Jing Shu was utterly speechless for a long moment, staring at the message.
As a professional who ran a logistics company before the apocalypse, specializing in land, sea, and air transportation, getting lost on a major, supposedly mapped highway was downright ridiculous. She felt a surge of irritation, like she had been played for a fool or was dealing with profound incompetence.
"What, did the road teleport itself or something?" She typed back sarcastically.
Keep going, keep making excuses. She waited.
Heng Jin then sent a grainy photo taken in the dim, rainy twilight. Under the glow of the convoy's headlights, the road ahead was visible: a few meters of perfectly normal, wet asphalt highway, and beyond that, where the road should continue, loomed a wall of towering, dark mountains covered in withered, skeletal trees.
The massive, unexpected mountain range completely blocked the road, filling the entire pass. With dense, dead trees in the way, there was no crossing over it with vehicles. Their only options were to take a long, uncertain detour through unmapped terrain or turn back the way they came.
"You might not believe this," Heng Jin's voice message came through, sounding genuinely bewildered, "but I swear this mountain was not on the maps or visible from the last ridge. It actually shifted here, or appeared."
"So basically, you are saying it is the road's fault now? Or the mountain's?" Her reply was dry.
Jing Shu narrowed her eyes at the image, zooming in. This had to be crustal movement, a sudden tectonic shift. She had not expected such significant geological events to start so soon. She had thought major tectonic activity would begin in the third year of the apocalypse, according to the timeline from her past life.
According to scientists' later theories, the massive, worldwide earthquakes in the third year of the apocalypse were partly due to extreme ocean floor expansion from the heated seas, which triggered frequent and violent tectonic shifts. That was closely tied to the torrential rains and rising sea levels seen this very year.
It was likely that some tectonic plates, under immense pressure, had already begun moving in isolated areas. Next year, the shifts would only increase in frequency and scale, eventually leading to a geographically scrambled world map. The Earth would become like a jigsaw puzzle, but someone had removed pieces and jammed them back together in all the wrong places, continents grinding against each other.
In a few years, when the great migrations began, roads would not be roads anymore, and mountains would not be mountains in their old locations. Navigation would become a nightmare.
When Jing Shu did not reply immediately, Heng Jin sent his current GPS coordinates and added in text, "Believe it or not, we have decided to try and skirt around the southern edge of this mountain range and then go straight north from there. It looks passable on the satellite image from last month."
She opened her offline map app and pondered for a while, tracing routes with her finger. With catastrophic floods looming worldwide, she absolutely did not want her precious, long-awaited RV getting submerged in some lowland ditch. She gave him clear, firm instructions via voice message: "I suggest you abandon that plan. Follow the existing mountain ridge roads west instead, even if they are difficult and slow. It is much safer. Do not try to go in a straight line through unknown valleys, or you will just run into more obstacles like this and waste even more time detouring again. With the rainfall spiking hourly, flash floods and mudslides in those valleys are a real, immediate danger. Higher ground along ridge lines is the safest bet right now. Trust me."
From that day onward, Jing Shu made a habit of checking Heng Jin's shared location pin daily. If they did get caught in a flood or disappeared, she would have no choice but to somehow retrieve the RV herself, a daunting prospect.
She also mentally prepared her entire family for the very real possibility of having to sleep in the mountains or on high ground for a period. She did not want a repeat of her previous life, when they had fled their collapsing apartment in a desperate rush with nothing but the clothes on their backs, ending up sleeping for days in a freezing, damp cave. Thirsty, they had stretched out their necks to catch meager water droplets from the ceiling. Hungry, they had done the same for stray insects. Exhausted, they had curled up on the stone floor and tried to sleep, shivering.
She vividly remembered the children of a visiting relief official, sheltered in the same cave, eating steaming canned meat porridge while everyone else in the cave could only watch and swallow hard in raw envy. The memory still stung.
Nights had been bitterly, penetratingly cold, with gusts of wet, icy wind howling through the cave mouth.
The damp firewood gathered from the mountain would not catch fire. Even when they managed to find some marginally dry sticks deep in the cave, without matches or lighters, which were long gone, their only option was to try to start a fire by friction. But those primitive bow drills or hand drills had stopped being made or practiced, and nobody had used them in years. Cigarettes and lighters were not even available anymore as trade goods.
It had taken more than a dozen grown men working in shifts over two hours to finally coax a tiny spark into a flame. Jing Shu swore starting a fire that way was sheer torture, a lesson in humility and suffering. No arguments.
That was why, in this life, she had stocked up on enough boxes of waterproof matches and ferrocerium rods to last a lifetime. That lesson had been written in her blood and frozen tears. And another hard-learned thing: never, ever roast red nematodes over an open flame. The taste was like burned hair, the acrid smell clung to the back of your throat for hours, and the overall stench was unbearable, like a charred durian mixed with rubber.
If anyone dared roast red nematodes in front of her this time, Jing Shu swore she would beat them senseless with a stick.
Back to the present preparations, Jing Shu was immensely glad she had bought a large amount of camping gear last year during her stockpiling frenzy. She went upstairs to the locked storage rooms and began packing everything they would need into manageable bundles so they could leave in a hurry if the sirens sounded:
Seven military-grade, four-season tents, waterproof, windproof, and breathable, with one-pull setup poles for simplicity. Down-filled, sub-zero rated sleeping bags. Moisture-proof, insulated sleeping mats she had bought specifically for flood season. Waterproof, insulated rain boots for everyone in their sizes.
