Chapter 3: The Neighbor's Request for Food

Chapter 3: The Neighbor's Request for Food

He had also taken ten bags of flour back then. In the past six months, by mixing rice, flour, and miscellaneous grains, he had already consumed more than half of them.

After skillfully cutting the shredded pork, he then cut four green peppers, and couldn't help but worry about another serious problem in his heart.

"What I should be most worried about right now are the basic infrastructures like water, electricity, and gas."

"The tap water is already contaminated. The power grid collapsed in the second week of the heavy rain. If it weren't for that generator and my second-hand outdoor power bank, even charging my computer and phone would be a hassle."

Fortunately, before the internet went down, he had downloaded a large number of doomsday survival documents and various other potentially useful knowledge. He stored them all on his computer and external hard drive, for which he had to delete a lot of his teacher's works.

Whenever he had free time, he would read through these files, thinking that if he could ever use them in the future, it would be a huge gain. At the very least, he had to learn as much as he could while he was still able to generate electricity.

"Another deadly problem is the gas supply. The external gas has been cut off for a long time now. Fortunately, when I was renovating, I had set up two large canisters of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)."

Yes, his home still used LPG canisters, a sight rarely seen in urban households nowadays.

When Liang Yuan was renovating, he hadn't gotten the water and electricity connected yet, and not wanting to waste money renting a place, he moved in early. Back then, he needed to cook for himself, so he bought two 15-kilogram LPG canisters.

He hadn't used them for long before natural gas was connected to his home. At the time, he regretted it immensely, feeling that buying the two canisters was a waste of money. He never expected that less than two months into the great flood, the natural gas supply would be cut off.

As the water levels continued to rise and government rescue efforts failed to arrive, these two LPG canisters instead proved to be incredibly useful. For the past three months, he had been relying on these two canisters for cooking and boiling water.

To be honest, he had a pressure cooker at home; otherwise, the gas in the canisters would have probably run out long ago. Without gas, it would be difficult for him to cook at all. The people taking refuge in the hallway were all salvaging floating wood and plastic to start fires.

Furthermore, the water source was the most critical issue. Don't be fooled by the water everywhere outside; it's all seawater, salty to the taste. Countless bodies were soaking in the water, and mutated creatures were lurking within. No one knew if drinking this water would cause problems.

The rain from the sky, however, could be collected. Liang Yuan had seen many of his neighbors using bottles and jars hung from their windows to collect rainwater. His own water source also came from the rain. However, before using it each time, he would filter it once with a filtration device and then boil it once to ensure it was completely safe before use.

Lost in thought, he finished cutting the green peppers. Liang Yuan skillfully heated up a wok with oil. He didn't even bother with things like ginger, garlic, or cooking wine—they had long been used up. He did, however, still have some scallions, which he had planted on his balcony. But due to the lack of sunlight for half a year, they looked somewhat malnourished, each stalk as thin as a hair.

He didn't use these scallions. Instead, he skillfully added dark soy sauce and quickly stir-fried the shredded pork. As it stir-fried and colored, the pork turned an alluring caramel color, and the aroma of meat wafted out. Taking advantage of the high heat, Liang Yuan poured in the shredded green peppers and began to stir-fry at lightning speed. With a sprinkle of salt, a dish of colorfully fragrant and delicious stir-fried pork with green peppers was complete.

Liang Yuan turned off the stove, then opened the pressure cooker and dumped the stir-fried pork and green peppers into it. Inside the pressure cooker, rice was being cooked. Without electricity at home, the rice cooker was naturally long out of use. Now, he cooked rice with the gas stove. A pressure cooker cooks rice faster than a regular pot and saves more gas; the rice would be ready in just five to ten minutes. This was also the secret to how he had managed to last so long with only two gas canisters.

