Ch14 Hold on, hand over your phone
"I see some classmates paying others for food. Do you want to give it a try?" Meng Ci suggested.
Meng Ci did some quick math. Li Shanyang and the others probably only had a few thousand yuan left now. He planned to have them spend some of it up front.
Later on, when things got more expensive, they wouldn't be able to trade for anything.
It was truly intriguing to imagine what desperate measures they might take for a single bite of food.
"Transfer me money," Li Shanyang demanded, asking for an exorbitant sum.
"Transfer a million. No, make it ten million."
Meng Ci rolled his eyes dramatically. Even now, they were still fixated on money.
"I can't transfer it! My phone's broken. If it worked, I wouldn't be starving."
Meng Ci's tone was pitiful, but his face remained expressionless.
"I'm borrowing a classmate's phone to call you guys with my card."
"What good are you?" With that, Li Shanyang slammed the phone down.
The group then began pooling their money.
Liu Jie didn't have much to begin with. He'd even been cautious enough to unlink the card with the larger balance, ultimately contributing only a little over a thousand yuan.
Li Xiaoya had spent her money on a bed and clothes, leaving less than ten thousand yuan in her account.
Zhang Lu couldn't spare a single cent.
Most of the two million yuan Meng Ci had given her earlier had gone toward clothes, with the remainder spent at the beauty salon-she'd even racked up a twenty-thousand-yuan debt there.
Li Shanyang had blown all his money on wild parties and indulgences, leaving just over twenty thousand yuan in his account.
Hearing their conversation on the surveillance feed, Meng Ci smirked sarcastically. It seemed these people spent money even more recklessly than he'd Imagined.
A full six million yuan had been squandered by them.
The surveillance outside wasn't installed, so it couldn't capture Liu Jie going out to exchange goods.
After waiting a while, Meng Ci saw Liu Jie return carrying four packs of instant noodles, his expression grim.
"Damn it, those profiteering bastards! They're charging a hundred yuan for a single pack of instant noodles."
The rain had only lasted a day and night. Households with stored food, unaware this was the apocalypse, saw Liu Jie's decent clothes and starved appearance, so they charged him four hundred yuan for the four packs.
Seeing Liu Jie and the others complain, Meng Ci sneered coldly.
In a few more days, forget a hundred yuan-even ten thousand might be bought by the starving.
By the time people realized something was wrong, food would be priceless. Then he'd see how Li Shanyang and his crew turned on each other like dogs fighting.
These past two days, while the power was stable, Meng Ci had been vigorously kneading and rolling dough.
When he'd bought supplies, he'd forgotten to get fresh noodles.
His storage space was full of flour now, but rolling and slicing noodles was too time-consuming -nothing compared to the speed of rolling.
Fortunately, he'd spotted pasta presses at the wholesale market earlier and bought several. They came in handy these days.
He'd stocked up on plenty of food storage bags, each holding just one serving-perfect for a single meal.
Oh, right.
It suddenly occurred to him that his spatial pocket lacked kitchen tools. He only had one knife for chopping vegetables. Looks like he'd need to find a few more cleavers during his next zero-cost shopping trip.
"Thump thump thump!"
After washing his hands, Meng Ci heard frantic knocking. Peering through the peephole, he saw a woman in her thirties.
Meng Ci didn't open the door, but she persisted in knocking.
With no other choice, Meng Ci fetched a kitchen knife from the kitchen, kept his hands behind his back, and opened the door just a crack.
"What's the matter?"
The gap was narrow, and Meng Ci stood in the middle, blocking the view inside.
The woman kept glancing behind him. "Young man, do you have anything to eat? Could you spare me some?"
"I haven't eaten in days."
"I... I have money. I can scan it to you."
"And I have a five-year-old child at home. Please, have mercy on me!"
Meng Ci shook his head. "I don't have any food. I've been hungry for a day myself."
"That's impossible!"
The woman tried to push her way into Meng Cl's room, determined not to give up until she got her way.
"You look perfectly healthy, young man. Not starved at all."
Meng Ci braced the door with his leg and shoved the woman away.
Caught off guard, she stumbled backward and fell to the floor.
He grabbed his keys, locked the door immediately, and stood in the doorway brandishing a kitchen knife.
"I'll say it again: I have no food."
"If you try to come in again, don't blame me for being rude!"
Clearly frightened, the woman scrambled to her feet.
Meng Ci noticed a figure moving near the elevator, not far behind her.
"Click."
The adjacent door opened. Shen Que emerged, a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair dripping wet.
Meng Ci couldn't help wondering if this guy had gone out again. Why else would he be showering in broad daylight?
But damn, he had a killer body.
Meng Ci quickly snapped himself out of his wild fantasies. He wanted to slap himself-what the hell was he thinking, getting distracted by good looks at a time like this?
"What's up?" Shen Que's gaze locked onto the woman.
She swallowed the words she'd been about to say and hurriedly turned away.
"Nothing. Just someone asking me for food," Meng Ci replied.
Shen Que nodded. "The rain's pouring outside. Who knows when it'll stop."
"You should keep the food for yourself."
Shen Que extended his hand. "Give me your phone!"
"What for?" Meng Ci was wary.
Shen Que said, "If anything like this happens again, call me. I'll handle it for you."
"No need," Meng Ci refused. They were both men-what help could he possibly need?
Besides, he'd already decided to keep his distance.
Shen Que said nothing more. His movements were swift as he pulled Meng Ci's phone from his pocket, raised it to unlock with facial recognition, and dialed his own number.
Only when the ringtone echoed through the room did Shen Que hang up and hand the phone back to Meng Ci-a seamless sequence of actions.
"There. Your number's saved. Call if you need anything." With that, Shen Que pushed open the door and returned to his own room.
Meng Ci pushed open his door and stared at the saved number on his phone, sighing once more.
Why does this guy love meddling so much? Could he be some kind of central air conditioner?
Central air conditioning warms more than just himself, huh!
He must keep his distance.
On the fifth day of the downpour, more and more households ran out of food.
The supermarket at the community entrance had long sold out and closed its doors.
People either asked in group
chats if anyone had food or shouted from open windows, offering to pay top dollar for any supplies.
Meng Ci ignored them all, focusing solely on his physical training.
His phone rang-it was Liu Jie again.
"What is it?" Meng Ci asked.
Starving by now, Liu Jie dared only nibble at the snacks hanging outside his kitchen window, terrified of finishing them all.
"Is there any way to get food? See if you can send some over."
Liu Jie had asked this daily for days, and Meng Ci's answer remained the same.
"No."
"But there might be a way I can help you," Meng Ci suddenly spoke up.
Liu Jie immediately pressed, "What way?"
Meng Ci said with gritted teeth, "Last night, one of my roommates traded his body for a packet of instant noodles."
"You see..."
In the book, it was Li Shanyang who suggested trading Meng Ci's body for food.
This time, he'd bring it up himself -to see whose body Liu Jie would be willing to sacrifice.
Liu Jie said nothing and hung up the phone.
He walked into the kitchen, locked the door, and went to grab some snacks.
But something felt off this time-the plastic bag felt lighter than usual.
Sure enough, when he picked it up, he found a hole torn at the bottom.