She also planned to tie bundles of the wooden planks and pallets from the villa's backyard to the roof rack of the RV, once it arrived. They could act as windbreaks, privacy screens, or dry platforms under the tents on muddy ground. Even the best tent would not withstand days of torrential rainwater pooling underneath it. Soon, cave floors and any flat ground would flood ankle-deep.
To ensure they had a safe, dry place to sleep off the ground, she had to prepare these materials early. Otherwise, they would end up lying in cold, muddy water mixed with wriggling red nematodes, which would be pure physical and mental torment.
She also packed portable cooking gear, a compact rocket stove and fuel tablets, and a multifunctional insulated kettle for brewing ginger tea with precious brown sugar to stay warm. A few sealed five-gallon barrels of filtered water would be enough for a short exodus.
As for food, three days' worth of lightweight, high-calorie rations would suffice, but nothing fragrant or fancy, no need to draw unwanted attention from other refugees. Luckily, Jing Shu had spent the past two days in the kitchen preparing vacuum-sealed, easy-to-carry, just-add-hot-water meals like dehydrated soups and stews, so they would just grab those bags on their way out.
…
On January 2, 2024, the Ai Jia supermarket under Jing Lai's management had been open for three straight days of self-service dining to celebrate the New Year holiday, which had utterly exhausted her and the staff.
The extra holiday opening days were also a strategic move because of the newly introduced red nematode protein source. After an emergency government meeting, today marked its official debut on the public menu, and gauging public reaction and acceptance was crucial.
Two days prior, in a planning meeting, the district director had propped his feet on the table, sighing.
"How do we get the public to accept these red nematodes? You all tasted them in the kitchen tests. They are worse than maggots, stringy, with a persistent fishy taste, and frying just leaves rubbery husks. It is like chewing on miniature rubber bands."
"Let us serve them boiled to reduce the smell, then mix them thoroughly with white rice and a few maggots for familiar texture. Add some staple vegetable on the side and people will accept it eventually out of hunger," one deputy suggested.
"Or host a raffle. Anyone who eats a full portion of red nematodes for ten straight days gets an entry into a draw to win a stable job at our supermarket," another proposed.
The director waved his hand. "Do it. Both ideas. Jing Lai, you are in charge of the launch tomorrow. Make sure it goes smoothly."
It was Jing Lai's first time shouldering such a significant, visible responsibility, so she was understandably nervous. She had spent all morning checking ingredient stocks and kitchen preparations, finally getting everything in order and the serving line set up.
She let out a long breath as she surveyed the orderly cafeteria, the steam tables ready.
"Let us hope nothing else goes wrong today." Jing Lai adjusted the broad, fine-mesh rain hat Jing Shu had given her, grateful for it. Without it yesterday during setup, a nematode landing in her hair would have caused embarrassment at best and major delays at worst.
She glanced at the compact automatic life jacket folded on her right arm, another gift from Jing Shu she now carried everywhere. From now on, she resolved to wear or carry whatever her niece gave her without question. She had a growing, instinctive feeling she would need it sooner or later.
As she was lost in these thoughts, a raw, terrified scream ripped through the hum of the cafeteria from the direction of the main entrance.
"Flood! The water is coming! The flood is here! Ahhh!"
Almost simultaneously, distant but rising emergency sirens began to wail through the air, their electronic pulses urgent, followed by the deep, growing roar of rushing water from the street outside.
Jing Lai looked down at the automatic life jacket in her hands, its bright orange a beacon. Determination settled over her features, pushing aside the initial jolt of fear. Raising the electric loudspeaker she carried, she switched it on and shouted, her voice amplified and steady over the growing panic:
"Everyone, do not panic! Do not run! Follow staff instructions immediately! We will proceed in an orderly fashion to the fourth floor of the mall to avoid a stampede! Wait there for official rescue! I repeat, stay calm and follow the green-shirted staff…"
===
Didn't I just say yesterday that I found a bunch of new novels that caught my interest? Well… after a quick search, I already have 59 new novels on my list. Most of them are in the 15–200 chapter range, so not too crazy length-wise.
And yeah, like I mentioned before, for casual reading I usually rely on the Google Translate extension. I'm honestly too lazy to "think" when I'm reading—if I read raw Chinese, my brain has to actually work, but with English my brain just automatically processes the meaning without effort (￣▽￣).
But here's the thing… I've kinda gotten used to how bad MTL translations can be. If you've read enough MTL, you know exactly what I mean (lol). And since my eyes are now spoiled by my own translations, whenever I read raw MTL I'm like, "Hah? What's going on??" (－‸ლ). Basically, my comprehension for raw MTL has gotten worse.
Of course, I can still manage stuff that's not too messy—like modern settings, or maybe some xianxia. But when I tried reading 杀道侣后,修仙界恶女成魔门老祖 (After killing her Taoist partner, the evil woman in the world of immortal cultivation became the ancestor of the demon sect), I could follow along and understand the gist… but wow, it was painful to read (ಥ_ಥ).
So in the end, I decided to just pick it up for translation instead (After Killing Dao Partner, the Villainess Becomes the Demon Ancestor). Each chapter's word count is short, kinda like The Invincible Money-Grubbing Fairy or The Cube Queen's Apocalypse Feast. Right now it's at 184 chapters and still serializing. Honestly, at my pace, I'll probably finish catching up with it in just 2 days.
And maybe after that, I'll add a couple more serialized novels from the batch I found yesterday during my novel hunt. Decisions, decisions…
Oh, and one more thing! From now on, I'll also try to make my novel covers as close as possible to the original ones. Of course, sometimes I might still make my own version too, but I'll do my best to stay faithful to the original designs (*≧▽≦).