the extracted crude oil, a symbolic act of chaos.
Jing Shu realized she had been overthinking it, perhaps projecting, when she briefly suspected Zhetian was after her community. In her previous life, she had been too busy surviving, scavenging for knives to trade for scraps of meat, to pay attention to the gang's broader activities. She didn't recall hearing anything about a petroleum base being bombed back then. Either it happened and was suppressed news, or it failed.
"The Petrochemical Community base supported Ai Jia Supermarket's generator operations before the apocalypse. It's filled with people working in the oil industry, and there's an armed police station nearby. It should be safe, right?" Jing Shu typed back, then reminded Wang Dazhao again to be extra careful and avoid having his identity or information collected by the gang's inner circle.
By the time Su Lanzhi was finally free from her intense work schedule, several more days had passed. The family braved the fifty two degree heat, the air shimmering over the asphalt, bringing ten marinated eggs from their supplies and half a jar of precious pickles as a nominal gift, and first stopped by Uncle's house at Xishan to drop off some things, then drove another seven or eight kilometers straight to Su Meimei's home, the car's AC struggling against the outside furnace.
Along the way, parched, Jing Shu downed three entire bottles of mineral water, one after another, the cool liquid a relief against the dry heat.
"Jing Shu, how can you waste water like that? We just take a tiny sip to moisten our lips. I only let Su Long have a tiny mouthful," Auntie, who had come along, couldn't help but scold from the back seat, her own lips cracked. "Lanzhi, you should control Jing Shu. She should learn to save water. It's not endless."
"I spent two months stockpiling supplies before the apocalypse precisely so I could live better afterward. And you're telling me to save water now?"
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From here on out, I've decided to render Wucheng (乌城) as Wu City for consistency. I've already gone back and updated earlier chapters with this change so everything lines up.
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I'll be adding a brand-new chapter in the Auxiliary Volume that serves as a little guide to Jing Shu's family and extended relatives. The author introduces them using relationship titles (like "Second Aunt" or "Eldest Uncle"), but I've decided to balance those with actual names whenever possible, so things don't get too repetitive or confusing later on. In this chapter, I'll explain how the author wrote it in the original and how I've chosen to translate it here.
Since Jing Shu's family will play a bigger role later, I figured this reference chapter would help keep everything clear. That way, if you ever forget who's who, you can just peek back at this guide.
I'll also include a little section on Jing Shu's ability she get from Rubic Cube, and her "numbered pets" so you can track them easily. The author tends to list them in a pretty straightforward way, but I'll organize them here for quick reference.
Basically, think of this Aux chapter as a mini family tree + ability & pet index, written in a way that matches how I've been translating names and titles throughout the story.
One more thing—if anyone happens to catch the actual name of Jing Shu's Second Uncle (the husband of her second aunt, Jing Zhao) in an earlier or future chapter, please let me know! You can leave a comment directly on that exact chapter, or just drop it under the new Aux chapter. I'd be really grateful if you help me fill in that missing detail.