I Want to Eat Hot Pot

Sunshine Residential Complex, Room 704.

Four elderly people, Li Mei and her daughter, and Lin Fan.

The seven of them gathered around the dining table. The dinner Li Mei had carefully prepared gave off a mouthwatering aroma that was enough to whet anyone's appetite.

A pot of turtle soup sat in the middle of the table, surrounded by home-cooked dishes, most of them made with melon.

Being able to enjoy a meal like this in the apocalypse was already a luxury. Other survivors were probably still immersed in crisis.

"Feifei, Grandma will help you with your studies from now on. Chinese, math, history, physics, chemistry—Grandma knows them all very well."

Grandma Liang hadn't expected she would get to teach a child again. It filled her with an indescribable joy. She had spent her whole life teaching and educating others, and even after retiring, she sometimes couldn't help giving lessons to children in the residential complex.

She had thought that with the apocalypse, she'd never get to teach children again. Now that there was a child here for her to tutor, how could she not be happy?

"I know, Grandma Liang." Feifei nodded, her heart heavy. In the end, she still hadn't escaped having to study.

This uncle was really scary.

Just like those firefighter uncles who rescued children's homework while putting out fires.

Thanks to Lin Fan's introduction,

Li Mei and her daughter had gotten to know the four elderly people.

When she learned who they were, Li Mei felt nothing but respect for them.

The fear that had haunted her for days vanished in that moment, filling her with hope for the future.

"Xiaofan, what are your plans from now on?" Old Man Wang knew Lin Fan was a good young man, but the apocalypse had changed everything. Given the current situation, without a good plan, it might be hard to last very long.

During this time, he had observed those vicious creatures the young people called zombies.

They had once been human. Their bites spread the infection, and anyone bitten would turn into a zombie.

You had to aim for the head to kill one.

That alone made zombies more resilient than ordinary people. Worse still, firearms were banned in the country, so the only way to deal with zombies was close combat.

But these zombies moved just as fast and were just as strong as ordinary people. When they went berserk, they were even stronger.

Once a zombie noticed you, escaping was almost impossible.

Lin Fan said, "I'm planning to grow some vegetables in the residential complex first. I've already bought seeds and fertilizer. If I can grow some vegetables myself, I'll be self-sufficient. A lot of the vegetables outside have already rotted, and the ones in the supermarkets are a bit expensive. We should save where we can."

At those words,

the six people at the table stared at Lin Fan in astonishment.

Even Feifei, though she was young, had watched plenty of videos before. She thought this uncle's ideas were so strange, there was something oddly funny about them.

Old Man Zhou gently nudged Old Man Wang, clearly meaning, Old buddy, what's going on with this kid?

But who could have guessed...

Old Man Wang nodded. "Mm, that makes a lot of sense. Survival is what matters most right now. Xiaofan, you should take the bank cards. You'll need money to buy things. If you have time, and it's safe, go to the supermarket and bring back some frozen food."

Old Man Wang could understand Lin Fan's thinking.

It seemed a little odd, but when you thought about it, it did make some sense. He took Lin Fan's idea as a way of keeping himself in check.

In the apocalypse, many people completely lost themselves and fell into madness. They cast aside kindness and morality, doing whatever they pleased without fear of the law. Anyone who spent long enough in this kind of environment would be affected.

It wasn't that you didn't want to do bad things. It was that the apocalypse would drive you to become a madman.

"Old Zhou, what are you waiting for? Give Xiaofan your bank card," Old Man Wang said.

Zhou Aijun worked in military engineering research and was clever, but he'd spent his life with books. When it came to dealing with people, he was nowhere near as capable as Old Man Wang. Luckily, he was good at following along.

Without a word, he handed his bank card to Lin Fan.

Looking at the bank cards in front of him, Lin Fan was so moved he could have cried. The four elderly people's trust made him feel fulfilled. But when he thought about his own situation, he had to face reality, so he put the cards away.

He solemnly promised he wouldn't touch a single cent in them.

Li Mei also handed Lin Fan her bank card.

Lin Fan tried to refuse, wanting to keep up the pretense and act like he could afford it. The realistic weapon they had given him had been expensive; he could pay for the food and everything else himself. But after Li Mei insisted again and again, he knew he couldn't refuse and reluctantly accepted it.

Feifei, holding her rice bowl, gaped at him. "Uncle, it's the apocalypse. You don't have to pay for things anymore."

She often played mobile games with her classmates, including games about fighting zombies. Her classmates all said that if zombies ever appeared, they wouldn't have to go to school, and they wouldn't need money to buy things. They could just take whatever they saw.

She thought that sounded pretty reasonable.

That was how it worked in TV dramas, too.

"Feifei, you have to pay for things. People worked hard and spent money to put them on the shelves for sale. Even though the apocalypse has arrived, our country is still here, and so are our morals."

"Studying isn't about making us better than other people. It's about helping us understand what's right, know the law, and obey it."

"The apocalypse has arrived. We can't control what other people do, but we can control ourselves."

Lin Fan spoke softly, feeling that what he'd said was perfectly reasonable. All in all, it made some sense.

