After being targeted by the crazy NPC,I Ended Up Calling the Shots - Chapter 18
Chapter 18: Extreme Drought (1 )
(Author’s Note: Looking at the comments, some of you mentioned that seawater can be converted into freshwater, but this is a game world where industrial technology hasn’t reached that level. As for extracting moisture from human bodies, that comes from a player’s item and has nothing to do with the game instance itself. Don’t get too hung up on it—just read for fun, remember to turn your brain off, love you guys!)
Jiang Song stepped off the bus just before the countdown ended. The instant her feet hit the ground, the bus vanished, and her surroundings shifted. Tall buildings rose up everywhere, and car horns blared noisily, yet there wasn’t a single tree—not even a single blade of grass—to be seen.
Jiang Song was currently standing in front of a crosswalk. People were coming and going all around her, looking just like the real world, except for the complete absence of green.
[Game Name: Extreme Drought]
[Game Identity: Citizen of Wu City]
[Game Introduction: Thirty years ago, for unknown reasons, rivers and lakes dried up overnight. The intelligent planet suffered a severe depletion of water resources, plunging its people into dire straits.]
[Game Mission: Survive for 30 days]
As soon as the game introduction finished, Jiang Song immediately dashed toward the nearest convenience store. Drought and water depletion meant her first priority was naturally to stockpile water.
The air conditioning was blowing inside the convenience store, and the owner was sitting in a rocking chair scrolling on his phone. Before walking in, Jiang Song had checked her account balance—she had thirty thousand yuan—and her outfit was that of a chic city woman. Jiang Song secretly rejoiced; her identity this time was actually pretty decent.
She walked a lap around the convenience store, only to discover there was no water here at all!
“Boss, don’t you have any bottled mineral water here?”
The owner gave her a strange look. “Little sister, do I look like someone with nine heads to you? How would I dare illegally resell water?”
From the owner, Jiang Song learned that all water resources in this world were controlled by the Tap Water Group. To get water, people needed specific water ration coupons to make a purchase.
This immediately reminded Jiang Song of the food ration coupons from the old days. She opened her phone and searched for information regarding the Tap Water Group.
[The Tap Water Group announced today that due to water shortages, water prices will be raised by 20% starting tomorrow…]
[Due to the extreme shortage of water resources, supply has repeatedly failed to meet demand. In order to maintain social stability and economic balance, the state has enacted a “Unified Procurement and Marketing” policy, working with the Wu City Tap Water Group to centrally manage and control the distribution and sale of water nationwide.]
[Wu City’s Best Enterprise of the Year: Tap Water Group]
[Three days ago, a 19-year-old male bribed staff at a water station to purchase a large quantity of water without water coupons, violating Article 8 of the Water Resource Management Treaty. Following a ruling, he was sentenced to two years in prison.]
…
The more Jiang Song read, the deeper her brow furrowed. She turned out every pocket on her clothes, only to find not a single one of these so-called water coupons.
Jiang Song used her navigation app to head to the nearest water station. It was a place resembling a bank, guarded at the entrance not by regular security guards, but by armed police carrying guns. Inside the lobby, the people waiting in line were all clutching small red slips of paper—those had to be the water coupons.
Jiang Song walked inside and got in line at the back.
The clerk at the counter asked expressionlessly, “How much water?”
A middle-aged woman replied, “One liter of Grade-1 water, and five liters of Grade-2 water.”
“Water coupons.”
The woman handed them over. After verifying them, the clerk said, “That comes to 350 yuan in total.
(Grade-1 is 100 yuan/liter, Grade-2 is 50 yuan/liter.)”
After paying, the woman took the receipt the clerk gave her and went into the adjacent room to collect her water.
Jiang Song observed the entire process clearly. The prices were well within what she could afford, but the problem was that she didn’t have any water coupons right now.
“Big sister.”
Feeling someone tugging on her sleeve, Jiang Song turned around and saw a young boy looking at her.
Jiang Song looked at him in confusion.
