Zhou Dafu never expected that sometimes reality doesn't follow your plan, no matter how cleverly you scheme. For instance, you might be plotting a refined three-birds-with-one-stone strategy, but then the stone vanishes, and the birds simply fall on their own, squawking and confused. That's awkward, humiliating even, to have your intricate plot made irrelevant by simple, brute circumstance.
When you're exhausted from fleeing disaster, your body aching, your spirit weighed down by the pervasive gloom of the cave and the uncertain future, how do you lift your spirits? The ancient, universal answer: Eat! Eat something delicious! Drink! Drink something nourishing and warm!
Lunch in the Jing family corner was a modest feast of sandwiches: thick slices of homemade bread with crisp, fresh lettuce from their stores, slathered in rich, creamy cheese, layered with thin, savory cuts of smoked ham, and topped with a perfectly fried egg, its yolk still runny, laid by Xiao Dou just that morning. One bite, and the savory meat and the nutty aroma of wheat mingled on the tongue. Jing Shu closed her eyes in momentary delight, savoring the simple pleasure, unknowingly finishing seven or eight of the substantial sandwiches, her metabolism fueled by the morning's exertions.
The smoked ham leg hung right there from a hook on their makeshift awning frame, a visible symbol of plenty. Whenever she felt like it, she took the knife and sliced off another piece, the sharp blade glinting. Standing by the ham leg, she carved away, and soon, its once-plump roundness visibly dwindled. A steaming, generous bowl of rich, milky bamboo shoot and old duck soup, simmered quietly on the stove all morning, completed the feast. The hot broth soothed her throat and warmed her core. Jing Shu felt, for a fleeting moment, like she had reached the pinnacle of life possible in a cave. It was all about perspective.
The family's underlying gloom from the forced evacuation, the fear of the rising water, evaporated under the focus on a good meal. Eating well, drinking well, with their space organized and secure, this almost felt like a peculiar, rustic outing, not the abject misery they had imagined when leaving home.
Su Yiyan's family, having witnessed the lunch preparations and the casual abundance, gained a new, sobering perspective too. Poor folk fled disasters with nothing; rich folk, or the well-prepared, seemed to go on a bizarre, equipped vacation. Not only did her sister's family have plenty of food, but their travel gear was top-notch, their organization military-precise. It was deeply, silently enviable.
"Stick close to your sister. Listen to her. Your dad and I are busy with our own group," Wang Fang finally said to Su Long, too embarrassed to openly freeload after seeing the scale of their operation. She had plenty of her own people to arrange and manage anyway, a responsibility that also gave her a sense of purpose. Later, when she came back to check on her son, Su Lanzhi said, handing over a cloth-wrapped bundle,
"I left a few sandwiches for you and Big Brother. Eat quickly before they get cold."
"That's too kind. The three of us can't possibly take your food," Wang Fang began, the old habit of polite refusal surfacing.
"Just eat." Su Lanzhi cut her off gently but firmly. "And remember, when we've got something good, we will think of my sister first. That's how it should be." It was a statement that re-established boundaries and affection simultaneously.
"Alright." Wang Fang accepted the bundle, the warmth seeping into her hands. It meant more than just food.
After that small exchange, Su Yiyang's standing within the extended family dynamic subtly rose. He stood a little straighter, spoke with a touch more quiet authority when dealing with his own group, and people actually listened, knowing he had a connection to this well-supplied, capable branch of the family.
After lunch, no one in the cave was idle. A purposeful energy had taken hold. Jing An went off with a group of men to move more bricks for the communal raised platforms. Grandpa Jing, with his practical skills, was digging out a shallow pit near their awning with a small shovel. The two men had a plan to build a small, contained kiln with some of the concrete bricks, to roast some sweet potatoes later, and to provide a focal point of radiant warmth when the cave temperatures plummeted at night.
Jing Lai was summoned by Li Yuetian to an emergency meeting of community representatives. It seemed they would be organizing a large, centralized canteen soon. With so many thousands of people crammed into the Hongshan shelter, they needed a system for daily food ration distribution. Living off raw red nematodes or handfuls of dry grain alone was brutal, morale-crushing.
Those things took forever to chew raw, and the texture was awful. Three meals a day of that would leave your jaw aching and your spirit broken.
Su Lanzhi was busy on her phone, rallying the scattered members of the Planting Industry R and D Management Department; another batch of fast-growing leafy vegetables was ready for harvest in their secure hydroponic units and had to be distributed to registered personnel.
Grandma Jing, in the heart of their camp, sorted through their plastic bins of supplies, mentally planning dinner, her hands never still.
Wu You'ai moved through the cave like a foreman, organizing labor crews, assigning tasks, and promising everyone a hot communal meal at five o'clock, a simple porridge, but hot, to calm nerves and reward effort.
Jing Shu, of course, wasn't idle either. With her own family settled and the community busy, she slipped away, heading back toward Cave No. 4. She had her reasons… ahem, legitimate reconnaissance.