"Oh..." Feifei lowered her head and shoveled rice into her mouth. It was so fragrant, so delicious. She hadn't eaten food this tasty in a long time. As for what her uncle had said, she felt like it kind of made sense, but she didn't quite agree.

Something about it just felt off.

When she saw her mother glaring at her, she tucked her head down and didn't dare say another word.

She had to eat her fill. Tomorrow, she really was going to have to take her schoolbag and study with Grandma Liang.

Night fell.

Lin Fan escorted them to their respective floors, but didn't hurry home.

Instead, he went out into the residential complex.

He wasn't there to admire the scenery outside.

The four elderly people and Li Mei and her daughter lived here, and he was afraid there might still be zombies in the complex, so he decided to patrol.

He'd promised to keep them safe, and he had to follow through.

If a zombie appeared and hurt them, he would feel terribly guilty.

He walked around the entire complex.

After making sure there was no danger, he went to the entrance and shut the iron gate. That was how old residential complexes were: no electronic doors, just two big iron gates.

Room 603.

"Old man, do you think it's safe here?" Xu Guifen asked Wang Zhongguo, who was lying beside her.

Wang Zhongguo smiled. "It's safe. This is the safest place. We've been together all these years. What kinds of storms haven't we weathered? What is there to be afraid of?"

"Xiaofan is a good person, but I suspect there might be something wrong with him." Xu Guifen was a military doctor, not a psychiatrist, but as a doctor, she could keenly notice when something was off.

Wang Zhongguo said, "Don't overthink it. What could be wrong? Even if there is something wrong, it's a good kind of wrong. He's such a good kid."

Xu Guifen said nothing more.

Come to think of it,

things seemed pretty good this way.

Room 704.

Lin Fan stood by the balcony, holding a drink and looking out at the night.

There was no beautiful night scenery, just darkness. The city, once filled with the roar of explosions, was now eerily quiet.

No lights. No sounds of collisions.

Apart from the occasional zombie growl, it was hard to hear anything else.

Huang City was quite large. Maybe survivors elsewhere were fighting off zombies, but he was too far away for the sounds to reach him.

"I wish things could go back to the way they were, with brilliant lights everywhere and busy streets full of people."

Leaning on the balcony and feeling the cold night wind,

he wanted to shout out loud,

Is anyone out there...

But four elderly people lived downstairs, and Li Mei and her daughter lived upstairs. Her child had school tomorrow, so he wouldn't disturb their rest.

He quietly watched.

In his mind, he could almost picture Huang City as it had once been, bustling with life.

Huang City Old District Water Plant.

Inside a sealed room,

a young man stood there, utterly exhausted. He was thin, but not because he'd been starving in the apocalypse. He had always been thin, the kind of person who couldn't gain weight.

His name was Wang Kai.

He was a veteran employee of the Water Treatment Plant, where he'd worked for seven years. Before the apocalypse, he'd felt his future was full of promise.

His salary was over eight thousand, and with all the benefits, his average monthly income came to more than ten thousand by the end of the year. Thanks to his hard work, he'd also become a junior manager at the Water Treatment Plant, supervising a few employees.

He was an orphan, but lucky enough to have been adopted. He hadn't done too well in school, and after graduating, he'd taken the exams to get into the Water Treatment Plant. Part of the reason was that his adoptive father worked there as a junior manager.

In a society built on personal connections, a little help was only natural.

When the apocalypse broke out and zombies ran rampant, he was terrified. He hid in the Water Treatment Plant and watched his coworkers turn into zombies. Luckily, there hadn't been that many coworkers, and the plant was built outside the city, so there weren't many zombies around.

He'd fought off several zombies. At least, he was still alive now.

At first, he'd thought about fleeing the Water Treatment Plant to look for a chance to survive, but in the end he hadn't left because... to put it bluntly, even Wang Kai thought he might have had something wrong with his head.

He'd actually thought that if no one kept watch over the Water Treatment Plant, the water supply would definitely be cut off if things went on like this.

Water was the source of all life, and there were surely many survivors in the city.

Many people were hiding in their homes.

They might last a little longer without food, but without water, they wouldn't last long at all.

So now, he was the Water Treatment Plant's only watchman. He knew all the machinery inside very well, and as long as it was safe for him, he had to keep the city's water supply running.

When he'd seen several zombie corpses floating in the reservoir, his scalp had tingled. Could the contaminated water still be drunk? Would people turn into zombies if they drank it?

Luckily, the plant kept a little dog.

To make sure the water was safe to drink, he tied up the dog and gave it some water. When he saw that nothing happened, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

At that moment,

he held Gouzi in his arms and looked outside through a small window. The darkness was absolute, and it made him feel anxious.

He had no idea when this apocalypse would end.

Looking behind him... at the boxes upon boxes of dog food,

he silently gave a thumbs-up to the kind dog lovers on the short-video app.

Thank you for sending all this dog food.

Otherwise... he'd be doomed.

"Whimper..." The little dog whimpered in his arms.

Wang Kai stroked the dog's head. "Let's eat together."

He opened a bag of dog food.

He poured some into the dog's bowl.

He grabbed a handful for himself, too, like broad beans, and stuffed it into his mouth.

It tasted all right.

But... I want hot pot.