Reborn in the end of the world, I scavenged in the empty city and bought for free

Xiaoli and Lan Cen acted separately, one hurriedly ran to Aunt Man's room to get the key, and the other quickly ran to the small warehouse next door to find a stove.

As soon as they opened the door, they shivered because it was too cold outside. This coldness was even colder than the previous few days. If the coldness of the previous few days was like peeling off the skin and penetrating into the body, then the coldness at this moment was enough to make the lungs freeze, and they could even feel that the body temperature was being deprived bit by bit.

"Lan, Lan Cen, let's move quickly, otherwise we will freeze to death if we continue." Xiaoli stood at the door and stomped her feet, trying to move her body as much as possible to keep the temperature constant, but her teeth kept chattering up and down, and the chill felt by the cold wind pouring into her mouth was indescribable.

Lan Cen nodded vigorously, then trotted towards the proprietress's room without looking back, but because he was wearing too many layers of clothes, his movements seemed very slow.

Xiaoli tried several times with the key, but she couldn't aim it at the keyhole because her fingers were stiff and shaking. Finally, she had to grab her wrist with her other hand and finally open the door after regaining her balance. However, she was still surprised by the thin layer of ice in the keyhole. She didn't expect that even such a small gap would be frozen. If this continued for a long time, the entire guesthouse would become a natural ice cellar.

After entering the small warehouse, he endured the stinging cold all over his body and quickly searched for a small stove that had been thrown here some time ago.

The stove was bought last winter. It cost more than 300 points to buy it on the black market. However, because the lowest winter temperature in the past two years was only five or six degrees, this small stove was never used. After the temperature dropped last week, the landlady bought a large heater for herself. Xiaoli and Lan Cen's rooms have always had air conditioning and heating temperature control, plus the electric heater in the room, Xiaoli has completely forgotten about the small stove she bought.

I never thought that the things I bought for fun would actually come in handy one day.

Lan Cen quickly ran to the landlady's room. Because he was wearing gloves, when he knocked on the door it was like cotton hitting the door panel, and only one or two dull sounds were heard. In the end, Lan Cen had no choice but to kick the door.

The landlady was originally adding charcoal to the heating stove in the room. She looked at her husband after hearing the noise outside.

"It sounds like someone is knocking on the door. I'll go check it out." Aunt Man's husband first covered his entire nose and ears with a scarf, leaving only a pair of eyes exposed, so that the cold wind would not blow into his neck when he opened the door.

As soon as I opened the door, I saw Lan Cen pacing back and forth outside because he was so cold.

"Uncle, I'm here to get the key to the warehouse from Aunt Man. We want to get some charcoal."

"What's wrong? Is the air conditioner in your room broken?" Aunt Man also got out of bed at this time, still wrapped in a quilt.

Lan Cen shook his head: "It's not broken, it's just that the air conditioner can no longer maintain the room's temperature. Sister Xiaoli said she bought a small stove before, and we plan to warm ourselves up in the room."

Aunt Man only then remembered that their room faced east, where the wind was usually strong. It was still cool in the summer, but the temperature was the lowest in winter.

"The key is the one painted yellow. Forget it, why don't I go downstairs with you." The proprietress said as she was about to go downstairs, but she saw Lan Cen taking the key and running downstairs.

"No need. I can run fast and will be up in a moment." As Lan Cen's voice rang out at the corner of the stairs, her figure disappeared as well.

The guesthouse has not been open to the public since the temperature dropped some time ago, but now two-thirds of the tenants live in the guesthouse. Some of them were originally short-term tenants, but because of the big drop in temperature, all housing prices in the base are rising. In addition, the guesthouse is close to the inner city gate, and it can be said that the location here is directly connected to the inner circle, so the housing prices are also the most expensive in the outer circle. After the temperature dropped, the rental prices in the vicinity directly increased by at least three levels. The original rent of 500 yuan a month has now increased to about 700 yuan. Only the proprietress did not take advantage of the situation at this time. The rental price is still maintained at 35 yuan a day, or about 550 yuan a month. Therefore, many people who were short-term tenants at the time immediately renewed their leases for another one to two months.

Currently, there are about five families living on the second floor, two of whom are young couples, the other two are large families, and the third is a middle-aged man in his forties living alone. On the third floor, in addition to the room of Aunt Man and her husband and Lan Cen and Xiaoli, the remaining rooms are also occupied by several other young people who share the house. Before renting the house, Aunt Man had carefully understood the general background and reasons for renting the house of these people, and even signed a rental contract that stipulated some precautions. Mainly, Aunt Man was worried that the more people there were in the guesthouse under extreme conditions, the more likely accidents would occur.

The guesthouse has now stopped providing meals and accommodation, and the door is usually open to facilitate the entry and exit of the tenants upstairs. The kitchen on the first floor is now open and can be used by anyone. Uncle Zhang and his two companions live in a small room on the first floor. Normally, everyone can say hello when using the kitchen shower, but since the temperature dropped sharply, fewer people are willing to start a fire and cook, because if you go to the kitchen to cook, you have to carry the charcoal yourself, so most people stay in their rooms and simply use a small stove to make some noodles or porridge.

The warehouse on the first floor is very large, at least more than 30 square meters. Lan Cen had been there once during the insect plague, so this was his second time entering this warehouse.

