In the Years When I Was a Father

Chapter 179: The Cool Dad in the Apocalypse (9)

Qi Sheng was disappointed not to receive the enthusiastic cheers he’d hoped for. He genuinely believed he had prepared thoroughly—this little library, he was sure, could bring spiritual satisfaction in a future life without the internet.

“Come in and take a look. I’ve prepared a wide variety of books—history, geography, biology, math, physics, and chemistry are just the basics. There are also books on music, sports, art, famous biographies, world classics—you name it. Oh, I even set aside an entire shelf just for web novels!”

Qi Lei and Qi Hang reluctantly stepped into the study. Qi Hang, in particular, couldn’t help but think of the terror of being silently watched by his dad as he was forced to do homework whenever he looked at that large table in the center of the room.

Because the study was so large and well-stocked, the inclusion of web novels didn’t get the reaction Qi Sheng had hoped for. The two teenagers were now more worried—would this father, whose thinking was clearly on a different wavelength, force them to study all of it?

Qi Lei stayed silent, and Qi Hang, seeing that his older brother was being no help at all, had to muster the courage to speak up.

“Dad, are all these books meant for me and my brother?”

“Of course not. They’re for the whole family. In the future, we can enjoy reading a book and drinking tea together. Even in the apocalypse, life can still be rich and meaningful!”

Qi Lei’s face turned frosty at this. Qi Hang also chose not to respond. This “rich and meaningful” life… you can enjoy it yourself, thanks!

Though the two boys didn’t especially dislike studying, they had just been liberated from school and couldn’t feel even a hint of joy at the idea of reading again.

The only good news was that these books weren’t specifically prepared just for the two of them, so at least the pressure felt a little lighter. The boys forced some polite, businesslike smiles, which still delighted Qi Sheng.

This latest snowfall lasted for many consecutive days. During that time, many older houses couldn’t withstand the weight of the snow. Worried about collapses, people went out during the snowstorm to clear the snow piling up on their roofs.

Most families didn’t dare to go out. The snow was too heavy, and it was easy to get lost in the whiteout conditions.

This couldn’t go on, so the village committee convened an emergency meeting with the heads of each household. The main purpose was to organize snow-clearing efforts every three days. Fearing that the snow might accumulate too much, they even designated a dumping ground: the nearby Xi River next to Qijia Village.

The Xi River wasn’t very wide—about twenty meters or so. Over the past decade, the area had seen little rain, and the water level had dropped significantly. At times, the river had even dried up completely. A bridge crossed over it, but after years of being used by vehicles, it had fallen into disrepair.

Transporting the snow to the riverbed could also help replenish some of its water supply.

The village committee seemed to have planned things thoroughly. After a quick round of feedback, they began calling for labor from each household to help with the work.

Naturally, it was Qi Sheng who went out on behalf of his family. But Qi Hang hadn’t played in the snow for a long time, and usually wasn’t allowed to go out freely. Seeing the village so lively now, he just couldn’t sit still.

He followed Qi Sheng around like a little tail, helping shovel snow. Even when he was clearly getting tired, he kept going with enthusiasm.

Qi Sheng didn’t stop him. Hard times lay ahead, and doing physical work now would help him build strength.

But one little helper didn’t seem like enough. So Qi Sheng put down his shovel and returned home to fetch the other “tail.”

“Lei Lei, come help Dad shovel snow. Don’t just sit indoors all the time.”

Qi Lei was sitting in the living room, idly strumming his guitar. His mind had already drifted outside, especially with Qi Hang’s occasional cheerful shouting in the background. But Qi Lei didn’t want to go out and see that irritatingly cozy scene. So even when the old lady had just encouraged him to go take a look, he had refused.

But when Qi Sheng personally came to call him this time, Qi Lei, despite his usual indifferent expression, immediately put down the guitar and followed him out of the courtyard.

Watching from the living room, the old lady couldn’t help but understand her grandson’s thoughts all too well.

Taking advantage of the quiet, with no one else around, she turned to the old man reading in the rocking chair and said, “Did you see the way Lei Lei reacted just now? I think he’s starting to hope for something from Xiao Sheng again.”

The old man took off his reading glasses at her words and smiled as he thought of the scene earlier. “That’s a good thing. We’ve both seen how much effort Xiao Sheng has put in lately. When Hang Hang is around, he’s never treated Lei Lei unfairly. In fact, more than once, he’s secretly tried to please him. As long as he’s truly changed, there’s nothing better than Lei Lei getting along with him again.”

