Chapter 38

Chapter 38

Early the next morning, soldiers accompanied by an administrator came to check each room, measuring body temperatures.

When they reached Feng Chen and Yan Bubu's room, Wu You explained that the incident on the upper floor occurred because someone had a fever but didn’t want to be quarantined at the military medical point. Half of those who went in never came out, so the person had somehow tricked the external temperature scanner.

Although he managed to deceive them initially, the outbreak last night led to a change in protocol. Now, the traditional mercury thermometers were used, and soldiers personally took the measurements to prevent cheating.

Feng Chen and Yan Bubu each had a thermometer under their arms. As Wu You finished explaining, the temperature check concluded. Feng Chen was somewhat anxious, worrying about having a low-grade fever again.

"36.0, normal."

Thankfully.

Feng Chen slowly exhaled in relief.

For a while after, life in the underground settlement went smoothly without further zombie incidents. The potatoes and corn in the plantation were nearing another harvest.

Everyone became more vigilant, meticulously checking the plantation before leaving each day to ensure there were no issues.

Feng Chen also encountered dangers while working above ground, such as transporting bodies or disinfecting ruins, occasionally running into mutated species. Fortunately, none were particularly dangerous, and he managed to get through without incident.

Recently, Yan Bubu had been eating well. Although the food was repetitive, he had a good appetite and enjoyed even the tasteless soybeans, spooning them in eagerly. The weight he had lost was slowly coming back.

He continued to collect Li stones every day. On good days, he could earn ten points; on bad ones, nothing at all. Overall, the credit points in his account were steadily increasing.

After waking up that day, Feng Chen went to work above ground, but Yan Bubu didn’t go to pick Li stones as usual. Instead, he headed to the trading center.

With supplies becoming increasingly scarce and many people out working, the trading center was quieter than usual. Still, some people manned their stalls, selling a variety of items.

Clutching his credit point card tightly, Yan Bubu slowly walked along the stalls, his eyes scanning over the diverse array of goods.

He had been collecting Li stones for this very day, August 17th, Feng Chen’s birthday. He had saved his credit points for a long time, intending to buy a special birthday gift for Feng Chen.

Yan Bubu remembered Feng Chen’s birthday because every year on this date, his mother, Amei, would remind him, "Bubu, today is August 17th, the young master's birthday. You must be good today, don't bother him, don't cry and fuss around him…"

Yan Bubu couldn’t remember his own birthday, but he knew about birthdays and liked celebrating them.

There would always be that one day, waking up in the early morning, when his mother wouldn't scold him for wetting the bed but instead would smile and hand him a bowl of noodles.

The white noodles sprinkled with green onions and topped with a fragrant egg.

"Bubu, it's your birthday today. Eat this bowl of longevity noodles, grow up healthy and strong, and no more wetting the bed."

Birthdays were wonderful; the lady would give him new clothes, bake a small cake for him, and the master would have his adjutant take him horseback riding and give him a toy gun that made beeping sounds.

So, on the past two August 17ths, he also gave the young master gifts.

A small bottle with two earthworms, a few glass beads that changed color in the sunlight, a handful of cicada shells – he would sneak them onto Feng Chen's bedside table when Feng Chen was not in the room.

He wondered if Feng Chen liked those gifts at the time.

He probably did.

As Yan Bubu walked, he pondered over what Feng Chen might like.

A half-worn doll, no.

A box of sandwich biscuits, Feng Chen would eat biscuits, but didn't particularly like them, no.

Clothes, perhaps?

No, no, Feng Chen isn’t interested in clothes.

……

Ah, it's so hard to find a suitable birthday gift here, where I can't even dig up an earthworm.

The stall owners, seeing Yan Bubu, dismissed him as a child browsing for fun and paid him no attention. After looking through the scattered stalls, his eyes dazzled with options, but he still couldn’t find a perfect birthday gift.

A middle-aged man in his forties was engrossed in his phone. Although there was no signal now, everything could be sold in the trading hall, including pre-downloaded movie resources, making it possible to watch movies on phones.

He looked up and saw Yan Bubu, and realizing the boy seemed genuinely interested in buying something, put down his phone and asked, "Kid, looking for something to buy?"

Yan Bubu stopped in front of his stall, "I don't know."

"Looking for something to eat?"

"I don't know."

"Or something to play with?"

Yan Bubu scratched his face, "...also don't know."

Losing interest, the stall owner picked up his phone to continue watching his movie, but Yan Bubu began to examine the items on the stall.

Shampoo, toothbrushes, glass ashtrays, toilet paper, light bulbs, bottled fermented tofu...

Yan Bubu didn’t need any of these things. Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly spotted a knife sheath between two bottles of shampoo.

Having grown up in the Feng household, he had seen such items frequently, and Feng Chen also carried a dagger, so with just a casual glance, he recognized it as a dagger.

"Uncle, I want to look at that," Yan Bubu pointed at the dagger to the stall owner.

The stall owner picked up a bottle of shampoo, "This one?"

"No, not that."

