Chapter 168: Shen Que, Is There Anything Else We've Overlooked?
"Uncle Liang, have there been any unofficial rumors from the authorities lately?"
A few days after dropping off the supplies at the hospital, Meng Ci wanted to casually inquire to see if the authorities had any opinions on the matter.
Or, what if that group of people had already taken it for themselves?
Meng Ci was quite frustrated at this moment.
He had been in a rush to leave and didn't have time to check if those people were really soldiers. What if they were other bad guys?
Liang Xiu thought carefully for a moment, then shook his head and said, "No."
"I only heard that the base at the foot of the mountain is almost complete, and residents who want to stay can move there."
Meng Ci nodded.
The people living on the mountain had to walk a long way every day to work.
Now that they knew there was a settlement at the foot of the mountain where they could live, and the cost was the same, they all expressed their willingness to move.
Meng Ci didn't want to go to the base at the foot of the mountain for the time being. It would be best if everyone moved down, so they could live more comfortably here.
After eating, Liang Xiu went back to his bedroom to rest.
Meng Ci and Shen Que, on the other hand, went to the vegetable-growing room to fiddle with the flower pots.
The watermelon vines were crawling randomly on the ground, and small watermelons the size of a thumb had already grown on them. It wouldn't be long before they could be eaten.
Meng Ci held a shovel in his hand, turning over a flower pot in front of him, his face clouded with worry.
For some reason, Meng Ci had been feeling very uneasy these past two days, as if there was something important he had overlooked.
"Shen Que, do you remember if anything important is going to happen soon?"
Meng Ci sat cross-legged on the ground, his hand supporting his face, and the more he thought about it, the more certain he became that something had been overlooked.
Although he had finished reading the novel, Meng Ci only remembered the main plot.
Moreover, the author had only briefly mentioned some minor natural disasters in the book.
For example, when locusts attacked the vegetables they had worked so hard to grow, the author only wrote a few sentences about it.
Thus, feeling his abnormally beating heart, Meng Ci believed that there must be something important he had overlooked.
Hearing this, Shen Que, who was picking eggplants, paused and seriously thought about it, rubbing his chin.
After a while, Shen Que seemed to recall something.
"There is indeed something!"
Suddenly, Shen Que quickly stood up from the ground and then walked out to grab his phone. After confirming the date on it, he finally felt relieved.
Meng Ci closely followed Shen Que and seeing his tense expression disappear, his own nervousness also vanished.
"Did you remember what we overlooked?" Meng Ci asked.
Shen Que nodded and said, "Yes."
"It's an earthquake."
On December 5th, the temperature outside rose to sixty degrees, and in the midst of people's nocturnal activities, an earthquake struck during the day.
In the previous life, the houses everyone lived in had been soaked in floodwaters, and the foundations were already unstable.
Although there was an official base, at that time, few new houses had been built, and only a small portion of humanity lived in them.
So the sudden earthquake caused many people to lose their lives.
However, the official base had no problems since it was newly built.
Hearing this, Meng Ci was also startled.
They lived on the mountain, and if they hadn't thought of this, when the earthquake struck, they wouldn't have a place to run to.
But at this moment, they were in the living room, and fearing that Uncle Liang might overhear and sense something was wrong, they quickly moved to the bedroom, locked the door, and entered a special space.
"Because in my previous life, I lived in the official base, and the earthquake only happened once, so I don't remember it very clearly."
As he said this, Shen Que suddenly remembered that he hadn't written about this event in the letters to the authorities.
Meng Ci quickly calmed down and began to recall the plot in the novel.
After thinking for a long time, Meng Ci finally remembered that the earthquake was only briefly mentioned in the book.
Since the novel's perspective was focused on the protagonist, and Si Chen and the others lived in the base where the earthquake caused little damage, it wasn't written about much.
Afterward, the novel described some disaster relief and reconstruction efforts but didn't mention whether Xishan Ye was affected.
"Don't worry, let's carefully go over what we know."
"After all, it's only the first day, and there are still four days until the earthquake."
Meng Ci pulled Shen Que to sit down and handed him a bottle of mineral water on the table.
Shen Que opened the bottle and took a sip, nodding and saying, "Yes, there's still time."
Having experienced the trials of his previous life, Shen Que could remain calm in most situations, but he couldn't control himself when it came to matters involving Meng Ci.
After all, if he hadn't remembered, and Meng Ci really had an accident because of the earthquake, what would happen if Meng Ci disappeared!
In his previous life, the base built by the authorities was initially located in the city center, so Shen Que was unfamiliar with the situation in Xishan Wilderness, and the novel didn't mention Xishan Wilderness either.
It was understandable that the two of them didn't recall the earthquake.
Thus, they unanimously decided to find an excuse to go out on the night of the fourth.
It would be best to find an open space with no tall, dangerous structures nearby.
The two studied the map carefully and finally agreed to go to the exchange center previously built by the authorities.
It was a park, with the commercial buildings at a distance, and some of the buildings had even collapsed.
Afterward, they considered whether they should inform the authorities about the impending earthquake.
In the end, they decided not to.
The main reason was that time was too tight.
Moreover, both the points redemption center and item exchange center, as well as the surroundings of the office, were equipped with surveillance cameras.
They couldn't find a way to send a message without risking being discovered, which would put them in a passive position.
Besides, the earthquake was barely mentioned in Shen Que's memory and the novel, so it probably wasn't that severe.
M City hadn't experienced an earthquake in many years, and at most, it had only felt some tremors due to earthquakes in neighboring provinces.
Moreover, the authorities had recently built many new houses, and people had gradually moved into the bases below, so not many people would be affected.
Therefore, they unanimously decided not to say anything.
With the decision made, Meng Ci and Shen Que left the space.
All they had to do was wait for the fourth to arrive.
From time to time, they also wondered if there were any other disasters they had overlooked.
On the evening of the second, Liang Xiu went to work after dinner.
Shen Que, on the other hand, took Qiezi to the first-floor living room to begin training.
At first, Shen Que trained Qiezi in the basement, but the space was too small to move freely.
He also knew that the temperature would rise above sixty degrees in the future, and since Qiezi was covered in fur, it should gradually adapt to the high temperature to avoid being heat-stroked when going out later.
Thus, the training ground was moved to the first floor.
All the furniture on the first floor was moved away, the lap counter was set up, and the training of Qiezi began.
The living room of the villa was more than twice the size of the seventeenth floor, so Shen Que increased the number of laps gradually, starting from fifty. Now, Qiezi could run seventy laps at once.