Chapter 6: This Was Destined to be a Sleepless Night

It was after dinner and not yet dark when Liu Mu asked Xu Xiaofeng what time she would open the shop tomorrow.

Xu Xiaofeng showed her phone to her, "A 2:30 alarm, see? I'm the one who gets up earlier than a rooster every single day."

Liu Mu looked at her holding the already sleeping Xiao Yong, then said, "Isn't your air conditioner broken? Sleep upstairs tonight; rest assured, I'll keep watch on the first floor."

Xu Xiaofeng rolled her eyes at her, "What do I have to worry about? Besides, it's just one night, can't I endure it? We got by just the same a few years ago when there was no air conditioner."

"It's not easy to treat a heat-induced cold nowadays; that ambulance runs down to the village every single day," Liu Mu didn't want to go save people in the middle of the night. Xu Xiaofeng's parents had been kind to her in the past, and this older sister was a good person too; it would be a pity if she died just like that, as she had in her previous life.

"You're fine, but if Xiao Yong gets sick and can't go to school for several days, you'll have to take care of him, and you won't be able to open the shop either."

"You..." Xu Xiaofeng seemed angry, her pretty face falling, "Why are you such a jinx, you girl? Old Man Li at the end of the street just passed away a few days ago, and everyone says he was heat-stroked to death."

"Then are you still going?" Liu Mu picked her teeth and pointed upstairs, "Go up, sleep early, don't fail to wake up in the middle of the night."

Xu Xiaofeng argued a sentence about how she could possibly fail to wake up, but after hesitating, she still listened to Liu Mu.

This night, Liu Mu could not sleep; she first fed Niu Boyi, took it to the basement, and then came back up herself.

She checked that the monitoring instruments and surveillance cameras throughout the yard were intact, looked at the clarity of the surveillance, and finally moved a chair to sit in the open air and feed the mosquitoes.

The sky was dark, but the temperature hadn't dropped much; even the mosquitoes were less active than in previous years due to the heat.

While swatting, she counted her items in her heart.

Food, water, medicine, clothing, materials, Generator, air purifier, the basement's electrical and water pipe systems, daily necessities, useful machines and tools she knew of...

Counting them one by one, she discovered that the supplies she hadn't intended to hoard much of were still quite a lot when added up.

By midnight, the temperature had risen significantly.

The mosquitoes that had been rampant an hour ago were now spinning and falling to the ground, dying on their own.

Looking at the thermometer on her wristwatch, the number had already jumped to 57°, an 18-degree increase from the previous hour.

Liu Mu glanced at the sky that had never completely darkened, stood up, and entered the small building.

This older sister Xu Xiaofeng was perhaps too trusting of her; the bedroom door was actually not locked.

Listening to the light snoring, Liu Mu first carried Xiao Yong, who was sleeping on the bed, to the basement, then returned to call Xu Xiaofeng.

But this sister, who knows what was wrong, wouldn't wake up no matter how she called.

Even with the air conditioner on, the indoor temperature was constantly rising, and soon Liu Mu broke out in a sweat.

Helpless, she bent over and carried Xu Xiaofeng on her back.

With three months of physical training as a foundation, her strength had increased quite a bit, and plus, Xu Xiaofeng only looked fat because of her round face; in reality, she was estimated to be less than one hundred and thirty jin, not heavy.

It wasn't strenuous for Liu Mu to carry her, but the jolting while going down the stairs made Xu Xiaofeng notice something.

She opened her eyes and saw Liu Mu, whose face was covered in sweat, in the light. Just as she was about to move, she was barked at by the latter.

"Don't move around, I'll put you down; once you're awake, go to the basement yourself."

Xu Xiaofeng wasn't fully awake yet; standing on the stairs, she asked inexplicably, "Why are you putting me down?"

Slap!

Liu Mu knew she wasn't awake yet and slapped her on the forehead, "What are you dazed for, Sister Xiao Feng? Do you think I'm so idle that I'm carrying you to train my muscles in the middle of the night? The temperature outside is already sixty degrees; it's not normal. Let's go to the basement to make do for the night first. I've already carried Xiao Yong down, you follow too!"

Xu Xiaofeng rubbed her head, finally clear on the situation, but turned and ran upstairs.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

This sister said while running, "I have to bring useful things, Xiao Mu, you come quickly too, let's carry the quilts and those things down."

Xu Xiaofeng didn't notice that in the house, which already had simple furniture, quite a few things had been missing one after another these past few days, all moved to the basement bit by bit by Liu Mu.

