Chapter 45: Natural Disaster vs. Man-made Calamity!
As Jiang Yan pushed open the invisible door, a stifling wave of heat laden with the strong aroma of coffee assaulted her face.
Even through her heat-resistant hat, she could feel the intense warmth inside.
If the outside temperature was around 66-67 degrees Celsius, the temperature inside had to be at least 70 degrees.
She didn't enter immediately but stood at the doorway, waiting for the hot air inside to mix with the outside air while taking the opportunity to survey the stored supplies.
The room was pitch black due to the lack of lighting.
She took out an emergency light from her dimension and shone it around, revealing neatly stacked large cardboard boxes.
After a while, the oppressive heat subsided. Confirming there was no danger, she finally stepped inside.
The interior was indeed a hidden treasure trove.
She found not only many well-packaged coffee beans, ground coffee, coffee capsules, sugar, cinnamon powder, hazelnuts, and almonds but also a pile of limited-edition blind boxes bundled as promotional gifts.
On another shelf were several large cardboard boxes containing sealed paper cups in small, medium, and large sizes.
Additionally, there were several brand-new, unopened imported coffee machines—each worth hundreds of thousands—along with new grinders, tampers, ice makers, pour-over kettles, and filter cones.
Jiang Yan stored them all in her dimension.
As for boxed hazelnut spreads, chocolates, milk, cream, and the like, they had already spoiled in the past two days of extreme heat, so she ignored them.
Just as she was about to leave, she noticed five familiar-looking cardboard boxes piled in a corner between two adjacent shelves.
Upon closer inspection—wow! They were all 52-degree Feitian Moutai!
Six bottles per box, totaling 30 bottles!
Under high temperatures, liquor spoils because the heat compromises the bottle's seal, leading to evaporation and reflux. Although the current temperature was unusually high, the Feitian bottles' seals remained intact.
Without hesitation, Jiang Yan stored them all in her dimension.
Moreover, the fact that these valuable supplies were still here suggested the shop's staff hadn't anticipated the heat would persist and intensify when they evacuated. Otherwise, these items would have been moved long ago.
After clearing out the storeroom, Jiang Yan returned to the dining area.
It was almost 6 p.m. outside.
A glance at her phone showed the temperature at 60 degrees Celsius, but she guessed the actual temperature was closer to 66-67 degrees.
The swarm of Blood Mosquitoes that had been clinging to the glass walls, having waited in vain for so long, had finally flown away in frustration.
Since it was still early before nightfall, Jiang Yan decided to enter her dimension.
After removing her heat-resistant hat, suit, shoes, sunglasses, and other gear, she habitually checked the surveillance feed.
The extreme heat had triggered the circuit breakers in the building's original surveillance system, shutting it down automatically. However, the cameras she had installed were still functioning.
While the building's surveillance used ordinary wiring, hers employed silicone rubber-insulated cables, with an operating range of -60°C to 180°C, perfectly capable of withstanding both freezing and scorching temperatures.
Unless manually switched, the surveillance display showed a six-panel grid.
The footage revealed everything was normal.
A few people with bare arms and legs were sporadically moving supplies to the basement.
The temperature was too high, and everyone was afraid to move too quickly.
Seeing no new developments, Jiang Yan drank a bottle of chilled soda and headed straight to the gym on the second floor of the Apple Cabin.
She took out a pair of boxing gloves and began practicing punches on the sandbag.
During her travels abroad, she had coincidentally encountered a new UFC season and impulsively taken up mixed martial arts for a while.
At the time, she thought the sport was a bit brutal, but now it seemed perfect for self-defense.
Before she knew it, it was past 9 p.m.
Since the extreme heat had arrived, the sky darkened much later than usual.
In An Ming City, where it would normally be completely dark by 8 p.m., it was now around 8:30 before the last traces of daylight faded.
Jiang Yan figured it was about time and changed back into her heat-resistant suit.
Before leaving the dimension, she habitually checked the surveillance feed.
As soon as the footage connected, she saw the corridors on the first and seventh floors of Building A swarming with dense clusters of Blood Mosquitoes, while bodies lay strewn haphazardly across the hallways.
The floors and walls were splattered with crimson stains.
Judging by the shapes of the victims, there were adults, the elderly, children—even infants.
Other higher floors had them too, though fewer in number.
Dealing with just a few mosquitoes would have been manageable.
But the problem was, when a swarm of mutated giant mosquitoes attacked en masse, there were always blind spots in one's defenses.
A single puncture from any mosquito's sharp proboscis could spell disaster.
"Help!!"
"Mom, don't worry about me—run!!"
"Fall back! There are more over there!!"
"Damn it, who left the door open?! If I find out who it was, I swear I'll sacrifice them to the heavens!!"
"Waaah… Mom, wake up! Please don't leave me alone!! Waaah…"
"..."
Heart-wrenching screams, desperate pleas, frantic thuds, and the sounds of terrified flight intermittently echoed from the surveillance footage.
"!!!!"
Jiang Yan's pupils constricted—for a moment, she thought she had switched to the wrong feed.
After a closer look, she couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath.
The supposedly impenetrable buildings of Repulse Bay had, within just a few hours, turned into a slaughterhouse for the Blood Mosquitoes!!
This left Jiang Yan utterly baffled.
Had a resident forgotten to close the door?
Or had the property management staff all abandoned their posts?!
But that didn't make sense!
She removed her heat-resistant hat, sat down on the sofa with her tablet, and set the footage to replay at 32x speed.
The unit door had been manually opened around 8:30 p.m.
Jiang Yan switched back to normal speed when the footage reached that moment.
According to the previous community regulations, the unit doors were strictly prohibited from being opened between 6 p.m. and 7:30 a.m.
This period was the Blood Mosquitoes' active feeding time.
Both residents and property staff were well aware of this rule and had it memorized.
Yet, strangely, a young man—wearing a helmet, mask, and fully covered in clothing—opened the door.
He glanced around, confirmed no one was nearby, and even pushed the door wider open.
Not only that, he pulled something resembling a pin from his pocket and used it to wedge the door firmly in place.
After finishing, he tiptoed out and left.
Soon after, a massive swarm of giant Blood Mosquitoes flooded into the corridor.
Jiang Yan frowned, rewinding the footage to the moment the young man opened the door and entered, then paused and zoomed in.
She quickly recognized him.
A day ago, among the property staff in white shirts at the underground parking lot entrance, he had been there.
However, he wasn't the manager—probably just one of the supervisors.
The reason Jiang Yan remembered so clearly was the pair of sneakers he wore, adorned with pale yellow flame patterns edged in red.
Under the scorching sun and high temperatures, those red flames seemed particularly irritating at first glance.
That was why Jiang Yan had glanced at them deliberately at the time.
Additionally, the young man's left hand had an unusual feature—six fingers—so he wasn't wearing a glove on that hand, unlike the rest of his body.
This matched the distinctive hand feature of a security supervisor she had encountered when handling property matters earlier.
Jiang Yan's heart sank:
Why would he do this?!
Was he acting out of some vengeful impulse after being provoked?!
In her memory, the heatwave was supposed to last at least another ten days.
Repulse Bay had an underground garage where residents could take shelter temporarily to escape the worst of the coming days' heat.
But several older neighborhoods nearby lacked underground parking, leaving residents no choice but to endure.
Later, when the heavy rains came, Repulse Bay's higher elevation meant it suffered far less damage compared to other communities.
One could say they had the advantage in both natural and geographical terms, whether facing extreme heat or torrential rain.
Yet before they could even weather the natural disasters, man-made calamity had already struck!