The weather was clear in Wen Qian's hometown, but it was still raining elsewhere.
There was a drought last year, a snow disaster in winter, and now floods. People were increasingly uneasy.
No matter how much regulation, disaster relief, and emergency response took place, people had varying degrees of worry about the future.
At this time, different parts of the world were suffering from varying degrees of natural and man-made disasters, with little good news on the news.
No matter how much comfort and encouragement was given, the mundane routine of the past could no longer return.
People began to reflect if they had been too ungrateful before - turning on the tap provided water, flipping a switch gave electricity, transportation was convenient, life was easy.
Although work and school were arduous, at least eating and sleeping was normal in spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
But now, they were constantly facing extreme weather, with no chance to catch their breath, making it impossible to continue even the ordinary hustle and bustle of life.
In some countries and regions, due to people's fear and despair of disasters,
some took the opportunity to amass wealth, seeing through the fragile psychology of many, using the excuse of comforting them, under the guise of giving them faith and support, they took away their savings.
Fortunately, this behavior was prohibited domestically, as the country did not allow such things to happen.
The disaster had not yet caused people to collapse, but their actions of squandering family fortunes led to the breakdown of families, and the loss of trust and affection.
Of course, for events happening in distant lands, Wen Qian only read about them in the news.
She hung a map on the wall at home and searched for alternative locations, wondering where she could go next when she left this place.
Where could she temporarily settle, where could she live for the long term? She wanted to find a place with fewer people than the town and start over.
After all, if those relatives she wanted to bury didn't live well, they might come and bother her again.
Wen Qian even thought of resolving those relatives before she left, but since she was going to leave, it seemed unnecessary to get her hands dirty.
Her first choice was to head west. The east had lower elevations and denser populations, so it was ruled out first.
The west was more vast and sparsely populated, but she was not yet sure where exactly to go.
She would first rule out famous places, routes, and scenic spots, preferring her activity range to have no neighbors - this was very important.
As the saying goes, distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors. Having a good neighbor is fine, but having no neighbor is better than having one with ill intentions.
Wen Qian originally found it difficult to trust others, and after gaining access to her spatial ability, she became even more distrustful.
So she searched online and in her stored books for all kinds of information, hoping to find a place where she could farm or raise livestock.
Relying on the mountains to eat from the mountains, relying on the sea to eat from the sea, she needed to continuously hoard supplies.
After all, the things in her spatial ability were hoarded little by little by herself, and would eventually run out.
She herself had no great skills and did not expect to earn a lot of money, nor did she dare to do anything illegal.
After all, those illegal ways of making money were still things she did not have the courage to do. She just wanted to avoid trouble and had no intention of killing her way through any crowd - that was not her style.
This meant she had no way to loot during chaos, or buy things for zero dollars when the world was in disorder. With her small stature, she would instead be targeted, so she had to make preparations early.
Before the transportation system collapsed, she could still take advantage of the convenient transportation to shorten the time needed for migration.
If she waited too long and had to travel by foot or random vehicles, the difficulty would be too great.
Once the world was in chaos, it would be too troublesome for her to move. Thin and small, she would be seen as an easy target that anyone would want to pinch. It was better to leave sooner.
Wen Qian also had to consider that even if disasters occurred later, the migrants would not stop or gather in the place she chose, which was also very important.
Wen Qian marked a few locations and pondered how to quickly establish a home of her own after arriving. She wished she could take her current home brick by brick.
But then she thought better of it and decided to leave this home in the town behind, feeling that perhaps one day she might be able to come back and see it.
Of course, this was just her wishful thinking.
She had stored gasoline, chainsaws, and various tools.
In the meantime, she could cut down trees in advance and prepare the lumber, so that she could quickly build a small wooden house when the time came. At this point, she thought of mobile prefab houses or shipping containers, but realized Wen Qian could not afford to buy them, so she considered building one herself.
Wen Qian had also often watched videos about building safe huts in the wilderness. The people in the videos seemed to build small houses with ease, but Wen Qian knew from personal experience of chopping trees that it would be very tiring.
Using an axe was different from using a chainsaw, and she still had to build a home for her entire daily life, so the workload would definitely not be easy.
This process could take a long time, but she needed to determine it in advance.
She really did not want to spend money on buying a prefab house, even if building a hut herself was slower. Before the home was built, she needed a safe place to settle.
She still needed to slowly think of another good solution, as she could not come up with one for the time being.
It all came down to not having enough money, but at this point, Wen Qian was not thinking about earning money either. She was truly just drifting through her days slowly.
The rush of going to work and leaving home was long gone, but she had not entered a frantic survival mode either.
Rather than a desire to survive, her social anxiety and tendency to avoid trouble more so dictated her lifestyle.
As Wen Qian was pondering alternative locations, the clear skies in the countryside gave way to rain once again.
This time it was the same as before, a continuous light drizzle that made one feel annoyed.
As the temperature continued to rise, the drizzle did not bring much of a cooling sensation.
High temperature, high humidity - what people call a steamer.
No need to mention the crops in the fields, Auntie Chen and the others had already given up on the first half of this year's harvest.
It was just too difficult.
They were hoping for the second half of the year, and would grow some grain if the weather improved.
Seeing their parents working so hard but gaining no harvest due to the weather, their son told them to stop growing grain altogether.
They could just grow some vegetables at home and buy grain with money from the town.
But Uncle Chen, unless he was physically unable, would continue farming. It was just that the current weather was not good, so he needed to consider what crops to grow next and modify his original planting plan.
However, no matter what crops were grown, extreme conditions like severe drought, heavy rain, strong winds, and heavy snow all seemed to make it difficult for them to thrive.
Wen Qian did not know what would happen next, as her dreams were not that clear.
She only knew there would be natural disasters, but could not match the time with the specific disaster to prepare. All she could do was hoard supplies as much as possible and find a safe place to hide.
Due to the excessively humid weather, some things would spoil if bought and stored at home in large quantities.
Under normal circumstances, everything had an expiration date. Wen Qian had her spatial ability, so things remained in the same state as when they entered when taken out.
So she did not need to worry about storage time limits, but others, even if they could store a lot of food, would not be able to use it as it spoiled and expired, and could even invite deadly consequences.
Current vacuum-packing, nitrogen-flushing, and canning methods could delay expiration dates and preserve freshness as much as possible.
There were even claims online that military rations from past wars decades ago were still edible.
If not for Wen Qian's limited finances and the ability of her spatial ability to preserve freshness, she would have chosen to hoard canned goods as well, instead of just buying a small amount to try.
Before the end of June, Wen Qian had chosen about three backup destinations for herself, all located in different parts of the western region.
If she really ended up in a sparsely populated area, she felt that she could slowly survey the locations in person.
After all, the information available online and the descriptions in books were not enough.
