Chapter 3

Chapter 3

In the afternoon, Kelly and I went together to our future shelter—the farm.

The farm outside the city was colder than downtown, like winter had come early. The wind shrieked through the pine forest, and even the car windows were trembling.

“Good location,” she said. “Backed by higher ground, the entrance can’t be seen from the main road, and the view is open enough.”

The construction foreman, Mike, arrived with his team. Tablets, rangefinders, and computers were all set out, like a squad ready for battle.

“How far do you want to take the renovation?” he asked. “Basic insulation, or a whole-house system?”

Kelly handed over the draft, her tone crisp.

“The full set. Every room needs air circulation and heating. Expand the basement into a shelter. It must be livable long-term. I’ve already transferred the money into your account.”

Then Kelly sent him another requirements list, from steel and concrete strong enough, to solar panels and the latest-developed wind power system.

After the foreman took the card, he nodded seriously. A few minutes later, he had his team project a 3D rendering onto a temporary blackboard. The structure of the doors and windows, the walls, and the underground space unfolded layer by layer.

Kelly stood in front of the screen, correcting things little by little and putting forward more precise requirements.

“Keep the windows looking ordinary. On the inside, add reinforcement panels up to national security level.”

“Make the door lock three layers. The outer layer ordinary, the two inner layers metal, with an insulation layer in the middle.”

“The fence needs silent alert. Infrared and ground sensors, all of it. The wiring has to be buried deep.”

“And the exterior walls and access control must be done to blast-proof standards. Don’t save materials for me. I know everything clearly.”

Mike rubbed his hands, looking a bit troubled. “This is hard to finish in a short time.”

I transferred all the savings I had put aside from these years of work to him. “Then run three shifts. Fifteen days—starting today.”

Seeing the huge amount in the account, Mike immediately nodded and bowed, calling for the workers to enter the site and start work at once.

Kelly followed the site, watching every detail. At the same time, she also set up a temporary work desk for herself to push the follow-up drafting and updates of the construction drawings.

“Make the exterior walls look old. Make the window frames look old. Keep the yard overgrown.”

“Also,” I pointed at the villa on the drawings and drew a circle around it, “can you build a lift-up perimeter wall here?”

Mike frowned and nodded slowly. “Yes. We’ve done related projects before.”

In just a few days, the originally desolate farmhouse had already been completely renewed.

Even if to outsiders it looked like nothing more than an ordinary farm villa, and not hard to break.

But it had the safest security system and defensive facilities. Unless an entire army came, it was practically flawless.

Not to mention an underground shelter with multiple layers of protection—windproof, heated, unbreakable.

Days passed one by one.

Until the foreman, looking at the almost-finished work, couldn’t help asking.

“We can understand making it this solid, but why make it look so shabby?”

Kelly didn’t pause at all. While checking the newest drawings, she replied:

“In spring there are a lot of bears here, you know. You know how dangerous bears are after being hungry all winter.”

The workers glanced at each other, didn’t ask again, and kept their heads down and kept working.

Up to now, thirteen days had passed since I was reborn.

There were only seventeen days left until the extreme cold arrived.

The basement was already finished. Next, it was time for supplies to enter.

I drove back into the city and went first to the transit warehouse. The unpacking area there had already been set up according to our requirements.

Hundreds of pounds of vacuum-packed rice and flour had already been disguised as old cardboard boxes from an ordinary move.

All kinds of canned goods, military ready-to-eat food, compressed biscuits, and snacks had also all been mixed into the packaging boxes of new furniture,

to make sure the workers transporting them wouldn’t discover that the inside was all food.

I even mixed large amounts of frozen meat and frozen vegetables into the packaging boxes of first-aid medicine and antibiotics.

The remaining daily necessities were not missing a single item, and were transported the same way along with even more abundant food.

Besides that, we also had to prepare water.

Although we had already designed a snowmelt purification system in advance, that was an emergency system we wouldn’t use unless necessary.

Water storage barrels, purification tablets, and filters were prepared to the extreme limit of a household quota.

The farm villa project, with Kelly stationed on-site supervising, was nearly at the end, and all kinds of supplies I purchased also began entering.

Kelly and I stood to the side, looking around with satisfaction.

Now, even without external water and electricity supply, we could still ensure we could live normally.

When the red cloth for the completion ceremony was cut down, we hugged each other and cheered.

At this moment, there were still seven days until the extreme cold arrived.

There was still the last piece of the puzzle left to complete the plan.