The luxury container house Zhou Daheng had brought was now fully set up, its light steel walls forming a neat, rectangular room within the cave, a door and windows incongruously set into it. The workers who had assembled it were now eating their own lunch, thin rice porridge, sitting in a weary cluster nearby. Jing Shu counted heads, same number as she had seen this morning. Zhou Daheng himself wasn't visible, likely inside or elsewhere.
Though not as instantly impressive as the mobile mansions being erected in the plaza, this container setup was no worse than a small, sturdy house, and far superior to tents or bare rock.
Most importantly, she knew its value. It cost over a million yuan before the apocalypse. Its lightweight steel shell was its greatest asset: easy to fold and transport, light yet stable, rated as earthquake- and wind-resistant.
If she could somehow acquire similar material, or even this actual structure, and install it on her Conqueror RV, it would solve a major design flaw. The Conqueror RV's second floor was a liftable terrace. Sure, it offered a luxurious open-air bar concept, but it was open on the sides. Like a balcony, it leaked wind, snow, and dirt, making it unusable in harsh conditions.
She wanted to turn it into a sealed, liftable living room, a true all-weather space. Adding this kind of modular steel shell would make it much warmer and more secure during their future migrations.
She coveted it badly, the clean lines, the promise of dry, insulated space. But Jing Shu wasn't the kind to kill someone in cold blood just for their belongings. That was a line, a messy, dangerous line.
Twenty minutes later, her position had shifted. The sight inside the container house changed her calculus. "Taking stuff off a corpse isn't illegal, right? I didn't kill anyone out of greed. Heaven may forgive fate's cruelty, but no one survives their own sins. If he is dead by another's hand…" The thought was cold, pragmatic.
"No, wait." She mentally corrected herself. "Isn't the saying 'a woman's heart is the most venomous'?" She was looking at a woman with a knife, after all.
Even Jing Shu had to marvel at fate's strange, convenient coincidences. Opportunity, or a trap, often looked the same at first glance.
Within minutes of entering the container, she had formed a sudden, profound bond with a stranger, a relationship forged in mutual discovery and potential mutual benefit, stronger in that instant than casual friendship or even transactional love. In plain terms, a mutually beneficial arrangement, or a mutually assured secret.
She hadn't expected anyone to be inside. She had assumed Zhou Daheng had relocated to his KTV RV or elsewhere, as the container sometimes emitted those unmentionable noises earlier, and now all his workers were away eating. When she quietly lifted the latch and climbed in, she found Qin Feifei, still in her red dress, holding a long, sharp kitchen knife, poised to strike the glass front of the terrarium holding the larger of the two pale snakes. But she hesitated, her arm trembling; the snake was large, thick-bodied, and even through the glass, its tongue flicked out, radiating silent danger.
Qin Feifei turned at the slight sound, equally shocked. Both women froze, caught in the act, one of trespassing, one of attempted serpenticide. She had seized this rare chance, this moment of distraction and privacy.
"You… you came to steal the snake?" Qin Feifei asked, her voice a tight whisper, seeing Jing Shu's eyes locked on the terrarium, not on her.
Jing Shu had only come to scout the place, to assess the structure and security, but stumbled upon this private drama. Her mind raced. Did Zhou Daheng have more than one woman here? Was there someone else hiding inside? "You're going to kill it?" Jing Shu asked, her voice low, reading her stance, the white-knuckled grip on the knife.
"If you want snake meat, wait until I kill it. I will give it to you. Just please don't tell anyone you saw me." Qin Feifei gritted her teeth, her beautiful face pale with tension. Time was short, and she had to act, but this intruder complicated everything.
"Why kill the snake? If you hate the man, kill him instead," Jing Shu said, suspicion blooming like a dark flower. Killing the pet was a strange, indirect revenge.
Qin Feifei's eyes welled up, the tears flowing as if on command, as she choked out her story in a frantic whisper: Zhou Daheng's threats controlling her, her daily misery, the specific horrors he inflicted. She explained he had raised these two particular snakes not as pets, but to eventually brew a potent aphrodisiac snake wine to fuel his endless lust, which he would then use to torment her further. Killing the snake was her only way to strike back, to stop his plans and maybe, just maybe, force him to seek medicine elsewhere and leave her alone for a while.
She begged Jing Shu to just take the meat and leave. She couldn't kill Zhou Daheng herself. This was still, technically, a law-abiding society; killing him would only ruin her own life. But killing his precious snake would ruin his plans and might save what was left of her sanity.
"You deserve an Oscar for this performance." Jing Shu's voice was flat, cutting through the tearful narrative.
"???" Qin Feifei blinked, the tears pausing, confusion replacing the frantic act.
"You're planning to extract the venom first, aren't you? And then use it to frame someone else for Zhou Daheng's death, maybe even me, since I'm here now. My arrival forced you to improvise, offering me snake meat so I would get blamed when his death was eventually investigated, or to buy my silence." Jing Shu took a small step closer, her grin turning sharp, predatory. "But I like your style."