No wonder they’re called the Three Delicacies of the Snack Street—they really do taste great.

Yu Xifeng spent several days preparing six boxes of these three kinds of snacks. Each box could hold sixty takeout containers, making it a total of 120 per box.

Over these days, all the eggs stored in her space had been used up, and she had even added more out of her own pocket.

Yu Xifeng thought she should hatch another batch of chicks.

The three ducklings that had hatched earlier were growing quickly under the care of their hen-mother. They were now fully feathered.

Yu Xifeng wasn’t exactly sure what breed the ducks were, but there was a row of blue feathers on their wings—absolutely beautiful.

As for the goose egg, Yu Xifeng had been diligently turning it over following the instructions from the incubator manual. It was significantly larger than a chicken egg, and even holding it in one hand was a challenge. But there had been no signs of hatching.

Eventually, Yu Xifeng gave up hope and left it alone.

Between boiling noodles, steaming rice, and making steamed cakes, she also brewed several big pots of hot milk tea and brought a cup to Sister Yun.

Sister Yun told her that someone had jumped from a building in the community.

The person had jumped from the thirteenth floor. When found, the blood had frozen into ice on the ground.

Neighbors who went into his home discovered it was already empty.

He had burned all the furniture to keep warm. Everything burnable had been burned. Only a few long-defunct appliances were left.

The place was desolate.

Nowadays, many people walk long distances during the day just to scavenge things to burn.

The nearby trees had all been chopped down. Even the flammable paper in the library had been taken.

Even the plastic billboards hadn’t been spared.

Burning that plastic released a choking black smoke—rumored to be toxic.

Two households in the community had already died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

The community broadcast reminded people every day.

But it was too cold. No one wanted to open a window for ventilation. Driven by a sense of luck, several entire families had been wiped out—finally scaring others into behaving.

Taking advantage of the warmer midday temperatures, Sister Yun went out to gather information about the shelters.

She had her own connections, but unless she made an effort, no one was going to hand over information on a silver platter.

She followed Yu Xifeng’s lead and asked around, even went to see the underground shelters herself.

The more she found out, the more alarmed she became.

Although the listed price for the underground shelter units wasn’t high, there was simply no supply.

She gritted her teeth and offered up half her household’s food stores, but the other side still remained vague and evasive, unwilling to commit.

They weren’t rejecting her outright—it’s just that what she offered was far below the actual market value.

With her connections and resources, she couldn’t get into the inner circle of the underground shelter.

They told her, had she come a month earlier, she might have been able to reserve a unit.

Now? It wasn’t that there were absolutely no units left, but too many people were eyeing the available ones—there was simply no room to maneuver.

Those single-room units were impossible to get. Even if she sold everything, she couldn’t afford one.

They were completely out of her reach.

Sister Yun gave up on trying to squeeze into the inner circle and started working on securing a good spot in the outer circle.

Preferably with friends—there’s safety in numbers, and in chaos, people could look after one another.

She didn’t hesitate any longer and asked a friend to help register her name for a spot in the outer circle. As soon as anything opened up, they would slot her in.

But the attitude from the shelter was unsettling.

The natural disaster was also proving to be more severe than she had imagined.

Xu Yun decided she needed more bargaining chips.

She bought a batch of fuel from the market at a high price. If the temperature dropped any further, the price of fuel would only continue to rise.

She spent almost all of her usable resources on that batch of fuel.

Before buying, she consulted with Yu Xifeng, who also ordered a batch—and paid with more than 2000 grams of gold.

Yu Xifeng handed over the gold without blinking. At that moment, Sister Yun finally understood how she’d managed to get a unit in the inner circle.

So that’s what it was—just throwing money at it.

The rich really are enviable.

The three households had long acted as a unit, so Sister Yun also asked Hu Qiangyong.

After the major cold wave, Hu’s mother fell seriously ill.

Zhao Yao was heartbroken while preparing her medicine. These days, even a packet of medicine cost more than gold.

But fuel was even more precious. Many people had money but still couldn’t buy any—let alone manage to bring it home.

Hu Qiangyong’s family didn’t have much savings.

If he hadn’t followed Sister Yun and Yu Xifeng’s lead and bought that large batch of rice back then, their household might’ve already run out of food.

Hu Qiangyong asked for only a small amount of fuel. What he offered in return wasn’t even a fraction of what Yu Xifeng paid.

He only got in on the deal because of their past relationship.

But Zhao Yao didn’t understand that.

Or maybe she did—she just refused to accept it.

Before the cold wave hit, Zhao Yao had opposed Hu Qiangyong using most of their savings to buy rice. It was Hu’s mother who insisted on it.

Zhao Yao had originally been waiting to see her mother-in-law fail.

That woman had always held onto the family finances too tightly, and Zhao Yao resented her for it.

Now that the price of rice was still rising, and there was less and less on the market, Zhao Yao felt secretly grateful—but also unsettled.

With nothing much to do during the cold days, she would drag a chair to the doorway and eavesdrop on the neighbors.

Yu Xifeng had come to see Xu Yun.

Xu Yun also regularly dropped by Yu Xifeng’s place.

She always brought either dried vegetables or fresh mushrooms—and Zhao Yao even saw a battery pack in Yu Xifeng’s hand.

Who even had electricity anymore? Zhao Yao had heard Hu Qiangyong mention that electricity, if available, sold at sky-high prices now.

She was jealous of Yu Xifeng’s battery pack.

She brought some dried vegetables to Yu Xifeng’s place too.

But while Yu Xifeng had given Sister Yun a battery for free, she refused to give one to Zhao Yao.

Only three households lived on the 15th floor, and Zhao Yao felt that her family—with more people and greater prospects—was far superior to the other two households of solitary women.

Every time she went out, she believed it was thanks to her husband’s effort.

Even though she had seen Yu Xifeng’s skills and knew that Xu Yun had connections, she couldn’t help but believe that those two women still needed to rely on her family more.

Xu Yun was a widow, and Yu Xifeng was still so young. Seeing them live better than her made Zhao Yao uncomfortable.

That feeling crept into her tone and actions.

Yu Xifeng gradually distanced herself from Zhao Yao, and stopped mentioning Hu Qiangyong as well.

Zhao Yao didn’t see this as her own fault—she just thought Yu Xifeng was aloof by nature.

After all, Yu Xifeng had even turned away her own biological father. She must be cold-hearted.

The community was reclaiming vacant housing, and Zhao Yao was terrified.

She had heard that Yu Xifeng’s father worked in the community office.

If they had helped out Yang Rong when he was staying at their door, they could’ve asked him for help now.

She resented Yu Xifeng for it.

If she hadn’t been so heartless and indifferent to her own relatives, Zhao Yao’s family wouldn’t be in this helpless position.

Yu Xifeng saw right through Zhao Yao’s thoughts, and gave up on trying to explain.

Talking to someone like that was exhausting. The more she said, the more Zhao Yao would believe she had ulterior motives.

Why bother? Better to spend that time steaming more rice cakes.

At the community center.

Yang Rong was compiling data, holding a stack of forms detailing the current occupancy of each unit.

He glanced around, pulled one sheet from the pile, crumpled it up, and tossed it in the trash.

Then he rewrote it—this time, listing himself as the resident of Unit 1501, Building 1.