Chapter 50: Chapter 49: Different Problems
"Come on, stop lying around on your phones! Let’s clear the snow from the entrance!"
At the entrance of the Li Mei Hotel, someone with a shovel was loudly rallying the others.
Night was about to fall, and the lights inside the hotel were already on.
The first-floor lobby was densely packed with makeshift beds on the floor. Including the people staying in the rooms upstairs, the entire hotel housed at least five or six hundred people.
Hearing the call, someone said with dissatisfaction, "Why are we clearing snow again? Didn’t we just do it yesterday?"
"It’s been snowing so hard every day, it’s all piled up again."
"It’s almost over a meter high. It really does need clearing."
"Get those people in the guest rooms to come out! It can’t always be us folks in the lobby doing all the work!"
COUGH, COUGH COUGH!
Amid the noisy chatter, some people looked outside. A thick layer of snow had already piled up on the steps of the hotel’s main entrance.
Although government agencies cleared the main roads, their snowplows couldn’t get to places like the hotel’s front steps, which were inconvenient to access. The people staying there had to do it themselves.
"Stop complaining, this is for our own good!"
"Yeah, if we don’t clear it, and the snow blocks the main entrance, it’ll be hard for the relief bureau to deliver supplies!"
"Get out here and be quick about it!"
The moment the doors opened, a gust of frigid wind mixed with snowflakes blasted into the lobby.
People instinctively tightened their clothes and shivered.
Others turned a deaf ear to the call, simply burrowing completely into their blankets without even peeking out.
There wasn’t much the others could do about those who shirked their duties. A few hot-tempered individuals looked livid; if not for the armed squad stationed at the hotel, they probably would have gone over and beaten them up already.
In the end, it all came down to who was willing to volunteer.
Twenty to thirty people voluntarily took tools outside and began clearing the snow from the area around the hotel’s front steps.
Xu Xiaotian was among them. When the hotel became overcrowded, he had voluntarily given his room to a pregnant woman seeking refuge and had been sleeping on the floor in the lobby himself.
In this era of the Apocalypse Rules, especially after the cruelty of the first rule, very few people were still willing to have children.
But while no one wanted to give birth, everyone also felt that children were the hope for the future.
Therefore, upon seeing the pregnant woman arrive, most people were very accommodating.
They were all accepting of her staying in a warm guest room and even using up a few more food resources.
"Damn it, look at both sides of the street! They’ve all turned into walls of ice!"
Someone in the snow-shoveling crew at the entrance couldn’t help but curse.
"If we don’t shovel, in a few days, the hotel entrance will have an ice wall just like that! We’ll all be sealed inside, with no way to get out!"
Others chimed in, "Yeah, some people are too selfish, not willing to lift a finger. This isn’t for someone else; at the end of the day, it’s for everyone taking shelter here, including themselves."
"If you ask me, those guys with the guns should be doing something about it!"
"Didn’t you hear them? Their only job is to maintain order. They don’t handle anything else."
"Alright, alright, we still have food to eat and warm air-conditioning. That’s pretty good. We’ve made it through a few days already, we just have to hang in there for the rest... cough, hang in... COUGH COUGH, COUGH COUGH COUGH!"
The speaker was suddenly seized by a violent coughing fit mid-sentence. The others looked over and saw that the refined-looking middle-aged man’s cheeks were flushed red. Something was clearly wrong.
"Feng, what’s wrong?"
This refined man was a local middle school teacher and had been one of the earlier arrivals at the hotel.
He had been the one to first propose the mutual aid meetings at the Li Mei Hotel, so everyone was fairly familiar with him.
"Feng, why is your face so red?"
"Let me feel your forehead... Whoa! You’re burning up! Feng, you have a fever!"
"You’re sick and you still came out to work? Get inside and rest, quick!"
"Xiaotian, help Feng inside, quickly!"
"Okay!"
Xu Xiaotian acknowledged and quickly helped the constantly coughing Feng inside to his spot on the floor.
"You rest here, Feng. I’ll get you some water. Should you take some medicine?"
"Xiaotian, I’m fine," the man said, lying down and holding his head. "I’ll be fine after a little rest. Don’t go to the trouble."
"That won’t do... I’ll go get you some hot water!"
Xu Xiaotian hurried to the dining area, only to find a long line of people in front of the hot water dispenser.
Most of them looked ill, covering their mouths and coughing incessantly. Some held cups with dissolved cold medicine powder, while others clutched a blister pack of cold capsules in one hand and a cup in the other.
