Jing Pan still wanted to pack more pork belly for Grandpa Jing. He'd had bad teeth and could only handle fatty meat, but after his second spring, his teeth grew back and everything tasted great again. A man who never brushed before started cherishing his teeth. In the end, they didn't take extra pork belly. Grandma Jing ached for her eldest daughter. It hadn't been easy to suffer through and finally stock some food.
"Then take good care of your second sister. Your father and I are heading out."
"Okay, Mom. Come again for the New Year."
Grandma Jing said, "How about you come stay in Wu City for New Year instead. Jing An bought us a retirement place, it's big. It's time we spent a New Year at your brother's."
"Okay." Jing Pan wiped her eyes in secret. She couldn't bear to part.
Before they left, Wei Chang asked Jing Shu if she had channels to sell piglets. She lifted a brow. "My neighbor runs an auction house. I'll send them there. You'll get a better price than in the countryside."
They had to go eventually. The RV rolled past the rutted, waterlogged lanes and left the village behind, merging onto the main road. Grandma Jing sighed, sipping goji jujube tea as darkness pressed against the windows. Grandpa Jing smoked his long-stem pipe. Who knew what was on their minds. Wu You'ai had already slipped into her sleep pod with a stash of snacks she'd bartered for and dove into work.
Soft music played in the RV. Xiao Dou stood on the glass counter, peering into the distance. Every so often, it let out an uneasy Cluck cluck cluck. For more than twenty days, Xiao Dou hadn't left the RV once, like something terrible was waiting outside.
Jing Shu's heart skipped too. People always said poultry were the most sensitive before a disaster. Xiao Dou was the most pampered on Spirit Spring among all the poultry. It must have sensed something. She had to pick up the pace.
After twenty-something days, she finally returned to the villa in Wu City. She had to admit, living in the RV was making her claustrophobic. It was great in every way, except the space was too small to stretch out. Stepping into the huge villa again, she almost felt it was too empty.
With the red nematode wiped out, it was a mixed bag. The bad part was livestock had lost their feed. The state had stored plenty of red nematode patties, but that wasn't a long-term plan and wouldn't last. So the authorities decisively ordered half the poultry slaughtered, which meant Jing An was run ragged.
The good part was greenhouses could grow vegetables again, which had Su Lanzhi busy every day at the Planting Industry R&D Management Department expanding production. The ripple effects kept Jing Lai's canteen slammed too.
By mid-December, Wu City hovered a few degrees above zero. The red nematode was gone, the sky's hammering rain had eased, but the floodwaters hadn't receded. People got used to the status quo and assumed, at worst, it'd just stay like this.
No one expected that in just over ten days, Earth's crust would start surging like mad, kicking off a full year of frequent quakes.
She remembered the exact day the first one hit. In her previous life, the rain had stopped, the world felt peaceful, everyone thought the nightmare was over and started making plans. Then the quake arrived. A terrifying mega-quake.
That year was true panic. People lived inside fear every minute. At first the dead still drew tears. Later, most went numb. If you were lucky, you lived. If not, a quake took you whenever.
Those who lived still had to survive. In the deepening cold, they stripped clothes from corpses for warmth, scavenged for supplies, and worried that the ground under their feet might suddenly cave as they walked.
Watching the dwindling rain fall, Jing Shu thought, "When the downpour stops, a major earthquake will strike. In the face of natural disasters, all living things are insignificant.
There are two main things I need to prepare for now. First, keep the whole family safe through a year of earthquakes. Stock enough food, but don't look too rich, and avoid isiting areas prone to major earthquakes in the coming year. Second, prepare everything for the America trip and make sure the family's safe while I'm gone."
Back at the villa, she drafted a detailed plan and started ticking tasks off. She wrote down every major quake site she remembered. Of course, her routes this life were different from the last, so she'd still hit sudden sinkholes or even a big quake.
She needed full contingencies, not blind faith in past-life memory. That's why she had Grandpa Jing handle so much. It was one reason he'd hurried home.
She kept turning over one idea. If a earthquake hit, she could keep everyone in the RV and drive to flat ground to ride it out. It was the safest approach, except the heavens loved jokes.
Some people vanished mid-step.
Some vehicles vanished mid-drive.
Eearthquakes were terrifying, but hollow ground was worse.
She'd stockpiled a lot of rebar earlier. Inspired by Qian Duoduo's kill-grid gift, a new idea snapped into place. She'd build her family a tool.
The concept was simple, the craft was hard. For an old-school artisan, Grandpa Jing wasn't fazed.
It worked like a parachute, or an umbrella. In danger, it would snap open into a big net to support a person and fire two tethered rebar darts into nearby walls or earth to anchor.
So if the ground vanished underfoot, the device would pop open beneath you, while two lines shot out and caught you midair.
That was just step one, a small family safety tool. To avoid spooking Grandpa Jing, and to make him see why it mattered, she even went out with him and "fell" into a big pit first. The idea came after.
He refined it with his own insight, lightened the skeleton and materials, and finally forged it into a backpack-like frame. You could wear it as a cold-weather coat and use it as a rain umbrella too.
She was very happy with the gadget, but earthquakes called for more layers. She started adding features and cranking up the difficulty.