Chapter 15
It took Chen Sheng quite a while to finally get the van that Director Wang had left behind started. The moment they drove out of the orphanage, the vehicle sank into several deep puddles one after another. The car struggled in the mud for over twenty minutes before it finally crawled out little by little.
The air conditioner in Director Wang’s car had long since broken down, and he had been too stingy to repair it. On top of that, the weather was stifling. Even when the car picked up speed, it did not bring in much cool air. Everyone in the car was already drenched in sweat from the heat.
It was already this hot in the morning—no one knew how unbearable the afternoon would be.
Wei Cheng glanced at Guanguan, who was sitting obediently with his little hands on his knees. “Are you hot? Want some water?”
Guanguan’s little face was flushed red from the heat. Afraid that his brother and Teacher Xiaomei might not let him come out with them again, he shook his head even harder than a rattle drum. “Guanguan’s not hot! Not thirsty!”
Wei Cheng had raised him through two lifetimes—how could he not know what was going on in that little head of his? He took out the puppy cup from Guanguan’s little yellow duck backpack, pressed open the lid, and said, “Open your mouth.”
There was no reason to refuse water being offered right to him. Guanguan immediately bit down on the straw, and his eyes lit up at once. What entered his mouth was not water at all, but sweet mung bean slush!
Sensing that his brother was about to take the cup away, Guanguan stubbornly clamped his tiny baby teeth around the straw and would not let go. He even grumbled in a meek-but-defiant voice, “Guanguan just loves drinking water!”
Wei Cheng laughed. “You can’t drink too much. Later, once the car gets onto the main road, there won’t be any toilet for you.”
Guanguan had a bit of a rebellious streak, but not much. Sneaking a glance at his brother’s expression, he quietly took another tiny sip before wiping his mouth. “Baby really does love drinking water.”
“Mm, loving water makes you a good baby.” Smiling, Wei Cheng tucked the puppy cup back into the backpack.
Half an hour later, they finally arrived at the biggest chain supermarket in Fengshui District.
The supermarket was jam-packed, bursting at the seams with people. Even the rows of shopping carts that were normally enough were completely gone. Fortunately, the air-conditioning inside was strong, otherwise they probably would have been short on oxygen.
“Why are there so many people?”
Teacher Xiaomei was starting to panic. People always had a herd mentality. Seeing some of the younger shoppers already snatching up vegetables and meat, she began to feel anxious too.
As she called home, she said to Wei Cheng, “Chengcheng, hold your brother’s hand. Teacher’s going to grab vegetables and eggs.”
Wei Cheng handed the mung bean slush back to Guanguan. “If you need to go to the bathroom, tell Brother, okay?”
Guanguan excitedly hugged the puppy cup. “Okay!”
This was his first time ever visiting a real-life supermarket. The products themselves did not surprise him much—after all, Cloud Mall had far more things than this place. But he had never experienced shopping in a supermarket together with so many people before!
After circling around several times, Wei Cheng finally spotted a shopping cart loaded with cardboard boxes. He took the things out, then picked Guanguan up and set him inside. In a low voice, he said, “Let’s go stock up on some compressed biscuits for Teacher Xiaomei and the others.”
Just then, the supermarket announcement system suddenly came on:
“Good morning, citizens. Today the Meteorological Observatory has issued a red heat warning. In central Huan City, northern Pingcheng… and some other areas, the maximum temperature in the next 24 hours will rise above ?. High temperatures are expected to intensify again over the next week, with strong intensity, a wide range, and no sign of easing in the short term. Citizens are advised to take precautions against heat and reduce outdoor activity.”
“When has Huan City ever been this hot?”
“The whole next week is going to be like this? Are people supposed to live or not?”
“It’s not just Huan City. Haven’t you heard? Temperatures are rising all over the country. It’s only a week—just stay home, run the air conditioner, and endure it.”
“Oh please, our place is tiny and old. Where are we supposed to install an air conditioner? Once the heatwave warning came out, the people selling air conditioners and fans must have struck gold!”
