Chapter 156: Too Hot, Let's Cool Off in the Space
"Hello, please show your pass."
"This time it's twenty-five bricks."
"You have already accumulated one hundred and nine bricks, which can be exchanged for ten points."
"If you need to exchange them, come to Villa No. 53 tomorrow with your points card."
"Sure, sure."
...
Meng Ci and Shen Que didn't stay here long and quickly left.
The disaster brought by the calamity was something Meng Ci could do nothing about.
He could only feel sorry for these people in his heart, but he couldn't bring himself to share the things in his space, as they also needed to survive.
Moreover, the government had them earn points through various tasks to prevent them from getting something for nothing.
"Where should we go now?" Meng Ci asked.
Shen Que thought for a moment, "We can check out where we used to live."
Meng Ci nodded.
The mud and debris on the road had been cleared by officials after the flood receded.
The trees planted along the roadside were either uprooted or broken in half by the flood.
Meng Ci couldn't even find a tree to provide shade.
Some parts of the road were broken, but people had placed wooden planks to make it easier to cross.
And some houses had collapsed onto the road, so they had to carefully climb over the ruins.
This area was close to the base, so many bricks had been picked up, and the steel bars had been taken away.
After walking for two hours, the two finally arrived at Jin Shang Jia Yuan.
As they walked toward the building where they used to live, they saw many people hammering and chopping bricks at the collapsed buildings.
"Shen Que, why are all the windows gone from these houses?"
In Jin Shang Jia Yuan, some buildings had only cracked, but not collapsed, yet every window was missing.
Shen Que explained, "They might have removed the glass to trade for items at the exchange point."
Recently, Liang Xiu mentioned that the authorities were planning to build glass greenhouses, so glass could also be exchanged for points.
It seemed that those people had dismantled the glass from these houses.
During the blizzard period, many people had broken into unoccupied houses, making it easy to enter now.
Meng Ci remembered that in the novel, everyone had worked hard to cultivate drought-resistant wheat and vegetables, and just when it was time to harvest, they were unexpectedly hit by a massive swarm of locusts, which devoured all their hard-earned crops in an instant.
Now, it seemed that the glass greenhouses were likely built to prevent such locust invasions.
When they reached the seventeenth floor, they saw that the walls they had built were battered and pitted, but fortunately, they hadn't been breached.
However, it was even hotter upstairs than downstairs.
But they hadn't come up here to live; they just wanted to avoid being seen.
By this time, both of their clothes were drenched in sweat.
They opened the iron gate and quickly closed the three doors tightly.
Without waiting to enter the room, Meng Ci pulled Shen Que into the space.
Then Meng Ci started taking off his clothes and headed straight for the bathroom.
Seeing Meng Ci about to take a shower, Shen Que quickly held him back.
"Xiao Ci, wait a bit before you shower."
Meng Ci knew that it wasn't good to shower when it was too hot, but he felt uncomfortable all over.
Shen Que took a towel from the wall, wet it with warm water, and wiped the sweat from Meng Ci's face, which made him feel better.
The temperature in the space was around twenty degrees Celsius, and after resting for about ten minutes, they both felt more comfortable and then took showers one after another.
After putting on clean clothes, the two left the room.
Meng Ci grabbed a cup of passion fruit juice with ice and gulped it down, then picked a strawberry-flavored homemade ice cream. After finishing it, Meng Ci finally felt the heat dissipate.
When it was time to eat, they chose a few dishes and ate at the dining table, then went to bed to rest.
"It's two o'clock now. Let's stay in the space for six hours before going out," Meng Ci said, feeling like a fish out of water.
Several cups of drinks and bottles of mineral water were placed on the bedside table.
After speaking, he drank half a bottle of mineral water and then lay back on the bed, closing his eyes to rest.
Shen Que had no objections, changed into loose shorts, and got into bed, holding Meng Ci in his arms.
Meng Ci didn't refuse this time.
He just thought to himself that he would never go out during the day again, or he would surely be scorched to death sooner or later.
Shen Que took out a phone and set an alarm for 6:30 AM. He kissed Meng Ci on the forehead, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
However, they both woke up before the alarm went off.
Each of them had a bowl of spicy cold noodles. After finishing, they picked ripe watermelons from the field and stayed until 7:30 PM before leaving the space.
"It's so hot!"
If it weren't for the time limit in the space, Meng Ci would have stayed there indefinitely.
There was no choice; it was even hotter upstairs, so they had to go downstairs.
At this moment, the brick collectors were wearing headlamps, though their numbers were fewer than during the day.
The sound of hammering was particularly noticeable in the darkness.
Many flies and insects were flying around the areas with light.
Suddenly, frog croaks came from various directions, and several people carrying bricks immediately ran over, muttering about having meat soon.
Meng Ci and Shen Que didn't linger and walked out of the neighborhood.
The commercial building where they had previously searched had a two-story underground parking lot, and they could retrieve their car from there.
But when they arrived at the building, they found that half of it had collapsed, and the remaining half was leaning precariously.
Meng Ci and Shen Que didn't give up. They circled the building and eventually found a gap about one meter wide. The two of them entered through it.
As soon as they reached the entrance, they smelled a strong odor of sweat coming from inside.
But since they had come this far, there was no turning back.
So Meng Ci took out two masks from the space and put them on.
Fortunately, the temperature was only around thirty degrees Celsius, so wearing masks wasn't too uncomfortable.
Snore, snore.
After taking a few steps inside, they heard many snores echoing around.
Shen Que shone the flashlight into the darkness and saw that many people were lying along the walls, with only a sheet spread out beneath them, sprawled out on the ground.
Some of them were only wearing shorts, and a few had no clothes at all.
"Shen Que, what are you doing!"
Before Meng Ci could see more, Shen Que covered his eyes, so he could only whisper a complaint.
"Don't look."
Shen Que took the flashlight from Meng Ci. "Close your eyes, I'll lead you out."
The flashlight accidentally shone on a man, and Shen Que quickly looked away.
Damn, he was going to get eye strain!
He absolutely couldn't let Xiao Ci see this.
"No, I can walk by myself." Meng Ci felt very insecure walking with his eyes closed.
"Do you want to sleep or not? If not, get out!"
Apparently, Meng Ci and Shen Que had been standing there for too long, disturbing someone's sleep. A man opened his eyes angrily and shouted at them.
Not wanting to cause trouble, Meng Ci and Shen Que hurriedly continued forward.