Apocalypse: I Can See Health Bars
Chapter 34: Scrambling for Water

Chapter 34: Chapter 34: Scrambling for Water

"I was in the middle of cooking when I heard a ’CLUNK,’ and the power went out!"

Su Qing explained to Lin Fan, gesturing anxiously.

"A power outage, huh..." Lin Fan reached out and flipped the switch for the ceiling light. As expected, nothing happened.

He grabbed a stool and went out to check the electric meter in the hallway. The circuit breaker hadn’t tripped, but the screen was completely blank.

"Don’t panic. Is the food ready? Go finish cooking first..." Lin Fan said as he came back inside, trying to calm a flustered Su Qing.

He then found his phone and checked the date.

"The 30th?"

Lin Fan counted on his fingers, starting from the day he’d passed out. Five days had gone by; this was the sixth.

’Sure enough, the inevitable had finally arrived.’

It was the sixth day since he’d woken up, but the chaos had only been in full swing for four.

Communication between the quarantine zones was completely severed. For his old, rundown apartment complex to have lasted four days before the power went out... one could only say the grid’s quality was truly impressive.

On the very first day he woke up, Lin Fan had worried about a potential power outage. He’d immediately cooked and eaten many of the eggs and meats that required refrigeration.

But in the last couple of days of clearing the building floor by floor, he’d collected more and more food, none of which he’d had time to process yet.

The various meats he’d brought back from just apartments 402 and 401 had already stuffed the freezer to the brim.

"Lin Fan, let’s eat first..."

Su Qing had finished cooking the noodles. Because of the power outage, she had also quickly stir-fried a large handful of shredded pork and added it in.

Otherwise, with the power out, the already-thawed meat couldn’t be refrozen and would spoil quickly.

Seeing that Lin Fan was already at the dining table, she brought the entire pot of noodles over.

"We’re actually not doing too bad. I saw in the group chat that some places lost power as early as the 26th..."

Su Qing murmured, unsure if she was trying to comfort Lin Fan or herself.

"I knew the power would go out one day, but now that it’s actually happened... it feels like human civilization is slipping further and further away..."

After voicing her thoughts, Su Qing noticed Lin Fan looking at her with a very strange expression.

She picked up the serving ladle and brandished it at him before placing a bowl heaped with noodles and shredded pork in front of him.

"I’m not an idiot!"

"Heh..."

Lin Fan didn’t reply, simply focusing on eating his breakfast in silence.

If the power had been cut for non-payment, the meter would display a notice. But the light on the meter outside his door wasn’t even on, which meant the entire regional grid was down.

What Su Qing had said was spot on. It wasn’t some emotional delusion; it was the simple truth.

Electricity was the lifeblood of human civilization, like the Zerg’s creep in a video game. Wherever the grid spread, industrialization followed.

Now that the power was truly out, it wasn’t just Su Qing; even Lin Fan felt a pang of melancholy.

This was completely different from an occasional tripped breaker. It was a profoundly desolate feeling, as if a friend who’d been with him his whole life had suddenly vanished into thin air...

The two of them ate in a shared, quiet melancholy for a few minutes before Lin Fan finally broke the silence.

"Su Qing, don’t open the freezer again until I get back..."

he instructed Su Qing, who was silently eating her noodles across from him.

He remembered their freezer was stuffed with the food Su Qing had hauled down from apartment 402.

’A packed freezer should stay frozen for twenty to thirty hours if it isn’t opened.’

’But every time you open it, that preservation time gets cut in half.’

"The same goes for the freezers in the other apartments. As long as no one opens them, they should hold for a day or two..."

Lin Fan added, thinking of the other apartments they were using for storage.

"Okay, got it."

Su Qing privately wondered if they should just try to eat everything in the freezer.

But she trusted Lin Fan’s judgment more than her own.

She always did her best to follow his instructions. In her mind, if Lin Fan gave an order, it meant he had a plan. All she had to do was cooperate.

Lin Fan did have a plan. The original plan for the day had been to test the effects of the Stealth Crystal on the zombies. But now, it seemed there was no time for leisurely experiments.

He not only had to deal with the horde of zombies downstairs, but he also had to figure out a solution for the power.

Otherwise, at least half of the supplies he’d worked so hard to collect would be lost—and the high-protein half at that!

"Ah!"

Lin Fan’s sudden shout startled Su Qing, who was in the middle of slurping her noodles. The mouthful she’d just taken nearly shot out of her nose.

She coughed, eyes wide as she stared at Lin Fan, wondering what on earth he’d thought of now.

"Forget the noodles! We need to get water!"

Lin Fan had indeed remembered something critical: water!

He quickly finished the rest of the noodles in his bowl, wiped his mouth, rolled up his sleeves, snatched two keys from a cabinet, and bolted upstairs.

He ran up to the sixth floor, went into apartment 601, and found every container he could—including disposable paper cups—and began filling them with water, from largest to smallest.

He then directed Su Qing to do the same in apartment 602.

Tap water was supplied by pressurized pumps in different zones, and those pumps needed electricity!

With a widespread power outage, a widespread water outage could follow at any moment!

Who knew how long the water company’s backup generators would last!

In the frantic rush, Su Qing even found two large plastic barrels and an oversized stainless steel stockpot on the balcony of 602, all with huge capacities.

The two of them worked frantically for over an hour, finally filling every container they could find with water.

Only then did they return to their apartment and sit back down at the dining table to finish their noodles.

The noodles in the pot had congealed into a lumpy paste, but Lin Fan didn’t mind. There was still plenty of shredded pork, so it tasted just as good.

"Phew... I’m exhausted," Su Qing panted. "Lin Fan, did we really need to rush that much to get water...?"

"Of course. Don’t forget, we’re not the only two people in this complex..."

Lin Fan’s reminder made Su Qing think of the people from yesterday. Still, she asked, confused, "This has something to do with... other people?"

"If the power were still on, it wouldn’t. But now that it’s out..."

Lin Fan trailed off, leaving her in suspense as he handed his empty bowl to her.

Su Qing reflexively took the bowl and refilled it for him, carefully adding plenty of shredded pork.

Only then did he continue.

"The power outage means the water company’s pressurizing equipment is running on borrowed time. That means the pressure in the pipes is finite, and so is the total amount of water."

"So of course we have to get as much water as we can while it’s still in the pipes..."

"And what’s more, if the water treatment plant has already lost power, the water in the pipes is running on nothing but the natural pressure from the water tower. In that case, every survivor is sharing the little water that’s left in the system..."

"Ah? ...So... does that mean because we took more, other people will get less?"

Su Qing asked, her instinctive empathy kicking in. But as soon as the words were out, she remembered the three people from yesterday who had abandoned their teammate without a second glance to save their own skins. She fell silent.

To Lin Fan, her reaction was completely normal. In her mind, survival was a self-contained affair. Even though she and Lin Fan were a team, it was still confined to their own little "family" unit.

But now, reality had shifted from a closed system to an open one, connecting the very personal matter of survival to everyone else. It was only natural that her way of thinking hadn’t caught up yet.

’It was an easy ailment to cure, though. Missing a meal or two would do the trick.’

But before Lin Fan could say anything, she seemed to have already adjusted her mindset. She tilted her head back and drank the rest of her noodle soup, not wasting a single drop.

"I’m going to get more water. I’ll find some plastic bags to fill..."

With that, she turned and walked out the door.