Water supply, electricity supply and gas supply are cut off

The negative second floor is a fully equipped training hall. The hall is divided into a special shooting training area and a physical training area, with all kinds of training equipment available. Whether it is the professional gun models for improving shooting accuracy or the strength equipment and treadmills for physical training, they all demonstrate their professionalism and high-end quality.

The negative third floor is an independent and extremely crucial structural unit. There is a prominent nuclear energy logo painted on its outer wall. Here is the nuclear energy cabin of the entire safe house. It is like a powerful heart, continuously supplying stable and abundant energy to the entire safe house, ensuring the smooth operation of all functions of the safe house. Ruby.Lee only took a quick look and did not explore its internal detailed structure and operation principle in depth. After all, in his opinion, in the post-apocalyptic world, with the excellent defensive performance of this safe house, there is almost no force that can cause a substantial destructive threat to it, and his personal safety has been absolutely and reliably guaranteed.

By the time Ruby.Lee finished touring the safe house from top to bottom and inside out, it was already nine o'clock in the evening. At this time, Ruby.Lee, wearing short sleeves and shorts, was comfortably leaning on the soft and comfortable sofa. Feeling a little bored, he opened the owner group again, which he had set to do-not-disturb mode earlier because it was too noisy. He saw that the unread messages in the group had accumulated to 99+. He tapped it gently.

"Room 2507, Building 2 @ Property Manager An Tao Picture, picture, picture. Is this the shit from your property management? I spent thousands of yuan and got this garbage?!"

"Room 2504, Building 2 Exactly. My family bought two vegetable packages and one fruit package, and there are only rotten fruits and leaves inside. Is the property management black-hearted? Have you ever seen money?!"

Ruby.Lee browsed roughly and found that most of them were @ An Tao and expressed strong dissatisfaction and protest against the quality of the supplies he sold. After a rough count, about thirteen households had bought An Tao's supplies. These households should be used to eating out or ordering takeout. They didn't have enough food reserves at home. Now in this extremely cold weather of minus 60 °C, they couldn't go out to purchase, so they had no choice but to buy the high-priced supplies provided by An Tao. However, when they opened the packages with high expectations, they found that there were only rotten and deteriorated fruits and leaves inside, so they cursed furiously in the group.

Ruby.Lee continued to scroll down the chat history.

"Property Manager An Tao: Everyone, don't worry. The supplies of the property management were directly ordered from the Cai Lanzi Base. They were delivered yesterday morning and were for our own use in the property management. Maybe you took my good stuff and replaced it with your rotten fruits and leaves that have been stored for who knows how long and then posted them in the group."

"Our property management is kind enough to take out our own food to help everyone in an emergency. Is this how you repay the property management?!"

"Since you all play like this, then we simply won't sell anymore."

"Property Manager An Tao @ Neighborhood Committee Director Wang Tiaomei: Aunt Wang was the first owner to buy our supplies. Aunt Wang, can you post a photo of your supplies? I trust the neighborhood committee!"

"Neighborhood Committee Director Wang Tiaomei: Picture, picture, picture, picture. Everyone, look. These are the supplies I bought from Manager An. They are all very fresh fruits and vegetables, with a large variety and quantity. Although the price is a little expensive, it is within the acceptable range."

"The property management also considered that it is difficult for our owners to go out and purchase, so they took out their own food. I hope the above several owners can recognize the situation, stop spreading rumors, and maliciously slandering those who serve the owners."

"Currently, the situation is rather difficult. I hope everyone can unite and unanimously condemn those black sheep. After the event, our neighborhood committee will also pay special attention to such people. I hope everyone can take this as a warning and don't make mistakes."

After Aunt Wang finished speaking, a small group of owners who had long been wooed by An Tao also began to speak one after another. They took photos of the exquisite supplies that An Tao had carefully prepared for them in advance and sent them to the group as instructed by An Tao, and then jointly condemned the dozen or so complaining owners. Gradually, the public opinion in the group reversed completely, and An Tao and Aunt Wang achieved a complete victory in this public opinion battle. Seeing that his goal had been achieved, An Tao took the opportunity to announce that he would no longer sell supplies. Anyway, he knew that in a few days, when the food reserves of those owners were completely exhausted, they would naturally come to beg him again.

