Mobile Shelter

Chapter 39 The Coming Famine

Dong Qi was unaware of the consequences that would result from Captain Gao reporting his supernatural abilities.

However, no other investigation teams came looking for him until the snow stopped, which suggests that the investigation teams must have found new clues.

It seems that Dong Qi's decision to proactively report his special abilities was the right thing to do, at least for now the government is no longer paying attention to him.

With the snow stopping, the outdoor temperature has gradually begun to rise. From the initial snow disaster to the current gray snow and the cessation of snow, the whole process has taken about three or four months, which also corresponds to the entire winter of the Great Summer Lunar Calendar.

The traditional Spring Festival of the Great Xia Dynasty was also included, but during this period, everyone was filled with fear and anxiety due to the natural disaster.

Therefore, during the Spring Festival, in order to appease the residents in the underground shelter, the government prepared a sumptuous dinner for everyone.

As the gray snow on the ground completely melted, the residents who had been hiding in the underground shelters finally left and basked in the sunlight once again, and everyone couldn't help but show a relieved smile on their faces.

Although most people were relieved at this moment, thinking that the disappearance of the gray snow meant they could leave the underground shelter and return to their former lives.

Only a small number of people know that the disasters that everyone will face in the future have only just begun.

At this point, the gray snow outside had indeed melted completely, but it had melted, not disappeared.

The water surface, which was originally covered by gray snow, was isolated by ice due to the cold temperature at the time, so the lake water or seawater under the ice was not polluted by the gray snow.

However, as the outside temperature gradually rises and the ice begins to melt, the gray snow gradually melts into the water.

It's nonsense to say that only toxicity is mentioned and not dosage.

However, during the snowfall, most of the entire planet is covered in snow, which leads to a rise in temperature.

Melted snow water pollutes not only visible water bodies such as oceans, lakes, and rivers.

The snowmelt that seeps into the soil gradually pollutes the originally clean groundwater.

Although the water produced by the melting of ash snow is negligible compared to the total amount of water inside the blue planet.

But from then on, all water sources inside Blue Star contained toxins from the ash snow.

This toxin, however, is an unknown toxin brought from outer space by a meteorite passing through the atmosphere. This toxin is a completely new toxin for Earth.

Fortunately, because the amount of snowmelt is far less than the total water output of Blue Star, the strong corrosiveness of the original gray snowmelt has been greatly reduced after it is integrated into the waters inside Blue Star.

As long as ordinary people do not drink excessive amounts of water, they will generally not suffer from corrosive damage.

Many intelligent people have foreseen the impact of melting snow and ash, so how could Dong Qi, a writer, not know about this situation?

After all, in most survival novels, selling drinking water in the early stages is an important way for the protagonist to accumulate a lot of supplies.

Just then, the official team went out to collect supplies, mainly food and daily necessities, but water purifiers and water purification supplies were temporarily ignored.

Before the others could react, Dong Qi went directly to the warehouse area near the home improvement market. There, he found several water purifier brand warehouses. Apart from taking a small number of water purifiers, he emptied all the consumables in the warehouses.

Anyone who has disassembled a water purifier knows that its working principle is actually very simple. Apart from the function of the filter materials, it only has one function: to pressurize and accelerate the flow of unfiltered water.

To put it simply, the basic principle is similar to that of a booster pump, which is to accelerate the speed at which tap water passes through the filter consumables.

If you only have filter media and no water purifier, you can put the filter media into a beverage bottle to achieve the same filtering effect, but the filtering speed will be much slower than with a water purifier.

It is unknown whether the original owner of these water purification equipment warehouses is alive or dead.

However, in this current situation, it's a matter of first come, first served. Even if Dong Qi doesn't take them, these things are unlikely to end up in the hands of their original owners.

After all, Dong Qi's behavior constitutes theft and robbery for people of low status, which is illegal.

However, for those of higher status, this is called requisition, and it is illegal if the original owner does not cooperate in handing it over.

After moving all the supplies to the basement and organizing them by type, Dong Qi, now with some free time, began to consider his future life.

The survival situation Dong Qi is facing at this moment is quite different from the survival situation faced by the protagonists in most survival novels.

Firstly, even though natural disasters are occurring continuously, the legal order of the imperial court has not collapsed, and local governments have not broken free from the control of the imperial court and established their own independent regimes.

The situation Dong Qi was facing at this moment was more like experiencing those famine-stricken years than the post-apocalyptic survival stories in various novels.

It's just that the living conditions are much worse now compared to the famine years of the past.

Fortunately, Dong Qi brought back a lot of supplies while strengthening his natal vehicle. Although the amount of supplies he brought back each time was limited, at most enough to fill the carriage, if it was only for Dong Qi's consumption, he wouldn't go hungry for two or three years.

After all, when selecting supplies, Dong Qi specifically chose vacuum-packed rice or sealed flour, which are staple foods that are filling.

Besides soda, Dong Qi only brought back some small candies and chocolates; he abandoned all the larger puffed snacks.

The gray snow has melted, and the warm sun shines on the earth once again.

If nothing unexpected happens, everyone will be facing famine. All the grains and vegetables grown on the land outside, as well as the crops grown in greenhouses, have withered during the snowstorm.

Even more importantly, the meltwater produced after the snow melts is highly corrosive.

After melting and seeping into the soil, it not only killed all the creatures hidden in the soil, but also made the originally fertile land slightly toxic.

Although this toxicity is extremely weak, it can prevent ordinary crops from taking root and sprouting.

Needless to say, the livestock industry was in dire straits. Not to mention that the original livestock were almost entirely wiped out during the snowstorm, and with the crop failure, apart from the livestock specially bred by the imperial court for breeding purposes, there were virtually no living livestock to be seen outside.

Needless to say, the fish were also affected. First, the low temperature froze some of the constant-temperature fish to death. Then, the melting ash containing corrosive toxins dissolved into the water and poisoned some of them. Even the fish that are still alive now have been contaminated by toxins and are no longer edible.

Staple foods, vegetables, fruits, aquatic products, and livestock—these five categories encompass the vast majority of food types, and all of them were in short supply.

The food supply problems that humanity will face in the future will be on a hellish level compared to the famines that have occurred in the past.