Chapter 62

“What time is it?”

“Two twenty.”

“Sleep a little longer?”

“Yeah, let’s sleep a bit more.”

…

December 12th, Han Donglei and Wang Mei lay in bed with numb faces. It was the seventh day of the snowstorm, and for the past seven days, the two of them had been staying at home, too scared to go outside. They lived on the second floor, and now the snow had covered half the window sill, and they couldn’t see the shadow of the ground below.

Below their apartment lived a couple from out of town. The two of them had gone downstairs to check yesterday, and the couple was fine, but the window had been completely buried by the snow, making it opaque. They were worried that the snow might crush the windows, so they moved their wardrobe. Their building was a twenty-year-old residential complex. Located in the outskirts of Liaohai, the entire neighborhood now seemed like a forgotten island, covered in a vast sea of white snow.

At 2:30, Wang Mei couldn’t fall asleep and moved slightly, asking, “Do you think the second floor will get buried?”

“Hard to say,” Han Donglei replied. The snow had been falling for 20 hours in Longbei, with a snowfall of 12mm. The snowstorm might intensify overnight into tomorrow, so what would happen three days later… no one could say.

Wang Mei got up to use the bathroom. The bathroom was just three meters away from the bedroom, but with the underfloor heating on, every step she took still made her shiver.

She had just returned to the bedroom when her phone rang.

“Are you and Dad okay?” her daughter asked anxiously as soon as the call connected.

“We’re fine, we’ve been staying at home.” Her daughter was studying at university in Longnan. They chatted on video for ten minutes before reluctantly ending the call.

After hanging up, Wang Mei called the house in Shangshi Village. The elderly couple was staying inside, and the snow outside had piled so high that it had already covered half the house.

“Sigh.” Wang Mei sighed. Although her parents were fine, she still couldn’t help but worry.

“Don’t worry too much. It’ll stop in a couple of days,” Han Donglei comforted her.

After talking for a while, Wang Mei got out of bed to turn on the TV. But just three minutes in, the power went out.

Half an hour later, the neighborhood management sent a notice: [The high-voltage power line at 239 Kaixuan Road has been buried under snow, causing a power outage in Fengyun District. The outage duration is uncertain. (Expected recovery after the 18th).]

“18th?” Wang Mei was startled. Today was only the 12th.

“The power bank still has 20% left. We’ll have to use it sparingly,” Han Donglei said.

Wang Mei glanced at her phone—her battery was at 39%, and she felt no sense of security.

They informed family and friends about the phone battery situation, then stared blankly at the ceiling. With no power and the snow blocking out any sunlight, they felt for the first time an overwhelming sense of isolation. Over the next three days, the wind howled outside. They tested the temperature with a thermometer, and it showed minus 40°C, the lowest recorded in Liaohai in nearly 30 years.

December 15th, the wind outside finally subsided. Han Donglei pushed the window open, and it was completely covered with snow. After a moment of hesitation, he put on his down jacket and stepped outside.

“Completely blocked.”

“We can’t get out.”

The hallway was buried with snow, and several neighbors from the first floor were watching the situation.

Han Donglei walked up to the snow by the door and asked, “How deep is it, five meters?”

One neighbor responded, “It’s 7.2 meters.”

Everyone: !!!

Three minutes later, they had climbed up to the third-floor hallway. The neighborhood was at a low point, and looking out from the hallway windows, the snow below the second floor was completely covered. The road in the distance didn’t look as bad, but everything was a vast expanse of white, and only a few pine trees were visible.

“This is too much.”

“I’ve never seen such heavy snow before.”

…

Liaohai had experienced snowstorms before, but this was the most severe one.

They stayed on the third floor for a while before contacting the neighborhood management. Since they lived in a steel mill residential area, snow removal was the responsibility of the steel mill.

At 3 p.m., the property management sent three diesel snowplows from the factory. The snow-clearing work went on until midnight, and by then, a small path had been cleared from each building to the community entrance. Han Donglei and Wang Mei put on their cotton coats and went downstairs. The snow in the middle of the road had been piled on both sides, and at 1.6 meters tall, Wang Mei felt like she was in an ice and snow wonderland rather than her own neighborhood.

The snow was all the result of acid rain that had solidified into snowflakes, and the two of them didn’t dare linger long. They made a quick loop and headed home. The snow that had piled up on their windows was now cleared by the snowplows. They had already opened the windows to let in some fresh air before they left, which was the first time in half a month they had aired the house.

On the morning of December 16th, they fell asleep to the sound of snowplows.

The next morning, Wang Mei had just woken up when she heard someone knocking at the door. She thought it was the property management checking on the situation, so she opened the door without thinking.

“Meizi, are you alright?” As soon as the door opened, an elderly couple stood at the doorstep.

“Mom and Dad?” Wang Mei was stunned for a moment.

“We’ve been calling you, but no one answered.”

“My phone died,” Wang Mei pointed to the phone on the table.

Since the power had gone out, she and Han Donglei had been conserving their phone battery, but the standby time was short. Starting the morning of the 14th, they had completely turned off their phones. Yesterday, when they went downstairs to check the snow, they had forgotten to charge their phone.

“I told you a couple of days ago, the power lines in the neighborhood were damaged…” Wang Mei said.

