Chapter 186: Chapter 186

People who lived in the apartments of Banana District owned at least one or two properties in the city. It was normal for a single apartment to house about a dozen people, unless someone was wealthy and influential enough to have a whole apartment to themselves.

The bare-shell apartments were rudimentary, with doors long since pried off and exchanged for work points. They contained nothing but a lightbulb. There were no blankets or clothes; many people had been wearing damp clothes for days.

Well, don’t even think about having dry clothes this year. Even if clothes finally dried after days of not touching water, they would still get moldy. One had to choose between moldy clothes and wet clothes.

Imagine some people were even assigned to the eighteenth floor; climbing stairs daily wasn’t just an inconvenience but also a waste of physical energy and food.

"Let’s go. Let’s go check the basement."

Although Banana District had only one underground parking level, the basement area was as large as the district itself. It contained more than 4,000 parking spaces, which were then converted to accommodate 4,000 families. The basement of Banana District alone housed over 10,000 people.

Once again in this life, Da Jingshu encountered the familiar scene from her past life.

The vast, empty basement was already as lively as a marketplace. The areas beneath Buildings 6, 7, and 8 were fully occupied. Under the emergency lights, one could see people: some were bald or curled up asleep, others sat on the ground with vacant stares, and some were fighting over a single plank of wood. There were also loud shouts, crying, and quarreling.

Grandma Jing was frightened by this sight.

What were once car parking spaces, now eight-square-meter areas, housed as many as six people in some, and at least two in others. Signs with names hung overhead, designating what were presumably their new homes.

The parking spaces were all filled with people, making it resemble the massive chaos of the Spring Festival travel rush. Oh, it was even more dreadful than that.

Since it was their first day moving in and their homes had been flooded, without luggage or blankets, it didn’t look too crowded yet.

Later on, some couples would engage in private matters; they’d use sheets, planks, and various other materials to screen off their parking spaces, creating a true ’home,’ and others would follow suit.

Then, everyone would start scavenging through the floodwaters, picking up debris and anything else usable, filling each parking-space ’home’ with all sorts of junk.

At that time, the basement would become so cluttered it would be difficult for anyone to pass through. Witnessing such living conditions would make one feel that life was worse than that of pigs and dogs.

"How pitiful. I wonder how they can sleep at night. Let’s go. Let’s go." Grandma Jing instantly lost interest.

Thousands of people were sleeping in an echoing basement where a single cough could travel far. There was the ceaseless stirring of people and the sounds of couples procreating—a torment for the single individuals. Coupled with the cold nights, getting any sleep was impossible.

Today, it was just the first batch of people; tomorrow, even more would flood in. Wu City originally had a population of four million. Even if hundreds of thousands had died, many still awaited resettlement. What could be done? With limited housing, they simply had to cram them in.

Food and drink could be managed centrally, but as for sanitation... well, one had to watch where they stepped. While you couldn’t say the ground was littered with gold, it was certainly littered with something else. Even if many latrines were built, they couldn’t cope with the sheer volume of people.

After returning to their house, Grandma Jing vividly recounted everything she had seen and heard. "TSK, TSK. Those poor people. Thank goodness our house wasn’t flooded and we have enough food. Otherwise..." she trailed off, sighing.

Mr. Jing, tapping his tobacco pipe, said, "The water in the city isn’t receding either. The flood has reached places two kilometers away. I just hope it doesn’t spread to our area."

Mrs. Jing then asked Jing Shu, "Have you found the car mechanic you were looking for? Our office wasn’t flooded, and we need to go to work. Now, while there’s plenty of rainwater, we should get busy planting vegetables."

In the afternoon, Jing Shu had relayed the situation to Wu You’ai. Wu You’ai’s mentor’s house had also been flooded, and the mentor was busy relocating, saying they would come over to take a look when they had time.

During dinner that evening, Jing Shu briefly recounted the day’s events to Wu You’ai and Jing Gu. It frightened them, but luckily, nothing had happened at home—it was just a false alarm.

"Mom, let Dad drive you to work in the Shark first; we can wait a bit for the new energy vehicle," Jing Shu suggested.

In the evening, Jing Shu practiced with the Magic Cube as usual. She discovered that she was gradually getting used to the Cube’s abrupt color changes. Having overcome this step, she was one step closer to upgrading the Magic Cube.

That night, she finally had time to nurture her two snakes. Jing Shu immediately put the snakes into the Magic Cube Space and had them start ingesting from the Spiritual Spring, incidentally also cultivating her bond with them. Once the two Five-step Snakes were in the Space, they immediately seemed comfortable and became much more lively.

If the First Form of the Magic Cube Space could simulate the most suitable living temperature and conditions for all creatures, then its Second Form could enhance the mutual perception between entities, greatly benefiting Jing Shu’s ability to build relationships with them.

The venom of the Five-step Snakes was still potent. Aiming to strengthen her future assets, Jing Shu decided to grant the snakes the Number 4 Spiritual Spring. Compared to bees, whose sudden BUZZING appearance was too conspicuous, two snakes appearing silently in the dark would likely go unnoticed—perfect for a stealth attack.

Given the most suitable temperature and humidity, snakes were prone to mate. With the assistance of the Spiritual Spring, it wouldn’t be long before there was a brood of Little Snakes. Jing Shu planned to eat some and use others to make medicinal wine; snake gall was also a prized ingredient.

Regarding venom extraction, her research indicated it was best to extract it every one to two months. However, with the nourishment of the Spiritual Spring, Jing Shu decided to extract venom weekly and stockpile it for important future uses.

Thus, besides the Number 1 Fat Chickens and Number 6 Bell Horned Frogs, Jing Shu now also had the Number 4 Five-step Snakes.

Sometimes, Jing Shu wondered if she should try to collect all of the legendary Five Poisons. That would be incredibly cool, wouldn’t it?

During the days of flooding, Jing Shu felt time passing exceptionally slowly; she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for several days. That night—damn it, she still didn’t get a good night’s rest! She was nearly driven crazy by the sounds of prying and drilling coming from Mary’s house next door all night. Jing Shu really felt like hitting someone.

The next day, Jing Shu woke up with dark circles under her eyes. If the renovation noise continued that night, she wouldn’t hold back. Get full chapters from N0v3l.Fiɾe.net

The villa, having been unoccupied for a few days without dehumidifiers running, had become much damper. Grandma Jing was busy taking care of the livestock. After Jing Shu finished eating, she started on various dehumidifying tasks, while Mr. Jing put the dirty clothes into the washing machine to be washed and then dried.

Mrs. Jing had already gone to work.

Wu You’ai had also left early in the morning. Word was that Banana District was expecting about twenty visiting specialists. Once everyone was housed and settled, a new round of assignments would begin.

Jinglai’s work location had changed. The Second Team had relocated to a commercial building at the entrance of Banana District, so her future workplace would be there. Ai Family Supermarket had also moved to the ground floor of that commercial building.

The Second Team had moved everything salvageable from the flooded Ai Family Supermarket. Still, a lot had been washed away. Now, even basic cooking equipment was scarce; the government had also delivered a new batch of coal for cooking.