“Chengcheng! Guanguan!”
Teacher Xiaomei came running over carrying several big bags of vegetables and eggs. “You two are pretty capable, huh? You even found a shopping cart?”
She looked at the four boxes of compressed biscuits in the cart and laughed. “You two silly boys. Those biscuits don’t taste good. Do you want biscuits? Come on, Teacher will buy you some children’s biscuits.”
“Teacher, these biscuits keep hunger away and fill you up. Let’s just buy these.”
Wei Cheng said, “The weather is getting hotter and hotter. Maybe one day the water and electricity will be cut off. By then we won’t have anything to eat. When I was in second grade, I went to a military summer camp organized by school. The instructor told us that in critical moments, compressed biscuits can save lives.”
Teacher Xiaomei had long since gotten used to how steady and mature Wei Cheng was. After thinking it over, she said, “But four boxes is way too much. There’s no need to stock up on that many. In a couple of days the temperature will come back down. Let’s buy two more boxes of children’s biscuits too and save them for you, Mingming, and Xiaotiao to eat.”
Wei Cheng parted his lips, but he could not push too hard, so he could only nod and agree.
After waiting in line for a very long time, they finally checked out. The moment they stepped out of the air-conditioned supermarket, they nearly felt roasted alive by the rising sun. Waves of shimmering heat floated in the air.
In the span of just one hour, the temperature had risen again.
That was starting to feel strange.
If they had not still needed to order glass, they would have wanted nothing more than to hurry straight home.
Guanguan looked like a little wilted plant scorched by the sun, lazily slumped against his brother’s chest. The slush in the puppy cup had already melted into lukewarm water.
Wei Cheng felt a little sorry for him. Quietly, he took an apple-flavored candy out of the backpack and slipped it into Guanguan’s mouth. “We’ll go home as soon as we finish buying the glass.”
Guanguan instantly came back to life at full power. One cheek puffed out into a little bulge as he nodded obediently. “Okay!”
Little Guanguan really could recharge on just one piece of candy.
Originally, Teacher Xiaomei had planned to compare a few shops before deciding, but the weather had suddenly turned unbearably hot, and no one had the mood to save a few scraps of money anymore. While Teacher Xiaomei and Chen Sheng went to help measure the glass, and after hearing that the glass would not be delivered until tomorrow, Wei Cheng brought Guanguan into the shop next door.
The fan inside was turned up to the maximum, but it barely did anything except make noise.
Wei Cheng said, “Boss, our teacher asked me to come buy heat-insulating film. Do you have any?”
The shirtless shop owner said, “We’ve got plastic and aluminum foil. Which do you want?”
Wei Cheng thought for a moment. “Aluminum foil.”
“The ready-made ones are all two meters wide. How much do you want?”
Wei Cheng said, “Ten meters.”
“That’ll be three hundred and twenty total.”
Wei Cheng paid him, then added, “Boss, send this insulating film to our orphanage together with the glass from next door. No need to make a separate trip.”
The boss was perfectly happy with that. “Sure. We all know each other anyway, so we can send it together.”
Wei Cheng was buying the insulating film for the orphanage so they could put it on the windows and lower the indoor temperature. Over the next two days, the daytime heat would keep rising. Even worse, the temperature would not drop at night. Being outside felt like being pressed for oil, and even staying indoors with the air conditioner on would still feel hot. But after putting this film up, a person’s felt temperature could drop by at least around ten degrees.
Most importantly, after the extreme heat would come the sudden assault of the poisonous fog. With the protection of the insulating film, the children at the orphanage would be less exposed to the toxic mist.
Once bare skin came into contact with the poisonous fog, it would first itch, then ulcerate, and finally the person would develop fever, cough, and aching pain all over the body. The symptoms were very much like a severe cold. Once one person showed symptoms, it would quickly spread to the next. The onset was extremely fast. After the fog dispersed, those people would turn into zombies that gnawed on raw flesh.
