Different Problems

"Quick, stop lying around playing on your phones! Let's clear the snow at the entrance together!"

Outside Limei Hotel, someone held a shovel and loudly called on the others.

Night was about to fall, and the hotel lights had already come on.

The first-floor lobby was packed with floor bedding. Including the people staying in the upstairs rooms, there had to be at least five or six hundred people living in the entire hotel.

Hearing the call, someone complained, "Why are we clearing snow again? Didn't we just clear it yesterday?"

"The snow's been falling so heavily every day. It's piled up again."

"It's already over a meter deep. It really does need clearing."

"Call out those people in the guest rooms too. We can't be the only ones in the lobby doing the work!"

"Cough, cough!"

As people argued noisily, someone looked outside. A thick layer of snow had already piled up on the steps before the hotel entrance.

The main roads were cleared by the Official Department, but snowplows could not get up places like the hotel steps. It was inconvenient, so the people living here could only handle it themselves.

"Stop complaining. We're doing this for ourselves!"

"Yeah, if we don't clear it and the snow blocks the entrance, it'll be hard even for the Security Bureau to bring supplies inside!"

"Get out here and move it!"

As soon as the doors opened, howling cold wind and snowflakes poured straight into the lobby.

People hurriedly pulled their clothes tighter and shivered.

Some ignored the call entirely, simply burrowing beneath their blankets without even sticking their heads out.

The others had few ways to deal with those avoiding work. A few hot-tempered people looked livid. If not for the armed squad stationed at the hotel, they would probably have gone over and beaten them up already.

In the end, it still came down to voluntary effort.

Twenty or thirty people took their tools outside and began clearing the snow around the hotel steps.

Xu Xiaotian was among them. After the hotel became overcrowded, he had voluntarily given his room to a pregnant woman seeking shelter and slept on floor bedding in the lobby himself.

In this Apocalypse Rules Era, especially after experiencing the brutality of Rule One, very few people were still willing to have children.

Yet while no one wanted to give birth themselves, they also felt that children were the hope of the future.

Therefore, when a pregnant woman arrived, most people treated her with great consideration.

Everyone could accept letting her sleep in a warm guest room and even take up a little more food.

"Damn it, look at both sides of the street. They've all turned into ice walls!"

Someone in the snow-clearing group at the entrance could not help cursing.

"If we don't clear the snow, in a few days there'll be an ice wall like that in front of the hotel too! Then we'll all be sealed inside and won't even be able to get out!"

Others chimed in. "Yeah, some people are too selfish. They won't do a bit of work. This isn't for anyone else. At the end of the day, it's for everyone sheltering here, including themselves."

"If you ask me, those people with guns should do something about it!"

"Didn't they say it already? Their mission is only to maintain order. They don't handle anything else."

"Enough, enough. We still have food to eat and warm air from the heaters, so we're doing pretty well. We've already made it through several days. We just need to hold on through the rest, cough, hold on... cough, cough cough!"

The speaker suddenly broke into a violent coughing fit halfway through his sentence. The others looked over and saw that the refined-looking middle-aged man had flushed cheeks. Something was clearly wrong.

"Teacher Feng, what's wrong?"

This refined man was a teacher at a local middle school and had moved in relatively early.

He had also been the first to propose the mutual aid sharing meetings at Limei Hotel, so everyone knew him fairly well.

"Teacher Feng, why is your face so red?"

"Let me feel your forehead... Oh! It's burning. Teacher Feng, you have a fever!"

"You're sick and still came out to work? Get inside and rest!"

"Xiaotian, hurry and help Teacher Feng inside!"

"Okay!"

Xu Xiaotian answered and quickly helped the constantly coughing Teacher Feng inside, bringing him to his spot on the floor bedding.

"Teacher Feng, rest. I'll get you some water. Should you take some medicine?"

"Xiaotian, I'm fine." The man lay down, clutching his head. "I'll be fine after resting for a while. Sorry for the trouble."

"That won't do... I'd better get you some hot water!"

Xu Xiaotian hurried to the dining area, only to find a long line in front of the directly supplied hot-water dispenser.

Most of them looked ill and covered their mouths as they coughed incessantly. Some held cups containing cold medicine granules, while others held a cup in one hand and a blister pack of cold capsules in the other.

