CHAPTER 137: SMALL EXCHANGE MEETING

Zhang Lingling was the class president during Jing Shu’s high school years. Although her academic performance was average, her family was in business, so she was quite tactful in communication and possessed good organizational skills. However, she also had a strong desire to control others, enjoying the process of giving orders.

In 2018, she had set up a WeChat group for classmates, but it dissolved after she had a dispute with one of them. Everyone went their separate ways with little contact thereafter.

Jing Shu’s memories were unearthed again. She recalled little about the high school classmates’ group from her previous life, only that after some unpleasant incidents, she had left it. She hadn’t had the time to pay attention to the daily clamor in the group anyway.

After all, at that time in her previous life, she was preoccupied with making a living.

Her favorite salted Five Grain Worm were no longer an option due to water shortages. When the electricity came on in the afternoons, she would rush to charge her devices and boil water. Then, as the temperature dropped, she would go out in her greasy quilted jacket to look for branches and trunks, exhausting herself to exchange them for a bottle of water and bring home dinner for her family. At 7 PM, she would watch the news broadcast to check the latest policies and to find out when the darkness would end and dawn would arrive.

At night, she still went to abandoned factories and former shopping malls to look for useful items. She would also dig in foul-smelling ditches for rotten corpse insects to breed maggots. By the time she finished, the night had passed. She would then wrap herself in a Quilt and rush to sleep at home because it was impossible to sleep during the day when temperatures reached 50°C; every movement burned calories.

The years before the apocalypse were better; at least she had electricity for a while each day to charge her cell phone. But as the apocalypse migration began, where would electricity come from? Even if there was electricity, the signal was unstable, as signal towers and power lines also required maintenance.

Starting next year, the daily electricity supply would be further reduced to half an hour, sometimes not even enough to fully charge a phone.

"Boiling frogs in warm water" is terrifying; everything slowly vanishes until you suddenly realize you’ve miraculously survived.

So Jing Shu didn’t have much time for the classmate group in her past life.

Wang Chao: "Why doesn’t everyone just pop up and we’ll see? So many people I haven’t seen for a long time. Right, we can also check the step counts on WeChat in the group. Those who have 0 all the time are probably dead."

Mu Xiaoxuan: "Zhang Lingling, you still had her number, and now you’ve pulled her back in! Speaking of the apocalypse, let’s bury the hatchet. When are we getting together? It’s been five years since we graduated from high school. Where is everyone?"

Shi Lei: "Come on, let’s have some fun! We’ve got plenty of time for it now."

Nima Sang: "Need a wedding car? The kind that hikes the price en route. Need insurance? The kind where you pay 60,000 and get 50,000 back. Need a house? The kind worth 260,000 exchanged for gifts. Need me? I can do a 180° rotation. Order now and get an unborn child as a bonus, fulfilling your dream of becoming a father!"

Nima Sang was the only girl in the class who got along exceptionally well with the boys but was disliked by the other girls.

He Shouwu: "That’s nothing. My girlfriend can rotate 360° with no blind spots, is on call, can be quick or slow, three or four times a day without resisting or getting angry, and doesn’t demand a purse. I can beat and scold her as I please without her making a peep."

He Shouwu, whose real name was Polygonum multiflorum, supposedly came from a family that grew medicinal herbs. To cover his school fees in high school, he had painfully sold a ginseng, only to discover after graduation that his family possessed ginsengs aged from one to a hundred years.

He was a typical homebody, a Taurus, who would often make lewd jokes at the slightest provocation, saying things like, "Let this old pro show you the ropes."

Nima Sang: "You win."

Su Malie asked curiously, "Who’s that? Sounds amazing?"

Jing Shu squinted at the ID ’Maria,’ unsure of what to say. She really didn’t want to mention this person and shook her head vehemently. In this life, she would stay as far away from her as possible; this was the one person Jing Shu would give a wide berth to.

He Shouwu: "My right hand!" he typed, adding a smug emoji.

Su Malie: "???"

He Shouwu: "You really don’t get it?" he typed, adding a shocked emoji.

Nima Sang: "Yo, our class beauty is still so innocent."

Seeing that the chat group was as clamorous as in her previous life, Jing Shu was about to close it and go dry some Dried Vegetables, but a remark by Zhang Lingling genuinely caught her attention.

Zhang Lingling said, "This time, gathering everyone in the group isn’t just for old times’ sake; I also want to consolidate the resources within our group. Recently, due to severe inflation, small businesses have seen their merchandise come to a complete standstill."

"Although big data indicates that a barter market will open next year, our little group can get a small one started. After all, it’s incredibly difficult to get anything these days. I remember many in our group have families that run small supermarkets or wholesale businesses, right?"

"How about this: let’s find a time to meet, confirm which classmates are still alive, and then see what each of us has to trade. Let’s set up a small exchange market, shall we?"

He Shouwu was the first to speak up, "I was thinking the exact same thing. My family still has a small amount of Wind Oil Essence, floral water, and medicine for heatstroke, colds, and fevers. I want to exchange them for ceramic tiles, thermal bricks, and other Construction Materials needed for building a basement."

Liang Xin: "My family runs a hardware store. We’ll trade for water or food."

Shi Lei: "My family has ceramic tiles, but we need to trade for water."

Yao Zixin: "My family deals in PVC plastics, customizable. We’ll trade for water."

Wang Chao: "With such a severe water shortage, who would trade water for plastic..."

Yao Zixin: "Exactly," he typed, adding a tearful emoji. "Everyone else’s supplies were requisitioned by the government, but no one has shown any interest in ours. We have a huge pile of materials that are about to go to waste."

Jing Shu considered it; she really did need custom PVC plastic. For one thing, by the second year, if the tempered glass dome wasn’t properly covered, the soil underneath would be exposed to the elements and prying eyes. And she couldn’t waste all those red earthworms either. Red earthworms could be mixed with egg liquid and vegetable leaves for chickens, ducks, cows, and pigs, making a delicious meal for these animals, saving a lot of feed, and also feeding the fish in the pond. Therefore, customized PVC plastic was essential, not only to cover the villa but also to create slopes and integrated pipelines in every corner. She planned to construct a huge Rainwater Collection Box next to the villa. When it rained, both the rain and the red earthworms would flow into the box via the pipelines. When she needed to feed the fowl, she could just scoop them up. If the box filled up, she wasn’t worried; she could still pack up the red earthworms and trade them for work points. If worst came to worst, there was still the big eater, ID number 1. The benefits included concealing the villa, automatically collecting red earthworms, and initially filtering out the vast majority of them outside the villa. Any few that managed to get in would still be blocked by the tempered glass. Plus, looking up and seeing all those crawling insects twisting around was bound to be uncomfortable. Setting up such a covering on the tempered glass was quite necessary and wouldn’t cost much.

In recent days, Mr. Jing and Mr. Jing had also finished constructing the cover for the garage. That would need to be covered as well; otherwise, it would be disgusting if red earthworms crawled into the garage later.

Jing Shu: "@Yao Zixin, I need PVC plastic. I’ll trade water for it. Add me as a friend to discuss the details."

Nima Sang: "He barely finishes saying no one wants it, and you jump in. Do you have a crush on him? Back in high school, I always thought you had a thing for Yao Zixin. After all, he was the school heartthrob and so handsome."