“Well, what you said isn’t wrong. It’s just that I was scared by what happened before. Ah, if Xiao Sheng still can’t figure things out this time, just wait and see how I’ll deal with him!”

The elderly couple continued discussing the issues between the two sons. Meanwhile, Qi Sheng, who had finally gathered all his “tails,” handed the other iron shovel to Qi Lei and said, “Come on, help Dad work.”

This was their first time clearing the snow, so the accumulation was very thick. They had already made several trips back and forth but had barely cleared less than ten meters.

Qi Hang was tired from shoveling. Being a kid, he couldn’t resist plopping down into a clean pile of snow nearby, laughing as he sank deep into the thick snow.

Qi Sheng grabbed a handful of snow and threw it at Qi Hang: “Get up quickly, or your mom will come back and get mad at you.”

“Mom went to the village committee. She probably won’t be back for a while.”

Besides organizing labor for clearing snow, the village committee also arranged for another group of family members to attend safety lectures. With large-scale natural disasters across the country, experts were rapidly spreading knowledge on disaster response to minimize losses.

Tian Yue, having nothing better to do, went with Lin Meiyi to the village committee, so Qi Hang felt free to play in the snow.

“Dad, let’s have a snowball fight!” Qi Hang said, quickly forming a snowball and throwing it at Qi Sheng.

Qi Sheng was naturally willing to play, but his hands never stopped working. After throwing a snowball back at Qi Hang, he was soon dodging snowballs thrown by Qi Lei.

“Lei Lei, play with us for a bit!”

In the vast white world, the sky and earth seemed much more open and free. Qi Lei was hit by a snowball and immediately retaliated with one of his own. The father and sons barely got any work done—they ended up playing hard instead.

So when Qi Sen ran over to ask for backup and saw that Qi Sheng had only completed a small part of the task, he was speechless.

“Brother, how come you’re getting more childish by the day? Look at your speed!”

“I’m not worried about the speed. Didn’t you see I’ve got two sons? They’ll surpass you in no time!”

Hoping to borrow a son, Qi Sen felt a little sour at this. He looked at Qi Lei and said, “Lei Lei, come on, come with your uncle. I’ll get you a chicken drumstick for lunch.”

Before Qi Lei could answer, Qi Sheng objected: “No son borrowing. Have kids yourself if you want one. Don’t be coveting others’. Lei Lei still has to help me shovel snow.”

Qi Sen rolled his eyes and said, “What if you just split one with me?”

Qi Sheng smirked proudly: “Both of these are mine by my own effort. Want to borrow? No way!”

Qi Sen didn’t like Qi Sheng’s smugness and turned to tempt Qi Lei: “Lei Lei, do you want to come with your uncle?”

Qi Lei hesitated a bit, and seeing this, Qi Sheng shot back at Qi Sen: “You go do your thing first. We’ll help you when we’re done. Ah, I’m just an old guy now, so I’m counting on my two sons to help me!”

His words were so insincere that Qi Sen felt like punching someone. What irritated him even more was that Qi Lei, the brat, was now showing some favoritism towards that bastard Qi Sheng!

Qi Sen glared at Qi Lei, who stayed silent and refused to go with him. He really wanted to “bite” this father and son pair — one was utterly shameless, and the other just as ungrateful!

Isn’t he a son? He can go make one himself!

After Qi Sen stormed off in anger, and seeing that it was getting late, Qi Sheng took the two boys to continue their task. This winter, with plenty of stored food and no immediate food shortages, plus the occasional snowball fight and shoveling, life seemed more interesting than in past years.

The nationwide school reopening dates were all postponed. Although the heavy snow had stopped around the school reopening time, too many issues remained, so the schools dared not open.

The dream of not having to go to school was finally realized. After playing through the winter break, Qi Lei and Qi Hang finally put their minds to studying and showed some initiative.

Qi Sheng watched the guitar teacher in the video giving serious guidance, acting like a beginner, learning together with Qi Lei.

“Lei Lei, I think we need to practice some finger exercises first. My hands can’t keep up with the rhythm of these notes!”

Qi Lei nodded, agreeing with Qi Sheng. Meanwhile, Qi Hang, who had been tucked away painting in his room, finally finished a picture he was satisfied with.

Now it was early spring. When there was no heavy snow, the northern weather was still dry and cold. Usually, farmers would already be out tending to their crops by this time of year, but not this year. With the soil still hard—even though the snow had been cleared to nearby irrigation channels—no crops could be planted yet.

However, no matter how harsh the environment, people always find ways to overcome it. Besides, there are now far more resources than before—at least there are machines for farming.