In the early days of the apocalypse, everyone had inhaled the poisonous fog to some extent. As for whether their bodies would mutate, that depended on the person’s constitution and how much of the fog they had breathed in.
As long as a person died, whether from illness or at someone else’s hands, as long as the cause of death did not involve the brain, they would eventually turn into a zombie.
Those facts had also been told to Wei Cheng by that pair of university professors in their final moments.
As he and Guanguan stepped out of the shop, they suddenly heard a series of weak, whimpering barks coming from the roadside ditch.
Guanguan’s eyes went round. “It’s a puppy!”
Before Wei Cheng could say anything, Guanguan had already scampered happily over to the ditch.
Because of the rainstorm, the ditch was full of silt and trash that had been washed into it. Sitting helplessly on top of a pipe was a tiny black puppy, no more than a month old, covered from head to toe in wet mud, letting out pitiful little yips.
“Brother! It really is a puppy!”
Seeing Guanguan stretch out his little hand as if to grab it, Wei Cheng was so alarmed that he quickly caught hold of the back of his vest. “Don’t fall in!”
Guanguan was not even as tall as the ditch. That little lurch just now had been genuinely dangerous.
When the little black puppy with its drooping ears saw them, its short, fluffy, filthy tail wagged madly, and it howled even more miserably at the top of its lungs.
Hearing it, Guanguan’s eyes immediately turned red. “Brother, the puppy is crying. The puppy is so sad.”
“Don’t worry. Brother will go down and carry it up.”
Wei Cheng nimbly jumped into the ditch. He had assumed the little black dog would be frightened and run farther away, but instead, the puppy actually gathered its courage and cautiously walked toward him.
The smell in the ditch was truly awful. Wei Cheng quickly grabbed the puppy by the scruff and set it on the ground, not forgetting to warn, “Guanguan, it’s very dirty. Don’t touch it yet.”
Guanguan was drenched in sweat from the heat, but his eyes were shining brightly as he stared at the puppy.
The skinny, grimy little dog was also trembling as it tried to move closer to him.
“Where did this stray dog come from?”
Teacher Xiaomei and Chen Sheng also came over after finishing the glass order.
Chen Sheng did not come any closer. Irritated, he said, “Get in the car already. The weather is too hot.”
Teacher Xiaomei also said, “Guanguan, Chengcheng, let’s leave this puppy with one of the nearby shop owners. They’ll probably take it in. It’s getting hotter and hotter—we need to hurry home.”
Wei Cheng did not say anything. He looked at Guanguan.
He knew that Guanguan had always wanted a puppy.
Even his hair ties and cups had to have puppy patterns on them.
Now that there were more people around, the little black puppy grew even more frightened and wanted even more to press close to Guanguan. Guanguan bent over, wanting to pet it.
Chen Sheng snapped harshly, “It’s filthy! Stray dogs carry the most germs! It’ll spread sickness to the children. If you don’t behave, I’m giving you an injection later!”
Wei Cheng immediately said coldly, “Uncle Chen, don’t scare Guanguan like that. If you have something to say, say it properly. He can understand.”
Guanguan was afraid of injections, but he was even more afraid of passing sickness to Brother, Mingming, and Xiaotiao.
He pressed his lips together, and tears spilled one by one from the corners of his eyes. Feeling terribly wronged, he ran into his brother’s arms and stopped speaking.
The little black puppy, no bigger than a shoe, actually started barking angrily at Chen Sheng.
Chen Sheng said with annoyance, “Hurry up and get lost!”
“Brother, Brother…”
Guanguan did not say that he wanted the puppy. He just cried pitifully, looking unbearably miserable, while one eye stood guard and the other kept watch—as if he were secretly observing his brother’s expression.
Wei Cheng sighed with a smile in his heart and rubbed Guanguan’s head. “All right.”
It seemed he could never refuse Guanguan.
This puppy was only about a month old, yet it already looked quite clever. It knew how to protect its owner. If raised and trained properly, it should be able to protect Guanguan in the future.