“We’re fine too. Today, a diesel vehicle came into the city, so we hitched a ride,” Old Wang said with a hearty laugh.

Wang Mei looked at their pant legs. Although they had come by hitching a ride, the bottoms of their pants were soaked through. She got up and went to the bedroom, returning shortly with two pairs of clean cotton pants. “These are mine and Donglei’s. You can wear them.”

The elderly couple didn’t refuse. After changing, they went to the bedroom to sleep.

When Wang Mei returned to the master bedroom, Han Donglei was putting on his cotton pants.

“Go back to sleep, no need to get up,” Wang Mei said.

Han Donglei crawled back into bed. “The snow hasn’t melted yet. Why does it always seem to come when we least expect it?”

Wang Mei didn’t respond, only her eyes reddened.

“What’s wrong?” Han Donglei asked, startled.

“It’s nothing, just thinking about my childhood,” Wang Mei replied. She was 47 this year, and just now, when she saw her father’s pants, she suddenly remembered the snowstorm when she was seven, and her father carrying her to school. Back then, her father didn’t have gray hair, and his shoulders were very broad. His legs creaked as they sank into the snow.

Forty years have passed, and her father, who had once carried her, now bent over and still shorter than she was. Occasionally, when the family discussed something, she always communicated with an urgent tone. She had always thought that as she grew older, her parents would need her care. But the moment her elderly parents pushed open the door earlier, she realized that no matter how old she got, in her parents’ eyes, she would always be their child.

That afternoon, after her parents woke up, they were preparing to return home. There were snowplows everywhere outside, so Wang Mei didn’t dare let them leave. Her parents stayed in the neighborhood. The snow removal work took five days, and after that, the outlines of the cars on either side of the green belt finally appeared.

Wang Mei heard the news and hurriedly put on her boots to go downstairs.

“Which one is ours?”

“I can’t tell at all.”

When Wang Mei and Han Donglei reached the green belt, many residents were looking for their cars. Wangwang Community was an old residential area, and people usually parked their cars on both sides of the green belt. Now, the outlines of many cars could be seen, but which one was whose… it was impossible to tell.

After half an hour of searching, Wang Mei and Han Donglei finally found their car.

The snow on the car was about 80 centimeters deep. Han Donglei used a shovel to clear it.

“I wonder if it’s damaged…” Wang Mei felt a little heartbroken. They had bought the SUV just last year, and it had cost over 150,000.

Wang Mei helped Han Donglei shovel, and after a while, the car was fully uncovered.

“It’s not damaged,” Han Donglei sighed in relief. But half a minute later, the sigh of relief was quickly replaced by worry. The car wasn’t crushed, but it was covered with rust spots. Some of them, when touched, revealed the metal beneath the paint.

“Why are there so many rust spots?”

“It smells so strong.”

…

At this point, complaints from other residents could be heard around them. Han Donglei went over to check, and the other cars were in similar condition to theirs—some had paint peeling off the roofs, others had paint missing from the hoods. Looking at the cars and then at the heavy snow around them, everyone was reminded of a serious issue: This wasn’t just an ordinary snowstorm; this was acid snow formed by Harma acid rain.

“The snow in front of my house has melted into a puddle of filthy water. It smells awful.”

“I played in the snow for two days, and now my throat feels itchy. I think I might have a respiratory infection.”

“Everyone, make sure to protect yourself from acid rain!”

…

Over the next two days, many people in Longbei shared photos of the snow around their homes. Corroded car hoods, damaged buildings, unpleasant snow… Because the snow was formed from acid rain, it looked white like every other year, but the corrosiveness was extremely strong. According to weather data from the Longbei meteorological station, the PH level of the snow in Longbei was below 4.0, with the acidity surpassing that of the flood disaster in Longnan.

Now, 70% of the agricultural areas had suffered rapid frost damage. Longbei, known as the nation’s vegetable basket, was facing a nationwide vegetable crisis after this snowfall.

Before the people of Longbei had even recovered from the disaster, two more issues arose:

The snow wasn’t cold enough to melt. Starting on the 19th, Longbei faced an average temperature of minus 20°C. According to the meteorological station, between December 22nd and 28th, Longbei’s temperatures could reach as low as minus 50°C, and the region would face a once-in-a-century freeze disaster.

Longbei’s protective forests had been severely damaged by the acid snow. Large areas of trees had rapidly frozen to death, and the damaged area was expected to be around one million square kilometers. The hard work of three generations of forestry workers in Longbei was destroyed in an instant.

“Does this Harma acid rain really have to be so terrifying?” A netizen scrolled through the snow disaster maps of Longbei’s protective forests and felt a pang of discomfort in their nose.

Longbei’s protective forests were a key ecological project for Longxia. The project had started in 2950 and had been ongoing for 78 years. Throughout the years, it had been the result of countless people’s efforts, and many forest planters had worked together to transform barren land into the current green areas. Yet all that effort, in a single stroke, had been destroyed by acid rain and acid snow…

“What will we do after this year passes?” some netizens wondered in confusion.

Amid their bewilderment, Longbei residents still managed to joke: “We thought Longnan had the worst disaster this year, but as the year draws to a close, big Longbei has staged a comeback.”

Although everyone joked about it, this was a meaningless comeback, and no one truly wanted such a reversal.