Apocalypse Star House Hoarding-Chapter 16

Half an hour later, with the assistance of the rescuers, they boarded the hovering helicopter above using a rescue basket.
The rescuers were surprised to find them. The coastline had been flooded since the tsunami hit, and starting ten days ago, temperatures had plummeted rapidly with one storm after another, including rain, hail, and blizzards. The temperature drop was much faster than on L Island.
As they shared their story, the rescuers were even more astonished to learn that they had traveled all the way from L Island in a speedboat. Not only had they brought food and water supplies, but there was also a little boy, about three years old, among them. It was incredible that they had made it back to Jing Country safely!
Although Simon couldn’t understand what was being said, he could read the astonishment on their faces. He glanced secretly at Yuxi, thinking that the most surprising thing of all was the flame thrower she used to break the ice.
However, everyone had a tacit understanding not to ask about the flame thrower. When the helicopter approached to rescue them, Lin Wu had quietly told him not to mention how their speedboat broke through the floating ice to reach the fixed ice. If asked, they were to say they used branches and diesel to melt the ice.
Simon thought Lin Wu underestimated him. Even if he were less smart, he knew this was not something to speak about carelessly. Moreover, he wasn’t dumb. Given Yuxi’s high-tech equipment, her identity must be very secretive and special, so he wouldn’t talk carelessly.
After Lin Wu and Yuan Ning explained the situation of their group, they began to discuss the current state of L Island, where many tourists from Jing Country were still stranded and anxiously awaiting rescue.
“After the underwater earthquake and volcanic eruption, the tsunami destroyed all coastal ships, and civilian flights are currently grounded. Surrounding cities are working overtime to build icebreakers. Besides L Island, we have many citizens stranded abroad. Don’t worry; we will do our best to rescue all survivors. Once we reach the temporary shelter, send two people to provide more details about L Island.”
While Lin Wu and Yuan Ning were explaining everything, Yuxi sat quietly in the corner, giving snacks to Yuan Yuan. When the helicopter arrived at the temporary shelter, it was time for her to leave the group.
The helicopter flew for more than half an hour, passing over an ice-covered sea littered with shipwrecks and a desolate coastal city. All the coastal buildings in the city had collapsed, and the remaining structures were flooded and frozen. The city looked empty and lifeless, devoid of any human presence.
As they flew over the city and slowly descended into the shelter area in the mountains, the heavy mood began to lift.
“This is the East Zone. First, go to the exit for registration. After registration, send two people to the central area, where the rescue command office is located. All flights are currently suspended, but you can take a train to go home. For more details, check the inquiry station next to the registration area.”
The rescuers had other tasks and quickly left after giving these instructions.
The shelter was crowded. When the group reached the exit, they realized Yuxi was no longer with them.
“She left?” Yuan Qi was not naive enough to think Yuxi accidentally got separated. “Sigh, she’s a girl without any supplies. If she wanted to leave, she could have told us, and we could have given her some food.”
“Don’t worry, she can take care of herself,” Yuan Ning said, scanning the crowd. Even with her vigilance, she hadn’t noticed when Yuxi slipped away, confirming that Yuxi’s identity was indeed not simple.
“We’ll register and rest here for two days, then decide how to leave.”
Lin Wu and Yuan Ning lived in different cities, and now that they were back in Jing Country, they each had family to reunite with. As for Simon, with most of the islands in the archipelago submerged, he would likely stay at the shelter for a while.
They needed to figure out the next steps, how to contact family, and how to get home.
The mountainous area, originally a forest park with a resort, was now a shelter. They were assigned a room, and when they were about to eat, they found an extra bag in the waterproof plastic bag they had made.
It was a common grocery canvas bag, about 40 centimeters in size, but it didn’t belong to any of them.
Lin Wu opened it to find a variety of food and snacks: dried fruits, coconut soft cakes, dried fish and meat, juice, milk, chocolate, jelly, a pack of ten warming patches, and a note.
On the note, it said: “A gift for Yuan Yuan. Thank you and farewell.”
It was clear that Yuxi had placed it there intentionally, possibly to avoid them refusing it or for some other reason, so she didn’t let them know. Lin Wu thought of her beautiful yet cold face and smiled softly. Some people seem aloof and indifferent on the outside but are warm-hearted within.
Farewell? Would they really meet again? Lin Wu felt a pang of melancholy.
He handed the canvas bag to Yuan Qi, and a mechanical voice echoed in his mind:
{World Mission: Lead five survivors safely to the temporary shelter in G City, Jing Country. Mission accomplished, 100 points awarded.}
{You may now leave the current world.}
{Would you like to leave?}
Lin Wu: Yes.
In an instant, it was as if he had merely had a fleeting daydream. The faint smile on Lin Wu’s lips vanished. He looked up, scanning his surroundings, his expression and gaze now slightly more mechanical and rigid than just a moment ago, though no one noticed that the original Lin Wu was no longer there.
xxx
Wearing thermal underwear underneath, followed by a set of breathable and sweat-absorbing fleece clothes, a thin yet warm down jacket, and finally windproof and waterproof fleece outerwear and pants.
With a woolen hat, scarf, fleece gloves, waterproof mittens, and finally pulling up the hood of the outer jacket, Yuxi was almost entirely insulated from the cold.
Yuxi walked out of the bathroom cubicle and looked at the person in the mirror—a middle-aged woman around forty, with a height similar to her original height of about 1.68 meters, slightly stooped, with an ordinary and forgettable face.
The {Disguise Lipstick} effect lasted for twenty-four hours, with twenty-three hours remaining.