The stall owner then picked up the other bottle of shampoo, "This one?"

Yan Bubu shook his head, "I want to see that knife."

The stall owner inhaled sharply, sizing up Yan Bubu, "You can tell this is a knife?"

Yan Bubu responded with confusion, "I can see with my eyes; it's a dagger."

"Alright, alright, you're smart, recognizing it as a dagger. But go play somewhere else," the stall owner said dismissively, not believing the child would buy a dagger.

Yan Bubu stood firm, "Uncle, I want to see that dagger."

The stall owner clicked his tongue, "Kids can't see that."

"Why not?"

"You're not going to buy it anyway, and besides, kids shouldn't play with knives," the stall owner replied.

Yan Bubu patiently explained, "I'm not playing with it, I want to buy it as a birthday gift for my brother."

Upon hearing this, the stall owner perked up, "For your brother... Alright, but do you have credit points?"

"I do."

Ten minutes later, Yan Bubu left with a dagger in his bag, but 65 credit points fewer in his card, which was all he had earned from picking Li stones recently.

Holding his bag as if cradling a treasure, he happily returned to his room to wait for Feng Chen.

At that time, Feng Chen was in front of a warehouse.

The warehouse belonged to a charity organization and had only partially collapsed in the earthquake. The military organized a clean-up to salvage usable materials. Though food had spoiled due to the heat, some household items were still usable.

He pushed a cart into the warehouse through a recently cleared entrance. Inside, people loaded blankets and quilts into the cart, which he would then take out and load onto a tracked vehicle outside.

It was hot, and blankets and quilts weren’t much needed, but half were still taken to the underground settlement, with the other half going to the western city district.

Feng Chen knew the military never put all its eggs in one basket; while half the supplies went to the settlement, the rest were stored at secret surface supply points for emergencies.

The path from the warehouse to the tracked vehicle was short but uneven, littered with debris, making the cart's journey shaky and difficult.

Just as he reached the vehicle, he noticed a sudden change in the light, as if it dimmed a few degrees.

Even though it was impossible to look directly at the sun, Feng Chen still tried to glance upwards and was astonished to find that the sky was no longer a dazzling expanse of white. Instead, there were several dark clouds gathering.

Others near the vehicle noticed as well and looked up at the clouds, erupting in excited shouts. People from the warehouse also came running out to see the sky, their emotions uncontrollable with excitement.

"Look at those clouds, it's going to rain, it's going to cool down."

"Just hope those clouds don’t disperse and the sun comes back out," someone said anxiously.

"No way, look at how the clouds are increasing. This is definitely going to bring rain."

As they were talking, a gust of wind blew by, whisking a plastic bag up into the air above the ruins.

"Is it windy? Is this wind?"

"Yes, it's windy, hahaha, the wind is here, the rain is definitely coming, it's going to cool down soon."

The heatwave had persisted for several months. Even if the rain didn’t significantly lower the temperature, any amount of cooling would alleviate the current situation. Perhaps they could even move out of the underground settlement and back to the surface.

Even though their former homes were now unrecognizable, reduced to rubble, and the process of rebuilding would be arduous, everyone yearned for the day to come.

Some were dancing with joy, while others were so overwhelmed that they crouched and wept.

"Don't get too excited yet, let's quickly load everything on the truck before it starts raining."

Everyone sprang into action, pushing carts swiftly, each one full of energy.

Pushing his cart, Feng Chen did not share the jubilation of the others. While he too longed to return to the surface, he felt a vague unease as he looked at the dark clouds gathering in the right side of the sky.

During his training, an instructor had once shown a photo taken just before a flood years ago. It captured the sky at that time.

Feng Chen felt the current sky resembled that picture: leaden clouds filled the sky, which was still calm on the ground, but the clouds churned and roiled like waves, forming spirals, a sign of a brewing storm.

Feng Chen kept glancing at the sky so much that he almost tripped over a stone. Someone nearby laughed and grabbed him, "Don't get too excited. Watch your step, or you'll break everything."

There were still a few hundred quilts left in the warehouse, and it would take about half an hour to finish moving them. Just then, the whistling of the wind intensified, whipping up a gale over the ruins.

The wind came suddenly, roaring through the ruins of Haiyun City, shrieking eerily as it passed through the rubble. Dust and debris were lifted into the air, obscuring the dark clouds, turning the world a monochromatic yellow, as if the apocalypse had arrived.

Even in his heat-resistant suit, Feng Chen’s transparent visor was smeared with flying dust, and despite constantly wiping it, his vision remained blurred.

"Hurry up, speed up the process. Once these quilts are loaded, we head back."

With the wind getting stronger, a soldier next to a cart yelled at the people, and everyone’s mood dampened. Like busy ants, they hurriedly pushed their quilts towards the tracked vehicles.

Clang!

The cart in front of Feng Chen was tipped over by the wind. The man hurried to secure the quilts on the ground but was suddenly caught by a strong gust, lifted like a kite and blown several meters away before falling to the ground.