Lan Cen was startled as soon as he entered, because two dark shadows fell behind the door, and even made a crisp sound when they fell.

Lan Cen finally found the light switch behind the door. When he turned it on, he found that there were two frozen corpses of red-eyed mice lying on the ground. The mice's bodies were covered with ice chips and were completely stiff, otherwise they would not have made such a crisp sound when they hit the ground.

There were many unused tables and benches piled in the warehouse. After a round of inspection, I saw dozens of snakeskin bags in another corner. They should be filled with charcoal that the proprietress had been trying to buy during this period. Among them, more than a dozen bags were charcoal purchased specifically to save gas when doing business before. It was still summer at that time, and the price of charcoal was only a dozen points per catty, unlike now when it has been driven up to more than forty points.

He took out a small bag that he had prepared in advance and filled it with about five or six kilograms of charcoal, which should be enough for two days. Then Lan Cen carefully locked the door again.

At present, people cannot be allowed to know that so much charcoal is still stored in the warehouse. If the tenants upstairs find out, it will sooner or later cause trouble, so the door of the warehouse is even locked with a U-shaped lock. Not only that, surveillance cameras are also installed in the store. Once someone becomes interested in the things in the warehouse, the surveillance will be transmitted to the boss's mobile phone in the first time and an alarm will be issued.

Ever since the store was attacked by an extreme cult organization, the proprietress spent a huge amount of money to install two surveillance cameras on the first and second floors of the store in order to be on guard against unexpected situations at all times.

What people are scrambling to buy in the base now is not food, but coal and charcoal for heating.

Everyone is rushing to buy charcoal now, because after the cold winter, the logging teams cannot enter the big forest in the north, so there is a shortage of charcoal now. In addition, the base also promulgated the latest regulations starting yesterday, requiring each household to limit the purchase of charcoal. The maximum charcoal a family can buy per month is only 30 kilograms, and the charcoal will only be available until after the Chinese New Year next month. Once the Chinese New Year is over, the charcoal will stop being sold for a short time.

Lan Cen ran upstairs to return the key and then hurried back to the room. He was almost suffocated by the black smoke as soon as he entered the room.

"Ahem, ahem, have you got the charcoal back?" Xiaoli was holding a fan in one hand and a pair of tongs in the other, constantly turning over a few pieces of wood in the stove.

The wood is used to start the fire. Charcoal can only be added after it has burned for a while. However, thick smoke will come out when the wood burns. The doors and windows in the room are closed and the air is not circulating. Xiaoli almost suffocated herself in the process of starting the fire.

"That won't work, Sister Xiaoli. I'll leave the door open first. Let's wait for the wood to burn for a while before we put the charcoal in. Also, open the window a little later. If you're not careful when burning charcoal, you can easily get carbon monoxide poisoning."

Their room is different from the boss lady's room. First of all, there is a pipe connecting the boss lady's room to the heating stove. Secondly, the boss lady uses a specially built heating stove. When the guesthouse was built, only the boss lady's room on the entire second floor had this pipe. Therefore, even if the door and windows of the boss lady's room are not opened, there is no need to worry about carbon monoxide poisoning. But there is no way for Lan Cen and Xiaoli's rooms. If they are not ventilated regularly, the temperature in the room will rise, and people will probably faint.

"Okay, you go open the window first, and I'll speed up the lighting of the charcoal." Xiaoli said as she quickened the movement of the fan in her hand.

Lan Cen didn't dare open the window too wide, and only opened a gap of about five centimeters. After a while, a strong cold wind rushed in greedily.

The room was even colder than before, and both of them couldn't help but clench their teeth. Xiaoli even advised in a negotiating tone: "Why don't you close the window first? I feel like the temperature in the room has dropped a lot when the wind comes in."

Although Lan Cen was shivering from the cold, he did not dare to slack off easily. He shook his head desperately, "No, no, the couple on the second floor felt too cold a few days ago, so they moved the stove to the bathroom while taking a shower. They almost died. Fortunately, Aunt Man discovered something was wrong when she went to collect rent, so she sent them to the clinic."

Xiaoli also heard about this incident. She was out purchasing ingredients at the time. When she came back, she saw the boss's wife driving out in a van. Later she found out that it was to take the young couple who had fainted in the bathroom after taking a bath together for emergency treatment.

Fortunately, the person was rescued in the end. The two later brought gifts to thank the landlady. However, this incident also served as a wake-up call to everyone in the entire guesthouse. Even if the temperature drops, you still have to pay attention to air circulation when you warm yourself by the fire in the house.

After struggling for ten minutes, Xiaoli finally breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the stove burning. She turned to Lan Cen and said, "Lan Cen, please close the window a little more. There's no need to open it so wide. It's enough to ensure that there's enough wind to come in. Otherwise, if the wind is too strong, the charcoal will burn too quickly."

Lan Cen thought about it and could only pull the window back one centimeter.

The two of them pulled a small stool, each wrapped in a quilt, and sat around the stove to warm themselves. After about half an hour, they felt their body temperature gradually returning to normal.

There was still a cold north wind blowing outside. Just as Xiaoli turned around and took out a few sweet potatoes from under the bed and wanted to throw them into the stove, a hissing sound outside scared her so much that she threw the sweet potatoes half a meter away.

"what sound?"