Chapter 185

The lowest temperature shown on the left side of the thermometer was -30°C.

Everyone tried taking the thermometer outside. The needle drooped helplessly into the blank space below -30°C, then froze and cracked outright.

So, in reality, no one knew just how cold it was outside.

As Aunt Pan put it: “You couldn’t even move shit.”

In the end, with the help of the fire-type ability users, they managed to thaw the ground and transport it anyway.

If they didn’t do it regularly, then within just a few hours everyone would be facing the horrifying prospect of having a mountain of feces stabbing them in the ass.

Luckily, the sheep and chickens had already been moved out of the pen and into the buildings. They stank horribly, but the sheep had their wool, and the chickens burrowed beneath the sheep’s bellies.

With the furnaces as well, they all survived.

There was still meat, eggs, and goat’s milk.

Even those who froze to death were not wasted.

Since a cultivation room had been built inside the buildings ahead of time, and soil and crops had already been transported in, the dead were buried directly in the earth, contributing to everyone’s survival.

The Technology New District began a massive infrastructure project.

In just a few days, numerous “sky corridors” appeared, crisscrossing the space between the buildings.

The main reason was that people couldn’t stay cooped up indoors all day. But whenever everyone went out, they had to pass through the courtyards, public restrooms, greenhouses, and canteens on the ground floor. The heated corridors became far too congested.

So several sky corridors were built.

One even connected to Auspicious Garden.

The two residential compounds were neighbors, and Auspicious West Street between them was actually not very wide.

A corridor was built between the two buildings closest to each other in the two compounds. Each of those buildings was then connected to the other buildings in its own compound.

Imperial Auspicious Garden followed suit and connected itself to Auspicious Garden.

The three neighboring compounds now looked incredibly cyberpunk and futuristic.

Since no one could go outside, even more people scrambled for jobs at the power generators.

They were no longer doing it to earn performance points. They simply wanted something to do.

Many people couldn’t sleep and had their days and nights completely reversed, so there were people working the generators both day and night. As a result, electricity was actually more plentiful than before.

Besides Gao Yuxuan’s game room being packed, there were also many private cinemas of various sizes, stocked with pirated discs.

The electricity-type and fire-type ability users were busy from morning till night.

Some men even secretly opened members-only mini cinemas, admitting male guests only and contributing their private collections from their computers.

Apart from the power-generation jobs, there was another position that required a great deal of manpower: picking and harvesting crops.

The main crops were wheat and peanuts.

While seriously treating the mysterious man’s words as prophecies and making contingency plans, the provisional government had decided during a meeting that, in an extreme situation, they would provide food with a higher calorie content.

Compared with potatoes, steamed buns were more calorie-dense.

It wouldn’t do to feed everyone nothing but potatoes. The body needed more energy than that.

Fortunately, the Youth Apartments had plenty of vacant rooms, and several floors had been cleared out specifically for farming.

The provisional government abandoned its plan of using potatoes to regulate prices.

That had been an approach suited to peacetime. When temperatures fell so low that even thermometers could no longer measure them, prices no longer mattered. The goal was to keep as many people alive as possible.

Steamed buns were unlimited, but wasting them was strictly forbidden. Anyone caught wasting food would immediately receive a whipping.

Peanuts were available without restriction.

Given the circumstances, the provisional government chose peanuts to save lives. In the canteens, dormitories, and sky corridors, baskets of fried and roasted peanuts were everywhere, free for anyone to eat.

It wasn’t about indulging cravings. It was about constantly supplying the body with sugar, oil, and fat, allowing it to generate enough heat to withstand the cold.

With the choices available, peanuts were the best possible lifesaving food.

The snow was higher than a person.

Obtaining water on-site had become the easiest thing of all. They didn’t even need Li Jiangbing’s water-type ability anymore.

They could simply collect snow and boil it.

But every ten days, they had to transport food to the more distant residential compounds.

The quantities were enormous.

And it was extremely difficult to start the vehicles. Even if one managed to get running, a fire-type ability user had to accompany it.

Faced with these difficulties, the best transport method was Mo Li and Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng stored all the food that needed to be transported in her storage space, then bundled herself up from head to toe against the cold.

The fire-type ability users specially made charcoal.

The metal-type ability users made small heaters.

Hot water wouldn’t do. The tiny amount of heat from hot water couldn’t possibly withstand the cold. They needed charcoal that would burn and release heat on its own.

The charcoal was stuffed inside their clothes.

Mo Li grew enormous and crouched down on the ground. Jiang Cheng climbed onto his back.

Several others climbed onto Mo Li’s back as well. They tied his long fur into knots, securing Jiang Cheng in place.

Once Jiang Cheng had settled herself and been fastened down, everyone worked together to comb his fur smooth, then buried her in the long, thick coat.

The earth-type ability users quickly opened a section of wall so the gigantic Mo Li could get out.

Once Mo Li and Jiang Cheng disappeared into the blizzard, they rapidly restored the wall to keep out the cold.

When enlarged, Mo Li could walk through the snow with half his body exposed.

As he charged forward, the snow was thrown into the air and transformed into swirling mist. Viewed from the upper floors of the buildings, he looked like a long snow dragon winding across the earth.

That long fur really was an incredible defense against the cold. Hidden inside it, Jiang Cheng didn’t feel cold at all.

Following the carefully planned optimal route, they delivered food to every residential compound.

All the compounds had undergone massive construction projects. With various sky corridors spanning the area, they looked especially surreal amid the endless white snow.