After stirring it a few times with a rice spatula, a delicious bowl of stir-fried pork with green peppers over rice was ready. As he stirred, Liang Yuan felt a sense of relief. He was very clear that after half a year of the great flood, the people who were still alive outside had long fallen into a state of material scarcity. Some didn't even have a place to stay. Some of the floor rooms were already packed with people, and the hallways and connecting corridors had also been occupied. Others, having nowhere to live, let desperation get the better of them and began smashing doors to force their way into other people's homes. Some were even wildly optimistic, building temporary shelters on the water's surface. Of course, the issue of supplies was the biggest problem.

He didn't know about the others, but that young couple across from him had been coming to his door almost every day for the past week, begging to borrow some food. At first, when the husband of that family came to borrow food, Liang Yuan thought that since they were neighbors, they might be able to help each other when the time came to escape for their lives. So, he lent them some food. But as time went on, everyone came to a clear realization: this world was finished. After half a year of continuous rain, the government had failed to organize any effective rescue. For months, the politicians on television had been repeatedly calling on the public to save themselves. From that point on, Liang Yuan refused to lend any more food to the couple across from him.

In the past month, the male neighbor had stopped coming out to borrow food himself. Instead, he had his wife sneak over to knock on the door. Every time she came, she was dressed in extremely sexy clothes.

Liang Yuan didn't know the couple across from him very well. He usually just saw them in the elevator and occasionally exchanged a greeting. It was only when he was lurking in the homeowners' group chat that he learned this young couple were locals. They had bought this apartment outright with the compensation from a demolition. The locals in Linjiang City were very rich. Most of them were nouveau riche who got rich from demolition and had several properties. Due to the old one-child policy, almost every family had only one child. If a local family had only a daughter, they would try to find a son-in-law. But society is a dangerous place, and there was a group of people who specifically set up schemes to target these wealthy local families. Pretending to be a live-in son-in-law, they would move in and then swindle the family out of all their money. After these stories got around, locals became hesitant to marry people from outside their area, and it became a trend for locals to only date other locals. Furthermore, when locals marry each other, it's not in the traditional sense of a bride or groom, but is called "bing jia" (merging families). This means the two families merge into one, so there's no need for a bride price or dowry. In the future, they must have two children, one taking the father's surname and the other the mother's. The principle is fairness, so that no one is at a disadvantage.

The neighbors across from him were one of these young couples in this new type of "bing jia" marriage. The man was average-looking, appearing to be in his early thirties, while the woman was drop-dead gorgeous, looking to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Especially her pair of breasts, which were large and round. On several occasions when she came knocking, Liang Yuan had to struggle to resist the temptation.

Just as he was thinking this, a faint knock came from the other side of the door. Liang Yuan froze. This familiar knocking sound immediately told him who it was. "Speak of the devil." He couldn't help but laugh. Only that young couple across the hall knocked so softly. If it were robbers, they wouldn't bother knocking; they would just break the door down.

Liang Yuan walked to the door, picked up a mirror from the entryway, and used it to look through the peephole. Through the peephole, he saw a young woman in her late twenties, dressed in a tight-fitting, goose-yellow "stepmom" dress, with long, black hair. Her figure, accentuated by the dress, was full in the front and curvy in the back. A pair of full, round breasts rose high, creating a deep, unfathomable cleavage. The woman's facial features were also exceptionally striking, bearing a resemblance to the actress Yang Gongru.

Liang Yuan adjusted the mirror's angle, carefully looked around the woman to confirm no one else was there, and then opened the inner door. "Sister Mei, what can I do for you?"

It was a coincidence that the woman's surname was also Yang, though her name was very common: Yang Mei. Liang Yuan was only twenty-five, so calling her "Sister Mei" was not inappropriate.

Yang Mei's face was a bit pale, and her lips were chapped. However, it was obvious she had done her makeup before coming out. Her long, black hair was beautiful and sleek, and she was wearing light makeup. Presumably, her lip balm had run out; otherwise, she wouldn't have let her lips get chapped without applying any.

"Little brother... your sister... I haven't eaten for days. We've run out of all the food at home. Please, could you... could you lend your sister some food?"