People who lived in the apartnts of Banana District owned at least one or two properties in the city. It was normal for a single apartnt to house about a dozen people, unless soone was wealthy and influential enough to have a whole apartnt to themselves.
The bare-shell apartnts were rudintary, with doors long since pried off and exchanged for work points. They contained nothing but a lightbulb. There were no blankets or clothes; many people had been wearing damp clothes for days.
Well, don’t even think about having dry clothes this year. Even if clothes finally dried after days of not touching water, they would still get moldy. One had to choose between moldy clothes and wet clothes.
Imagine so people were even assigned to the eighteenth floor; climbing stairs daily wasn’t just an inconvenience but also a waste of physical energy and food.
"Let’s go. Let’s go check the basent."
Although Banana District had only one underground parking level, the basent area was as large as the district itself. It contained more than 4,000 parking spaces, which were then converted to accommodate 4,000 families. The basent of Banana District alone housed over 10,000 people.
Once again in this life, Da Jingshu encountered the familiar scene from her past life.
The vast, empty basent was already as lively as a marketplace. The areas beneath Buildings 6, 7, and 8 were fully occupied. Under the ergency lights, one could see people: so were bald or curled up asleep, others sat on the ground with vacant stares, and so were fighting over a single plank of wood. There were also loud shouts, crying, and quarreling.
Grandma Jing was frightened by this sight.
What were once car parking spaces, now eight-square-ter areas, housed as many as six people in so, and at least two in others. Signs with nas hung overhead, designating what were presumably their new hos.
The parking spaces were all filled with people, making it resemble the massive chaos of the Spring Festival travel rush. Oh, it was even more dreadful than that.
Since it was their first day moving in and their hos had been flooded, without luggage or blankets, it didn’t look too crowded yet.
Later on, so couples would engage in private matters; they’d use sheets, planks, and various other materials to screen off their parking spaces, creating a true ’ho,’ and others would follow suit.
Then, everyone would start scavenging through the floodwaters, picking up debris and anything else usable, filling each parking-space ’ho’ with all sorts of junk.
At that ti, the basent would beco so cluttered it would be difficult for anyone to pass through. Witnessing such living conditions would make one feel that life was worse than that of pigs and dogs.
"How pitiful. I wonder how they can sleep at night. Let’s go. Let’s go." Grandma Jing instantly lost interest.
Thousands of people were sleeping in an echoing basent where a single cough could travel far. There was the ceaseless stirring of people and the sounds of couples procreating—a tornt for the single individuals. Coupled with the cold nights, getting any sleep was impossible.
Today, it was just the first batch of people; tomorrow, even more would flood in. Wu City originally had a population of four million. Even if hundreds of thousands had died, many still awaited resettlent. What could be done? With limited housing, they simply had to cram them in.
Food and drink could be managed centrally, but as for sanitation... well, one had to watch where they stepped. While you couldn’t say the ground was littered with gold, it was certainly littered with sothing else. Even if many latrines were built, they couldn’t cope with the sheer volu of people.
After returning to their house, Grandma Jing vividly recounted everything she had seen and heard. "TSK, TSK. Those poor people. Thank goodness our house wasn’t flooded and we have enough food. Otherwise..." she trailed off, sighing.
Mr. Jing, tapping his tobacco pipe, said, "The water in the city isn’t receding either. The flood has reached places two kiloters away. I just hope it doesn’t spread to our area."
Mrs. Jing then asked Jing Shu, "Have you found the car chanic you were looking for? Our office wasn’t flooded, and we need to go to work. Now, while there’s plenty of rainwater, we should get busy planting vegetables."
In the afternoon, Jing Shu had relayed the situation to Wu You’ai. Wu You’ai’s ntor’s house had also been flooded, and the ntor was busy relocating, saying they would co over to take a look when they had ti.
During dinner that evening, Jing Shu briefly recounted the day’s events to Wu You’ai and Jing Gu. It frightened them, but luckily, nothing had happened at ho—it was just a false alarm.
"Mom, let Dad drive you to work in the Shark first; we can wait a bit for the new energy vehicle," Jing Shu suggested.
「...」
In the evening, Jing Shu practiced with the Magic Cube as usual. She discovered that she was gradually getting used to the Cube’s abrupt color changes. Having overco this step, she was one step closer to upgrading the Magic Cube.
That night, she finally had ti to nurture her two snakes. Jing Shu imdiately put the snakes into the Magic Cube Space and had them start ingesting from the Spiritual Spring, incidentally also cultivating her bond with them. Once the two Five-step Snakes were in the Space, they imdiately seed comfortable and beca much more lively.
If the First Form of the Magic Cube Space could simulate the most suitable living temperature and conditions for all creatures, then its Second Form could enhance the mutual perception between entities, greatly benefiting Jing Shu’s ability to build relationships with them.
The venom of the Five-step Snakes was still potent. Aiming to strengthen her future assets, Jing Shu decided to grant the snakes the Number 4 Spiritual Spring. Compared to bees, whose sudden BUZZING appearance was too conspicuous, two snakes appearing silently in the dark would likely go unnoticed—perfect for a stealth attack.
Given the most suitable temperature and humidity, snakes were prone to mate. With the assistance of the Spiritual Spring, it wouldn’t be long before there was a brood of Little Snakes. Jing Shu planned to eat so and use others to make dicinal wine; snake gall was also a prized ingredient.
Regarding venom extraction, her research indicated it was best to extract it every one to two months. However, with the nourishnt of the Spiritual Spring, Jing Shu decided to extract venom weekly and stockpile it for important future uses.
Thus, besides the Number 1 Fat Chickens and Number 6 Bell Horned Frogs, Jing Shu now also had the Number 4 Five-step Snakes.
Sotis, Jing Shu wondered if she should try to collect all of the legendary Five Poisons. That would be incredibly cool, wouldn’t it?
「...」
During the days of flooding, Jing Shu felt ti passing exceptionally slowly; she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for several days. That night—damn it, she still didn’t get a good night’s rest! She was nearly driven crazy by the sounds of prying and drilling coming from Mary’s house next door all night. Jing Shu really felt like hitting soone.
The next day, Jing Shu woke up with dark circles under her eyes. If the renovation noise continued that night, she wouldn’t hold back.
The villa, having been unoccupied for a few days without dehumidifiers running, had beco much damper. Grandma Jing was busy taking care of the livestock. After Jing Shu finished eating, she started on various dehumidifying tasks, while Mr. Jing put the dirty clothes into the washing machine to be washed and then dried.
Mrs. Jing had already gone to work.
Wu You’ai had also left early in the morning. Word was that Banana District was expecting about twenty visiting specialists. Once everyone was housed and settled, a new round of assignnts would begin.
Jinglai’s work location had changed. The Second Team had relocated to a comrcial building at the entrance of Banana District, so her future workplace would be there. Ai Family Supermarket had also moved to the ground floor of that comrcial building.
The Second Team had moved everything salvageable from the flooded Ai Family Supermarket. Still, a lot had been washed away. Now, even basic cooking equipnt was scarce; the governnt had also delivered a new batch of coal for cooking.
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