He leaned in closer and whispered very quietly, “Need water coupons?”
His voice was so low he was practically just mouthing the words, yet Jiang Song understood him. She asked, “You have some?”
The boy nodded. “Come outside with me.”
Jiang Song glanced at the armed police guarding the entrance, then followed him out. They walked a short distance until they were far enough away from the water station. The boy wanted to keep going, but Jiang Song stopped in her tracks. “Right here is fine.”
The boy glanced back into the distance to confirm that no one from the water station could see them, then said, “I’ve got water coupons.”
“How much are you selling them for?”
“Two hundred yuan per liter for Grade-1 water, and eighty yuan per liter for Grade-2 water.”
Jiang Song frowned slightly. The price of the coupons alone was even more expensive than the water itself.
Seeming to sense her hesitation, the boy continued, “Big sister, my prices really aren’t expensive. Other places are both pricier and unsafe. I only came out to scalp water coupons because my family is struggling to get by. Don’t hesitate, big sister—water prices are going up again tomorrow, so it’ll be an even worse deal then.”
Jiang Song was persuaded by his last sentence. She had just entered the game and knew nothing about the actual situation. She couldn’t tell if the boy in front of her was telling the truth or lying, but her top priority was to stockpile water first.
“Alright. How much do you have?”
“I only have five liters of Grade-1 water and ten liters of Grade-2 water.”
“Deal. I’ll take it all.”
The boy quickly dug the coupons out of his bag, checking his surroundings several times to make sure nobody was watching before handing them over to Jiang Song.
Jiang Song paid him 1,800 yuan, and even asked to add him on WeChat. “That way, if I need more later, it’ll be easy to reach you.”
The boy hesitated for a moment before giving her a phone number.
Jiang Song headed back into the water station, using up every single one of the water coupons she had just bought, which cost her another 1,000 yuan. Just this tiny amount of water had cost her nearly 3,000 yuan, and it was only enough to last two days. Jiang Song suddenly felt an immense wave of pressure.
Now that she had bought the water, she needed to find a place to store it. Conveniently, her game identity came with a rented apartment. Following the information on her phone, she found the location: the third floor of a walk-up building in an old residential complex. Carrying the water she had bought, Jiang Song returned home and looked around the apartment. It was a simple one-bedroom unit, reasonably clean.
So clean, in fact, that there wasn’t a single edible thing in the entire place. Jiang Song set the water down inside, then headed to the supermarket downstairs to buy some food. To survive a full thirty days, food was just as essential.
Jiang Song was from the north and loved eating noodles, so she bought an assortment of raw noodles—thin noodles, thick noodles, vegetable noodles, buckwheat noodles, knife-cut noodles, and so on.
Because of the water shortage, all food was expensive—especially fruits and vegetables, which were priced so outrageously it made her tongue click in shock. Still, Jiang Song bought some anyway, along with high-calorie, high-sugar, filling, and easily portable foods.
Jiang Song returned home with both hands completely full. Just these supplies alone had wiped out every last cent she had on her.
Once back inside, she first organized her things, packing the easily portable items into a single bag so she could grab it and run at a moment’s notice if an emergency happened. She put all the remaining vegetables into the refrigerator.
After all that running back and forth, it was already getting late. Jiang Song decided to cook herself a meal first. Grade-1 water was drinking water—clear and clean—while Grade-2 water was for daily household use and noticeably murky.
Jiang Song boiled a small pot of Grade-1 water and cooked some noodles. Once they were done, she scooped the noodles out and poured the remaining noodle broth into a separate bowl. Then she heated up a pan with oil to stir-fry a small side dish, tossed the noodles in, and added some seasonings. A simple bowl of noodles was ready, and she could still drink the leftover broth.
Sitting at the dining table, Jiang Song searched for useful information on her phone while she ate. She discovered that in this game world, water coupons were distributed uniformly by each residential community, with a strict limit on how many each person could claim. Furthermore, because of the exorbitant cost of drinking water, many people died of dehydration every year.
