“Don’t talk nonsense.” Gu Kai tightened his grip on Shen Cong’s icy-cold hand.
His own hand was trembling, yet he still tried to comfort her. “You just haven’t been resting well lately. Don’t say things like dying and coming back to life, stop talking nonsense.”
“I’ll show you something else.”
Seeing that Gu Kai was clearly in turmoil yet still unwilling to believe what he had seen with his own eyes, Shen Cong let out a deep sigh in her heart.
With a thought, a light-gray card appeared in her hand.
She handed it to Gu Kai. “Take a look at this.”
Gu Kai took the card and realized it was an identification card. It bore Shen Cong’s photo, though the woman in the picture looked haggard and emaciated.
Her cheeks were so sunken that even he, her husband, would have needed to look carefully to recognize her.
The card listed Shen Cong’s personal information, date of birth, ID number, and so on. He checked them; none of it was wrong.
Then his gaze fell on the small line of text at the very bottom of the card. It read:
Validity period: 2076.05.06 – 2096.05.06
He suddenly looked up at his wife, then dropped his eyes back to that line of text. His heart filled with shock.
It was currently June 2072. This ID had been issued four years in the future!
His heart began to pound wildly.
No matter how unwilling he was to believe it, Gu Kai had to admit that everything about this was far too bizarre.
Could it be that what his wife said was true, that she had really come back from the future?
“This is the relief grain I collected this morning. It’s still warm, do you want to try some?”
Shen Cong held out a dark, almost black bun tinged with dull green, emitting an indescribably sour, foul smell.
“You’ve never seen this, right? Let me tell you, it’s made from dried insects, wild vegetables, and bran mixed together. Those insects haven’t even appeared yet, so of course you wouldn’t have seen it.
Don’t underestimate it, this single bun is my entire day’s ration. To get it, I walked for over an hour, and in the end I even got bitten by insects.”
At this point, Shen Cong gave a bitter smile, her tone carrying a hint of self-mockery.
“If I’d known I was going to die no matter what, why did I bother making that trip? I should’ve just stayed inside. Starving to death would’ve been better than being bitten to death by insects.
Gu Kai, you have no idea, the insects’ bites are poisonous. Anyone bitten by them swells up all over, then their skin turns black and splits open. As ugly as it can possibly get.
And it hurts, so much!”
As she spoke, it was as if she were reliving that horrific experience. She instinctively wrapped her arms tightly around herself, her whole body beginning to tremble.
Gu Kai’s tears finally spilled over.
He held his wife tightly, wishing he could press her into his own body.
At this moment, he believed her completely, believed that his wife had endured suffering beyond anything he could imagine. Just hearing it made his heart ache to the point of suffocation.
He kissed Shen Cong’s hair and cheeks over and over again, soothing her. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. Congcong, don’t be afraid. I’m always here.”
“But you weren’t there! None of you were there! You were all dead, everyone was dead, and I was the only one left. I was so scared. I wanted to die too. I didn’t want to be left alone in that place…”
Hearing her husband’s words, Shen Cong finally broke down. She could no longer hold it in and burst into loud sobs.
She hugged Gu Kai back just as tightly, wishing she could bind herself to him forever, never to be separated for all eternity.
Shen Cong told Gu Kai everything that had happened after the apocalypse.
Then she said to him, “Not long after Mom and Dad passed away, I discovered that I had gained a storage space. Actually, I wasn’t the only one who discovered an ability, quite a few people around me did too.
But compared to abilities like controlling water or speeding up plant growth, mine was pretty useless. The space is only about twenty square meters, and people can’t enter it, only things can be stored. But in the apocalypse, when there wasn’t even food, what was there to put inside?”
As she spoke, Shen Cong put the furniture she had stored away back in place one by one, saying regretfully, “This is basically the limit. Even a little more and it won’t fit.”
“That’s okay. From what you’re saying, this apocalypse was caused by extreme climate changes, and social order didn’t completely collapse.
If that’s the case, we can start planning from now on, stockpile more food, prepare more supplies. As long as we’re well defended, even if the space isn’t enough, storing things at home shouldn’t be much of a problem.”
After the initial shock, Gu Kai gradually calmed down.
As he spoke, he thought over what his wife had told him and considered what they should do next.
According to her, the apocalypse would arrive one month from today, meaning the time they had left was truly limited.
“Not only do we need to store food, we also have to prepare for planting. In the later stages, the biggest cause of death was actually famine. No one knows when the apocalypse will end. I stayed there for six years and never saw even a hint of hope. So we have to grow our own food. Relying on stored supplies alone will never be enough.”
“You’re right. For the planting side of things, we should go back and discuss it with Mom and Dad. Dad’s pretty experienced at growing vegetables, he knows more than we do. Oh, Congcong, do you think we should tell the two of them about this in advance?”
