By the time Tan Zhizhi returned to her room, the sky had already darkened.
She skillfully took out a serving of spicy dry pot chicken wings, a plate of blanched choy sum, a bowl of steaming pineapple rice, and a glass of iced lemon juice to cut through the richness, making them her dinner for the evening.
Then she turned on the television and switched directly to the local news channel.
When she heard the reporter announce that all the employees of S City’s waterworks had been evacuated, Tan Zhizhi immediately sensed that something was wrong. There was a very high chance that both the electricity and water would be cut off within the next couple of days.
She devoured her dinner, then put the used takeaway containers into the decomposition and cleaning area of her supply-hoarding space.
She quickly took out her phone, tablet, laptop, portable rechargeable recorder, voice recorder, several rechargeable flashlights, rechargeable desk lamps, and other devices and plugged them all in to charge.
She also took four large water tanks out of her supply-hoarding space and filled all four to the brim with tap water.
Then she took out ten large bathing tubs and filled them with properly adjusted warm water in the bathroom, so that after the power went out, she could simply take them out whenever she needed to bathe or wash her face.
Since the hotel had no natural gas, she was worried that boiling water would become inconvenient after the power was cut. She therefore took out a stainless steel commercial soup container with a lid that could hold a full thirty liters of water, along with sixty thermos flasks.
“Gurgle… gurgle… gurgle…”
Two hours later, the water in the fifth stainless steel soup container finally came to a boil, sending wisps of white steam into the air.
Tan Zhizhi wiped the sweat from her forehead, rolled up her sleeves, picked up a stainless steel ladle, and scooped the water into the thermos flasks one ladleful at a time.
Before long, all sixty thermos flasks were filled.
Next, she took out ten cartons of pure milk and five cartons of yogurt, heated each one in a milk warmer, and then returned them to her supply-hoarding space one after another.
Just as she finished everything, a burst of noisy footsteps and commotion suddenly came from the hallway outside.
Looking through the peephole in her door, Tan Zhizhi saw quite a few people dragging their luggage behind them.
It looked like the guests from the third floor were moving in.
Quite a few guests staying on the eighth floor reluctantly opened their doors to welcome their “new friends” inside.
It seemed that they had been persuaded by all of Liu Xiaomei’s moralizing arguments.
Unfortunately, Liu Xiaomei and the other hotel employees’ dormitory had not escaped either.
Liu Xiaomei and more than a dozen guest services employees were driven out by several burly men carrying their luggage.
Now, apart from her room, there were only two rooms on the entire eighth floor that had not been forced to accommodate anyone else, and their occupants were all particularly tough in their attitudes.
As the footsteps outside gradually disappeared down the hallway, torrential rain once again descended outside the window.
“Pitter patter” came the sound of raindrops mixed with the “rumble rumble” of muffled thunder, filling the night sky.
Then, the electricity and water were cut off too.
S City plunged into darkness.
Various shrieks and furious curses erupted from the hallway, one after another.
She drew the curtains and placed the three small desk lamps that had just finished charging, one in the bedroom, one in the living room, and one in the bathroom, so she would not trip and fall while getting up for a drink of water or to use the bathroom during the night.
Considering how inconvenient it would be to flush the toilet after the water was cut off, she took out a gourd dipper, a water tank filled with water, and two plastic buckets.
After leaving the bathroom, Tan Zhizhi collapsed directly onto the soft sofa and took two minutes to catch her breath. Only then did she leisurely take a mug, white sugar, pure milk, a packet of instant coffee, and a pot of hot water out of her supply-hoarding space and make herself a fragrant cup of milk coffee.
Then she pulled out her phone and prepared to check the disaster situation around the world while the internet was still available, so she could plan her survival route.
After logging into one of the most popular video sharing apps in the world, Tan Zhizhi was disappointed. The torrential rain this time had been even more violent than in her previous life, and disasters had struck one region after another around the world. In many places, the situation was even worse than in S City.
The local forums were filled with all kinds of information, with new posts appearing one after another faster than anyone could count.
[It’s over! It’s over! The water and electricity have been cut off. I’m on the seventh floor, so how am I supposed to survive? Is heaven really trying to kill me?]
[Wahhh, this is terrible! I don’t have enough food stored at home. Are my cat and I going to starve to death?]
[Those of you living on the higher floors can secretly laugh all you want. I live on the first floor, and it was already completely flooded. If I hadn’t reacted quickly when the water rushed into my living room and ran for my life wearing nothing but my floral boxer shorts, I’d have already become a drowned ghost.]
[Hey! To all you guys upstairs who are afraid of starving to death, you could consider catching fish or scooping up freshwater mussels in the floodwater. The floods have been raging everywhere these past few days, and almost all the shops have stopped doing business. Why not take a swim and catch some white minnows, sharpbelly fish, and freshwater mussels? Seriously, that’s what I’ve been living for these past few days.]
Tan Zhizhi’s gaze lingered on the last post.
If people could catch white minnows and sharpbelly fish that were usually found in reservoirs, as well as freshwater mussels that were normally found in rivers, did that mean the river embankments and reservoir dams had already been washed away and the situation was becoming uncontrollable?
It was probably going to descend into chaos soon.
Tan Zhizhi’s guess was correct. Early on the third day, all the guests at Yuelaifu received a notice from the hotel staff.
They were told that the hotel’s stored food was running out, and that free meals could only be provided for two more meals at most. Everyone would have to take care of dinner themselves.
The news exploded among the already frightened and anxious guests like a bomb.
The guests joined together to protest, arguing that since the hotel had failed to find a way to evacuate everyone in time at the beginning, it was now obligated to take responsibility to the very end.
At five in the afternoon, under pressure, the hotel temporarily formed a small rescue team.
Guest services manager Liu Xiaomei was appointed captain, while Old Hu from the engineering department became vice captain. They were responsible for assisting the elderly, children, sick people, disabled people, and pregnant women staying at the hotel, as well as going outside to search for food.
Now that the hotel’s food reserves had been exhausted, if they wanted to continue maintaining the daily lives of all the guests, they had no choice but to risk going outside in search of supplies.
There were abandoned shops everywhere outside that had been forced to close and evacuate.
Many starving people were already wandering around outside, searching for supplies.
If they did not go out now, in another couple of days, it would be even harder to find anything edible.
By the time dusk settled in, the rain had eased considerably.
Liu Xiaomei organized the security staff to bring out the hotel’s three spare rubber boats and two speedboats.
“Are there any guests willing to go outside with us to search for food?”
After arranging twenty hotel employees across the three rubber boats, Liu Xiaomei turned her gaze toward the guests present.
For a moment, the roughly two hundred stranded guests fell completely silent.
The disaster was so severe that anyone who had connections or a way to arrange an evacuation had already left.
Those who remained had no other choice.
Compared with the floodwaters and all the dangers outside, staying in the hotel was obviously the wisest option.
Asking them to go outside and take such a risk was absolutely impossible.
When no one stepped forward, Liu Xiaomei grew angry.
Her gaze settled on five tall, heavily built men in the crowd.
“You five have to come with us. If you refuse to go, you and your families won’t get any food.”
If those five burly men had not driven her and her colleagues out of the staff dormitory the previous night, she would never have been forced to squeeze into the fifth floor hallway and spend the entire night exposed to the cold wind.
And she was not about to let Tan Zhizhi, that troublemaker, off the hook either.