In the world data, her current identity had a simple background: both parents deceased, single, and her workplace and residence were in S City. However, S City was a coastal city that had long been flooded and frozen.
She had spent some time at the inquiry station checking, where there was internet access to find information about the train stations. Due to the blizzards and low temperatures, few train routes were operational, and tickets to the major inland cities were hard to come by. Many people were stuck in the shelter, unable to return home.
Most locals gathered in temporary shelters around coastal cities or nearby towns, hoping that the winter would pass, the temperature would rise, the ice would thaw, and the sea would recede so they could return home.
But Yuxi knew that was not going to happen. In a post-apocalyptic world, this cold spell was likely to last a very long time.
Fortunately, she only had to endure another two months before returning to her peaceful world. During these two months, she didn’t need to go to a big city or have any specific destination—any inland town where order remained intact and tickets were available would do.
She finally chose a small town in Flower City, located in the southwest of Jing Country. It wasn’t far from her current location.
She used the internet to look up information. After the disaster, the tsunami had not affected it, so initially, many people fled there. When the cold spell hit, the town faced a shortage of supplies and wasn’t a primary rescue city, so many people left again due to resource constraints.
Yuxi didn’t lack supplies; she needed a quiet place to live. Fortunately, it was still early in the apocalypse, and order hadn’t collapsed.
A day later, back to her original appearance, Yuxi arrived in Flower City.
Flower City was small, about a quarter the size of L Island, and had internet coverage. She rented a single apartment in a lively area using her card.
The apartment building had a door with a password lock, and the elevator required a card to access—one of the most secure residences in town.
The apartment was small, similar to her real-world apartment: a kitchen, a bathroom, and an open bedroom, with no second floor. Facing south were double-layered floor-to-ceiling windows, well-insulated and soundproof. There was air conditioning, but due to high voltage loads, there were occasional power outages.
So each apartment was also equipped with a gas heater for use during power outages.
The daytime temperature was around minus thirty degrees Celsius, dropping to minus forty degrees at night. She heard that in a city a few hundred kilometers away, they were rushing to build underground houses with heated kang beds, similar to those in the north, capable of withstanding extreme temperatures of minus eighty to minus one hundred degrees Celsius.
Flower City was actively preparing for the cold, planning to convert a nearby air-raid shelter into a refuge from the cold, with various thermal and ventilation modifications, a large food reserve, and hive-like dormitories.
The television and radio were broadcasting daily, primarily to summon workers of various trades and to reassure the public that despite Flower City’s small size, there were measures in place to handle the situation. They advised everyone to stay calm, keep warm, and continue living their lives as normally as possible.
Over the following two months, Yuxi mostly stayed in her apartment. The bank card associated with her current identity had savings accumulated over years of work. Although the amount wasn’t vast, it was more than enough to cover her expenses for two or three months. Her daily routine involved planning what to have for breakfast, what to cook for lunch, and which takeout to order for dinner. Occasionally, she would wrap herself up warmly and go to the large supermarket opposite her apartment to queue for groceries.
The large supermarket had guards on duty, and while prices had increased, they remained within a reasonable range. Each person was limited in the amount of food and water they could purchase daily and had to show identification. Over two months, the accumulated supplies became quite substantial.
She had previously asked the Star House system if the money from this identity’s bank card could be taken to her own world and was told no. However, she found out that items placed in the Star House storage could be brought out. After that, she spent several hours every day shopping: rice, instant noodles, canned luncheon meat, vacuum-sealed sausages, table salt, bottled water, dehydrated vegetables, noodles, boxed milk, drinks… she bought the maximum allowable amount of any available food, not picky about types, as long as it was edible.
In addition to food and water, she also stockpiled daily necessities and consumables: toilet paper, napkins, kitchen paper, sanitary pads, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, antibacterial soap, laundry detergent, dish soap, cloths, pots, pans, mops, knives, scissors, various sizes of batteries, ziplock bags, aluminum foil, tape… any daily-use items she could buy, she did.
Fortunately, she was not alone in stockpiling; many people were queuing up every day to do the same, so her behavior didn’t seem unusual. Occasionally, she witnessed incidents of robbery and fighting over scarce resources, sometimes directed at her but mostly occurring around her. Thanks to the timely intervention of security guards, these situations never escalated severely.
With one week left before her three-month period was up, temperatures plummeted again to between minus sixty and seventy degrees Celsius, prompting an early warning from Jing Country authorities. Yuxi packed a large backpack, put on her extreme cold weather gear, and joined the crowd moving into Flower City’s underground air-raid shelter.
The shelter had no individual rooms, only communal bunk beds, with the highest reaching six levels, maximizing space usage. To address privacy concerns, each bed was enclosed with covers made of tent-like fabric, featuring a small pull-down window and a zipper that could be locked from the inside.
Living conditions were understandably poor, with everyone crammed into a single space and eating the same rationed meals daily. However, survival was the priority, especially since many other places, unable to construct proper shelters in time, had ed numerous fatalities. Despite the challenging environment, scheming and conflicts were still a daily occurrence.
Yuxi kept a low profile, avoided trouble, and refrained from flaunting her supplies. Finally, on the seventh day at midnight, she heard the system’s voice.
“World Mission 2: Survive for three months completed, 30 star coins awarded. Total star coins: 40.”
“Do you want to leave the current post-apocalyptic world?”
For the first time, Yuxi found the neutral, emotionless voice of the Star House system to be pleasing, though she immediately noticed a point of interest: “If I choose not to leave, can I continue staying in this world?”
xxx
Thingyan
: I knew this Lin Wu was not a simple cannon fodder. I mean what kinda regular person would be both good at medicine and something completely unrelated like helicopter mechanics? ML much?