“Yes. Not only do we need to tell my parents, we also have to tell your dad. If we don’t explain it clearly to him, he definitely won’t agree to move in with us at my parents’ place.”
“The apartment complex he’s living in now is too old. It collapsed during the initial earthquake, and it was never cleared out afterward. There’s no way that place can be lived in again.”
Gu Kai nodded. “I’ll get him to sign as early as possible. The developer is practically begging for someone here to take the lead, once he agrees, we should be able to get the money immediately.”
“Mm. Forget the apartment, take the cash. We’ve still got some major expenses coming up.”
The homeowners in her father-in-law’s complex had been locked in a long standoff with the real estate developer for ages, and the price had never been settled.
In her previous life, all the way up to the apocalypse, many elderly residents never managed to move out in time. Whether they survived or not was another matter, but their homes were certainly all destroyed.
If her father-in-law signed first this time, he would definitely be cursed by some people. But given his standing, there would surely be others who followed his example.
Shen Cong didn’t have the ability to save a great many people, but if this allowed some to move out early, it could still be considered a good deed.
As for the developer, what they wanted was the land anyway. The buildings were meant to be demolished from the start.
Even if the apocalypse ended one day, the land would still be theirs; no one could take it away.
Knowing time was limited, neither of them dared to dwell in sorrow anymore. They immediately prepared to take action.
“Congcong, it looks like you already have a plan. Tell me your ideas first.”
“Okay. When the earthquake hit, I was in Nan’an, so I know exactly what things were like over there. But what Beining was like in the early days, I only heard about it afterward from my parents and people around them, so I don’t know the details that well. We need to make multiple contingency plans.”
As she said this, Shen Cong recalled those experiences from the early days of the apocalypse.
Even though a long time had passed, she still couldn’t help shivering, her eyes filled with deep fear.
Gu Kai couldn’t help but squeeze his wife’s hand in concern, only to realize that despite the scorching weather, her hand was as cold as ice.
Shen Cong paused for a moment, then smiled at Gu Kai, forcing herself to look resolute.
She continued, “My mom told me that Beining was first affected by aftershocks from the coastal regions, which brought days of heavy rain. Many areas were flooded.
The apartment in the civil servants’ compound where my parents lived was an old building to begin with, and it sat on low ground. The foundation was soaked until it turned soft.
First it was flooded, then the earthquake hit, it was among the earliest buildings to collapse. So that apartment can’t be kept.
Tomorrow I’ll go get the property deed from my mom, and then we’ll pawn it.”
“Pawn it?” Gu Kai was puzzled.
“Yes, take it to a pawnshop.”
Shen Cong explained, “Pawn it outright. That way we can get the money immediately, without all the tedious procedures. Right now, cashing out as early as possible is what matters most, once we have the money, we can do a lot more.”
“As for this apartment…” Shen Cong lifted her gaze and looked around.
“This is a new building. Do you remember how the developer advertised that it could withstand earthquakes above magnitude 7? Later on, it turned out that really wasn’t just empty talk.
Maybe it was also because it isn’t located on a seismic belt, but in my memory, right up until the end, all the surrounding buildings were gone, only these six buildings around us were still standing. So I want to keep this one.”
“But…” There was obvious hesitation in Shen Cong’s tone.
“You sold this apartment before the apocalypse. Even though I know these few buildings didn’t collapse, I never actually came back to check on them. I really have no idea what condition our place was in after the earthquake.
After all, this apartment is on the top floor. If we don’t put protective measures in place ahead of time, the damage would definitely be more severe than on other floors.
So my plan is to renovate it first, but not live here for now, just in case.
Let’s take Dad and move to my parents’ house in the countryside first.
That house is big and has a courtyard. We can tidy it up and, early on, enclose the entire yard into rooms. Then we can grow vegetables inside.
And that area isn’t on a seismic belt either.
Back then, more than half the buildings in Beining collapsed, but in the villages, the ones that fell were mostly old houses. Many of the newer houses built in recent years either just cracked or partially collapsed, barely livable, but still usable.
The key point is that, according to reports, no one in the village was crushed to death by collapsing houses during the earthquake, so it’s relatively much safer.
But that place can only be lived in for a few years at most. Before the insect disaster, we’ll have to move back here.
There’s too much open land there, and the former farmland was all abandoned, overgrown with wild grass.
When the insect disaster came, that place was practically the insects’ kingdom.
Gu Kai, you have no idea, when those insects took flight, they filled the sky! You couldn’t even see the sun…”
Shen Cong went on and on. Gu Kai listened quietly the entire time, never interrupting her.
He only gripped her hand tighter and tighter, his eyes growing faintly red with heartache.
Finally, he could no longer sit still. He squeezed Shen Cong’s hand firmly and stood up.