Jing Lin said, “Tell Uncle Zhao not to be upset. Everything Aunt Zhou bought can be stored for a long time. It’ll get used eventually.” 

Zhao Zhiwen replied, “I think so too. Ah Lin, do you think there really could be an apocalypse?” 

Jing Lin paused before answering. “Cars suddenly stopped working for no reason. As for what comes next… who knows.”

Zhao Zhiwen scratched his head, looking troubled. “Then shouldn’t we buy more supplies and stockpile them?”

Jing Lin: “I actually came to talk to you about that.”

He explained his current penniless situation to Zhao Zhiwen and asked whether this year’s lease payment could be settled early, preferably in grain instead of cash.

Zhao Zhiwen immediately agreed. His family had harvested wheat in May and sold only half of it, leaving more than three thousand jin still stored at home. They also had over five hundred jin of rapeseed oil that had been pressed from their harvest and not yet sold. In addition, there were more than a thousand jin of rice from the previous year still sitting in storage. The original plan had been to sell everything within the next few days. But after the power outages and water shortages began, his mother absolutely refused to sell any of it. That was the main source of the arguments with his father. Keeping so much grain and oil at home took up a tremendous amount of space. 

That was how things often worked in the countryside. Unless an entire family worked elsewhere, most households that farmed their own land produced their own rice, grain, and cooking oil. Families like Zhao Zhiwen’s, who leased large amounts of land, were the exception. Ordinary farming families generally sold only a small portion of each year’s harvest and kept the rest for themselves. They ate that grain until the following year’s harvest, then sold whatever old grain remained before storing the new crop. 

Zhao Zhiwen’s house stood near the center of the village. Like Jing Lin’s, it was a two-story home with front and back courtyards. Unlike Jing Lin’s property, which still had vegetable gardens in front, Zhao Zhiwen’s front yard had been completely paved with concrete. Along one side of the wall stood a shed made from blue corrugated steel, used for parking electric tricycles and storing farm tools. 

Both Zhao Chenghuai and Zhou Yu were home. The front gate stood open. Zhao Chenghuai sat near the entrance snapping long beans into pieces, while Zhou Yu lounged in a reclining chair nearby, lazily fanning herself. They looked completely at ease. 

Unlike many of the villagers, Zhao Chenghuai and Zhou Yu had never treated Jing Lin with avoidance or superstition. They genuinely liked him. Part of the reason was that he had always been a handsome child. He had been adorable when he was young, and as an adult he had grown into a polite, good-looking man who had graduated from a prestigious university. The other reason was gratitude. During the difficult years when Zhao Chenghuai and Zhou Yu were struggling to get by, Jing Lin’s grandfather had helped them many times. Even now, they were still leasing the family’s two ponds at the original contract price. Considering how much pond lease rates had increased over the years, that arrangement was far more generous than what they could have obtained elsewhere.