So after some time, when the weather got a little better, Qi Sheng, besides accompanying Qi Lei to learn guitar, also began studying his older cousin’s farming machine.

“Xiao Sheng, stop studying it for now. After I finish plowing this piece of land, I’ll come over to your family’s field tomorrow.”

Qi Sheng’s older cousin Qi Mao rarely went out. He had bought a large farming machine at home and used it to help nearby farmers during busy seasons. For the past few years, no one in Qi Sheng’s family had farmed their land, so they had handed over their eight acres to Qi Mao for planting. The elderly couple only collected some grain each year.

Originally, the eight acres were all planted with winter wheat, but the recent heavy snow had frozen the wheat to death, so Qi Mao returned the land to Qi Sheng.

Although the land was back, Qi Sheng was a bit worried about what to plant.

“Big brother, what do you plan to plant after you’ve prepared the land?”

“What else can we plant? It’s not yet time for dryland rice here. I’m planning to plant more potatoes and then some eggplants after a while.”

“Plant so many acres of potatoes?” Qi Sheng was surprised. He remembered his brother had about ten acres of land.

“That’s the plan. Dryland rice has to wait until May, and the weather is uncertain then. Leaving the land empty now isn’t any better. We still have plenty of seed potatoes at home. If we don’t plant them, they’ll spoil.”

Qi Sheng thought about it. Potatoes were indeed a good current choice. Qi Mao was a seasoned veteran in the fields, so choosing simple, drought-resistant, and sturdy crops made a lot of sense.

Qi Sheng calculated roughly when the next natural disaster might come and decided to plant those two crops as well.

The next day, after they had nearly finished their road work, Qi Sheng took Qi Mao and Qi Sen out again.

Between the three families, they had over thirty acres of land. If they planted all potatoes, their family’s labor force alone wouldn’t be enough to handle it. Since potatoes would gradually become one of their main crops, the three of them agreed to buy a potato planter and a harvester.

The people of Qi Village were busily preparing for spring planting—well, this was typical for northern rural areas. City officials, seeing the weather was cold but otherwise normal, began planning to call back those who had returned to their hometowns.

Not only the officials had this idea; many who had jobs in the city were also packing their bags, preparing to return.

Qi Sheng’s school also planned to reopen soon and had already sent teachers a notice about the reporting date.

“Qi Sheng, the school notified us. We need to report back in five days. Looks like classes will start soon.”

Qi Sheng looked at the notification on his phone and felt a bit emotional. It seemed like the heavens were playing with them—after a few crazy and intense disasters, they gave the planet’s creatures a breather. But just as people started to relax, they would soon face merciless disasters again.

Sure enough, a few days later, several typhoons suddenly hit the coastal regions. They weren’t severe, so people didn’t pay much attention, especially those inland who kept heading back to the city.

Then, a nearly magnitude-7 earthquake struck a northern city, causing those who had been feeling lucky to get tense again.

“How could there be an earthquake in the plains?!”

Though Qi Village was hundreds of kilometers away from the epicenter, people still felt faint shaking.

This scared the northern folks, who had thought they’d never experience an earthquake. Those who had returned to the city rushed anxiously back to the countryside.

This earthquake was just the beginning. For a long time after, cities across the country were like “whack-a-mole,” with frequent tremors.

Because of this earthquake, there were widespread water, electricity, and internet outages nationwide.

Modern infrastructure was damaged extensively. Although Qi Village occasionally felt houses shaking, their losses were relatively minor. Of course, they couldn’t avoid the water, electricity, and internet outages.

“Ahhh, life’s unbearable!” Qi Hang wailed. No internet was one thing, but no electricity? It was like living like a primitive person!

Recently, the family had been busy planting eggplants, so at least they had something to do. Now that things were quiet again, Qi Hang was bored out of his mind.

After his wailing, Qi Hang quietly went to the study to find an online novel. He dragged a rattan chair outside and sat in the yard to read.

Qi Sheng now set specific study times for his two kids but let them arrange their free time however they wanted.

But seeing Qi Hang voluntarily read, even if it was just an online novel, made Qi Sheng smile.

Qi Lei could now slowly play simple tunes. The time spent learning together had made Qi Lei much more comfortable around Qi Sheng.

However, he no longer wanted to play guitar because, following advice from neighbors and kids, guitar practice time was pushed to the evenings.

With no electricity or internet, the small open space in front of Qi Sheng’s house turned into a tiny music venue for Qi Village, where Qi Lei became one of the shining performers.

A consequence of learning guitar that gave Qi Lei quite a headache!