At this moment, there were only the bed, the air-conditioned quilt, and a few pillows left.

Xu Xiaofeng didn't seem to think there were so few things; she searched the room once more, looked at the air conditioner with unwillingness, and only followed to the basement after confirming it couldn't be dismantled in a short time.

"Your place is so well-equipped?"

Entering the constant-temperature room, Xu Xiaofeng was almost stunned by the room before her.

In the space of over fifty square meters, from the sofa to the tables and chairs, from the television and refrigerator to the kitchen, almost everything was complete.

And just looking at and touching them, the quality was more than a grade better than those in the small building. She recognized several brand logos; she had seen the prices in the mall before, and they weren't things ordinary families would be willing to buy.

Liu Mu had no time to explain; after confirming that the monitoring and testing instruments were normal, she hurriedly said she had other things to do and went up to the ground level.

In one hour, she collected all the flammable waste in the yard into the system, added three locks to the large iron gates of the two walls, and then turned off all power except for the cameras and testing equipment.

She also opened the valve to release all the water from the rooftop water tower into the underground water storage tank.

After everything was done, she lit a cigarette for herself, her whole body as if fished out of water, and stood at the entrance of the basement hidden under the earthen mound outside, silently looking toward the north.

Soon, dog barking came from nearby streets and villages, followed by the clamor of other animals, and then the humans who could no longer sleep.

The noise grew louder and louder; Liu Mu took out her phone and edited a text message, mass-sending it to over a dozen numbers.

The phone was already scorching hot; it wouldn't be usable if it heated up any more.

Another hour passed, which was also the final hour, and she saw...

She saw dazzling light suddenly appear in the northern night sky, saw the straw piles in the fields suddenly ignite, then the woods, then air conditioner outdoor units sparking and igniting houses, and also saw the panicked and helpless humans...

She turned and went down to the basement, pulled the ten-centimeter-thick steel door shut, and then the three layers of ten-centimeter-thick flame-retardant, heavy-lead, fireproof and heat-insulating doors, each separated by about a meter of enclosed space, closing and locking them layer by layer...

Quiet, extreme silence; perhaps this was the dead silence mentioned in textbooks.

"Xiao Mu, what happened outside?"

Luo Sanlin heard the movement in the living room, sighed, and got up to leave the bedroom.

"Dad, Mom, did you two not turn on the air conditioner again? I've told you how many times, the electricity you save isn't enough for the cost of cold medicine, you just won't listen... wait, where are you going in the middle of the night?"

At the doorway, Luo Mu and the father, who had just opened the door, stood awkwardly in the foyer, each with a single straw mat tucked under their armpits. The father was still holding cigarettes and a lighter, and the mother had two small blankets.

Luo Mu said, "It's just too hot, we're going downstairs to find a cool place to stay for a while."

How could Luo Sanlin not know where they were going, "In the middle of the night, where outside is cooler than at home? If you really can't bear the electricity bill, how about we sleep in one room, isn't it enough to turn on one air conditioner?"

The father didn't even light his cigarette, his brows furrowed in anger, "Is it cool just with the air conditioner? Look at you, isn't your undershirt soaked with sweat too? We are going to the second basement level; the temperature there is lower than the air conditioner. Go sleep yourself, turn the air conditioner lower, don't worry about us!"

As she spoke, she pulled Luo Mu and headed out. Luo Mu hurriedly said, "Son, lock the door yourself. I'll come up to make breakfast. Go get some sleep!"

By the time Luo Sanlin reached the doorway, the old couple had already pressed the elevator button.

Knowing he couldn't stop them, he could only lock the door and return to his room. Just as he was wondering why it was still so hot with the air conditioner on, his phone chimed with a notification.

Opening it, he saw a message sent by Liu Mu:

【To my close friends: If you trust me as a friend, please immediately prepare as much food and water as possible and head to the nearest shelter, preferably underground or an Air Raid Shelter. Don't ask why, and this is not a prank. I stake my personal reputation on this—go immediately! ——Your friend, Liu Mu.】

Luo Sanlin chuckled, and just as he was about to toss his phone back onto the desk, he suddenly paused.

She thought Liu Mu was joking, but the temperature of the phone was so hot that his fingertips recoiled slightly.

After hurriedly reading the message again, Luo Sanlin suddenly sprang into action.

He had once received specialized training at a police academy.

He took out his military backpack, quickly stuffed survival supplies into it, and dialed the phone. It rang once before being hung up, and when he dialed again, Liu Mu's phone was off.

