Her calm expression hid the steady rhythm of her thoughts. She quickly started calculating in her head, step by step, what she needed to do next. The place was good, but it was not safe enough for what was coming. She had read the story. She knew exactly how things would turn out once the apocalypse began. Electricity would go down, chaos would spread, and people would turn desperate.
First of all, she needed another door. The current one looked strong, but for her, it was not strong enough. She planned to install an extra door right outside this one, creating a kind of double layer. This new door would be pure metal, heavy and built to take hits. Not some simple security lock but something that could stand even against a grenade blast. The hinges would be reinforced steel, the lock mechanical instead of digital, so it would still work even if the power went out. It would take some money and work to build, but it was worth it.
Right after that, her mind went straight to the solar system. The one already installed in the duplex was too weak. She had checked the specs earlier on her phone. If she used it carefully, it could keep the lights on and maybe run the fridge for a day or two. But once the real chaos began, that amount of power was nothing.
She needed something far stronger. Something that wouldn't fail even when the whole city went dark.
She planned to bring in a high powered generator that worked together with an upgraded solar grid. A generator that could store almost a month of power if she charged it fully. Not one of those tiny portable ones, but a huge heavy duty battery system that could run for weeks without shutting down. It would be the main heart of her apartment, the thing that kept her alive when everyone else was stumbling around in darkness.
On top of that, she wanted to place the best solar panels she could find on the rooftop. Not the cheap ones that barely produced anything but industrial grade panels. The kind that could pull in a huge amount of electricity as long as there was even a bit of sunlight. Morning light, afternoon light, even cloudy day light. Anything was enough.
With strong panels constantly charging the generator, she could stretch that one month of stored electricity even longer. Maybe two months. Maybe three.
And if the sun stayed out, she would barely need the stored power at all. She could run her lights, her fridge, maybe even a few small appliances, all on sunlight alone.
She also planned a rainwater collection system right next to the solar setup. Something simple but large enough to catch every drop. The rooftop was perfect for this. Once the water was collected, she could purify it with filters and boil it when needed. Clean water and steady power. These two things alone would make her far stronger than anyone else in the building when the world fell apart.
Of course, she needed the building manager's permission to install anything on the rooftop. She wasn't sure if he would say yes, but she had already decided what to do if he refused. Money still worked right now, and the manager didn't look like the type who would turn down a quiet bribe. And even if he tried to stop her later, it would be too late once the panels were up.
Thinking about this, Bai Li couldn't help but laugh. As an army general, she had always lived an upright life in her previous life but now, it's just been a day in her new life and she is already thinking about bribing people.
Her eyes drifted to the balcony doors. The glass was pretty, but it was useless in a crisis. She planned to replace all of them with metal framed doors and explosion proof glass. Something that wouldn't shatter even if someone tried to break in. The same treatment would go to every window in the duplex. Bulletproof, shock proof, thick enough to block anything short of a tank shell.
None of this would look elegant, but she did not care about elegance. She cared about defenses.
She stood there for a long moment, making a mental list.
A reinforced metal door.
A high powered generator.
Top grade solar panels.
A rainwater collector.
Bulletproof windows and balcony doors.
It was a lot. It was expensive. But she had no choice.
As she kept thinking and making plans, she suddenly felt her stomach grumbling. Looking at the time, it was almost 9:15 pm. She had to eat dinner. She usually cooks for herself and doesn't like to eat out but right now, when she has just moved in, she has pretty much no ingredients to cook a meal.
Thinking of this, she opened the food delivery app and ordered a takeout from a nearby restaurant.
The inside of the apartment was air conditioned and maintained a cool temperature at all times so it felt quite comfortable. She even felt like sleeping. She was really tired after running around for most of the day. Well, she wasn't physically tired as her body has been strengthened to such an extent that she would probably not feel tired even after running for hours. But she did feel a little mentally taxed. After all, with everything that has happened, even she, with her immense mental fortitude, would feel a little tired.
But looking around the boxes and other things piled up, she couldn't just slack off. So, she quickly got up, though reluctantly and started settling into her new home. And for that, she first needed to rearrange the boxes of things and other furnitures and the computer parts that she brought back from the old unit.
She first went ahead and opened the door of the master bedroom on the first floor. There are a total of six rooms on this duplex, three on this floor and the other three on the second floor. Both floors each have one master bedroom, though the master bedroom on the 2nd floor is quite bigger and different from the one on the first floor with an attached office but she didn't want to go through the trouble of taking the stairs just to get to her room. So, she chose the master bedroom on the first floor.
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.
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To be continued.