This was Qin Qin’s first contact with Wen Jinghua since resigning from the research institute.
Given Wen Jinghua’s relationship with the Su family, and the fact that Wen Jinghua had quietly helped Su Yu in the previous life, Su Yu was supposed to warn Aunt Wen in advance about the coming disaster this time.
But Su Yu didn’t.
Looking back on Aunt Wen’s experience last time, as an institute staff member, she had always been protected by the government and the authorities.
After the secure base was built, Aunt Wen was among the first to move in.
The early days might have been tough due to limited resources, but later things went smoothly for Aunt Wen.
This was also why Su Yu didn’t want to tell Aunt Wen about the disaster coming—it could very likely disrupt Aunt Wen’s fate.
A major reason disrupting Aunt Wen’s fate was her son, Xu Li.
Aunt Wen was intelligent and gracious, highly educated, but unfortunately married a gambler.
After marriage, she had a prodigal son influenced by the gambler husband.
When the institute took Aunt Wen in the previous life, she did not know that a global disaster was coming.
She just thought the institute arranged a better work environment for them.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have abandoned her son Xu Li so easily.
If Su Yu warned her early, Aunt Wen would have stayed to take care of Xu Li.
Then dragged down by the gambler husband and prodigal son, no one would survive.
Su Mom didn’t directly refuse but asked about the location of the power-supplied facility where the institute was relocating.
Since the institute was secretly developing the zombie virus, the worst outbreak would surely be near the institute.
Su Mom wanted to clarify the location so that even if she left Yun City later, she would avoid going near it.
But the institute only notified the evacuation, not the destination.
Aunt Wen was left in the dark.
Su Mom then declined Aunt Wen’s invitation and said, “Be careful out there on your own.”
“You too, take care in the heat.”
This might be their last call before they saw each other again years later.
Before Su Mom could feel sad, loud noises erupted downstairs in the community.
Due to the recent heat, almost no cars or people were seen inside or outside Mingyue Huafu.
This was the first time they heard such violent noises.
The whole family stopped what they were doing; Su Dad first lifted a corner of the curtain.
He saw two people wrestling downstairs near Building Six across the street.
Nearby were broken glass bottles and spilled yellow liquid.
The loud noise was likely the sound of beer bottles smashing.
Su Dad kept watching.
Under the scorching sun, the fight lasted less than two minutes.
One of them fainted from heatstroke.
Many residents came out to watch; many posted in the group chat:
“Did someone get beaten to death?”
“I just came back from the store outside the community with them; it seemed they were fighting over the last few bottles of beer.”
“Who’s the one on the ground? Call 120 [emergency] fast!”
Some tried to join the discussion, but with limited battery, they couldn’t waste power on chat messages.
Government power restrictions had made even using phones a luxury.
After a moment, the fainted man’s family arrived.
The attacker who had wrestled him had already disappeared.
Su Dad watched as a woman under the blazing sun made a phone call.
Next moment, she broke down in tears.
Because of the distance and poor sound, Su Yu and others couldn’t hear what she said.
Then she furiously smashed her phone on the ground.
The broken phone quickly hissed and smoked under the sun.
Onlookers watched as the woman struggled to drag the fainted man back into the building.
It took over ten minutes.
Even passersby didn’t stop to help.
No one wanted to stay in such heat.
Su Yu shook her head.
The man was probably dead, unable to get timely medical help.
The medical system was in chaos; hospitals couldn’t take more patients.
Doctors and nurses couldn’t endure the heat either.
Suddenly, someone in the group chat started asking:
“Who has extra mineral water or vegetables? I’m willing to pay high prices.”
“How high?”
“Ten times the market price, or even twenty times.”
“Okay, 7-1-901, you come.”
Seeing messages like this, Su Yu felt a bad premonition.
She sensed something was about to happen.
Fortunately, the community was oval-shaped.
Every household had a panoramic flat layout.
Living in Building Ten, Su Yu could observe Building Seven.
Li Ge, a resident of Building Seven, ran a convenience store.
He had stocked up many goods at home.
He usually brought expired items back from the store.
Originally, he planned to sell expired food cheaply, but now he could sell them at high prices.
Li Ge didn’t believe the end of the world was coming.
He just thought the heat made people stay inside and panic-buy supplies.
He couldn’t eat so much himself and figured he might as well make some money.
Because of the blackout, Li Ge had opened all his curtains.
Though hot, the light helped him see clearly.
Su Yu, watching from afar with binoculars, could see clearly into Li Ge’s house.
She saw Li Ge open the door and lead three men inside.
Several large boxes of instant noodles, bread, biscuits, and drinks were stacked at Li Ge’s place.
“Take whatever you want, but pay me twenty times the market price.”
The three men were led by He Lihe, followed by Fu Shan and Wang Wei.
He Lihe checked the goods in the boxes.
Satisfied, he gave a signal to Fu Shan and Wang Wei.
“Bang!”
It was the sound of Li Ge being thrown to the ground by the two men.
The forty-year-old Li Ge was in too much pain to get up and pointed at them to scold.
Next, Fu Shan taped Li Ge’s mouth shut.
Wang Wei tied his hands with rope.
After dealing with Li Ge, the three men began to gorge themselves without concern for appearances.
Each ate three pieces of bread and downed two bottles of mineral water.
Since the blackout and water outage nearly a week ago, those unwilling to buy limited supplies during the day could buy nothing at night.
Judging by their ravenous eating, they probably hadn’t eaten properly for days.
After eating, possibly bothered by the bright sunlight, He Lihe got up and closed the curtains.
In the previous life, Su Yu had lived in a villa community before the chaos.
Afterward, she left Yun City with Su Dad.
She was not very familiar with the situation in Mingyue Huafu.
These three men were clearly a major danger in Mingyue Huafu.
While there was still signal, Su Yu logged into Su Dad’s account and accessed the internal system of Su Group.
She needed to learn about these residents.