Rebirth: I Will Win Easily in the Apocalypse-Chapter 27 - 17: Collecting Heating Supplies

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Even though Song Zhao had gone to bed past 5 in the morning, he still crawled out of bed as soon as the 6:30 alarm went off, turned it off without disturbing the person sleeping soundly beside him.

After quietly getting up and washing up, Song Zhao returned to the bedside, where Gu Yanzhi, still in her sleep, felt the bed sink slightly behind her, followed by a warm hand gently caressing her cheek.

"Zhizhi, time to get up. We have to go out today," Song Zhao whispered.

"Mmm~" Gu Yanzhi nuzzled her head in the palm of Song Zhao's hand, making a soft moan before slowly opening her eyes.

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"Zhaozhao, good morning," As soon as she opened her eyes and saw the tender face of her beloved, all of Gu Yanzhi's sleepiness seemed to vanish, and her mood lifted involuntarily.

Song Zhao bent down and kissed her forehead, "Get up quickly, today we need to go out looking for fuel."

"Okay," Gu Yanzhi hummed in response, then reluctantly rubbed against the warm quilt one last time before sitting up.

"Sis, come have breakfast."

By the time Gu Yanzhi had packed up and stepped out of the bedroom, Gu Yanlin and Song Zhao were already sitting at the dining table, waiting for her.

"What would you like to eat this morning?" Gu Yanzhi asked as she walked toward the dining table, searching her mind for what she felt like having for breakfast.

In the end, Gu Yanzhi went with the classic combination of a pancake wrap, fried dough sticks, and soy milk. Today was going to be another physically taxing day with uncertain return time, so breakfast had to be substantial to stave off hunger.

Due to the space being in a state of stasis, the food was steaming hot when put into the space and remained so when taken out, saving them a lot of time.

During breakfast, Gu Yanlin updated them on last night's achievements.

The night was too dark and too cold, so no one had gone too far. Primarily, they had called on people in buildings surrounding theirs. The neighbors were eager to join the effort, which had been more successful than expected in reaching people.

As anticipated, some families with elderly and children were woken up by their young people with their faces turned purple from the cold. Any later and it would have been too late.

A few other households didn't respond to the long knocking outside their doors. When the group broke in, they found the people inside had already succumbed.

Among the incidents, one family of four, according to their building's residents, had not brought much with them when they moved in. When they were found, all four were only covered with thin summer blankets. They had been frozen for too long and, in the end, couldn't be revived.

This made Zhong Junfeng and Yin Meng, the young couple, feel both sympathetic and immensely relieved. They were fortunate to have encountered kind people; otherwise, they might not have survived the night.

Because it was now the winter in City C, compounded by the endless heavy rain and lack of sunny days, temperatures were several degrees lower than the same period in previous years. Everyone had switched to thicker winter quilts early, which was the only reason why only a few households had experienced tragedy—a fortunate outcome amid misfortune.

After breakfast, they put on temperature-adjustable clothes and an additional layer of cold-weather gear on top, matching them with cotton boots fitted with heating insoles. Grabbing an empty backpack, they headed out the door.

The wind in the corridor was as sharp as a knife against the face as soon as Song Zhao stepped out of the house. He hurriedly helped Gu Yanzhi with her scarf, hat, and gloves before fully arming himself.

Before leaving the house, Gu Yanzhi took another glance at the thermometer. The temperature was still at the minus 30 degrees Celsius from the night before, much better than she had expected. However, for City C, a southern city where winter normally hovered around zero degrees, this was an unprecedented disaster.

The trio planned their departure for just after 7 a.m., knocking on doors and calling out to residents on each floor as they moved down the building. This was the plan Gu Yanlin discussed with them the day before to reduce waiting time and avoid the chill.

Everyone was bundled up, and Zhong Junfeng and Yin Meng were wearing all the clothes they owned to stave off the bone-chilling cold.

The freezing wind had swiftly awakened everyone's drowsy brains to full alertness.

The mood was good all around because the continual rain from last night had stopped, and today was the first sunny day in two months, with the long-absent sun finally showing.

As they went downstairs, they could hear faint sounds of laughter and cheering from below.

Looking down from the stairway window, a group of children were playing on the ice, skating and frolicking, surrounded by people gathered together, talking and laughing, enjoying the rare sunny weather.

"Uncle Zhang," Gu Yanzhi suddenly called out, stopping the lead Uncle Zhang who was about to continue downstairs.

With a look of understanding in her eyes, Zhang Uncle got her hint, and Gu Yanzhi returned to her lazy demeanor, showing no intention of explaining to the crowd.

Thinking better of it, Uncle Zhang stepped back from taking the next step and said, "There are too many people downstairs. We made so much noise last time that many probably haven't forgotten. If we all go out together in such a large group, it will draw attention."

"Thank goodness Xiao Gu reminded us in time, or we'd have had an incident," Uncle Zhang said, giving a thumbs-up to Gu Yanzhi.

Having heard Uncle Zhang's explanation, everyone else also came to a realization. In this critical time, indeed, they needed to tread more cautiously to avoid unnecessary trouble.

"Sister Gu is right. We can't take risks," one person concurred.

"So, what do we do now?" Another asked.

"We split up and leave in groups. Everyone should chat more when going out and act as if going out for fresh air," Uncle Zhang suggested, "That way, we won't draw as much attention."

They divided into four groups: Gu Yanzhi's family in one, Zhang Qian, Zhuang Nanyang, Gao Zhi, together with Yin Meng's group constituted another group, Sister Li and Uncle Zhuang formed another, and Uncle Zhang and Aunt Zhang made up the last team. They all left the apartment, appearing to laugh, and chat as if they were just going out for shopping or a walk.

Along the way, they all acted naturally, carefully not to raise suspicion among other people. They chatted, laughed, and frolicked as if merely enjoying the lovely sunny day.

Additionally, they deliberately chose different routes to conceal their shared destination.

At last, they successfully regrouped about a kilometer away from Building 10 in a hidden corner.

Their ultimate stop was still Song Mountain, the place they had aimed for during the previous rainstorm to collect materials. With its high terrain, if there was anywhere in City C to find wood, Song Mountain was undoubtedly it.

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