It was only then that Xu Xiaotian belatedly realized, ’The flu is probably spreading!’
Many people in the modern era were already in a state of sub-health, and after entering the age of the Apocalypse Rules, the sudden increase in psychological stress made their bodies more susceptible to illness.
With the sudden drop in temperature, it wasn’t surprising that people were catching the flu.
However, in a nearly sealed space with hundreds of people crammed together, and with the air-conditioning blowing hot air 24/7, the virus would spread and proliferate at an alarming rate.
If even one person got sick, it could quickly spread to others. Listening to the coughs rising and falling all around, Xu Xiaotian figured at least several dozen people in the hotel were already sick.
This made his heart tighten. He felt that if things continued like this, the situation would become dire.
The blizzard had only been going on for a few days, and so many people were already getting sick. What if someone’s condition worsened and medicine alone wasn’t enough?
In this god-awful weather, how could they even get anyone to a hospital? It wasn’t even clear if the hospitals were still operational...
He wasn’t the only one who had noticed this problem. A clamor had already erupted from the lobby outside.
Someone was shouting.
"Quarantine! We have to lock the ones who are coughing in the guest rooms and quarantine them! At a time like this, we absolutely cannot let them spread the virus to others!"
...
Under the same night sky, different problems were emerging in different places.
Guan Tong wasn’t troubled by problems like infectious diseases at the moment, but he had problems of his own.
He stared in the direction of the highway. As time passed, two cylindrical beams of light grew brighter and brighter, signaling that a large vehicle was getting closer.
He could even hear a "VRRUM... PSSSH..." sound—the kind only a big truck would make.
While remaining vigilant, Guan Tong also felt a little curious.
The rules had been in effect for several days now, and the snow on the roads had already grown thick and frozen over.
Driving out here at a time like this, weren’t they afraid of getting stuck in a snowdrift? Or a wheel slipping and sending them into a ditch?
Guan Tong had worried about his wheels slipping on the first day of the rules, let alone now, four days later.
To dare to be driving out here at this time... say what you will, but they had guts!
’And by the looks of it, this driver is also heading for Mingdao Mountain because it’s deserted and gets less snow.’
Other than that, there was no other reason someone would risk driving a big truck out to a desolate place like this.
There it was!
Just then, Guan Tong saw the vehicle appear with his own eyes.
Just as he’d guessed, it was a large cargo truck, and the two cylindrical beams were coming from its headlights.
Guan Tong had heard that many truck drivers modified their headlights, and he didn’t know if this one had. But the lights were certainly bright enough, illuminating the surroundings as if it were daytime.
"SKREEE—CH!"
The truck braked and stopped at the edge of the highway, not far from the end of the small path Guan Tong had cleared with his folding shovel.
Because the driver’s seat was high up, giving them a commanding view, they must have seen the little path Guan Tong had cleared, illuminated by the headlights.
Guan Tong glanced at his personal status panel. Because he had used some of his Psychic Power writing during the day, he had recovered less than a third of it.
If he summoned his Shadow, it would probably only last for a little over 30 seconds.
He pulled up his hood, silently picked up the iron tongs he had taken from the self-serve supply point earlier, and started walking out along the path.
In any case, since the truck driver had discovered the path, an encounter was now unavoidable.
Guan Tong wanted to go over and see if he could communicate amicably with the newcomers.
If they came with good intentions, he wouldn’t mind cooperating to get through the remainder of the rules’ duration together.
If they had ill intentions, his experience with the gang kidnapping and the earlier conflict at the supply point had given him sufficient resolve to fight.
There was no movement from the front of the truck. The driver, for whatever reason, didn’t open the door to get out.
Just as Guan Tong was about to reach the front of the truck at the end of the path, a door opened with a WHOOSH, and a rather small figure jumped down, stepping on the running board first.
"Oof!"
Guan Tong was slightly taken aback to see a little girl with a ponytail jump down. She looked to be an elementary school student, around ten years old.
After jumping down, the little girl saw Guan Tong as well. Startled, she quickly shouted, "Mom! Someone’s here!"
"Don’t be afraid, Nana!"
Immediately after, a middle-aged woman in a thick cotton coat also got out of the truck.
She clutched a flashlight in one hand and a crowbar in the other. After getting out, she shielded her daughter behind her and nervously shone the flashlight at Guan Tong’s face.
Guan Tong raised a hand to block the bright light and said, "Don’t shine that in my eyes. You can turn off the flashlight. Your truck’s headlights are bright enough."