Only then did Xu Xiaotian belatedly realize, The flu may have spread!

Many people in modern times were already in suboptimal health. After entering the Apocalypse Rules Era, the sudden increase in psychological stress made their bodies more susceptible to illness.

Combined with the sharp drop in temperature, it was hardly surprising that some people had caught the flu.

However, with flu patients packed into this nearly enclosed space with hundreds of people, along with the heating running twenty-four hours a day, the virus would spread and proliferate at terrifying speed.

As long as one person fell ill, the others could soon be infected. Listening to the waves of coughing around him, Xu Xiaotian felt that at least dozens of people in the hotel were already sick.

His heart tightened. He felt that things would turn out very badly if this continued.

The blizzard had only lasted a few days, and so many people were already falling ill. What if someone's condition worsened and medicine stopped working?

In this awful weather, how could they get anyone to a hospital? They did not even know whether hospitals were still operating...

He was not the only one to notice the problem. A commotion had already risen from the lobby outside.

Someone was shouting.

"Quarantine! We have to lock everyone who's coughing into the guest rooms for quarantine! At a time like this, we absolutely can't let them spread the virus to everyone else!"

Under the same night sky, different problems emerged in different places.

Guan Tong was not troubled by contagious diseases or anything of that sort, but he had problems of his own.

He stared toward the highway. As time passed, the two beams of cylindrical light grew brighter and brighter, indicating that a large vehicle was getting closer.

He could even hear the sound of "rumble... hiss..." It was clearly the sound only a big truck could make.

While remaining on guard, Guan Tong was also curious.

The rules had been in effect for several days now, and the snow on the roads had grown thick and frozen over.

Driving outside at a time like this, were they not afraid of getting trapped in a snowdrift? Or having the wheels skid and send the vehicle into a ditch?

Even Guan Tong had worried about skidding when he drove on the first day of the rules, let alone now that four days had passed.

Anyone who still dared to drive outside at this time had guts, at the very least!

"And judging by it, this driver also came because Mingdao Mountain has few people and less snowfall."

Other than that, there was no reason for someone to take such a huge risk and drive a truck out to such a remote wilderness.

There it was!

At that moment, Guan Tong saw the vehicle with his own eyes.

Just as he had guessed, it was a large cargo truck. Those two cylindrical beams came from its headlights.

Guan Tong had heard that many truck drivers modified their lights. He did not know whether this one had been modified, but the beams were indeed bright enough to make the surrounding area seem like daylight.

"Skrrrch!"

The truck braked to a stop at the edge of the road, not far from the end of the path Guan Tong had cleared with his folding shovel.

Since the driver sat high enough to look down from above, and with the headlights shining over the area, he must have seen the path Guan Tong had cleared.

Guan Tong glanced at his personal panel. Because he had used Mind Power to write during the day, less than one-third had recovered so far.

If he summoned Shadow, he could probably keep him around for a little over thirty seconds.

He put on his hood, silently picked up the iron pincers he had brought from the self-service supply point earlier, and walked out along the path.

No matter what, since the truck driver had discovered this path, contact between them was inevitable.

Guan Tong needed to go over and see whether he could communicate with the newcomer amicably.

If the newcomer meant well, he would not mind cooperating and getting through the remaining time under the rules together.

If the other party harbored ill intentions, then the gang kidnapping case he had experienced and the earlier conflict at the supply point had also given him sufficient resolve to fight.

There was no movement from the cab at the moment. Guan Tong did not know what the driver was doing, but the door remained closed.

Only when Guan Tong had nearly reached the end of the path and arrived before the cab did the door open with a swish. A slightly petite figure stepped onto the footboard and jumped down first.

"Ah!"

Guan Tong was slightly stunned when he saw the ponytailed little girl who jumped down. She looked completely like an elementary school student around ten years old.

The little girl saw Guan Tong after jumping down and was startled. She hurriedly shouted, "Mom! There's someone!"

"Nana, don't be afraid!"

A middle-aged woman in a padded coat quickly climbed down from the truck right after her.

She gripped a flashlight in one hand and a crowbar in the other. After getting out, she shielded her daughter behind her and nervously shone the flashlight at Guan Tong's face.

Guan Tong raised a hand to block the glare and said, "Don't shine that in my eyes. Turn off the flashlight. Your truck headlights are enough."