Chapter 100

In the evening, Yao Ruoyun finally woke up. After several days of a concussion and high fever, combined with yesterday’s explosion shock, she was completely drained. After opening her eyes, she still lay in bed, too weak to even sit up.

This hospital room had been converted from an office. The office wasn’t as large as a classroom, and with cloth curtains separating it, six beds had been set up in one room. The curtains on both sides of her bed were drawn, and Shu Fu was sitting on the chair beside her bed. From the nearby headboard, a faint fragrance of rice porridge could be detected.

Yao Ruoyun thought it might be her imagination, but when Shu Fu stood up, took out a brown paper bowl, and asked if she wanted some porridge, she looked over at the small wooden cabinet by the headboard. There was a foldable kettle and a large capacity power bank attached to it. The kettle was likely insulated, and the heating light was on. It wasn’t consuming much electricity but was slowly simmering the rice soup into porridge.

As Shu Fu opened the kettle, a stronger fragrance of the porridge filled the air.

“Is it really porridge?” Yao Ruoyun was astonished. Although she hadn’t gone hungry during the relocation with the rescue team, most of the time they had eaten ready-made dry food or semi-cooked instant rice.

Cooking porridge took too much time; it needed rice and water and required patience to simmer. Even if there was electricity or fire, it wasn’t very popular because porridge didn’t fill you up and was too bland. It wasn’t as satisfying as instant noodles.

But now, having just recovered from a serious illness, the aftermath of the concussion still lingered. She was clearly starving, with an empty stomach craving food, but just thinking about meat cans, instant noodles, or pre-cooked rice made her feel nauseous.

On the other hand, the light and subtle fragrance of this porridge made her eager to eat it. She made an effort to sit up and signaled that she could eat by herself.

Shu Fu only handed her a spoon, not the bowl, and sat on the edge of the bed, holding the bowl so she could slowly scoop and drink the porridge.

“Senior…” Yao Ruoyun took a few sips and noticed that Shu Fu was still holding the bowl. She felt both touched and guilty. “Senior, I’m causing you trouble again…”

“It’s fine, it’s not too much trouble,” Shu Fu smiled lightly at her. “The rice was bought from the service desk. The kettle and power bank are things I always carry. The doctor said you were just hungry, and once you eat something and regain your strength, you’ll get better. Hurry up and get better, so you can go to Zhicheng and find your parents.”

Yao Ruoyun nodded, not noticing that Shu Fu had said “you” instead of “we.”

She still didn’t know if she could leave Xiangzhou Province, so she couldn’t promise Yao Ruoyun anything. Everything had to wait until the mission was over.

The fragrance of the rice porridge filled the air, and the other patients in the room couldn’t sit still any longer. The curtain beside them was lifted, revealing the face of a middle-aged woman. Her gaze followed the fragrance of the porridge, first scanning the kettle on the small cabinet, before looking at Shu Fu and Yao Ruoyun. She smiled at them and asked if she could buy a bowl of porridge.

Yao Ruoyun instinctively wanted to refuse, but when she remembered that it was Shu Fu who had made the porridge, she fell silent and looked at her.

“Sorry,” Shu Fu directly refused, “I only made a small amount of porridge, and there’s not enough to share.”

The woman muttered that she wasn’t asking for a share but to buy it. Seeing that Shu Fu didn’t respond, she changed her request and asked to borrow the kettle. She looked at Yao Ruoyun and said that she and her son were both patients and in the same room, so she was just asking for a favor.

Yao Ruoyun already understood Shu Fu’s attitude and directly rejected, “Sorry, but I don’t like letting others use our things.”

The woman’s face darkened as she left, muttering about them being stingy and lacking compassion. “It’s just a kettle, what harm would it do to borrow it for a while?”

Yao Ruoyun felt a bit angry. How could they be criticized for not lending something just because they didn’t want to? Besides, although the clinic didn’t have the means to cook porridge, this was a county town. If she went to one of the nearby houses and paid, someone would be willing to cook and sell her porridge.

Before the woman came over, she had heard the mother and son whispering. The reason the woman wanted to borrow the kettle was likely because it was raining outside, cold and damp, and it was getting dark, so she didn’t want to go out.

Shu Fu, however, seemed to have not heard the complaint at all. She didn’t even blink as she placed the empty bowl on the cabinet and filled it with more porridge, offering it to Yao Ruoyun with a gesture for her to eat more if she could, saying it would help her recover.

On the other side of the curtain, the son who had broken his leg and had lost his appetite for days suddenly felt hungry at the smell of the porridge. When he saw his mother fail to get any, he began complaining. The middle-aged woman was so annoyed by him that she had no choice but to start putting on her coat and raincoat, planning to go to a nearby house to buy porridge.

However, not long after she went out, she rushed back in a panic. “Son! It’s hailing outside! I can’t get out. The rain’s turned to ice! The raincoat won’t hold up!”

“What are you talking about?”

Her son didn’t understand and didn’t believe her. What did she mean that the rain had turned to ice? What nonsense was that? Rain was rain, hail was hail. How could rain turn to ice?

