Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 466 Bunker Crisis

The noise outside the tent was still going on.

Someone was talking, their voice sometimes loud and sometimes soft, and the content was not very clear, but some fragmented words could be vaguely caught.

Someone was walking around; footsteps approached from a distance, passed by her tent, and then moved away.

A child is crying, as if using the sound of crying to express some kind of grievance that even the child cannot explain.

All the sounds were filtered through the canvas, becoming muffled. Xu Xiaoyan thought she wouldn't be able to sleep, after all, the experience of the past four hours was enough to keep her awake.

But her body was much more honest; she fell into a deep sleep as soon as her eyelids closed.

She was woken up by a lot of noise.

People were running around, their footsteps hurried and chaotic.

Someone was moving things, and the tent poles clanged and clattered together.

Someone was calling out names; the voice came from a great distance, echoing back.

"Xiao Yan!" Lan Yue's voice came from outside the tent. "Xiao Yan, are you awake? Come out and see!"

Xu Xiaoyan became completely sober in that instant.

She yanked open the tent zipper, the movement so forceful that the zipper pull got stuck.

She gave it a hard tug, and with a "ripping" sound, the zipper pull went off track and slid out of the zipper teeth.

She didn't have time to worry about that. She crawled out of the tent and, following the direction Blue Moon was pointing, saw the wall in the center of the hall.

She hadn't noticed before, but the screen on that wall had never been lit before. Now, however, the wall was displaying scrolling text, and a whole row of LED displays had lit up at the same time.

She was a bit far away and couldn't see what was written on it, but someone next to her was reading it aloud, in a voice that was just loud enough for a dozen or so people around to hear.

"...After deliberation by the command headquarters, it has been decided...that bunkers 1, 2, and 3... will be evacuated in batches starting at 2 PM today..."

Evacuate?

The person continued reading, their voice beginning to tremble, but they persisted:

"...Due to damage to the bunker structure caused by thunderstorms...cracks have appeared in some load-bearing walls...expert assessment...there is a risk of collapse..."

Xu Xiaoyan immediately remembered the crack she had seen last night, but that's how cracks are; if you see one, it means there are ten more you haven't seen.

Those cracks may be hidden behind the wall plaster, deep in the concrete, or anywhere you can't see them, but they are slowly getting longer, wider, and deeper.

In this air-raid shelter made of reinforced concrete, a single crack is enough to prove everything.

It's not because the crack itself is particularly dangerous, but because the building is losing its reason for existence.

"...Evacuation plan as follows...Departure from Zone 1 at 2 PM...Destination..."

The person stopped reading aloud at this point.

It wasn't because he couldn't read, but because the word following "destination" suddenly rendered his vocal cords unable to speak.

His mouth was agape, his lips were trembling, and his eyes were fixed on the line of text on the screen.

Xu Xiaoyan pushed through the crowd and squeezed to a position a little further forward.

She stood on tiptoe, squinted, and tried to see the line of words that hadn't disappeared yet.

The screen clearly displays "Destination: Qing City".

The moment those words were uttered, the entire bunker seemed to be silenced.

Xu Xiaoyan stared at the two characters "Qing City," her pupils shrinking slightly.

An old map she had seen on the wall before the apocalypse flashed through her mind.

If she remembered correctly, the straight-line distance from here was at least four or five hundred kilometers, and if you took the mountain road, it would be at least six or seven hundred kilometers.

What does this mean in a post-apocalyptic world without cars, gasoline, or decent roads?

With her back pressed against the concrete wall, she was momentarily speechless.

The silence lasted for about three seconds, then everyone started talking.

The first sound came from the east side of the hall, a man's voice, rough and loud, carrying a reckless anger:

"Qing City? Do you know how far Qing City is? Walk? With what? On your legs?" As soon as he said this, the noise in the entire hall instantly escalated.

"Oh my god, how long is this journey!" It was a woman's voice, high-pitched and trembling, with the last syllable rising in pitch, carrying an almost tearful helplessness.

"Half a month? A month? Can we fucking live that long?" another voice chimed in, thick with a local accent, each word sounding like it was being squeezed out from between teeth.

"We have to set off right after the thunder started? Don't they treat us like human beings?!"

The voice came from further away, from the northwest corner of the hall. It was old and hoarse, like that of an elderly person.

A chorus of agreement immediately rose from the crowd: "That's right! There was such a huge thunderstorm yesterday, and they're kicking us out today?"

"Weren't bunkers supposed to withstand bombing? How could a few cracks be enough to break them?"

"You want us to go to Qing City? Tell us what the situation is like there!"

Some were questioning, some were wailing, some were cursing, and some were crying.

The voices surged in from all directions, each trying to drown out the others.

As a result, no one could hear anyone else; everyone was just shouting, just pouring out the fear and anger from their chests.

Xu Xiaoyan stood motionless in front of her tent, accustomed to remaining calm and vigilant when everyone else was excited.

Blue Moon was beside her, her mouth slightly open, her eyes constantly scanning around.

Her lips moved a few times, as if she wanted to say something, but each time her words were drowned out by the high-decibel sounds.

Some people stood up from their squatting position, took a few steps forward, and turned to look towards the passageway.

The restlessness of having nowhere to go forced their bodies to make meaningless movements.

Another young man suddenly stood up from the ground and slammed his plastic water cup to the ground. The cup bounced twice and rolled into the crowd with a crisp sound.

"Damn it! I'm not going back to the surface! What's the difference between going back and dying? Whoever wants to go can go, I'm staying here. If the bunker collapses, it's my fault!"

After he shouted those words, there was a moment of silence around him.

Then someone said quietly, with a complicated tone, "You're not leaving? The army will let you stay?"

The voice wasn't loud, but those words instantly silenced the noise.

Yes, the army! Everyone's eyes involuntarily turned towards the main passage.

It was deserted; the soldiers from last night and the red lights flashing on their chests were gone.

Will the army let you stay? Will wartime discipline give you a choice?

The murmurs in the crowd subsided considerably, quickly dispersing into countless small circles.

Within each circle, people were talking, while others listened with their heads down, occasionally interjecting in hushed tones, as if they were plotting something or confirming something with each other.

"Qing City...why go to Qing City?" someone asked.

"There's a huge base over there. I've heard people talk about it. It's many times bigger than ours and has everything," someone replied.