"What on earth is going on?"

High-calorie food, medicine, clean water, as well as the cash and valuable jewelry in the house—as the only son in the family, and having been upright since childhood, his parents never hid where they kept things from him.

While packing, Luo Sanlin suddenly felt a sense of intense unease. Without hesitation, he immediately sent a voice message to the office work group, telling everyone to take shelter.

While heading downstairs, he ran to the stairwell, pried off a fire axe, and then called an acquaintance of his at the district emergency office.

"Hello, Uncle Meng..."

A quarter of an hour later, after explaining clearly to his parents in the underground parking garage, the old couple still didn't believe him, but suddenly, an emergency evacuation alarm blared across the entire city.

It wasn't much different from an air raid siren, but since it went off in the middle of the night, and at a time when everyone had been woken up by the heat, it was no drill.

Almost at the same time the alarm sounded, citizens' phones also received evacuation text messages.

The content of the message was exactly the same, and it explicitly stated that everyone should find the nearest underground shelter to hide, while simultaneously demanding that all Air Raid Shelters within and around the city be opened to the public!

【... Immediately, take shelter nearby! This is not a drill, this is not a drill!】

... Paper Mill residential compound,

When Xu Xiaoxia received the text message, she was in the middle of arguing with her stepmother.

"I said, Xiao Feng is my own sister, and I'm not you—I wouldn't go around seducing my own sisters! Are you crazy? Am I so worthless myself?"

"Dad, can you control this woman? What right does she have to make me go and latch onto some rich guy?"

Her phone vibrated. Xu Xiaoxia took a hurried look, prepared to continue scolding, but then lowered her head again immediately.

Seeing the same text message, Xu Xiaoxia didn't even hesitate like Luo Sanlin did; she immediately screamed,

"Dad, pack up the valuables right now, we're going to take shelter, hurry!"

"In the middle of the night," Director Xu, whose heart ached from the noise, couldn't take it anymore. "Can you two just be quiet? There's no war, what shelter are you taking?"

Xu Xiaoxia's eyes darted around. While rushing to leave, she continued to shout, "The city government issued an earthquake warning! Didn't you get the text? Hurry! Hurry! People outside are already in an uproar, pack up quickly!"

Dressed in her pajamas, she rushed into her room, grabbed cash and valuables, and also grabbed two sets of sportswear on the way.

Director Xu didn't believe it at first; his phone hadn't received any message, but outside, it was indeed chaotic.

The stepmother loved money, but she was even more afraid of dying. She stopped making a scene, and seeing Xu Xiaoxia heading toward their room, she hurriedly followed. "Hey! Hey! I'll pack my own things, you don't need to, I'll have it packed in a second!"

"Who wants your things? I'm getting blood pressure medicine for my dad, who cares about you!" Xu Xiaoxia really only cared about Director Xu; she didn't bother grabbing the medicine for her stepmother that was kept in the same place.

With the two women in the house busy, Director Xu finally couldn't sit still. He stood up and shouted at Xu Xiaoxia, "Daughter, don't worry about anything else, get food and water. I'll get my own medicine, you hurry and take everything from the fridge!"

At his age, he had been through some things; whether it was an earthquake or a flood, food, water, and medicine were the most important things.

Director Xu was the first to grab the family medicine kit, then urged his young wife, "Third Sister, stop grabbing lipstick, what's the point of that? Take money, take valuable jewelry. Hurry, once you've got it, come help Xiaoxia pack the food! Bring that straw mat for cooling, and fill up every water bottle you can carry!"

The three of them packed in a frantic rush. The stepmother was fuming, and just as she was about to say something to sting Xu Xiaoxia, all three of their phones rang at the same time.

It was indeed the evacuation message from the government, followed by the alarm.

"Go! To the factory's Air Raid Shelter, hurry, let's go find a good spot!"

At Director Xu's command, his new wife and daughter, the three of them, bags in hand, rushed out of the house together.

There were over a dozen other people who received Liu Mu's text message just like them, and the moment they saw the message, they almost all did the same thing.

By the time they became the first batch of people to enter the various shelters and had just settled down, they heard terrified screams coming from outside, followed by an intense light that illuminated the dark night, and after that...

It was a terrifying scene that, even years later, Survivors would still tremble just to mention and be unable to recall.

The sound of the alarm also reached the recycling station, transmitted underground through the monitoring equipment.

Liu Mu watched the surveillance footage with a cold expression, saying nothing.

"Xiao Mu, what's going on outside?

