60: Chapter 60 Qi Ming's Business Ambition

The torrential rain outside the window had been raging wildly for nearly half a month.

Inside the mountain-top shelter, although the reinforced walls blocked out most of the noise, the omnipresent dampness outside still made one feel suffocated.

Qi Yin stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, holding a pair of binoculars.

The area extending downwards from the hillside villa district had now devolved into a murky, yellow, drowned world.

The skyscrapers of the past were reduced to just a few jagged peaks still struggling to remain above water; to her, they looked more like isolated islands of despair.

On the murky, turbid water, all sorts of chaotic debris floated everywhere.

From time to time, one could still see a few wandering zombies and bloated, pale corpses.

In her communicator, a message from Mu Feng arrived once again.

Most were inquiries about subsequent arrangements for the shelter; Qi Yin replied to the key points and left the rest for him to handle as he saw fit.

After taking over Xiao Sinian's shelter, she consolidated resources and re-planned the defenses for both shelters.

She constructed an underground passage, merging the two shelters into one.

Because of the relentless rain day and night, plans for outdoor operations were temporarily shelved.

All team members were in a state of standby and leisure; in the chaotic Apocalypse, their lives had unexpectedly fallen into a brief and eerie peace.

After everyone finished a comfortable meal of ten dishes and one soup, Chen Quan took his notebook and reported the recent supply consumption to Qi Yin.

"All the power systems have paralyzed. Fortunately, we have generators and don't need to worry about fuel, or else I really wouldn't know what to do."

Speaking of this, he couldn't help but marvel at the miraculous nature of Qi Yin's Spatial Ability.

Lu Jinwen stuffed a small cake that Lu Yanxiu had researched in his spare time into her mouth, finding it not bad at all.

"Our life is living a bit too comfortably, though it seems everything down the mountain has gone into chaos."

Qi Yin walked over slowly and grabbed her ear: "Stop eating. Living too comfortably makes you useless; go train immediately."

Lu Jinwen, having just rested, pulled the poor scapegoat Jiang Yao along: "Alright, alright, we'll assemble the mecha for a while before going."

Mecha? Qi Yin felt puzzled; these two had been acting mysterious lately, what were they tinkering with?

However, as the saying goes, as long as it didn't interfere with training, she couldn't be bothered to ask.

The situation down the mountain was dire; the continuous power outage had drained the last bit of vitality from the modern metropolis.

All elevators had stopped running, water pumps had failed, and high-rise residential buildings had turned into giant concrete coffins.

In the first few days, people could still survive by relying on the little remaining food and bottled water in their homes.

Families with natural gas could still cook some food, but it didn't last two days before the natural gas supply was also cut off.

At this point, every household could only eat instant noodles dry and drink some water to stave off hunger.

The rising water level outside made the idea of going out to find food a luxury.

Dampness, hunger, darkness, and the zombies that might break through the door at any moment tormented everyone's nerves.

Just on the verge of the collapse of civilized order, the authorities finally stopped limiting rescue efforts to simple search and transfer operations.

They traveled through the heavy rain, waving flags stuck together into a strip, holding loudspeakers and calling out to one residential complex after another.

This time, it was to announce the news of delivering supplies.

When their boats approached, risking entanglement with debris and zombie attacks, the people with green eyes would erupt into a commotion.

There was no other way; they could only throw the supplies in through the windows.

However, supplies were very limited.

Usually, it was just a few servings of compressed biscuits, accompanied by a small amount of bottled water.

Fortunately, they also gave each household an alcohol stove and a few pieces of precious solid alcohol.

These were things they often looked down upon before.

But at the current moment, they could be used to cook some food to fill their stomachs.

However, Qi Yin knew that the authorities had underestimated human nature.

In extreme environments, human nature is exposed without reservation.

The moment many people received the supplies, they didn't think about how to make them last; instead, they acted like starving beasts, tearing open the packaging and gorging themselves.

The alcohol stoves were not saved for times of crisis, and the fuel was quickly consumed.

There were always people who thought that once they finished eating, the authorities would send more.

But they didn't know that every adventurous delivery meant the rapid consumption of manpower and resources.

Supplies would eventually run out one day.

Through the lens, Qi Yin saw that in the shabby house of the three members of the Qi Family, even though the walls were covered in mildew, they still hadn't realized the crisis was coming.

The area below the second floor of the complex had already been submerged, and the bachelor uncle on the first floor had disappeared without a trace.

Auntie Shi on the second floor was huddled in a corner of the stairwell with her young grandson.

They had begged and pleaded, but no one took pity on them to give them a sip of water or a bite of food.

The two of them had now been hungry for three days.

"Grandma, I'm hungry!" The little grandson's face was pale, his voice weak.

But what could the old lady do?

Qi Ming looked at the brand-new alcohol stove and food in his neighbor's hands, and that despicable thought crept into his mind.

It was time to sell those expired instant noodles, bread, and biscuits he had bought at a low price in the storage room.

His injuries hadn't healed yet, but his movements were fast.

Taking advantage of the time when everyone gathered to collect supplies, he advertised his "little shop."

"I have some convenient food here; the highest bidder gets it."

Once this news came out, it was like throwing a giant rock into stagnant water.

At first, no one believed it.

But the next time Qi Ming appeared carrying several packs of instant noodles and biscuits, hunger overcame reason.

For a time, people kept coming to the sixth floor to inquire.

However, Qi Ming's heart was even blacker than the previous shopkeeper's.

For instant noodles that cost three yuan a pack before the Apocalypse, he charged a hundred times the price, 300 yuan, or an equivalent value in gold and jewelry.

And the alcohol stoves he had traded away before—now, if they wanted to buy them back, the price was astronomical.

Even though this residential complex was full of poor people, he knew for sure that these people were desperate.

Everyone was angry but dared not speak out.

For the first two days, business was surprisingly good.

Upstairs and downstairs, those neighbors trapped at home and running out of supplies naturally spared no effort to take out their hidden savings to trade in order to survive.

Even Auntie Shi, for the sake of her little grandson, traded her ancestral bracelet with Qi Ming for a box of bread and biscuits.

Qi Ming looked at the wealth gradually accumulating in his hands, and a twisted smile appeared on his face.

Even Qi Mingyuan was immersed in the fantasy of an impending comeback.

Lu Yingman tried to stop them, feeling that this was committing a sin, but she was rudely roared back by the father and son.

"Not sell? If we don't sell, what will we eat? Wait for death?"

Lu Yingman spoke timidly: "But, what will we eat after we sell it all?"

"There's still so much, what are you afraid of?"

Saying this, Qi Ming went back to counting his wealth.

Watching these scenes, Qi Yin curled her lips in a cold sneer.

Qi Ming probably didn't know the principle that flaunting wealth invites disaster.

Sure enough, as she had expected, Qi Ming's sudden "fortune" was soon targeted again by Zhang Da and Zhang Er on the fourth floor.