Chapter 207: Response.
As expected, it really did not take long before every single person in the building’s main group chat was talking about the sudden water outage. The messages poured in one after another, making the notification counter climb nonstop. Some people were asking what had happened, while others desperately hoped it was only a temporary interruption. A few of the more optimistic neighbors even tried calling the municipal water authority directly, convinced that somebody would eventually answer if they kept trying. The final result was completely predictable. The lines were either dead from the beginning or they rang until disconnecting automatically without anybody picking up.
The silence from the outside world was far more frightening than the lack of water itself. It meant the people responsible for keeping the city running were no longer responding. Some residents refreshed news websites over and over, while others searched local forums for information. Nothing useful appeared. Every failed attempt made everyone feel a little more uneasy.
Most of the residents who had even a little experience managing a household immediately started storing every bit of water they still could. Buckets, pots, kettles, bottles, basins, and even flower vases were quickly filled while there was still a little pressure left. Those who had ignored earlier warnings regretted it almost immediately. They could only watch their taps run dry and wish they had prepared sooner.
Even Zhang Ming, the wealthy second generation living in apartment 2001, realized how serious the situation had become. He filled his expensive bathtub to the brim and searched the apartment for every empty container he could find. At that moment, clean water had become more valuable than anything money could buy.
Meanwhile, over in the Yan household, Yan Cijin had just finished eating dinner. LiLi, the little girl, sat quietly nearby after finishing her own meal, playing with a small toy while occasionally looking toward the adults. She did not understand why everyone looked so serious, but she could tell something was wrong and behaved unusually well.
While Yan Cijin cleared away the bowls and chopsticks, Yan Laojin remembered the embarrassing things she had seen on her daughter’s bed earlier that day. She coughed lightly before saying, "Cijin, you should clean up those things on your bed yourself. Also, you cannot let Bai Li do whatever she wants all the time. Women are naturally greedy. If you keep indulging her, you are going to spoil her."
Yan Cijin instantly understood what her mother meant. Her cheeks became bright red all the way to her ears. Trying to escape the conversation, she hurriedly gathered the dirty dishes.
"Mom, please stop talking nonsense. We have not even done anything like that yet."
She carried the dishes into the kitchen, turned on the tap, and watched only a weak stream of water trickle out before stopping completely. She tried again twice, but nothing came out.
She sighed softly.
"Mom, it looks like the water is completely cut off now. I’ll message Bai Li and ask if her apartment has lost water too."
"Okay, ask her," Yan Laojin replied, her teasing expression replaced by worry. If the outage lasted only a few days, perhaps they could manage. If it became permanent, then every bucket of stored water would matter.
At the same time, Bai Li noticed a message from Yan Cijin.
Little Yan Doctor: Is the water out at your place too?
Bai Li: Yes, it is, and honestly it is going to stay shut off for the rest of the time. You have probably seen the situation outside by now. Nobody is going to repair the utilities anymore.
Little Yan Doctor: I understand. By the way, if you run out of water, come over here. My mom filled all of our buckets and basins beforehand. If we share, we should save a lot of resources.
Bai Li: Okay, I understand. Thanks.
After closing the chat, Bai Li sat quietly with the phone still in her hand, thumb hovering over the screen as though the conversation might continue on its own if she waited long enough. The message was simple. Practical, even. Come over if you run out of water. That was all it said. And yet she found herself rereading it three times, as if there were some second meaning tucked between the words that she needed to dig out.
She told herself it was because the offer was generous, and generosity always deserved careful consideration. Yan Cijin’s offer was sincere, and that sincerity made the decision even more difficult. She trusted Yan Cijin, and she had gradually started trusting Yan Laojin too. LiLi was only a little girl and would never intentionally expose her secret. Even so, trust and survival were two different things.
But if she was being honest with herself, and she was rarely in the habit of being fully honest with herself where this particular woman was concerned, it was not only the practical risk that kept her sitting there long after the conversation had ended. It was the small, warm flicker that rose in her chest whenever Yan Cijin’s name appeared on her screen. She noticed it now the way she might notice a draft coming from an window she had forgotten to check, present but unexamined. She was tired, she told herself. That was probably all it was. Exhaustion made people sentimental over the smallest things, and a woman offering to share water during a crisis was hardly the kind of thing that should make someone’s chest feel tight.
Still, her mind kept circling back, uninvited, to little details she had not consciously chosen to remember. The way Yan Cijin always signed off her messages with something practical and reassuring rather than dramatic, as though she had decided somewhere along the way that Bai Li’s peace of mind was worth the extra sentence. The way she scolded her mother halfheartedly, cheeks burning, whenever Yan Laojin teased her about being too soft toward Bai Li. Bai Li had told herself many times that this was simply what a kind, competent doctor looked like when dealing with a difficult patient and her own meddling mother, nothing more.
Her spatial storage was her greatest advantage. Once another person discovered it, there would be no way to hide it again. Even if nobody betrayed her on purpose, accidents could still happen. Someone might say something by mistake, or another person could notice something unusual. This was the argument she kept returning to, because it was solid and rational and did not require her to examine anything uncomfortable about herself. It was so much easier to worry about secrets and survival than to ask why, of all the people in this collapsing city, it was Yan Cijin’s face that came to mind first whenever she imagined a future worth protecting.
There was another problem, she reminded herself, forcing her thoughts back onto safer ground. If Yan Cijin and her family moved in, Bai Li would become responsible for three more people. Food, water, medicine, and every future decision would have to include them. She did not dislike that thought, and she noted with mild irritation that she did not dislike it at all, which was itself strange. Most people, faced with the sudden weight of feeding and protecting an entire extra household, would feel burdened. Bai Li felt something closer to anticipation, a quiet readiness she chose not to name. She decided it was simply her sense of responsibility. It had to be. She had always been the type to take care of people once she let them close enough, and Yan Cijin had gotten closer than most without Bai Li ever quite deciding to allow it.
She rubbed her face with both hands and let out a slow breath, trying to scrub the strange warmth out of her thoughts along with the tiredness. There was still some stored water left. She did not need to decide today. It would be better to wait and see how the situation developed before making such an important choice.
And yet, even as she set the phone down on the table, she found herself glancing at it again a moment later, half hoping for another message to arrive. She caught herself doing it and frowned, unsettled by her own behavior in a way she could not quite explain. It was only water, she reminded herself. Only a practical arrangement between neighbors in a crisis. She repeated this to herself several times, the way one repeats a fact they are trying very hard to believe.
Bai Li rubbed her face in deep frustration, finally deciding to just keep quiet and observe the situation until the building’s water supply was completely exhausted. Whatever that odd, persistent warmth in her chest was, it could wait. Everything else could wait too. She simply refused, for now, to look at it too closely.
She then decided to open up the main group chat for Building 9 to distract herself, and sure enough, the entire chat was in an absolute uproar.
Wang Hao 302: Is the water completely out for everyone? Does anyone still have running water at home right now?
Wang Wuyang 1103: Luckily, I managed to save a little bit of water in time, but we only have two large pots at home to store anything. This tiny bit of water will only last my family for two days at the absolute most. I just called the water authority a bunch of times, but absolutely no one answered.
Wang Zhichao 203: Guys, it gets even worse. It seems like the main sewers are totally clogged up now too. I wonder if the blockage is down on the first floor.
