In that moment, President Xu felt a fear similar to Zhao Yi’s.
A faintly sensed, yet indescribable unknown.
The next moment, President Xu whirled around: “Xiaoxiao!”
He set the candle on the table and hurriedly put on clothes.
Director Yu asked: “What’s wrong with Xiaoxiao?”
President Xu: “I’m afraid she didn’t listen. Let me go check again.”
Among their group, only Wu Yan and Tao Xiaoxiao were women.
A young girl’s tolerance hadn’t been tempered as much as an older sister’s.
Back when they’d been trapped in the company, when everyone had greasy hair and stinking breath, she’d secretly hidden mouthwash and rinsed her mouth every day.
She thought no one knew.
When they’d done the bed check before sleep, Tao Xiaoxiao had also been very unwilling to sleep in the living room.
Because the living room had the stove burning and a pile of honeycomb coal, the floor was inevitably dirty. She found it distasteful.
In front of President Xu, she’d agreed. President Xu was afraid she’d say one thing to his face and do another behind his back.
He knew his employees all too well.
Bang bang bang—he knocked on the door.
The male employee who came to open it was also shivering from the cold: “W-what’s wrong? Holy shit, shit, w-why is it so cold?”
President Xu asked: “Where’s Xiaoxiao? Did Xiaoxiao sleep in the living room?”
The male employee: “She—she didn’t…”
President Xu pushed the male employee aside and charged in with Director Yu and a few others.
Sure enough, there were only two mattresses on the floor—one double, one single.
The double was for two male employees. The single was Wu Yan’s. Both were sitting up wrapped in blankets, exhaling white breath from the cold.
President Xu’s expression changed: “Xiaoxiao didn’t come out to sleep?”
Wu Yan: “She…”
She was a young girl—sweet-tongued and good at handling people. Even Wu Yan usually spoiled her. She hadn’t wanted to, and Wu Yan hadn’t forced her.
Tao Xiaoxiao was still sleeping in her own room. Fortunately, she hadn’t been foolish to the end—she’d known to keep the door open to let heat transfer.
But even so—in the short distance from the living room to Tao Xiaoxiao’s doorway, the skin on President Xu’s face had already felt the temperature change.
Icy cold.
One step into Tao Xiaoxiao’s room, it was bone-piercingly cold.
The size of the door and the distance ultimately limited heat transfer.
Tao Xiaoxiao’s lips were white as gold paper. She’d already been frozen into unconsciousness in her sleep.
Everyone frantically carried her to the living room!
“Add coal! Add coal! Get the fire blazing!”
Two blankets underneath her body, two blankets over her body.
All colleagues on the same floor were woken up. All their hot water bags were stuffed in.
Male colleagues rubbed her hands, feet, and ears.
Wu Yan knelt at the head, hands reaching in from her collar, frantically rubbing her belly and chest—friction generating heat.
Someone else poured hot brown sugar water into her mouth.
Just like that, a group of colleagues forcibly pulled Tao Xiaoxiao back from the line of death.
By the time Tao Xiaoxiao could open her eyes, everyone was utterly spent.
An amazing girl.
So young, yet she’d been through nearly being burned to death and nearly being frozen to death—two completely opposite situations.
Both times, she’d been forcibly pulled back from the King of Hell’s grasp.
—
Over at the youth apartments, everyone slept in collective dormitories.
Because the youth apartments’ units were basically open-plan—bedroom plus living room but no partition, the whole space was relatively large, and heating efficiency was very low.
The cold-weather contingency plan was collective large dormitories.
They knocked through multiple apartments, removed useless furniture, filled them with beds, and placed several stoves. Heating efficiency shot up immediately.
It couldn’t be too big either. Basically, three apartments knocked together made one dormitory. Dormitory after dormitory, they stuffed people in.
Jiang Cheng, of course, was with the girls. They also brought the little girls among the little kids.
The little boys went with the uncles.
Moli attempted to sneak into the women’s dormitory in cat form, and was carried off by the scruff of his neck by Li Jiangbing.