In some windows, they could see firelight, which meant that fire-type ability users were inside.

It was easy to imagine people gathered around fireballs for warmth.

Human beings had to band together if they wanted to struggle onward and survive.

Contact with other districts revealed that conditions everywhere were far from good.

People froze to death from time to time.

Water, at least, was not in short supply because of the snow.

Everyone followed the Technology New District’s advice and planted large quantities of wheat and peanuts.

Peanuts saved lives.

But hardship wore away at people’s willpower.

From November through March, the various settlements had gritted their teeth and endured for more than four months, yet the extreme cold still had not passed.

During that time, they experienced blizzards, freezing rain, and hail.

Every time, the mysterious man announced the disaster in advance over the radio.

Every time, his prediction came true.

Gradually, people no longer dared call him a quack.

Many began to believe in him almost religiously.

Meanwhile, many of the fortune-tellers and crackpots who had constantly rambled over the radio fell silent. Ever since the extreme cold arrived, the chaotic world of the shortwave radio seemed to have been suddenly swept clean. The world had abruptly grown quiet.

No one wanted to think too deeply about it. Doing so made their chests feel heavy.

Uncle Jiang and Sister Mao were both still alive and well.

The two of them were extremely tight-lipped. No matter how much you chatted or debated with them, you couldn’t tell what kind of environment they were surviving in, or whether they lived alone or in some kind of settlement.

But it was clear from their voices that both of them were definitely in safe environments.

Safety, however, did not mean a person couldn’t go insane.

Sometimes Sister Mao spoke as if she were muttering in a delirium.

Uncle Jiang sounded even more like a crackpot than the mysterious man.

Yet what made the two of them so compelling was that, amid all the arguments, debates, and pointless chatter, they would often offer remarkably accurate opinions—or even information that ordinary people had no way of obtaining.

For example, the massive zombie outbreak in T City.

That news had been confirmed by the radio expert in Changxing District through wireless transmissions from M City.

The zombie situation in T City had completely spiraled out of control, and large numbers of mutated zombies had appeared. Their combat abilities were exceptionally powerful. The survivors had suffered a total collapse and fled in every direction, with many escaping to M City.

Several radio stations in City M confirmed the incident.

This proved that Uncle Jiang and Sister Mao truly had access to certain channels of information beyond the control of outsiders.

All of this happened before the extreme cold arrived.

At the time, everyone had their theories.

“Satellite surveillance?”

“Maybe they have connections to some high-ranking officials. There must be survivors among the upper ranks—surely they couldn’t all be dead. And where did the military go?”

“There must be some remnants of power. Sister Mao sounds like she has access to some special channels too.”

But Uncle Jiang and Sister Mao refused to respond to any of it. No one knew the answer.

All they knew was that the two of them would occasionally release bits of information.

Then there was the mysterious man, who made prophecies.

After the extreme cold struck, many people came to believe in them. There were even faint signs that it was developing into a religion.

One had to understand that religion—especially a religion born under such brutal conditions—was never a good thing.

They were almost always cults.

And cults did sinister things.

It had always been that way.

But Jiang Cheng was utterly ruthless.

She had already wiped out two cult strongholds in succession.

In front of all the residents, she exiled the cult leaders and their followers—to the courtyard.

People stood at every window on every floor.

Everyone watched as Mo Li swept those people out of the building with her tail, sending them tumbling into the snow.

They struggled to get back on their feet, but within just a few minutes, they froze to death.

Among them was a minor.

A middle school student.

Many people couldn’t bear it and pleaded for mercy, hoping Jiang Cheng would spare the boy’s life.

But the boy had been brainwashed too deeply. He shouted, “This is divine punishment! Divine punishment! Humanity’s sins are too great, so Heaven is cleansing the earth and restoring purity to the world! We must confess our sins! Why won’t you confess yours? You—”

He was beyond saving.

Jiang Cheng remained unmoved.

“Black Panther.”

The Black Panther sprang forward, bit down on the boy, and threw him outside.

When his body crashed through the heavy quilted curtain, a blast of frigid air swept inside, stinging everyone’s faces.

From floor after floor, people watched helplessly as the boy died too.

Everyone had always known that Jiang Cheng was hard-hearted.

Again and again, Jiang Cheng proved just how cold her heart could be—and how ruthless her methods were.

Some people cowered fearfully within the crowd.

The two cults Jiang Cheng had eliminated were the most extreme ones.

Of course, she knew that all kinds of other religious groups, large and small, were hiding throughout the residential complex.

She turned to the people who had watched the execution in the cafeteria and said, “Pass my words on to everyone.”

Her gaze swept over the entire crowd, crushing them beneath its weight.

“I will do everything in my power to help more people survive.”

“Believe in whatever you want.”

“But don’t cause trouble.”

Su Yu returned to the dormitory from the cafeteria and told Zhang Lesi what she had seen.

Zhang Lesi hadn’t gone downstairs, but she already knew roughly what had happened. The girls in the dormitory had also been pressed against the windowpanes, watching.

When those people froze stiff, they had all cried out in shock.

Many of them said, “Serves them right!”

Those people believed in divine punishment and wanted to secretly kill virgins as sacrifices to Heaven.

They had set their sights on the middle school students—even the little children.

That boy had nearly tricked one of his female classmates into going to her death.

He had even planned to sacrifice himself.

He thought his love was boundless and that he was incredibly noble.