When she was almost at the residential complex, Jiang Ci found another secluded spot and put her off-road vehicle into her space.
She then rode her skateboard to the complex entrance.
She opened the car door, got into the front passenger seat, and directed Si Beichen into the parking garage.
After finding an empty space to park in, she instructed Si Beichen to siphon out all the gasoline, put it in containers, and lock them in the trunk.
Only then did she lead the three of them upstairs.
The elevators had long since stopped running, so they could only take the stairs.
The dim flashlight beam shone on the steps. The complex was utterly quiet.
All four of them exercised regularly and had decent stamina, so they soon reached the eleventh floor.
Just as she was unlocking her door, the door to apartment 1103 suddenly opened from inside. Li Weiwei came out with a flashlight, looked over Jiang Ci and the other three, then went clattering down the stairs.
Jiang Ci opened the door and invited Dad Si, Mom Wen, and Si Beichen inside.
The four of them worked together to drag all the luggage inside, too.
After closing the door, Jiang Ci switched on the table lamp beside the generator, instantly brightening the room considerably.
Si Jianhua and the other two could now see the entire apartment clearly.
It was a two-bedroom apartment with a living room, measuring a little over eighty square meters.
The two bedrooms were about the same size, each with a double bed, a bay window, and a wardrobe.
One had soft pink sheets on the bed and a fluffy rug on the bay window seat. It was obviously Jiang Ci's room.
The other room was unoccupied, with nothing on the bed.
The kitchen and bathroom were to the right of the entrance, followed by the dining table.
At the far end was the living room, then the balcony.
A very large sofa stood against one wall of the living room. It was actually the kind that pulled out into a bed.
There was no coffee table in the living room, only a large rug covered with flower-shaped mats.
Without a coffee table blocking the view, the whole living room looked very large and spacious.
Jiang Ci went into the kitchen and poured three cups of tea, telling them to sit in the living room and rest.
She began making the bed in the unoccupied room.
Wen Qianyue felt bad about letting her do it and insisted on helping.
So Jiang Ci asked Wen Qianyue to take out her and Dad Si's clothes and hang them in the wardrobe, while she took out sheets, a duvet cover, and a cooling mat, quickly making the bed.
While the three of them weren't paying attention, she went to the small balcony off the kitchen and placed a water tank filled with water beside the washing machine.
After sending Dad Si and Mom Wen off to wash up, Jiang Ci instructed Si Beichen to pull out the lower section of the living room sofa, turning it into a bed.
She took out another new set of sheets, a duvet cover, and a cooling mat and made the bed for Si Beichen. This would be his bed from now on.
She moved a freestanding clothes rack from her bedroom into the living room for Si Beichen's clothes.
Leaving the storage battery and evaporative air cooler in the living room for Si Beichen, Jiang Ci brought another set out of her room and put it in Dad Si and Mom Wen's room.
She put a set in her own room as well.
By the time everything was ready, Jiang Ci was covered in sweat.
Once Dad Si and Mom Wen had finished washing up, she gave herself a quick rinse, too.
Dad Si and Mom Wen returned to their room to rest, and Si Beichen went to wash up. Jiang Ci opened the kitchen cabinets and began putting supplies inside.
There was a row of wall cabinets and another row beneath the counter, offering plenty of storage space.
Jiang Ci put in rice, flour, noodles, oil, assorted dried vegetables, cured pork, cured fish, cured ribs, instant noodles, Zihaiguo self-heating hot pots, canned meat, and more.
After filling the cabinets with supplies, she returned to her room to sleep.
It had been very late when they arrived last night, and the lighting had been dim, so Si Beichen had only given the apartment's layout a cursory look before settling in, washing up, and going to sleep.
When he woke, it was already bright outside, and the sun was slowly rising.
Si Beichen walked onto the balcony, casually drew back the curtain, and glanced outside.
He discovered that the windows in this little apartment were actually bulletproof...
Suddenly remembering the two doors they had passed through last night, he opened the inner door to examine the security door outside.
Good grief, this outer door was no ordinary heavy-duty door either.
Just how insecure did his little sister have to feel to turn this little two-bedroom apartment into a fortress?
This apartment was easy to defend and hard to attack. Unless they opened the door and went out themselves, ordinary people couldn't get in at all.
It really was safe staying inside.
The world was already descending into chaos, and there was no telling what would happen next. It was good that his sister was so vigilant.
He looked around the apartment again, then washed up and began installing the solar panels.
With the sunlight outside so fierce, they couldn't waste the resources available to them. They needed to install the solar panels and use the sun to generate electricity.
Jiang Ci was woken by Wen Qianyue. "Get up and have breakfast."
Wen Qianyue had already looked around the kitchen and seen plenty of supplies in the cabinets. There seemed to be a lot, but they still needed to make them last.
She simply cooked some rice porridge for breakfast.
After the family finished breakfast, Wen Qianyue asked Jiang Ci what she wanted for lunch. She planned to make lunch in the morning, before the sun had fully risen.
Otherwise, the midday heat would make things even more unbearable, and cooking would be impossible.
Jiang Ci said, "Dried vegetables stewed with cured pork."
Wen Qianyue went into the kitchen to cook, Si Beichen returned to the balcony to continue installing the solar panels, Si Jianhua sat at the dining table reading, and Jiang Ci sat at the table with her chin propped in her hand, staring into space.
Listening to the clatter from the kitchen and seeing the people who loved her and whom she loved safe and well beside her, she immediately felt deeply at ease.
When she had lived alone, she would power the evaporative air cooler with a storage battery and hide in her room, taking ready-made food straight out of her space whenever she was hungry.
It truly had been a case of one person eating their fill and the whole family going without hunger, but she had often felt empty inside.
Now, although using her space wasn't as convenient, having her family beside her instantly made her feel fulfilled and content.
Humans really were social animals.
Being alone occasionally for some peace and quiet felt comfortable, but once the water, electricity, and internet were cut off, she feared she would go mad if she spent too long alone. Then she would become a wild woman.
After installing the solar panels, Si Beichen rearranged the living room.
He divided it into two sections, moved the sofa bed to one side, and hung a curtain around it to make his bedroom.
The other section, covered with the rug, remained the living room.
Jiang Ci brought two single-person floor loungers out of her room and tossed them onto the rug.
She also took out a tablet and gave it to Si Jianhua, putting on a downloaded TV drama so he and Ms. Wen could relieve their boredom.
During the noon-to-two electricity supply window, they switched on the central air conditioning in the living room, and the family ate lunch together.
There was a large bowl filled with dried green beans and dried potatoes stewed with cured pork, with starch sheets added as well.
Wen Qianyue had stewed everything until it was tender and full of flavor. Paired with rice, it left everyone's bellies bulging and thoroughly satisfied.
They fully charged everything in the house that could be charged and filled the water tank on the small balcony.
The two-hour water and electricity supply window passed very quickly.
But with the solar panels Si Beichen had installed, they didn't have to worry about electricity at home.
Even after the power went out, it was still relatively cool inside.
The eleventh floor was also well situated, around the middle of the building, and all the windows had sun-blocking fabric installed.
The apartment was small, too, so running two evaporative air coolers in the living room was enough to make it feel cool.
They didn't dare go outside. The temperature out there had already reached fifty-eight degrees Celsius, heat that could absolutely kill.