Chapter 175 - 175: Mutation
After Ye Xingchen turned on the detector, he saw that the temperature outside had reached 72 degrees Celsius.
Ye Xingchen had no choice but to raise the thick metal layer outside the safety fortress to block the scorching sun.
Ye Xingchen couldn’t help it. Under the direct sunlight, Ye Xingchen felt that even if the air-conditioning in the safety fortress was turned to the maximum, it was still very stuffy. Even the originally cold water in the swimming pool was heated up.
The more Ye Xingchen listened to the news, the more he frowned.
The number of people dying from heatstroke was increasing exponentially. It was clearly a rare disease in modern society, but at this time, it actually felt like a plague. Every day, countless people would collapse and die from heatstroke.
Some of the corpses on the street were cleared up, and the officials did not send anyone else to clean up.
The reason was simple. The temperature outside was too high. When the officials came out to move the bodies and sanitize the streets, countless staff members collapsed from heatstroke.
Medicine was in short supply, and the government was also short of manpower. The government had planned to clean up all the corpses piled up on the streets and burn them together. Now, they could only put the corpses in a corner.
Many people saw that the water on the street had evaporated and wanted to try their luck to see if they could find some supplies. After all, the temperature had warmed up, but the water pipes had burst. It was a problem for them to find drinking water because there was no snow to quench their thirst.
However, there was a bigger problem. Some people went out to find food to bring home, but when they returned home, almost all of them suffered from heat exhaustion. Many of them had already developed heatstroke.
Many people sought help from the government, but the government couldn’t do anything about it. After all, there wasn’t much medicine to begin with. The things which were used to lower the temperature were as precious as food. Even if they had them, they weren’t willing to share them. Therefore, it could be said that the outside world was even more unbearable than during the extreme cold.
At least people could wear more clothes to keep out the cold and go out to look for food during the extreme cold. But now, the resources had basically been divided by people during the extreme cold. Moreover, at this time, there were already so many people suffering from severe heatstroke. Who would be willing to risk their lives to go out to look for food?
Compared to heatstroke, this was something more serious.
Because the streets of the city were filled with more or less residual body parts, the bodies had begun to rot and ferment in the hot weather. Not to mention the bacteria and viruses, the stench attracted a lot of things.
The plants had already been frozen in the extreme cold. Then the frozen plants had been soaked in the water and exposed to the scorching sun. They had long become dry and brittle.
Rustling sounds came from the dried branches and leaves. Then, a large group of rats crawled out of the ground and ate the corpses scattered in the city.
Ye Xingchen couldn’t see these scenes. After all, his cameras were only installed around the Jinghua residential area. They weren’t installed in every street and alley. The location of the Jinghua residential area was better. After all, it was near the school area, so the environmental hygiene here was very good. Therefore, the rats hadn’t run into the range that Ye Xingchen could see.
Groups of rats and insects swarmed in from all directions and scattered in every corner of the city.
The temperatures of extreme cold and extreme heat had wiped out many of their species, but it was not enough to make them extinct.
This was especially true for creatures with extremely tenacious vitality like cockroaches and rats. They had long undergone their first evolution in the extreme cold to adapt to the cold weather.
Not long after the extreme heat began, their genes changed again.
Food was scarce and the weather was extreme, forcing them to eat their own kind before evolving again.
If Ye Xingchen could see them now, he would find that the rats wandering on the street were twice as big as before. The rats were now as big as cats.
The cockroaches were the same. Previously, the cockroach was half the size of a palm, but now it has evolved to the size of a palm.
The cockroaches were a densely packed brownish-black ocean, and it was a spectacular sight.
People in the city had already started to open their doors to catch these fat rats.
Compared to the bad smell of the rats, the rotten smell of the corpses was even worse. Therefore, the people didn’t feel that the rats were dirty. Instead, the rats looked fat and strong, with thick black fur. They looked very plump and edible.
However, the people in Jinghai City were already better off than most people.
This was a coastal city, and many people near the sea had already run to transport seawater.
At a time like this, when water in the world was cut off on a large scale, seawater had become something that everyone was scrambling to buy.
The most difficult part of the extremely hot days was in the afternoon. Ye Xingchen looked at the temperature monitor. The temperature was basically maintained between 72 degrees C and 74 degrees C.
In the beginning, there were still people who went out despite the high temperature and the scorching sun. However, those who went out were roasted alive and died outside not long after they left.
The temperature at night was much lower. Although it was still more than 50 degrees at night, it was still much better than the temperature at noon. At least it was still possible to go out for a short while at this time. After all, people could go without eating for a few days, but they could not go without drinking water for days.
Many people who lived along the coast had already discovered the value of seawater. As a result, many people from other places had begun to come to Jinghai City.
After all, this was one of the coastal cities with mountains and seas.
Other than seawater, there was another very important resource: seafood.
Previously, when it was extremely cold, no one could go out. The temperature by the sea was especially cold, and even the sea near the land was covered with a thick layer of ice. As a result, even if people thought that seafood could satisfy their hunger, no one went out to catch it.
Because at that time, it was impossible to harvest them.
However, it was different now. The temperature had risen, and the ice on the sea had melted. The seaside, which Ye Xingchen couldn’t see, had begun to be lively..