Grandma Jing shook her head slowly, her expression heavy with the burden of daily observation. "You don't know that the field needs watering twice a day now, morning and evening, just to keep the soil from turning to powder. That cow alone drinks dozens of kilograms of water. I really don't know if it is a water buffalo or a dairy cow. I don't know if our water will last a month. Saving won't be enough." Her hands, resting in her lap, twisted the edge of her apron.
Su Lanzhi said, her brow furrowed in thought, "What if we all drink less water and switch to milk. We can't cut the water used for cooking." The suggestion hung in the still, hot air of the room.
Jing An suddenly clapped his hands together, a sharp sound. "We at the Livestock Breeding Center can trade milk for water, two to one. Why not swap milk for water." A spark of practical optimism lit his face.
Jing Shu stopped him at once, her voice firm. "Dad, please no. Milk is a scarce commodity. There are less than 20 cows on the farm and how much milk can they produce every day? Our milk is worth ten to one and I still wouldn't trade. It is precious. I forgot to tell you." She took a breath, as if confessing. "I bought a batch of mineral water last year, planning to autograph the bottles and give them to fans when I blew up. I never used them."
Su Lanzhi tapped Jing Shu's forehead with a finger, a gesture of exasperated affection. "You little miser. You guard the second floor like a treasure room and don't let us in. How many good things have you hidden? And you keep the key to the basement tightly guarded by you. You money-grubber. A few hundred bottles won't go far."
Grandpa Jing, who rarely spoke, spoke up now, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that commanded attention. "We have over four hundred bottles left. Those must be saved. Don't touch them. That is life-saving water. We don't know when water will return. Our household supply will be used up sooner or later. Only when we truly have no water should we drink the mineral water." His words were final, the wisdom of long experience.
If Jing Shu had not been reborn, she would be worrying too, her stomach tight with the same dread.
The unknown is the most frightening. Not knowing when water returns makes people afraid to touch the last stash, to cross that invisible line.
But she knew. Survive these two deadly months and things would turn. To be safe, she had stuffed 15 cubic meters (15 metric tons) of water into the Cube Space. Even after all this time there were still 9 cubic meters left, sloshing quietly in their invisible containers. She genuinely hadn't expected how much farming, watering livestock, and watering the Cube Space animals would guzzle, the daily drawdown a constant surprise.
"Not that many. Only a few thousand bottles," Jing Shu said, rubbing her nose, a faint sheepishness in her tone. Back then she bought 400 cases of 500 ml Nongfu Spring, 12 bottles per case, for a total of 4,800 bottles, plus 100 cases of the 1.5 L size. If only she had bought more. Who knew the family operation would get this big, their needs expanding like the cracks in the earth.
"What did you say? You prodigal child," Su Lanzhi blurted, her eyes widening. She hadn't imagined this kid dared buy that much water, an investment that now looked like prescient genius.
"I figured I had hundreds of thousands of fans. You need a few thousand bottles at least. Cough. Anyway, the problem we face now is solved, right. We still need to save. From now on, all raw water goes to the fields. If necessary, even household greywater goes to the fields. Filtered water goes to the animals. We drink mineral water. As for trading milk for water, it is better not to do it. Isn't it good to drink more milk every day?" She paused, her practical side surfacing. "And I need milk for ice cream. I am paying back someone in diesel with it. Ice cream devours milk."
Jing Shu paused, then continued, her gaze moving around the table to meet each of theirs. "Grandpa is right about one thing. The experts got one point correct. No matter how hot it gets, when the sea level rises, downpour will come. When that happens, water won't be scarce. There will be so much water people drown." The statement was delivered flatly, a future fact.
"Fine. Our housekeeper has spoken. We follow orders," Jing An said, leading the way in backing his daughter, a smile touching his lips. After discussing more detailed ways to conserve and save water, the precise routing of every drop, the family meeting ended.
