Chapter 74
"Just you wait! If I see you later, you’re dead, you idiot!" Brian fumed, his temper boiling over.
He found a spot nearby and sat down to wait for the store clerk to arrive.
Ten minutes passed.
Still no clerk.
Brian was nearly melting in the heat. Half his T-shirt was already soaked with sweat.
Just then, someone walked past and noticed him sitting on a stone block.
"Hey man, what are you doing sitting here?" the passerby asked curiously.
In weather this hot, most people were hiding indoors under air conditioning. Coming out just to sit around in the heat seemed insane.
Brian pointed toward the supermarket. "Waiting for it to open. I need to buy something."
The man stared at him as if he were looking at a fool.
"The supermarket’s air conditioning broke. It’s closed for the next couple of days. You’d better head home," the man said.
Brian froze.
Then he exploded.
"What?! The supermarket is closed?!"
"Yeah," the man replied casually. "Didn’t you see the notice posted on the door?"
With that, he walked away, leaving Brian standing there in stunned confusion.
Brian hurried over to the entrance and sure enough, a notice was taped to the door.
The store’s air conditioning system had broken down. In this kind of heat, it was impossible for employees to work without cooling, so the store would close for three days while repairs were made. The break would also serve as a high-temperature leave period for the staff.
Brian actually laughed from sheer anger. "What kind of stupid supermarket is this?!"
Cursing under his breath, he turned around and headed home, deciding to drive somewhere else to buy drinks.
But after circling several nearby stores, the only thing he managed to find were a few children’s drinks—selling at ten times their normal price.
Brian had been too slow.
Just a few days after the disaster began, all the bottled and purified water in the surrounding area had already been bought out.
And after the explosion at the water plant, people’s desperation to hoard water had skyrocketed.
After all, not every residential complex had a backup water supply. Many neighborhoods were still completely cut off from water.
Defeated, Brian returned home.
Meanwhile, Pamela had warned her family to stockpile water when she began storing it herself.
Her relatives had listened.
Now their house held enough water to sustain the entire extended family for quite some time.
***
Three days later, the temperature had climbed to 47°C (116°F). Across the city, air conditioners ran almost constantly without rest.
Suzy and Leonard stayed inside their apartment. Each of them had an icy can of cola within reach.
Outside, the city had fallen into an eerie silence—almost like the lockdown days during the pandemic.
Everyone was trapped indoors. The only difference now was the heat. A heat that could literally kill you.
Heavy curtains blocked out the blazing sunlight as Suzy scrolled through her phone.
At the moment, she was tinkering with a software app.
Beside her, Leonard took a sip of his cold cola while browsing a post he had just found online.
Many people in the thread were complaining about the oppressive heat and how their household water supplies were nearly gone.
[Damn it, my house is completely out of water. Now I can’t even buy any. Thank God my air conditioner is keeping me alive.]
[Must be nice to still have AC. Our power’s already gone out here. I feel like I’m going to roast alive soon.]
[Power outage? Seriously? Ours just went out too. No idea when it’ll be fixed.]
[Sigh... the river near my house has already dried up. What the hell is going on with this weather? Is this really the apocalypse?]
[Can someone please do something about this?!]
[Someone died in my neighborhood yesterday. The power went out overnight and they literally suffocated from the heat.]
...
As Leonard read the posts, his expression shifted repeatedly.
The posts came from many different IP addresses.
Some were even from A City itself.
Including the one claiming their power had already gone out.
Leonard tapped the user’s profile and sent a private message.
[Hey, I’m in A City too. Has your area really lost power?]
A few minutes later, the person replied.
[Yeah. I’m in one of the urban villages. We lost water a few days ago, and now the electricity’s out too. I’m about to melt to death here. What’s it like where you are?]
Leonard quickly typed back.
[We’re still okay here. I’m in the northern district—we still have power.]
[Then you’d better prepare early. Feels like it won’t be long before your area loses power too.]
With temperatures this extreme, there were many possible reasons for a citywide blackout.
No one could predict exactly when it would happen.
[Got it. I’ll prepare ahead of time. Thanks.]
The other user showed as typing.
A moment later, another message appeared.
[Holy shit, gotta go—something just exploded and caught fire near here!]
[Stay safe.]
Leonard replied with a brief warning.
After that, the other person never responded again.
Leonard exited the chat and opened another local post.
Many users with the same regional IPs were complaining about having neither water nor electricity.
The complaints about power outages were increasing rapidly.
Leonard set his phone down, his expression complicated, and patted Suzy beside him.
"Suzy, I just saw some posts. A lot of places are already losing power."
Suzy was still busy adjusting settings on her phone and hadn’t heard him clearly.
She looked up blankly. "Huh?"
Leonard repeated himself.
"A lot of accounts from A City are saying their homes have lost electricity."
He sighed. "We should prepare early too."
Suzy waved it off calmly. "Don’t worry, Uncle. I already prepared."
She had bought plenty of solar panels earlier and stored them in her space specifically to deal with potential blackouts.
With temperatures like these, losing air conditioning would be deadly.
Just the day before, she had read several posts about people dying from heat—some elderly residents had refused to turn on their air conditioners to save money and had literally died of heatstroke inside their homes.
Seeing Suzy so calm, Leonard felt somewhat reassured.
"Uncle, want some shaved ice?" Suzy asked.
Leonard hesitated for two seconds, then nodded. "Sure."
Suzy pulled out a packed serving of shaved ice from her storage space and handed it to him.
"Coconut milk flavor."
Leonard took a bite, unable to suppress the smile spreading across his face.
He scooted a little closer to her. "What are you working on?"
"Security cameras," Suzy explained.
Leonard raised an eyebrow. "What cameras?"
"The ones in the villa." Suzy had only recently remembered that the family villa had surveillance cameras installed.
Back when her mother, Elisabeth Ashford, was still alive, the house had employed many servants. To make management easier, surveillance cameras had been installed in the common areas.
But since nothing unusual ever happened, no one regularly checked the footage.
Over time, Suzy herself had completely forgotten about them.
Now that she was stuck at home with nothing else to do...
She suddenly felt curious about what was happening inside the Ashford family home.
And those cameras were about to become very useful.