After a long period of recovery and daily nourishment fit for a pig farm, rich and abundant, Jing Shu even brought nutritious meat broth for Wu You'ai every time she visited to help her heal, the rich liquid in a thermal flask.
The deep, ragged holes in Wu You'ai's leg had finally filled in with new, pinkish tissue. Maybe it was the Spirit Spring water Jing Shu secretly added to the broth, because the resulting scars were surprisingly faint, thin white lines, though the skin was still a little sunken where muscle had been lost. No one knew if it would ever fully recover its former shape or strength.
There was still no word on Shangguan Jun from the Zhetian gang or the mysterious man codenamed Zero. Jing Shu could only wait for news from Yang Yang, a thread of connection that felt increasingly thin.
Wu You'ai had clearly grown fairer and plumper from the rest and good food, with more flesh on her bones than before the injury, her face rounder.
To save time so the water trucks could move on quickly to the next community, each household sent one representative with a large barrel or basin to report headcount and liters. She checked the numbers on a cracked phone screen and recorded them in a notebook, her voice clear.
"Jing Shu's household, five adults, 29 liters. Wang Qiqi's household, two adults, 10 liters. Wang Cuihua's household, four adults, 12 liters. Wang Xuemei, single, 3 liters. Zhang Bingbing gets a double portion for pregnancy, her household is three adults, 12 liters."
Jing Shu took her large blue plastic barrel and stood at the very front of the line, a place of privilege. Jing Shu also had a special status now. In the future, for distributions like this, Jing Shu wouldn't need to queue at all; her rations would be delivered.
"Did you hear? Jing Shu's family gets 29 liters." The whisper traveled down the line.
"Why so much for her? Is our outreach staff playing favorites?" Another voice, tinged with resentment.
"Her parents are civil servants, and there are two elders at home. Of course the quota is higher. They have the points." Someone else explained, the logic of the new hierarchy.
"Look at her, still so clean when water is this scarce. I heard they even keep frogs at home. Not exactly a water-poor household. No wonder they live in a villa. Even in the apocalypse, they have their ways." The comment was a mix of awe and bitterness.
Jing Shu listened to the gossip swirling around her and smiled faintly, a small curve of her lips that didn't reach her eyes.
The water truck arrived with a low rumble, a large tanker brimming with the clear source of life. Armed police in dark uniforms worked swiftly, racing against time. Amid the crowd's cheers and murmurs, they handed out the measured water through a hose and hurried to the next stop, the engine revving. Neighbors in the community didn't bother with anything else once they had their share. They lifted their buckets and basins and gulped down great mouthfuls on the spot, water dripping down their chins.
"So cool and refreshing." A sigh of pure relief.
"So sweet. Tastes like Nongfu Spring." The comparison to a lost luxury.
"So satisfying." The words were simple, profound.
For more than half a year, no one had taken a truly satisfying, deep drink like this, without rationing each sip.
Many burst into tears on the spot, the release sudden. They had once turned up their noses at slightly muddy tap water. They had once scoffed at the idea of sharing a single bucket per family for a week. They were ashamed now of that past softness. Lao Wang next door had been boiled alive by hardship, his fate a grim story, and they were still alive. It hadn't been easy. The wailing started up again as neighbors sat right on the dusty ground, drinking and chatting through their tears.
Jing Shu lugged the heavy bucket home, the plastic handle digging into her palm, and sighed without quite knowing why. To produce this water, to power the purification, the government had poured in unimaginable manpower and money, a staggering national effort. It looked like only a few days of operation from the outside, but the resources burned by operating the artificial sun for even that short time were astronomical. Every second cost tens of thousands in fuel, in infrastructure, in lost alternatives. Imagine what these past days had consumed, the stockpiles drawn down.
This time, the artificial sun had practically overdrawn non-renewable resources across China, making those precious stocks of oil, gas, and coal even scarcer, the future's cushion thinner. Add the continuing lack of sunlight, the ultimate killer for agriculture, and the apocalypse crept ever closer to a real doomsday, a point of no return.
But as Jing Shu had reasoned to her family, if they didn't use those resources now, and with no knowing when the promised rains would come, many more people would die of thirst within weeks. The government wouldn't, couldn't, risk waiting for the rain.
At least the investment paid off in the immediate term. It was not just the sweet, clean water now filling barrels. The government also used the artificial sun's immense energy output to power indoor vertical farms, cultivating fast-growing vegetables, and to produce the purest form of electrical energy for laboratories.
That energy was being funneled into new, desperate research projects, attempts to find longer-term solutions.