Jing Shu brought down a dozen cases of mineral water later with her keys, the plastic wrapping crackling as she carried them. She placed a few cases in each room, the clear bottles gleaming in the lamplight. "From now on, drink mineral water straight from the bottle. Don't waste coal boiling water."
That night Jing Shu reflected, lying in the humid dark. She had prepared a lot for year one's water crisis, yet it was only barely enough, the margin terrifyingly thin. That meant she hadn't prepared enough.
"Then preparations for year two must be complete. No repeats of this." The thought was a silent vow. "Red nematode, leeches, bloodsucking bugs, none of you are getting in."
...
On August 18, a major incident hit the Planting Industry R&D Management Department. Staffer Yu Caini failed to clean the latrine pits, a neglected daily duty. Carrion scavengers and maggots infested the irrigation water and completely polluted the department's supply, turning the vital channels into seething, putrid streams.
Once the report reached the listmakers, the New City District government immediately stripped Yu Caini of her official status. Director Su Lanzhi said she dared not keep such an employee and directly dismissed Yu Caini from the department, the order signed with a sharp stroke of the pen.
On August 25, over five thousand people in Wu City had died from heat and thirst, the official tally a numbingly large number. Because so many people had been catching maggots, their numbers were down. The government made a new decision, announced through crackling public speakers.
Instead of cremating bodies as before, bodies would be placed at designated cremation grounds to raise maggots and carrion scavengers, a grim form of recycling. At the supermarkets, the price of maggots in the communal meal was lowered to 0.2 virtual coins per portion to ensure the public could eat fully and eat well, the policy framed as benevolence.
People who couldn't stand plain rice after three months had somehow eaten maggots for months now. With abundant government supply, they even felt a bleak satisfaction, the protein keeping the gnawing hunger at bay.
Meanwhile reservoirs and uncontaminated freshwater lakes were near dry, their beds exposed and cracking under the sun. The government increased groundwater extraction, the pumps working day and night. Reports said they were far over the safe limit, risking subsidence, the ground beneath the city growing hollow.
On September 1, deaths kept soaring, a relentless upward curve. The Wu City government announced a new task to trade dry branches and trunks for small amounts of work points. That afternoon, once temperatures dipped from blistering to merely searing, the entire city went out to gather wood. Streetsides, inside the community, roadsides, mountains, parks. If there were trees, there were people, stripping them bare. Fights over branches broke out, brief, desperate scuffles. In such cases the government confiscated everything on the spot, leaving both parties empty-handed.
These days the government was not only busy collecting the dead and reclaiming the possessions of the deceased, but also cutting forest trees in organized swathes. In this heat and drought, fires were a real risk. If a mountain fire caught, an entire city would flee, a wall of flame at their backs.
On September 5, Jing Shu sold milk ice cream again, the transaction conducted in the familiar, shadowy manner. This time she traded for 3 tons of diesel, the heavy fuel cans exchanged in the dark. As before, the ice cream went to testing, then was shipped out. Jing Shu still hadn't seen Qian Duoduo's simpleton son, the beneficiary of her treats remaining a rumor.
Word was the whole family loved the ice cream. The silly son refused anything with eggs or milk, but adored all kinds of ice cream. He wanted a new batch with the flavor of Weilong spicy sticks and would pay double, a whimsical demand.
They even sent over ten bags of his favorite Weilong spicy sticks with the messenger, the red packaging bright and incongruous.
Jing Shu stared at the offered flavor inspiration. "What." The single word was pure, flat disbelief.
On September 9, the temperature hit 55°C, an all-time high that felt like opening an oven door. News said 1,500 died in Wu City that day, the number read without inflection by the afternoon bulletin anchor. Jing Shu drank over twenty coconuts and more than ten liters of watermelon juice, the fluids a constant necessity. At the same time, her phone buzzed, and she was added to a new chat group, the notification popping up on her screen.
The group name was: Class of 2015 High School Classmates.
[Zhang Lingling]:"@Everyone, I just want to know how many people are left now out of the 56 people in the class back then? Yesterday I learned our Chinese teacher passed away. I made this group in remembrance."