Chapter 82: Barbecue Barbecue
“What’s wrong? Why are you sad? Did I say something wrong?” Zhuang Mingxu rarely saw Lu Weiyi cry. Even when the Ji family secretly tormented him, he had never cried once. Seeing him cry with a face full of tears when he saw his leg injury a few days ago had startled Zhuang Mingxu. Now, he was even more at a loss.
Lu Weiyi rested his head on his shoulder and shook it.
Zhuang Mingxu hugged him and gently patted him, not pressing further.
After a while, feeling that Lu Weiyi’s emotions had calmed down, Zhuang Mingxu continued to ask, “Then how much stuff did Little Yi store? I heard Brother Mu say that you encountered a flood and all the previous supplies were washed away. Did you go hungry later?”
“I secretly kept the supplies that were washed away by the flood. They didn’t know I had a space at that time, and I never said anything. Besides the things I bought from the restaurant, I emptied out a mall. There was a big supermarket inside with a generator, and there was frozen meat and ice cream in the freezers, I took all of it. There were also a few clothing stores and daily necessities stores, the rest were just odds and ends.”
“Oh, right, when I went to find you, I took all the supplies that person in Dongshan County had stored. I left half of the food for the remaining people and took all their firearms, as well as their stored gasoline and natural gas tanks. I didn’t leave a single one.”
Zhuang Mingxu estimated the size of his space based on the things he mentioned and nodded. Thinking that he might know some things, he asked, “Does Little Yi know what will happen in the future?”
Lu Weiyi nodded. “Before long, it will… (snow heavily)…”
Zhuang Mingxu saw him automatically censor himself and roughly understood what was going on. “Forget it, I won’t ask. Does Little Yi know what things will be scarce next?”
“Warming Clothings,” Lu Weiyi said cautiously, finally saying it out loud.
Zhuang Mingxu was a bit surprised. He was asking about the near future, and it was only August, the hottest time of the year. Yet, cotton clothes would be scarce. It seemed the temperature was going to drop to below freezing, to the point where clothes would be needed. No wonder Lu Weiyi had collected all sorts of vegetables and fruits. After the temperature dropped, the things currently growing in the fields probably wouldn’t survive, and if they wanted to eat them again, they would have to wait for the next season.
Zhuang Mingxu thought to himself, then remembered what Lu Weiyi had just said about the space. There was a living tree inside that bore fruit. Could it also store vegetables and animals?
“Vegetables can be stored. When I was sweeping buildings with Li Zhuang before, I put the vegetables on other people’s balconies inside,” Lu Weiyi said, taking out the pot of small tomatoes he had put in earlier and picking one for Zhuang Mingxu. “They were still green before, now they’re all red.”
It seemed they could grow. Then they should be able to plant them. “What about animals?”
“No, my space is fragmented. The ground inside is like the ground after an earthquake,” Lu Weiyi said, lifting his clothes to reveal his navel and leaning closer for Zhuang Mingxu to see. “Putting jade inside can repair it. The better the quality of the jade, the better the repair effect. I put a hamster inside before to test if animals could be kept there, and the places that had already been repaired cracked again until I killed the hamster.”
His fair and slender waist was easily encircled. Unlike a girl’s softness, it had the unique resilience of a boy. Zhuang Mingxu touched it, the texture delicate, making him a bit distracted. But his leg…
Zhuang Mingxu didn’t think further and leaned closer to look. He could indeed see fine lines on the jade pendant, not very obvious, like fine stretch marks on the skin, almost invisible if one didn’t look closely. “How could it be fragmented? Does it affect you?”
Lu Weiyi shook his head.
“Could it be because the space is fragmented that it can’t hold living things?” Zhuang Mingxu asked, continuing without waiting for Lu Weiyi’s answer, “Let’s not worry about this for now. We need to focus on collecting jade as soon as possible to repair your space.”
“Mmm,” Lu Weiyi nodded. “I just discovered that jade seems to be able to enlarge the space. I went in just now and threw in a few pieces of jade, and now I can put things in again. And,” Lu Weiyi used the small green branches again, “they were about seventy meters before, but now I feel like they’ve grown again. I don’t know if it’s related to this.”
“Then let’s experiment later. Let’s go eat first. Let me think about what else we need to store,” Zhuang Mingxu said.
“Don’t we have a lot of supplies at home?” Lu Weiyi asked.
“Yes, but the more supplies we have, the better. We don’t know how long the apocalypse will last. What if the climate changes and there’s no food to replenish…” Zhuang Mingxu deliberately slowed his tone, clearly seeing the surprised look on Lu Weiyi’s face. It seemed his guess was correct, the climate would indeed change. Then his next plan would also have to change accordingly. “Does Little Yi know what we’ll eat then?”
“Millet, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage, radishes,” Lu Weiyi recalled the reduced grain production after the climate change and the kind of plant-based cakes popular among the lower classes. He smacked his lips, deciding to eat two more pieces of meat later.
Seeds.
Zhuang Mingxu silently made a note in his heart.
“Are mobile phones useful? Should we go find some to collect and store, in case communication is restored…” Zhuang Mingxu tentatively asked. Before he could finish, Lu Weiyi shook his head. He didn’t know if it would be restored in the future. Anyway, before he died, they mostly relied on shouting.
It seemed there were quite a few differences from what he had expected. Zhuang Mingxu decided to probe slowly in the future, and he would always be able to get a rough idea when Lu Weiyi wasn’t paying attention.