Yao Ruoyun was also puzzled by what the middle-aged woman had meant by “the rain turning into ice,” but before she could think too much about it, Shu Fu suddenly stood up with a swift motion. She put down the bowl, lifted the curtain, and walked toward the window.

The windows in the office were quite large, and due to the occasional heavy rain, strong winds, and hail, when the space was converted into a hospital room, the glass was reinforced. Only a few narrow gaps remained, which couldn’t be opened, and with the curtain blocking them, people had long forgotten about the windows.

Although the glass was sealed with wooden planks, when she leaned close to the gaps, she could still clearly see the scene outside.

The evening on this rainy day was dark and gloomy, and the sky was almost black. The rain wasn’t heavy, and the wind wasn’t strong either, but just as the middle-aged woman had said, it was freezing rain.

As soon as the rain hit, it froze on the bare tree branches, the eaves, and the windowsills. The raindrops immediately turned into ice pellets, and as more rain fell, the ice pellets gradually turned into icicles hanging in place. Meanwhile, the once-clear window glass began to gradually ice over as water dripped from the wooden boards, and the freezing process was visible to the naked eye.

Yao Ruoyun was a bit worried. While trying to get out of bed, she asked, “What’s going on? Is it hail? It doesn’t sound like it.”

“It’s not hail, it’s freezing rain. There’s a serious freezing rain outside,” Shu Fu turned around, reached out to support Yao Ruoyun, who was slowly walking toward her. When she looked up, she noticed the white light strip flashing above Yao Ruoyun’s head.

At the same time, Shu Fu felt the vibration of her wristband.

[Task completed within five days at Wei First Clinic. Gained 20% progress for level 5 raft; received an additional 5% progress bonus; one roulette spin: 1 time. (Current progress for level 5 raft: 25%)]

This task had a high base progress, but the extra progress bonus was low, and the roulette spin was limited to just once.

One spin was too few, so she decided to wait until there were more spins available next time. Still, she was pleased to see the 25% progress for level 5 of the raft, as the task had not been too difficult.

Moreover, based on the task completion prompt, she could roughly deduce the key point of this mission—it was likely this freezing rain.

What would have happened if she hadn’t made it to Wei First Clinic within five days?

First of all, she and Yao Ruoyun would not have met. According to what Yao Ruoyun herself said, after waking up and hearing that her parents were in Zhicheng, her first reaction was to book a ticket. If she hadn’t been careless, she would have already been on the way to Gongmang County this afternoon.

Freezing rain turning into ice not only would snap trees and power poles, but it could even cause buildings already weakened by storms and hail to collapse. The ground would also quickly freeze, and driving on such icy mountain roads would be troublesome for vehicles.

So, was the task to keep Yao Ruoyun in Wei before the freezing rain hit?

But if she hadn’t come, Yao Ruoyun could have been injured in yesterday’s explosion and fallen into another long period of unconsciousness. If she had passed out, she likely wouldn’t have boarded the bus to Gongmang County this afternoon…

As night fell, the boiler heating hadn’t been repaired, and the nearby houses where survivors were living had their heating cut off as well.

A few locals in the county town had started burning firewood for warmth. However, finding dry wood these days was difficult, and many people resorted to chopping up tables and chairs to make a fire. Some survivors saw this and followed suit.

In contrast, the clinic was cold and damp, while the freezing rain outside was intensifying. The nearby ground was covered with ice, and many of the tree branches still standing were coated with icicles, with some branches already snapped by the weight of the ice.

Yao Ruoyun had officially been discharged from the hospital, changed out of her patient clothes, and put on the emergency cold-weather supplies provided by the rescue team. She went to the other building where Shu Fu had been assigned a bed to rest.

The emergency cold-weather supplies were pieced together from whatever could be found by the rescue team and army personnel in nearby vacant residential buildings. These included warm clothing, thermal pants, cotton jackets, and rain boots. The sizes were mismatched, and the clothes were old, but for Yao Ruoyun, who had nothing else, it was good enough to have something to wear.

In addition to the warm clothing and cotton jacket, she also put on a military coat. This coat had been given to her by a nurse when she first woke up and went to the service desk. Since there was no heating and the temperature was dropping, the nurse naturally didn’t ask for it back.

Even with the military coat on, Yao Ruoyun still felt cold. She didn’t know why—although it wasn’t snowing outside, and the temperature wasn’t particularly low, the thermometer in the hallway read minus 5 degrees, but she still felt cold. The damp chill seemed to seep through the seams of her clothes and into her body.

It wasn’t until Shu Fu took out a few special items: thick fleece socks and heat packs, that Yao Ruoyun began to feel warmth.

Although Yao Ruoyun was dressed more warmly than Shu Fu, her feet were cold because she was wearing regular rain boots and a pair of disposable socks. The cold in her feet made her entire body feel cold as well.

After she put on the fleece socks Shu Fu gave her, and placed heat packs inside and on her back, she quickly felt a relief, like soaking in hot water.

Once the cold-weather supplies were distributed, the rescue workers finally had some free hands and began to light fire pits.

Because it was an open flame, and the room was filled with fabric that might catch fire, and the wood used was cut from wooden furniture, it produced smoke when burning. So, it was placed in a ventilated corridor. Survivors, unable to tolerate the cold, moved chairs around it to warm themselves by the fire.

