The breakfast was as lively as usual. Uncle Li had outdone himself again with a wide spread of dishes. Leng Pan looked at all this food and thought of the situation described in the book where people would start to starve as early as a week after the start of the apocalypse because they had not stockpiled supplies.
With many people depending on food delivery and only buying a few things like snacks and instant noodles to eat when they are too hungry and their delivery is late, buying supplies in bulk was left to the elderly.
The older generation had weathered many storms and gained foresight. They tend to buy things that would last them longer. First, because buying in bulk is cheaper than buying a few pieces of anything.
Second, because they had experienced so state of ergencies caused mostly by pandemics, requiring them to stay indoors for long periods of ti.
As such, they had developed the habit of buying dry foods such as grains, rice, flour, sugar, and even oil in bulk. Drinking water is also stockpiled and they tend to buy huge buckets to store water and change it every once in a while.
In short, many houses with elderly people wouldn’t have to worry about food for a while. Probably until they got used to the idea of the apocalypse and started to go out and search for supplies.
But even so, soon everyone will realize that whether they had a lot of supplies stockpiled or not, they couldn’t eat as luxuriously as before.
Food had to be limited to make sure that people didn’t starve but not too much to fill them completely. Cooking a spread of dishes like the ones on the table would beco a distant mory for many households.
Leng Pan of course didn’t have to worry about that. She had stockpiled enough supplies to last them more than a lifeti. But she still couldn’t let anyone know about it lest they beco complacent and start wasting food. She had to let them experience the absence of anything to eat and see how people beco cannibals just to survive.
Without experiencing everything themselves, humans would always have the ntality of being lucky and have a saintly deanor.
She wasn’t criticizing her family but she was sure that they would share their supplies with others if they don’t experience what human nature is like.
She had not even told Lu Zhen about it but sohow, he understood her intentions. That was why she said nothing even when she saw Uncle Li cooking so much food for one al. As long as the food didn’t end up in the trashcan, it was fine.
Once they were done eating, like every day since the teorites fell, the family sat together in the living room to watch the news. In the last two days, the channels broadcasting news had dwindled to only three. Now upon switching on the television, only two channels still had the courage to go on, and both were owned by the governnt.
Personal corporations had realized that money wasn’t going to an much soon. So, they saw no need in working so hard to make money they couldn’t spend.
As such, only the governnt now cared about broadcasting news to comfort the citizens and urge them to remain calm and not act on impulse in case they caused disaster themselves.
Unlike the first day when the governnt told people to remain at ho and wait for the research institute to find a cure, they seem to have understood that the end of the world had co.
Therefore, they no longer urged people to wait for a cure. In fact, they had started to hint subtly that citizens should try to fight the zombies and eliminate them.
Soldiers had started patrolling the streets and shooting the zombies. In the last three days, they had already discovered the fatal point of zombies as their heads and also relayed this information to the citizens.
Those who want to go out and fight should aim at the head of the zombies to avoid unnecessary trouble or sacrifice.
Watching the footage captured by drones, one could see soldiers on the ground shooting zombies and with each shot to the head, a zombie would fall.
Leng Pan and everyone else of course weren’t stupid, they understood that the governnt wouldn’t show them anything discouraging and only displayed the footage of the successful kills.
They knew that so of the soldiers were probably sacrificed in the line of duty when they couldn’t kill the zombies and were surrounded.
Showing sothing like that would only cause panic and despair and that is the last thing the people needed now because they were still in the panicking stage and so still refused to accept reality.
"Let’s go out and do our own survey. We can’t trust what the governnt is telling us blindly." Leng Pan suggested as she watched another soldier take down two zombies.
"Mmm....we can use the motorcycles I bought. It’s probably impossible to drive a car now." Lu Zhen agreed with his wife.
Thinking of the teorites that had fallen haphazardly, even though the governnt had sent workers to clear the roads, so places still couldn’t be accessed by cars.
"What are you two talking about? Look at the situation outside, how could you even think of leaving the house at this mont?" Li Yunjia was scared out of her wits when she heard their conversation.
Even Uncle Li and Aunt Li who were always easygoing turned to look at them sternly. No one wanted them to take such a risk.
Lu Zhen wasn’t soone who knew how to coax people except for his own wife, so he just kept quiet. It was Leng Pan who had to calm them down and talk to them.
"Mom, we can’t stay locked indoors forever. Sooner or later, we have to go out and it’s better to do our survey now before things get too chaotic so that we can understand the situation on the ground better." She really didn’t know what to say to these elders. They probably thought that such a risk was not worth it.
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