“Let’s go eat first. I still need to have an IV drip later,” Zhuang Mingxu said, then thought of the medicines that couldn’t be reproduced in the short term.
“Okay,” Lu Weiyi had already faintly smelled the aroma of barbecue and hurriedly pushed Zhuang Mingxu outside.
In the courtyard, a total of three barbecue grills had been set up. The meat had been cut into thumb-sized pieces, skewered with green and red peppers, mixed with the smell of charcoal, giving it a pure, original flavor. Once Xi Shi’s barbecue seasoning was sprinkled on, an aroma instantly burst forth.
There were quite a few people, but not many who knew how to grill well. Food was scarce now, and even a little meat was exchanged for a lot of grain. They couldn’t let them learn by wasting it, so in the end, Xi Shi, Xiong Jie, Li Zhuang, and Liu Rui were guarding the three grills, and surprisingly, the chef Dean and Antonio was in front of the last one.
“You know how to barbecue?” Lu Weiyi found it a bit unbelievable. They hadn’t eaten together in his previous life, so he really didn’t know Dean had this skill.
“BBQ, very good!” Dean pointed his thumb at himself, praising himself without any modesty, while picking a few skewers from the grill and placing them on a plate, handing them to Lu Weiyi. “Try some.”
Lu Weiyi took it and had Zhuang Mingxu take one. He himself picked up a pork skewer and cautiously took a bite. “Hmm,” he had to admit, the taste was really great, not too old, not too tender, just perfectly cooked. He gave Dean a thumbs-up, and Dean immediately smiled happily.
“Little friend, got any booze?” Li Zhuang had a skewer of some unknown meat in his mouth, quickly brushing oil on the vegetables in his hand, asking indistinctly.
“Beer.”
“Erguotou (a strong Chinese liquor).”
Xu Sa and Xiong Jie shouted at the same time, then looked at each other and simultaneously shouted, “Bring some of both!”
Lu Weiyi hadn’t deliberately collected alcohol. It was just that when he went to rescue Dean, there was a liquor store downstairs, and he had taken everything. The rest was collected from Li Ji in Dongshan County. At this time, he took out a lot of both beer and liquor, and also got juice and yogurt for the underage ones.
The younger ones each took a can of beer, while Xiong Jie directly opened a bottle of liquor and poured himself a large glass. Xi Shi poured a little bit, holding up the bottle and asking Antonio, “Want to try some?”
“Just a little,” Antonio had heard of Chinese liquor and wasn’t exaggerating at this time. He held a glass and gestured with his fingers for a tiny amount. Xiong Jie poured him a little and then looked at Li Zhuang.
Li Zhuang shook his head, waving the beer in his hand.
Lin Yimu and Ning Yuan each poured half a glass and drank heartily. The others toasted each other with beer. With good wine and delicious food, they acted as if the apocalypse hadn’t arrived.
Lu Weiyi wasn’t used to various kinds of alcohol and drank a glass of juice with Lu Xi. The underage Dean, who was being urged to drink beer, kept saying how delicious beer was. Zhuang Mingxu still needed an IV drip, so he didn’t touch any alcohol at all.
Watching everyone holding some amount of alcohol, Zhuang Mingxu had the mind to remind them to be careful. After all, their group was not exactly low-key, and Lu Weiyi had swept through most of the market during the day, making quite a scene.
A mineral water distributor might have been nothing in the past, but now it obviously meant holding a valuable treasure. Moreover, he could think of more than just that, and others would definitely think they were still hiding things. More importantly, they hadn’t brought many supplies when they entered the base, which meant that some of them definitely had a space.
Fortune favors the bold. If no one dared to come knocking just because of the few guns they had and their registered abilities, then Zhuang Mingxu would think this base had no future. After all, if it were the Qingyuan base and such a person appeared, if Zhuang Mingxu couldn’t win them over, he would definitely try to probe them secretly and take a piece of the pie.
In a chaotic world, if you don’t eat others, you wait for others to eat you. And those so-called bottom lines and kindness are things you only have the right to do when your ability is such that no one dares to provoke you.
Zhuang Mingxu turned his head to look at the main force of the team. Lu Weiyi hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol, Li Zhuang hadn’t finished even half a can of beer after a long time, and Antonio was the same. Lin Yimu and Ning Yuan had only taken a few sips of liquor and then hadn’t touched it much. With their drinking capacity, that little bit was nothing. Estimating that everyone knew what they were doing, Zhuang Mingxu didn’t try to spoil the fun.
“Come on, everyone, let’s have a toast! To celebrate that we’re all alive, and to wish us all the best in the future!” Gu Qingyue took the lead, holding up a can of beer.
“With wine and meat, life is stable,” Xiong Jie clinked his can first.
“Peace and smoothness,” Xi Shi also raised his glass, took a big sip, hissed lightly from the spiciness, but smiled exceptionally happily.
“Hope we can all keep living,” Xu Sa clinked his can very solemnly.
“Eat… eat full… wear warm…” Liu Rui mumbled, concise and to the point.
…
One by one, they offered a toast. In the end, even Zhuang Ai Yi, holding his yogurt, joined in the fun, shouting in his milky voice, “Tomorrow will be better!”
Even though they were surrounded by zombies and devastation, everyone still held hope, praying that tomorrow would be better.
I hope tomorrow is good for them