CHAPTER 198: CHAPTER 196 SISTERS’ TALK

"Sis, here you go." Mo Qingxin handed a can that had been warmed on the ground-source heat pump’s hot water pipe to Mo Qingyan, while opening her own and asking, "Sis, why are you unwilling to move to A-Xin’s place?"

"A-Xin doesn’t owe us anything, he’s helped us so much, wouldn’t you feel guilty living at his place?" Mo Qingyan glanced at her sister and opened the can in her hand.

Due to the external power outage, they could only rely on the electricity generated by the ground-source heat pump for lighting and use the heat from the hot water pipes to warm their canned food.

Fortunately, the canned food was already cooked and only needed heating, not a complete cook-through.

While eating the canned food, Mo Qingyan asked her sister, "Xiaoxin, how many cans do we have left at home?"

"We have about seven boxes of luncheon meat, four and a half boxes of pork, and twelve boxes of other canned foods. Just the two of us, it’s enough for more than half a year." Mo Qingxin had just counted the supplies, so when Mo Qingyan asked, she immediately reported their current supplies: "As for wine, we have eight boxes left, and with your bottled collection, we have enough to trade for food to last us."

Hearing that they still had enough food, Mo Qingyan nodded knowingly and said nothing more, just silently continued eating the canned food.

Mo Qingxin seemed to find the atmosphere a bit dull, so she asked Mo Qingyan, "Sis, why do you think there’s a power outage across the city this time? Wasn’t everything fine before? Suddenly restricting power usage, could something have happened?"

"It’s probably a coal supply issue." Even if Mo Qingyan wasn’t sure what happened, she could make a pretty accurate guess: "Now all of the city’s power relies on burning coal at the power plant. With insufficient power, it can only mean there’s a problem with the coal supply."

"Ah? What do we do then? Is it going to be like this from now on?" Mo Qingxin couldn’t help but worry.

Though it’s been more than half a year since the apocalypse hit, she’s gradually gotten used to the current lifestyle. But she’s always been living in their family’s private refuge with Mo Qingyan, where the living conditions aren’t bad, even barely experiencing the hardships of post-apocalyptic life.

But now, due to the power outage, their refuge’s original electrical appliances were mostly unusable. They could only rely on the ground-source heat pump that Chen Xin installed for heating and lighting, significantly lowering her quality of life.

Undoubtedly, this made Mo Qingxin quite uncomfortable.

This is actually one of the effects of having a cozy private refuge because they made sufficient preparations before the apocalypse, so they could maintain a relatively high living standard post-apocalypse.

Under such conditions, people living in private refuges actually don’t feel the struggle for survival during the apocalypse.

Because they had ample preparations, ensuring food, water, and various supplies, it’s as if nothing changed compared to pre-apocalypse, as long as they don’t leave home.

Of course, if preparations weren’t thorough, like Mo Qingyan’s case without a generator and well, relying on external power and water supply, once cut off, it would be a tremendous blow to her private refuge.

Their quality of life would quickly decline, making them truly experience the hardships of post-apocalyptic survival.

However, because of the ground-source heat pump and aquaponics system Chen Xin delivered to Mo Qingyan, their survival conditions weren’t too bad.

This entire setup could provide various necessary survival conditions like heating, food, and lighting. And if they don’t mind, it could even provide drinking water, so maintaining survival for two people isn’t a problem at all.

It was just that they had been quite comfortable before, so adjusting to this situation was a bit difficult for Mo Qingxin, still hoping to live a little more comfortably.

"Better get used to it quickly, the days ahead...who can say for sure? It might get tougher and tougher." Mo Qingyan shook her head and poured the last bit of broth from the can into her mouth, "Although they say this is a temporary power limit, who knows what might happen in the future? If it happens again later, Xiaoxin, you’ll need to adapt to surviving in harsh conditions."

Hearing this, Mo Qingxin lowered her head as well. She knew she had to adapt to the current living conditions, or even worse survival conditions and environments, but she couldn’t adjust quickly.

After the meal, due to the lack of electricity, the computer and game console that the sisters used to play were temporarily out of use. So, they had no choice but to sit together under the additional lighting from the aquaponics system and chat.

"Sis, what do you think caused this power outage?" Mo Qingxin was still very curious about this sudden power outage and wanted to know the root cause of it.

