The great explosion

February, the last month of extreme heat.

Despite the prolonged heat, there still wasn't a single cloud in the sky, making artificial rainfall impossible.

And because the extreme heat was global, there was no way to bring in water from elsewhere to help.

But a long drought would eventually be followed by welcome rain.

Only this rain would mark the beginning of another natural disaster.

From her experience in her previous life, the extreme heat had lasted only six months, but the extreme cold had lasted much longer.

When she died, the ice from the extreme cold had only just begun to thaw.

She didn't know what weather came afterward, but after her rebirth, she had looked up plenty of survival guides for various kinds of natural disasters.

The supplies she had prepared were reasonably comprehensive and plentiful, and she hoped they would last until the day the disasters ended.

The well in the residential complex was yielding less and less water, and the water drawn from it contained more and more sand.

No one dared waste a single drop. All their water was saved for drinking. They wore their clothes over and over, skipped bathing, washing their faces, and brushing their teeth, and reused their bowls and chopsticks without washing them. They certainly didn't dare flush their toilets.

But unflushed toilets smelled far too foul, so the residents were forced to go downstairs to use the public toilets.

The public toilets reeked to high heaven.

The shit-yellow masses were soon baked into dried turds by the sun, only to be covered by fresh shit-yellow masses.

Some people with no sense of public decency even let their children relieve themselves in the stairwells.

Some grown men followed suit and urinated wherever they pleased, leaving the stairwells reeking of piss.

To make their living conditions look the same as everyone else's, Jiang Ci and Si Beichen wore the same clothes repeatedly whenever they went out to cut wood.

Before leaving, they changed into those filthy clothes that had been worn countless times and never washed. When they returned, they hurriedly stripped them off, showered, and changed into fresh clothes.

Sometimes someone would happen to walk past them, and that smell-indescribable as it was-was nauseating enough to make them want to throw up.

Despite how stifling it was in the scorching weather, Jiang Ci insisted on wearing a mask and avoided people as much as possible when she went out. She truly couldn't stand the smell.

She was afraid of provoking envy and resentment if people discovered how much water their household had.

All the dirty water used for washing dishes, bathing, doing laundry, and washing vegetables was kept in basins or buckets in the bathroom.

To keep the sound of flushing water from arousing the suspicions of the neighbors downstairs, Jiang Ci had specifically prepared a portable toilet of the kind used for camping.

Every day after using it, they gathered up the bag and threw it away downstairs.

The sun outside was fierce enough to steam people dry, and the residents on the eighteenth floor found the heat inside their apartments unbearable.

They had no choice but to move straight into the underground parking garage, eating and sleeping in their cars.

Jiang Ci and Si Beichen had run into them several times when they went to the garage to get their car.

The garage also reeked strongly of urine, but compared with the heat, a foul smell was indeed easier to accept.

At dawn, just after Jiang Ci and Si Beichen returned from sawing wood and parked the car, they suddenly heard an enormous boom.

The entire parking garage shook.

Both of them were startled, unsure what had caused such a massive explosion.

Judging by the sound and the shock wave, the explosion had to have been extremely severe.

It was already fully light, and the sun had begun to rise outside.

Although they were curious about what had exploded, staying alive mattered more.

Jiang Ci obediently followed Si Beichen home.

After dark, the entire residential complex erupted into a stir.

Bright flames to the southwest of the complex lit up the southwestern sky.

That was in the direction of Rongchang Metal Co., Ltd., the company occupying the largest area in that southwestern district.

If their guess was right, an exceptionally serious dust explosion must have occurred.

That night, when Jiang Ci and Si Beichen went out to saw wood, they made a special trip near the explosion site to take a look.

The entire office building and factory were engulfed in flames. The fire was too fierce, and no one was organizing any firefighting efforts. Flames scattered everywhere by the blast had even spread to the family housing building beside the company.

The explosion had occurred early that morning. With the weather so hot, and no water, rescuers, or firefighting equipment, the flames had spread extremely quickly.

The entire family housing building had been scorched black.

Only a small number of residents on the lower floors had managed to escape alive, braving the risk of heatstroke and dehydration.

But severe fluid loss had left them half-dead.

Everyone else had been burned alive.

Only after finally waiting until sunset did those nearby who had escaped the disaster come out with all kinds of digging tools to start digging firebreaks.

They wanted to prevent the flames from spreading farther and reaching those of them who lived nearby.

The fire burned for an entire month without going out completely.

Before long, March arrived.

Jiang Ci no longer remembered exactly which day in March the extreme heat had ended.

Her previous life hadn't been as easy as this one. Every day, she had racked her brains to find food and water, with no attention to spare for the exact year, month, or day when the weather changed.

She only vaguely remembered the approximate month.

From the beginning of March, Jiang Ci stopped going out. Apart from going downstairs to throw away the trash, she wouldn't let Si Beichen go out either.

The family stayed home every day, practicing self-defense, watching shows, and playing cards.

There was a constant supply of all kinds of snacks at home, three air coolers ran simultaneously in the living room, and the sunshades and curtains were kept tightly closed.

As long as they didn't look outside, they couldn't feel that a natural disaster had struck at all.

When she remembered that her BMW Mini and Si Beichen's Land Rover Defender were still in the underground garage, Jiang Ci couldn't sit still any longer.

She had nearly forgotten about those two cars. It would be a shame if they ended up ruined by floodwater.

Jiang Ci set an alarm for the small hours. As soon as it rang, she hurried out of bed and went downstairs.

Si Beichen's parking space was at the very back, well out of sight. Using the other vehicles as cover, Jiang Ci first put the Land Rover Defender into her space.

Then she filled her BMW Mini with fuel and drove out of the garage, found a deserted corner, and put the Mini into her space too.

She hurried home on her skateboard.

Jiang Ci opened the door in the dark. She had just closed it behind her and taken two steps forward when she collided with a wall of a man.

Afraid Jiang Ci would fall, Si Beichen hurriedly reached out and caught her around the waist.

The young woman's waist was soft and slender, small enough to encircle with his hands.

After steadying Jiang Ci, Si Beichen tucked his hand behind his back as if shocked and rubbed his fingers together.

Jiang Ci rubbed her forehead where she'd bumped it. "Are you standing here as a door god?"

"I heard something and came out to look."

"Everything's fine. Go back to sleep."

"Mm."

Jiang Ci walked around Si Beichen and returned to her room.

But after lying back down on the sofa bed, Si Beichen found it rather difficult to sleep.

With one hand, he switched on a dim rechargeable energy-saving lamp beside the bed.

Then he raised his other hand, the one that had just held Jiang Ci's waist, before his eyes and stared blankly at it.

Only after a long while did he irritably ruffle his hair, turn off the little lamp, and roll over.

Early the next morning, Si Beichen was squatting in the bathroom washing his underwear.

While making breakfast, Wen Qianyue asked with concern, "Why are you up so early washing clothes? Put them in the laundry basket. I'll wash them with the rest later."

Si Beichen's expression remained unchanged, but the tips of his ears quietly turned red.

"No need, Mom. I'll wash them myself."

He scrubbed faster and soon had them clean and hanging on the small balcony.

When he returned to the living room, he happened to run into Jiang Ci coming out of her room. Jiang Ci was just about to say good morning when Si Beichen walked past her, looking straight ahead with a solemn expression.

Jiang Ci thought nothing of it.

But after lying back down on his bed, Si Beichen stared blankly at the ceiling, feeling rather agitated.

Last night, he had actually had an erotic dream, and the girl in it was Jiang Ci...