Ruby.Lee watched this farce constantly unfolding on the phone screen and felt both amused and sad. Such a large community, with a full 10 buildings and at least several thousand households living in it, was actually managed submissively by a mere property manager who used to be a gangster and got his position through some small connections. In the final analysis, it was because these owners were not united enough and were easily divided, broken up, and defeated one by one by An Tao.

At ten o'clock in the evening, the temperature in Huahai City finally dropped to the lowest - minus 75 °C. Ruby.Lee was lying leisurely in the warm safe house like spring, swiping short videos on his phone while closely observing the changes in various places in the post-apocalyptic world. He accidentally came across a short video about a large-scale power outage across the country. The local people were struggling to fight against the snow disaster and actively rescuing power transmission facilities. The video was accompanied by a stirring BGM. Ruby.Lee subconsciously clicked on the comment section. Although he now adheres to the survival concept of taking care of himself first, in the past, such videos usually had heartwarming comments from netizens across the country encouraging and cheering each other up. Looking at them could make people feel a rare warmth and hope in this post-apocalyptic world.

"Hmm? What's going on?" Ruby.Lee frowned and muttered to himself curiously.

The first comment under the video was still relatively normal and received the most likes. However, the following several comments were all posted by accounts with Huahai City IPs, and the content was full of indifference and arrogance.

"These people are so stupid. They don't stay at home. They deserve to freeze to death in such a cold day. Do they post this to get sympathy?"

"The authorities will repair those facilities. There's no need for you people to worry about it..."

"Fortunately, I live in the most prosperous city in the country. There won't be a power outage here. People in poor places are so pitiful."

"Oh my god. They even let girls go out to work in heavy snow and extremely cold weather. It's so scary. Fortunately, I have awakened and won't use my safety to help those losers."

Ruby.Lee snorted when he saw these comments. He thought to himself that these people were now so wantonly sneering at the heroes who risked their lives to save the country's and people's property, but their good days might be coming to an end soon. Sure enough, at eleven o'clock in the evening, the power system in Huahai City also began to have large-scale failures.

Ruby.Lee stood up and slowly walked to the window on the third floor. His eyes quietly gazed in the direction of Huahai Yudi Community and several surrounding communities. The lights in the community began to flicker uncontrollably, like weak fireflies struggling in the darkness. Suddenly, the entire community was plunged into complete darkness. Only those places equipped with emergency lighting equipment still emitted a few faint lights. The darkness instantly flooded everything like a tide, and everyone panicked at this sudden change.

It should be known that Huahai City had never experienced a power outage in the past more than 100 years. And the fear of darkness deep in human hearts has been deeply imprinted in genes since primitive society. The owner group exploded again, and the message notification sounds kept ringing.

"Room 2006, Building 3: Is everyone's home without power? My home suddenly lost power. The air conditioner stopped working. I'm freezing to death. If anyone's home still has power, can you take me in? I'm freezing to death..."

"Room 0809, Building 4 Mine too. How can people live in such shitty weather without an air conditioner? What are those people in the authorities doing? Why don't they repair it? Do they want us to freeze to death?!"

"Room 2509, Building 10: Ah! No way. Is everyone's home without power? How can we get through tonight..."

...

As more and more messages emerged, everyone finally gradually realized that Huahai City might also have suffered a large-scale power outage accident. At the same time, even worse, due to the extremely cold temperature, all the water pipes had been frozen and burst. Many owners' homes even had a thick ice pillar, like a hideous mark left by the cold. Some owners, trembling with the bone-piercing cold that seemed to penetrate the marrow, lifted the curtain shakily to check the situation outside, only to find that the window was also covered with a thick layer of ice and they couldn't see the outside clearly in the middle of the night. In addition, the gas supply facilities had also stopped operating. The current situation was extremely severe. In such a harsh environment, an ordinary person would probably be directly taken away by the cold in less than half an hour if exposed outdoors.

Fortunately, modern mobile phones have undergone multiple iterations and updates, and the battery capacity has been greatly increased compared to the past. Now, when fully charged, it can standby for up to 3 days under normal use. And at least for now, the signal base stations have not yet collapsed, and people can still maintain contact with the outside world through mobile phones. As social animals, when humans face this unknown and cruel world alone, their hearts will inevitably be filled with fear. However, as long long as there are fellow humans around, they can get a certain degree of peace of mind and comfort.