Fortunately, he wasn’t high off the ground, but even so, the fall left him struggling to get up.

"Hey, hey, hey..." Another person was swept up by the wind, desperately clinging to an iron cart, his feet dangling in the air as he shouted loudly.

The cart seemed on the brink of toppling. People behind him reached out to pull him back, but they ended up getting swept away together, like candied haws on a stick.

The ferocious wind raged on, reducing visibility drastically due to the dust and debris from the ruins. The two men, once lifted into the air, were visible one moment and lost in the swirling dust the next.

Feng Chen gripped his cart tightly, feeling increasingly out of control as the wind threatened to carry him away. The cart wobbled dangerously, teetering on the edge of tipping over.

Decisively, he let go just as the cart tilted, watching it get swallowed by the dusty wind. He then made his way toward a nearby utility pole.

Moving against the wind to minimize resistance, he crouched down and slowly crawled on the ground towards the pole.

"...find somewhere... to anchor..."

The soldier's words were muffled by the wind, barely reaching in bits and pieces. Everyone abandoned the carts, seeking nearby structures for shelter or something to hold onto.

Feng Chen reached the utility pole, wrapped his arms around it, and surveyed his surroundings. He could vaguely see others taking cover behind broken walls or, like him, lying flat on the ground, clutching nearby objects.

A scream pierced the air from somewhere and was quickly carried away. Even though the world was obscured by sand, everyone understood that someone else had been swept away by the wind.

Feng Chen realized they couldn't stay outside; the wind was relentless and only getting stronger. They needed to return to the underground shelter.

The soldiers seemed to understand this too, as Feng Chen heard them shouting, "...back to the vehicle... crawl there... back to the vehicle... crawl there..."

Feng Chen couldn't discern the direction of the tracked vehicle, and couldn't check his compass while clinging to the pole.

Suddenly, a metallic clanging sound came from a direction, someone striking the body of the tracked vehicle.

The sound, though faint, pierced through the howling wind and reached Feng Chen. He slowly released the pole and began crawling toward the sound.

The air was filled not just with dust but also with objects being flung about by the wind. Something large grazed past Feng Chen's forehead, narrowly missing him.

In that fleeting moment, he realized it was a spinning wooden table.

A painful groan came from in front, and a pair of feet appeared in his vision. Someone was lying in front of him, not moving forward anymore.

As Feng Chen crawled past the person, he tried to urge him to keep moving, but then noticed the person’s thermal suit face shield was shattered into pieces, and the head lying sideways on the ground was deformed, with a sharp fragment lodged in the temple.

Feng Chen quickly withdrew his hand and hastened forward, crawling like a gecko, keeping as close to the ground as possible. His eyes vigilantly watched the sky above, fearing something might fall.

The sound of knocking on the vehicle's body didn't stop. Feng Chen was getting closer to the tracked vehicle, but just then, he spotted a heavy object falling from above, resembling a chair, heading straight for his head.

He quickly rolled aside to avoid it, but the wind caused him to uncontrollably start rolling.

Seeing himself rolling away, he suddenly pulled out his broken blade dagger and plunged it entirely into the ground.

Grasping the dagger tightly, he stabilized himself and, without pausing to catch his breath, continued crawling in the right direction.

When he finally saw the tracked vehicle, he had reached its front. A row of vehicles was parked there, with people sitting inside the tightly closed vehicles, knocking on the bodies of the cars.

The wind was so strong that even the several-ton tracked vehicles were swaying. One had even been blown off course from the convoy, now resting against a broken wall at the roadside.

"Quick, get in!"

The vehicle door opened instantly, and Feng Chen was pulled inside, then the door was immediately shut. He gasped for air and saw the vehicle was already full of people.

"Count off, how many people are on each vehicle?" the leading soldier asked over the radio to the other vehicles.

"Ten."

"Twelve."

"Seven."

"Six."

……

According to the reports, there were a total of one hundred and twenty people in their group, still short of about forty people.

"We'll wait ten more minutes, then we leave anyone who's not on board," the soldier ordered.

"Yes, sir."

"Keep knocking on the vehicle, don’t stop."

The continuous tapping sound persisted as more people gradually made it to the vehicle. Before opening the door again, the soldier in Feng Chen's vehicle shouted a warning, "Get ready, we're opening the door."

Seeing everyone else holding onto the seat backs, Feng Chen also grasped the handle above his head.

The vehicle door, now impossible to open manually, was released automatically by the driver following the soldier's command. A gust of wind carrying sand burst into the cabin; Feng Chen clung tightly to the handle, preventing himself from being thrown against the vehicle wall.

As people outside were pulled into the vehicle, the door closed again, shutting out the fierce wind. In just a few seconds, another layer of sand and dust had accumulated inside.

Within ten minutes, a dozen more people boarded the vehicle.

The soldier, watching his wristwatch closely, ordered decisively as the vehicle began to drift sideways, "Convoy, start moving, back to the shelter! Quickly!"

All the tracked vehicles immediately started, struggling towards the direction of the shelter.