Chapter 14: Defeating Magic with Magic

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Chapter 14: Defeat Magic with Magic

By the afternoon of the fifth day, the snow had risen to just below the second-floor windows, and the residents on the second floor were beginning to panic.

On top of that, many households had already run out of drinking water.

The owner of Apartment 901 tagged everyone in the group chat:

“Does anyone have extra water?”

No one replied.

901 had been the first to share his water with everyone else, but now the people who had taken it from him were all silent.

The representative of the fourth floor said, “I noticed there’s a gap in the entrance door. Why don’t we fill some buckets with snow, boil it, and drink it?”

The owner of 901 replied, “I never even drank tap water before. Snow is too filthy. I’ll pay for water. If anyone still has any, I’ll pay five hundred yuan per bottle of mineral water. Message me privately.”

After that, the group chat fell silent.

Gu Pan looked at Lu Ruisheng. “Do you think anyone will sell?”

“There probably will be,” Lu Ruisheng said. “Most people still don’t understand how precious clean water is.”

“That’s true. They also don’t know that money will soon become useless—not even their phones will work.”

“I can imagine how difficult things must have been for us in our previous life. At this point back then, we knew nothing too. We must have still been holding on to hope, right?”

“Yes. We kept hoping the snow disaster would end. It wasn’t until the power went out and the internet stopped working that we began to realize something was wrong. But even then, we still clung to hope. It wasn’t until we saw people looting everywhere, killing others without anyone intervening, that we truly felt the apocalypse had arrived.”

Over the next two days, the group chat was filled with endless complaints about the inconveniences of eating, drinking, and daily life. Gu Pan and Lu Ruisheng said nothing. They merely checked the messages at regular intervals; as long as nothing major had happened, that was enough.

In the mornings, Gu Pan did basic fitness exercises. In the afternoons, she studied self-defense with Lu Ruisheng under the system’s instruction. She had gained some experience during the three years she had struggled through the apocalypse in her previous life, so she learned quickly. She was even able to spar with Lu Ruisheng. Though she had no chance of defeating him, practicing against him allowed her to improve rapidly.

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By the eighth day, the two families from the first floor had moved into the corridor on the fourth floor. Although the windows on the second floor had also been sealed by snow, those residents were still holding out and had not moved.

The fourth floor belonged to the building representative’s family. He had even threaded an electric cable through the crack beneath their door so they could use electric blankets, making things relatively peaceful.

The two families from the first floor consisted of seven people in total. They were all staying on the fourth floor, where having more people meant they could keep one another warm.

Today, many people began complaining that they had no food left at home. More than a week had passed, so this stage had been inevitable. During the previous two days, people had still been exchanging food in the group chat, but now everyone had begun worrying about going hungry the following day.

For the past two days, most families had been dividing one meal into three, but even that was no longer enough. Vegetables and fruit, in particular, had almost completely disappeared. In this age, going several days without either was genuinely difficult to get used to.

The owner of Apartment 501 kept playing the victim, claiming that her grandson was still young and needed a balanced diet. She begged for food everywhere.

Some people felt that the old woman and child really were pitiful. No matter what they had, they would somehow squeeze out a little and give it to her.

Gu Pan found the woman from 501 irritating whenever she saw her. In her previous life, she had begged for supplies in exactly the same way. In the end, while everyone else was starving, she still had plenty of food, including a large amount of frozen vegetables. That proved she had possessed substantial reserves all along, yet she had continued exploiting other people’s sympathy, scraping food from between their teeth for herself.

But this was the apocalypse. Gu Pan had never intended to play the self-sacrificing saint. Other people’s affairs were none of her concern, so long as they did not involve her.

Sometimes, however, you might not want trouble, but trouble would still come looking for you.

That evening, the owner of 501 suddenly posted in the group chat:

“On the night before the snow started, I saw someone from the seventh floor moving things in the parking lot. They looked like bags of rice and flour—several of them. If they bought so much, couldn’t they distribute some to every household? Then everyone would have enough to eat.”

There was nothing strange about the old woman noticing such things. She loved gossiping and prying into other people’s private affairs. She more or less knew which floor everyone lived on and what they did. It had been exceptionally cold that day, though, and hardly anyone had gone outside. Who would have thought she could still find a way to stir up trouble?

Gu Pan looked at Lu Ruisheng. “We need to go to the neighbors across the hall.”

Lu Ruisheng naturally understood what his wife meant. If the neighbors admitted that they had stockpiled food, they would be in trouble.

They hurried out. Just as they were about to knock, Chen Shaonan opened the door. Seeing them, he immediately invited them inside.

There was no electric heater in Chen Shaonan’s home, so it was quite cold.

Wrapping the blanket more tightly around herself, Gu Pan got straight to the point. “Teacher Chen, we don’t want to distribute our food. First, no one knows when the snow will stop or whether things will return to normal afterward, or when food will become available again. Second, if what we give out isn’t divided equally, people may end up resenting us. Finally, some people may simply enjoy stockpiling supplies and might actually have more than we do. You may think we’re being selfish, but…”

“You’re right. This isn’t selfish. I was just about to come find you and say the same thing. Since that’s the case, let’s think of a way to make them stop targeting us.”

Chen Shaonan let out a sigh of relief and spoke with firm conviction.

Both Gu Pan and Lu Ruisheng were genuinely surprised. Chen Shaonan’s attitude was so resolute that they wondered whether he, too, had been reborn.

The two of them instinctively looked around the apartment, wondering whether it was packed with supplies. But then they reconsidered. If the couple had stockpiled a large amount of food, would they really have let outsiders enter so casually?

At that moment, Duan Shumei spoke up. “To be honest, the two of us used to be overly kindhearted and ended up losing our jobs because of it. We can tell you about that another time. For now, let’s discuss how to deal with this.”

Gu Pan and Lu Ruisheng truly had not expected things to develop this way, but for them, it was a good turn of events.

Lu Ruisheng said, “We have several bags of cement and sand at home. I’ll take a picture in a moment and say that Teacher Chen helped me carry them upstairs a few days ago. I do renovation work, and I’ve been saying I want to build a turtle pond on the balcony. It’ll sound perfectly reasonable.”

Chen Shaonan nodded. “All right. Go back and take the picture. I’ll say exactly that in the group chat.”

Gu Pan and Lu Ruisheng agreed, then returned home.

Once inside, Gu Pan took some sand and cement out of her storage space and photographed them on the balcony.

By then, Chen Shaonan had already posted in the group chat:

“The day before the snow started, I did help the neighbors across the hall move some things, but they weren’t rice or flour. They were cement and sand. He works in home renovation and said he wanted to build a pond on the balcony to raise turtles.”

The owner of 501 replied:

“Oh, please. You just don’t want to share your food with the rest of us, do you? Raising turtles? Who are you trying to fool?”

The representative of the fourth floor said:

“At a time like this, everyone must stand together and help one another. To the two residents on the seventh floor: if you really have food, bring it out and help everyone through this emergency. Once the disaster is over, everyone will be grateful to you.”

Gu Pan posted the freshly taken photographs.

“It really is cement and sand. I’ll put them outside the door shortly. Whoever wants them can come and take them.”

After that, she posted another message:

“I remember hearing the owner of 501 tell someone before that she had two refrigerators full of frozen vegetables and fruit. She said they were cheap in summer and expensive in winter, so she stockpiled them this way every year. I imagine their household must have quite a lot of food. Why don’t you investigate properly, Building Representative? Find out which households are eating the most and decide how to distribute everything. That way, everyone can see how fair you really are.”

End of Chapter

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