Even if she didn’t know the exact situation, it wasn’t hard for Mo Qingyan to guess: "Power plant restrictions can only mean the generators are damaged or there’s a coal shortage, and these are controlled by the country. Pre-disaster, they must have had plans in place, so for the past six months, there hasn’t been any issue. Now there’s suddenly a problem, either someone is sabotaging, or someone is causing trouble somewhere."

"Huh? How insane would someone have to be to cause trouble at a time like this?" Mo Qingxin clearly hadn’t considered such a thing, finding it hard to comprehend why anyone would want to stir trouble and sabotage in an apocalyptic environment: "Even if they succeed, what good would it do? Not to mention being wiped out by the military, if the country blocks external supplies, everyone would starve!"

For issues that even her own sister could think of, Mo Qingyan just shrugged and casually said, "If they could think of those things, they wouldn’t cause trouble. Honestly, for those people, they don’t care about others’ lives; they’re only interested in achieving their unspeakable goals.

Besides, don’t expect too much from those people’s intelligence. Remember when you interned at the hospital, those people who came to you with self-diagnoses from online searches? Last year there were people in the Federation who believed the so-called national leader’s claim that injecting disinfectant could kill the virus. Do you think those people are smart?"

"But, but... this is Flame Country! Causing trouble and sabotaging here, do they think the military won’t act quickly enough?" Mo Qingxin still couldn’t understand, even if some people weren’t particularly bright or were blinded by self-interest, shouldn’t they at least see the stark difference in force?

Mo Qingyan couldn’t help but smile sarcastically at this question: "Before, when writing a novel, Shicai had Alan help him research how many people declared themselves emperors since the country’s founding, can you guess the number?"

"Are you serious? Sis, are you saying after founding the country?" Mo Qingxin looked deeply shocked, unable to imagine that there’d still be people attempting to restore the monarchy after the founding of Flame Country.

"Yes, after the country’s founding, according to Alan’s research, from the country’s founding to now, there have been all sorts of self-declared emperors, at least dozens, from the early days of the country’s founding to the 90s." Mo Qingyan said, noticing the disbelief on her sister’s face and laughing as she elaborated, "Some of them were just ignorant peasants wanting to play emperor, stirring up a few relatives and friends. Others actually rallied hundreds of people to cause trouble in county towns and even brought out the army to suppress them. There were some that lasted several years without being dealt with because of isolated transportation...

Counting them all, even those with detailed online records total more than a dozen. The most recent one was just last year, declaring the establishment of some federation in a foreign hotel, electing himself as the supreme leader... Once people have ambition, their minds don’t work the same."

Mo Qingyan told it like a joke, but Mo Qingxin felt her worldview was being overturned.

Even though over seventy years have passed since Flame Country’s establishment and the last emperor has been dead for over half a century, she couldn’t believe there were still people with thoughts of restoring the monarchy.

This made it hard to imagine what these people could be thinking.

But since individuals like that exist, it’s not surprising there are people looking to exploit the apocalypse for chaos and destruction.

And frankly speaking, with current transportation difficulties, blowing up railways effectively cuts off transportation, blocking external supplies while simultaneously isolating cities from external contact.

Excluding external influences, if a small place like a county wants to cause trouble or sabotage, their chances of success aren’t small.

Thinking of this, Mo Qingxin couldn’t help but agree with her sister’s judgment, believing that someone was indeed sabotaging.

The sisters didn’t continue discussing the topic, once again lapsing into silence.

Mo Qingyan stood up to clean the empty cans from their meal with some water, putting them aside. These metal cans are quite useful in the apocalypse, whether for storing things or crafting something, they’re good options.

However, Mo Qingyan didn’t have Chen Xin’s hands-on skills nor systematic assistance, so for her, these cans were just accumulated supplies, perhaps to be traded for something else.

While Mo Qingyan was thinking about what to do with the cans, Mo Qingxin suddenly asked her, "Sis, if mom and dad were still around, what would they say seeing us like this?"

"Dad would definitely be worried about whether we’re eating and living well..." With the mention of their parents, Mo Qingyan’s expression shifted subtly: "As for mom... she’d probably still complain that we’re both bad investments for not being married yet, right?"