As the firewood burned, the temperature inside the room slowly rose. With the addition of fleece socks and heat packs, Yao Ruoyun was no longer cold.

“Senior, if it weren’t for you this time, I don’t know what I would have done…” At night, the two of them pushed the empty bed next to them together with Shu Fu’s bed. They wore all their clothes, put on hoods, and finally covered themselves with a blanket, intending to sleep through the night leaning on each other.

The white light strip above Yao Ruoyun’s head, just like the ones Chen Fa and Lu Zheng had experienced a few times before, flickered briefly. The difference was that her light strip was only one step away from being full, and she believed the awakening was imminent.

Shu Fu gently patted her arm that was around Yao Ruoyun and whispered, “Go to sleep. Your body isn’t fully healed yet. Rest well, and once you regain your strength, you’ll be ready to face the completely different worldview after awakening, and the upcoming disasters.”

Yes, based on her deductions, this freezing rain might just be the beginning.

She had considered the issue of low temperatures, but since September, although the temperature had not been what it should be for the season, it had never been excessively low. Especially now, it was already December, and the temperature was around zero degrees, which was considered normal for the season.

It was this freezing rain that reminded her—since the freezing rain was the key point for completing the task, did this mean that there would be a series of disasters related to freezing rain?

Minus 5 degrees wasn’t considered extreme cold. In northern Huaguo, the winter temperatures typically ranged from minus 20 to minus 40 degrees. Of course, different regions and different buildings had varying levels of resistance to cold.

Wei wasn’t like northern cities where every household had heating and kangs (heated beds). Houses and windows were built with various cold-proof measures, and even if it snowed heavily and the temperature dropped to minus twenty degrees, people could still wear short sleeves and eat ice cream indoors.

In Wei, the houses didn’t have cold-proof measures, and the heating had been cut off because of the attacks. Mobile signals and networks were also down. If a major temperature drop occurred, it would be problematic.

The clinic certainly couldn’t stay there. It was a public space, and it had been targeted by a dangerous organization before. It couldn’t be ruled out that something similar would happen again. Additionally, the rooms were former classrooms converted into hospital rooms. It was too spacious, inconvenient for daily living, and even drinking a bowl of plain porridge would draw stares. They couldn’t live on compressed biscuits every day.

Therefore, they needed to find another place to stay. Fortunately, there were plenty of empty houses in Wei. If necessary, they could spend some money to find a suitable place.

Shu Fu mentally listed various plans, but these were based on certain anticipated disasters. It was also possible that her predictions were just guesses and that nothing would happen. Maybe the freezing rain would stop after tonight, and she and Yao Ruoyun could move to Xizhou Province.

In short, she could make all kinds of guesses and prepare countermeasures, but ultimately everything would follow the task’s lead. She would never become overconfident because of previous task successes, treating unmanifested disasters as reality, and going against the main group.

---

The next day, the freezing rain had indeed stopped, but the world outside was a white expanse, with icicles hanging everywhere. Snowflakes began to fall again, but fortunately, the wind wasn’t too strong, and the perceived temperature was somewhat higher than last night.

The clinic was noisy, and it was hard to understand how such a small number of survivors could make so much noise.

Yao Ruoyun was still asleep. Thanks to the heat packs, she wasn’t cold anymore. Her face was flushed from sleep, and Shu Fu didn’t wake her up, wanting her to rest as much as possible. She gently got out of bed, covered her with the blanket, and, carrying her bag, went out into the corridor.

The first floor of the building where they were staying had a tea room. It was originally for students, but now it was used by patients and survivors for hot water. Every morning, there was a period during which drinkable hot water was provided. Of course, there would be team members supervising, ensuring the line was followed and preventing anyone from bringing large containers to take all the hot water.

Shu Fu carried a thermos downstairs, seemingly to get hot water, but in fact, she was going to inquire about the latest news.

When she reached the first floor, she noticed a crowd gathered near the entrance. Compared to the people in line at the tea room, these individuals looked disheveled, with ice shards in their hair, their lips frozen blue, and ice melting on their clothes and shoes.

Some of them were carrying bags covered in thin ice, panting heavily as they sat down to rest. Others were darting back and forth between the corridor and several classrooms, muttering as if looking for someone. A few were rushing toward the tea room, asking the supervising team if they could get some hot water to warm up, claiming they were freezing.

Their request was essentially an attempt to skip the line, and the people who had been waiting naturally didn’t want to let them in. They had already been freezing in the hospital rooms for a night and were now hoping to get hot water to warm themselves. Since the hot water supply was limited, their attempts to cut in line would prevent the people who were originally in line from getting any water.

An argument broke out between the two sides, and the noise became quite loud. Even though Shu Fu was some distance away, she could hear the commotion and, from the sounds, understood the reason behind their desperate state.

It turned out that they were the group of people who had gotten on the bus yesterday afternoon to head to Gongmang County. The mountain roads for the relocation were difficult to navigate, and their vehicle had only traveled about seventy to eighty kilometers before encountering the freezing rain.