"Why is there smoke? And that scrap steel, why has it all turned red, like it was burned with fire?"

Xu Xiaofeng watched the scene outside, which was more blinding than daylight, in terror.

She watched as houses burned on their own,

She watched as thick smoke rose from the ground,

She watched as the green grass withered in an instant...

Even as a sister who had lost her parents early and opened a shop alone to raise her younger brother, she was so scared at this moment that she began to cry.

But she didn't dare to cry out loud, as if afraid of attracting the invisible force outside.

"It's the sun," Liu Mu didn't know how to explain it; she herself hadn't figured out the specific cause either, so she could only give the later official explanation. "Some meteorites came from the direction of the sun, carrying fire, and then they fell onto Earth."

Whether in her past life or now, she didn't have a high level of education, and even seeing many phenomena, she couldn't come up with any sophisticated sentences.

"We probably won't be able to go out for the next half month. If you're scared, then don't look. You don't have to get up early now, you have time to get a good sleep."

Having said that, how could Xu Xiaofeng still sleep? She asked tremblingly, "Xiao Mu, are we safe here?"

"Safe! Believe me, there is no place safer than here in all of Haicheng." Liu Mu knew that normal people couldn't accept such a disaster and might even develop severe post-traumatic stress disorder because of it.

Like herself, even though she knew what would happen, with the experience of her past life, her hands were still trembling at this moment, and there was still uncontrollable fear in her heart.

"Then, then what about the people outside?" Xu Xiaofeng wiped away her tears, her black-and-white eyes still refusing to move away from the screen.

Liu Mu was silent; she was no savior, she could not save everyone, nor did she want to shoulder that kind of meaningless responsibility; if she thought in that direction, it would only burden her with a void and heavy shackle.

"Sister Xiao Feng, before seeing these scenes, would you have believed that such a thing would happen tonight?"

She decided to change her approach, to talk things through clearly with Xu Xiaofeng, and also to untie the knots in her own heart.

Xu Xiaofeng sobbed in a low voice, unable to speak, and could only shake her head.

"Yeah, I wouldn't believe it either, and no one else would believe it either." Liu Mu pressed down on Xu Xiaofeng's shoulders, forcibly moving her gaze away from the fiery red surveillance screen, "Listen, all we can do is save ourselves, and our abilities are only enough to save ourselves. An hour ago, the municipal government already issued an alert; the people outside had time to hide, and regardless of whether they could escape or not, one can only say... this is their fate."

"Just like how I am an orphan, just like how Uncle Xu and Auntie died in a car accident, and you and Xiao Yong rely on each other for survival; we are powerless to change anything, and it is not our responsibility; this is our fate."

Xu Xiaofeng sniffled hard; when it came to her own situation, she understood, but she still asked, "Then how did you...?"

Liu Mu's firm lips pressed into a straight line, and she decided to continue her mysterious line of reasoning, "You might not believe me when I say this, but it's true. Since I was little, I've had a dream, dreaming that giant fireballs fell from the sky and ignited everything."

"It was blurry at first, but in the last three months, this dream has become increasingly clear, and just a few days ago, even the date became clear. So, do you understand?"

Xu Xiaofeng nodded as if she understood, "No wonder you didn't say anything beforehand; if you had told me a few days ago that you dreamed it, I wouldn't have believed it either. Xiao Mu, I understand; it's already very good that you could save me and Xiao Yong, and I don't have the ability to save others myself, right?"

"I will explain it well to Xiao Yong, and I will also help you do more things; thank you for saving us!"

At the same time, she also thought, no wonder Liu Mu suddenly stopped going on blind dates and even spent all her savings to renovate the house.

Yet she hadn't been able to help with anything, and she hadn't known that Liu Mu was enduring such great fear; for a moment, Xu Xiaofeng became even more determined to repay Liu Mu well in the future.

Before leaving the surveillance area, Xu Xiaofeng had stopped crying, "Xiao Mu, you should sleep for a while too. We are safe, and you don't need to have that dream anymore. Don't be afraid either; if you really have a nightmare again, Xiao Yong and I are both here!"

Liu Mu, who was used to being a loner, was suddenly moved upon hearing these words, though she was still somewhat unaccustomed to it, "Mm, go and rest; I need to save these video materials, they might be useful later."

This was destined to be a sleepless night, except for Zhang Xiaoyong, who was sleeping like a little pig on the small bed.

"June 25, 2024, at exactly 3:08 AM, the disaster descended—Recorder: Liu Mu."