Zhang Lingling had been Jing Shu's class monitor in high school. Her grades were average, but her family did business, so Zhang Lingling spoke smoothly, had strong organizing ability, a strong need for control, liked to boss people around, and enjoyed the process, the subtle power of assigning tasks and setting deadlines.
Back in 2018, she created a WeChat classmates group, but after arguing with a classmate over some forgotten slight, she dissolved it in a fit of pique. Once everyone went their separate ways for university or work, they basically lost touch, the digital thread snapping.
Jing Shu's memories were dredged up again, murky and indistinct. In the previous life, she didn't remember much about the high school group. She vaguely recalled unpleasant incidents later, sharp words exchanged in the chat, and then left the group, silencing the notifications. The group chattered every day about trivialities, and she had no time to follow it.
After all, in the previous life at this point, she was worrying about survival, each day a ledger of deficits.
Her favorite pepper-salt maggots couldn't be eaten during the water shortage, the seasoning too thirsty a luxury. Every afternoon when the power came on for its brief window, she would rush to charge devices and boil what little water they could spare, then when the temperature dipped from lethal to merely unbearable, bundle up in a greasy, stained cotton coat to collect branches and trunks from denuded parks, work to the bone to trade for one bottle of water, pick up the grim communal dinner for the family, then sit at 7 p.m. watching the news on a flickering screen to check the latest policies and ask silently when Earth's Dark Days would end. When would dawn come.
At night, she still went to abandoned factories and old malls to look for useful items, flashlight beam cutting through dusty dark, and even dug carrion scavengers from stinking ditches to raise maggots, the stench clinging to clothes and skin. By the time she finished, a whole night had passed. Back home, she burrowed into the quilt to sleep, seeking oblivion. In daytime 50°C heat, even moving one's eyes felt like burning calories, a conscious expenditure of energy.
The first few years after the apocalypse weren't as bad. There was still a short power supply to charge a phone. When the great migrations began, where would power come from. Even if there was power, signals were unstable. Cell towers and lines needed maintenance no one could provide.
Starting next year, daily electricity would be cut to half an hour. Sometimes you couldn't even fully charge a phone, the battery icon perpetually hovering in the red.
The scariest part is the frog-in-warm-water. It all fades bit by bit, the comforts, the connections, the light. When you finally notice, you discover you have miraculously survived, but in a world stripped to its brutal bones.
So in the previous life Jing Shu had no time to care about a class group, its nostalgia a distant, irrelevant luxury.
[Wang Chao]:"If everyone just says hi we will know who is here. It has been a long time. Also we can check WeChat step counts in the group. If someone sits at zero every day, that basically means they are gone, right."
[Mu Xiaoxuan]:"Zhang Lingling, you still had our contacts and pulled us back in. The apocalypse is here anyway, let bygones be bygones. When should we have a reunion. It's been five years since graduation. Where is everyone now."
[Shi Lei]: "Come on, have fun. We have all the time in the world to have fun now."
[Nima Sang]:"Need a wedding car? The kind that raises the price midway. Need insurance? Buy sixty thousand, pay fifty thousand. Need a house? Twenty six thousand with a gift pack. Need me? I do the 180-degree rotation. Order now and get an unborn child to fulfill your dream of being a dad."
Nima Sang was the only girl in class who got along with the boys and was hated by the girls, her brashness a shield and a weapon.
[He Shouwu]:"That's nothing. My girlfriend can rotate 360 degrees with no dead angles. On call, fast or slow, three or four times a day. Doesn't resist, doesn't throw tantrums, doesn't ask for bags. I can beat and scold and she won't utter a sound."
He Shouwu, nickname "He Shouwu (Dirty)," real name He Shouwu, supposedly from a family that grew medicinal herbs. In high school, to cover tuition, he sold a ginseng root from the family plot. After graduation, He learned the family had ginseng from one year to one hundred years stored in cool, dark cellars. A standard shut-in, Taurus. Always turning any topic into a lewd joke, always saying, an old driver teaching new drivers, hands-on. His persona was tiresomely consistent.
[Nima Sang]:"You win."
[Maria]:"Who is that? Sounds amazing." The question was innocently posed.
Jing Shu narrowed her eyes at the ID "Maria." For a moment Jing Shu didn't know what to say. She really didn't want to bring up this person, to engage. She shook her head hard, as if to dislodge the memory. In this life she would stay away from Su Mali if possible, a line drawn in the sand of her mind.
Su Mali was the only one who made Jing Shu retreat, a deep, instinctive aversion she couldn't fully explain.
[He Shouwu]:"My right hand."
[Maria]:"What?"
[He Shouwu]:"You really don't get it."
[Nima Sang]: "Oh, our class flower is really pure."
Seeing the group was as noisy and pointless as in the previous life, Jing Shu was about to close it and go dry vegetables in the sun on the rooftop, the task more tangible. Then one line from Zhang Lingling really caught her attention, cutting through the digital noise.
[Zhang Lingling]: "Besides memorializing, I want to consolidate resources in the group. Inflation is outrageous. Small vendors are stuck with stock.
Although big data says the barter market will open next year, our little group can start small. It's too hard to find anything now. I remember several families here ran small supermarkets or wholesales.
How about this. We pick a time to meet, confirm who is still alive, and list what each of us can trade. Let us do a small barter market."
[He Shouwu]:"Exactly. I still have small amounts of essential balm, mosquito-repellent cologne, heatstroke, cold, and fever meds. I want to trade for ceramic tile or insulated bricks, and building materials to construct a basement."
[Liang Xin]:"My family runs a hardware store. We trade for water or food."
[Shi Lei]:"My family has ceramic tile, but we want water."
[Yao Zixin]:"My family does PVC plastic. We can custom make. Trade for water."
The offer made Jing Shu pause, her finger hovering.
[Wang Chao]:"Water is this scarce. Who will trade water for plastic."
[Yao Zixin]:"[Crying]. Exactly. Everyone else was requisitioned by the government. Only our family was ignored. The materials are piled up and will be ruined."
Jing Shu thought it over, the gears turning. She really did need custom PVC. Never mind that next year, without the perpetual dust, the tempered glass cover over their villa would be exposed to the public eye. The massive red nematodes couldn't be wasted either, a resource falling from the sky.
Red nematodes could be mixed with beaten eggs and greens for chickens, ducks, cows, and pigs. For livestock, that was a delicacy. It would save a lot of feed and could also feed the fish in the pond, closing a loop.
So custom PVC was very necessary. Not only to hood the villa discreetly, but also to build slopes and integrated piping in every corner and install a giant rain-collection tank by the villa. When it rained, water and red nematodes would flow through the pipes into the tank. If the chickens and ducks needed feed, scoop a ladle. If it overflowed, fine. The red nematodes could be packed to trade for work points. And if that was still too much, there was Big Eater No. 1, the insatiable system.
The benefits were clear. Hide the villa. Auto-collect red nematodes. Filter the mass of red nematodes outside the villa first. If a few slipped in, the tempered glass still blocked them, a double barrier.
Also, looking up and seeing a ceiling crawling with writhing bugs wasn't pleasant. Adding this layer above the tempered glass was necessary and not too costly.
In recent days, Grandpa Jing and her father had finished building the RV garage behind the house. That also needed its own cover. Otherwise when red nematodes climbed into the garage, it would be disgusting, a squirming infestation.
[Xiao Shu]: "@Yao Zixin, I need PVC plastic. I will trade water. Add me and we will talk."
[Nima Sang]:"You jumped in right after he said no one wanted it. Did you fall for him? Back in school I thought you liked Yao Zixin. After all, he was the school heartthrob and handsome."