As for the vegetables, they would be supplied citywide in Wu City once a week, a new regularity. Wu You'ai posted the official announcement in the community chat: "@everyone Starting tomorrow, every major supermarket will supply fresh vegetables once per week. One portion costs 1 virtual coin. Ice pops are 0.1 virtual coin per portion. One portion per person, ID required."
Hearing there would be ice pops, the cheap frozen treat, the community chat was over the moon with excited messages. In this persistent, extreme heat, eating something frozen, even just flavored ice, would be pure bliss, a tiny luxury.
Jing Shu didn't know about their specific bliss. She only knew the landlord's foolish son was very happy, eating her ice cream every day in exchange for diesel, a trade that now felt like a closing window.
From today, though, diesel probably wouldn't be traded by the ton anymore. Petroleum magnate Qian Duoduo's family, like all resource holders, had likely been compelled to contribute to the artificial sun project, losing at least half their private fortune, even cutting their number of personal bodyguards in half out of necessity or order.
Fortunately, a few days ago, she had made the spicy-strip-flavored ice cream for the landlord's foolish son and managed to trade for all the diesel she thought she would need, a final large transaction.
It was worth mentioning that she finally met the landlord's foolish son in person during that exchange. It was not a pleasant process, the young man's mannerisms erratic and demanding, but thinking of how much his father had paid in diesel over the months, Jing Shu held back from blowing up at him. Of course, a little verbal beating, a sharp retort, was unavoidable. She was not a servant.
Customer is king, sure. But even kings could be irritating.
After long analysis of his preferences, Jing Shu concluded the foolish son loved the specific, artificial chili flavor of the Weilong spicy strips, so Jing Shu extracted the spicy, oily broth by soaking the strips and blended the potent liquid into the milk-based ice cream mix. In plain terms, Jing Shu soaked the spicy strips in hot water, poured the flavored liquid into the mix, and churned it. The flavorless, soggy strips themselves didn't go to waste either. Jing Shu mashed them into the ice cream for texture, a bizarre ingredient.
Jing Shu took a cautious bite of the test batch. Sweet, salty, and spicy, a confusing riot on the tongue.
Nervous about the unconventional recipe, she brought the test batch to the landlord's son to try via a messenger. The next day she was summoned directly and told to bring her tools for a larger batch. She packed a cooler with ice packs and the pre-mixed base, then rode in a waiting, dust-covered luxury car to the Xishan Villa area, a place she knew only by reputation.
Though the sky was dim as ever, Jing Shu's night vision, sharpened by practice and good nutrition, was good enough. The car passed her eldest uncle's apartment complex on the outskirts and left the noisy, crowded city behind, heading deeper into the quiet foothills. Soon they were on a winding mountain road, circling round and round, the headlights cutting through the dark. She could see dark clouds or perhaps just permanent dust draped around the peaks like shrouds.
Before the apocalypse, this deep mountain scenery would have been lovely, a retreat. Too bad the trees along the slopes had all been cut recently and stacked in neat, skeletal piles for fuel, the landscape scarred.
She suddenly thought of the old Xishan dismemberment case from the news years ago. Ahem. The timing was poor.
Seven or eight minutes later, they rounded one particular mountain, crossed a narrow bridge over a dry ravine, and drove onto an even broader, well-paved mountain road. She even saw the outlines of a cableway station, its chairs still hanging motionless. In thirty-odd years across two lives, how had she never come to this exclusive place in Wu City? The answer was simple: she had never moved in these circles.
"Excuse me, are we there yet?" Jing Shu couldn't help asking, the journey feeling long.
"We have already arrived," the driver said, his eyes on the road.
"???"
Jing Shu looked out at what seemed like untouched woodland.
"Are you kidding me? There are houses in this desolate wilderness for kilometers around?" She voiced her disbelief.
Seeing her look, the driver smiled with a I-looked-like-that-too-once expression. This was the fourth time he had ferried this young lady. She must be a valued guest of the young master. He explained patiently, pointing vaguely:
"From the start of the mountain road at the gatehouse, it is all private land. These mountains all belong to Mr. Qian. The area we passed earlier used to be a public sightseeing mountain, with sunrise viewing platforms, cableway rides, and skiing in winter. The grounds we just passed are Mr. Qian's private golf course. This side is the staff housing base. Ahead is the family orchard, though most of it has died now without sun. On the other side of the ridge is the private ranch, with the young master's favorite animals. I hear there is even a leopard in an enclosure. The area we are crossing now is the guest villa district, for visitors. We are about to arrive at the main family residence."
Jing Shu's mouth slowly fell open as the car turned a final bend and a vast, illuminated compound came into view, gates swinging open. Poverty really had limited her imagination.