The dormitories for the male and female middle school students all had adults assigned to them. Some also mixed in with the adults.
The kids chattered away.
They all said it felt like being back at school, everyone squeezed into classrooms sleeping together.
Under their bodies were bed boards made from desk tops pieced together—hard as hell. Actually, it had only been a month ago. So nostalgic.
Someone sighed: “How does time pass both fast and slow?”
Jiang Cheng woke up and immediately felt the chill on the tip of her nose.
The temperature really had dropped.
Fortunately, in the collective dormitory, with many stoves and many people, no one had frozen.
Some fire-type girls released several fireballs, and the dormitory temperature rose rapidly.
Everyone held up their clothes to warm them around the fireballs before daring to put them on.
When they walked to the window and wiped the white fog off the glass, they were all stunned.
“Come look!”
Everyone crowded to the floor-to-ceiling window.
Outside, the community courtyard had become a world of white snow.
They could see the public latrines and the cafeteria, and the warm corridors that had been hastily built over the past few days connecting each building to the public latrines, cafeteria, and public warming houses.
Because they’d been rush-built for cold protection, the warm corridors weren’t built particularly tall. But they were tall enough for a 1.8-meter-tall person to walk through.
But now, the warm corridors were almost submerged in snow.
In other words, the snow was as tall as a person!
The girls’ dormitory was buzzing.
Because the provisional government had given advance warning and prepared contingency plans, with proper arrangements, everyone was surprised and excited, but not afraid.
Su Yu helped Zhang Lesi get dressed.
Zhang Lesi asked: “Where’s Jiang Cheng?”
Su Yu turned her head and saw Jiang Cheng also standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing outside.
Beside her were the middle school girls, excited about the heavy snow.
Jiang Cheng stood beside them like a still image embedded in a moving one.
What was Jiang Cheng looking at?
What was Jiang Cheng thinking?
Su Yu called out: “Jiang Cheng?”
Jiang Cheng turned, saw them, and came over to help dress Zhang Lesi.
Winter clothes were too thick and hard to put on.
“Were you cold last night?” she asked.
Zhang Lesi: “Not too bad. I could feel the cold, but I didn’t get cold. What’s it like outside?”
Jiang Cheng: “The snow has submerged the warm corridors.”
Su Yu and Zhang Lesi both paused: “The warm corridors?”
Zhang Lesi pushed Su Yu. Su Yu ran to the window and took a look—shocked.
Jiang Cheng helped Zhang Lesi put on pants: “Lift your leg. They’re submerged—almost completely submerged.”
Zhang Lesi said: “I remember Zhao Yi said the warm corridors were designed to be 2 meters tall?”
Jiang Cheng: “Yes.”
Zhang Lesi found it unbelievable.
Su Yu came back: “The warm corridors are almost invisible. The snow is taller than people.”
Zhang Lesi angrily pounded the bed: “Why can’t I still see!”
Zhang Lesi was from the south. She really wanted to see heavy snow.
Su Yu didn’t speak—because she’d seen it with her own eyes, she was strongly shaken.
She’d also lived in S City for several years, and she knew well that this kind of severe cold and heavy snow were wrong.
She glanced at Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng looked up and also glanced at Su Yu.
Su Yu wanted to speak but stopped.
Jiang Cheng shook her head.
“You tell me,” she said, “what kind of person would he be?”
The person who had forecast the extreme temperature drop in advance.
Facts had proven—he wasn’t a madman.
You could say he’d become famous overnight.
The girls busily warmed water in thermos bottles and basins for washing up.
After a while, someone came knocking to notify: “You can go downstairs to use the bathroom now.”
Today’s on-duty fire-type superpower users had gotten up early and gone downstairs.
The public latrines had stoves, but at this temperature, it was as good as nothing.
The fire-types first used fireballs to warm the entire public latrine before daring to call everyone to use it. Otherwise, they were afraid urine would freeze to your butt.
The hastily repaired warm corridors connected to the buildings in the middle of the courtyard.
Stoves were also placed in the middle of the warm corridors.
But no one had experience with such low temperatures. Only when the severe cold actually arrived did they discover there weren’t enough stoves.
They hastily added more stoves.
In the public warming houses, fire-type superpower users were already heating. In the cafeteria too, and in the public latrines too.
Just like that, the spider-leg-like warm corridors finally warmed up. People could move through them without being frostbitten by the severe cold.
Before noon, the statistical reports from each community came in.
Even with such warnings and arrangements, there were still people who didn’t follow the plans.
Such people existed everywhere. But this was their last time disobeying.
Jixiang Jiayuan: 71 people frozen to death.
Yujing Xiangyuan: 130 people frozen to death.
The other communities reported one by one—mostly between a few dozen and two hundred.
Deqing Li had over three hundred frozen to death, because Deqing Li had high density and more residents.
The entire Tech District had over thirty thousand refugees. Last night, over nine hundred had frozen to death in total.
The youth apartments had no fatalities from freezing—only one case of frostbite.
It was someone who couldn’t hold it in during the night and went downstairs to poop.
Halfway through, he realized something was wrong—if he didn’t go back upstairs now, he might not make it up. He hurriedly pulled up his pants and sprinted upstairs.
When he got back, he found he’d already gotten frostbite.
His roommates carried him over to see Zhang Lesi, and Zhang Lesi healed him.
The whole time, the man kept his face wrapped in a headscarf, not even willing to show his eyes.
To prevent any girls from seeing who “that man who got his butt frostbitten from pooping in the middle of the night” was.
Anyway, all butts looked the same—just hide the face.
—
Moli appeared in his black cat form, but different from before—he’d become a long-haired cat.
Everyone almost didn’t recognize him.
Li Jiangbing praised Moli endlessly: “Good cat!”
It turned out that during the night, Moli had turned into a long-haired cat.
Li Jiangbing had said “So cold” and Moli heard it. He started growing larger, becoming a very, very large long-haired cat.
A cat’s body temperature is higher than a human’s. A giant cat’s body temperature was even higher. Plus long, warm fur.
A bunch of grown men competed to sleep next to Moli—warm and toasty, incredibly comfortable.
They were happy, but Moli was not happy at all.
He couldn’t hug and snuggle and sleep with Jiang Cheng—how could he be happy?
The “I’m not happy” expression was clearly visible on the little cat’s face.
But because of the cold, it seemed becoming a long-haired cat was better for maintaining body temperature, so Jiang Cheng didn’t force him to stay in human form anymore.
Moli could finally lie on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder again and became happy once more.
Jiang Cheng: “Moli, a little bigger.”
Moli: “?”
Moli didn’t understand, but Moli obeyed.
Jiang Cheng: “Bigger, just a little bit more.”
Moli grew a little bit bigger.
“Good, just like that.” Jiang Cheng said.
Jiang Cheng “draped” Moli behind her neck, pulled his front paws and back paws to cross over her chest.
A super warm genuine fur neck warmer.
Jiang Cheng went to the radio station wearing this fur neck warmer.
—
Now they could no longer calculate by administrative district. Because several districts had already begun merging, becoming several major refugee settlements.
Yesterday, the Tech District received the mysterious man’s prophecy and immediately used radio to warn the other districts.
But even those who’d made contingency plans like the Tech District still had large numbers of people freeze to death.
Nearly every settlement had fatalities comparable to the Tech District’s.
But this was under the premise that the Tech District’s population was 1.5 to 3 times theirs.
At this point, nearly every settlement leader wanted to ask the same question—
Who exactly was the man who’d predicted the extreme cold?
Naturally, there was no answer.
Perhaps Uncle Jiang might know—after all, he often hinted that he actually knew the mysterious man’s background.
But on closer thought, one would realize—actually, no one had ever known who Uncle Jiang was, or who Sister Mao was.
Switching the frequency over, on November 15th, the mysterious man was still broadcasting:
[It won’t pass quickly. Give up your illusions.]
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