Apocalypse Star House Hoarding-Chapter 193

The soldiers, having undergone rigorous training, were far more composed than ordinary civilians. To them, dying of hunger or thirst while trapped in a building was an undignified end. Rather than waiting hopelessly, they resolved to take a final stand, making one last effort.
Even if they were unfortunate enough to die outside, at least their deaths would hold some meaning.
The next day, an unexpectedly high number of volunteers signed up for the supply convoy. The leader of the mission, seeing so many young faces, was deeply moved and conflicted. Ultimately, he instructed his deputy to remove from the list any soldier who had elderly family members or young children relying on them in the shelter.
Inside the shelter’s buildings, civilians heard the sound of vehicles starting outside. Confused, many ran to their windows, pressing against the glass to try and make sense of the commotion.
However, the dense fog rendered visibility useless, leaving them to speculate wildly.
“It’s the sound of vehicles! And it’s not just one! Are the soldiers leaving?”
“With the fog this thick, can they even drive out?”
“They probably can if they go slow enough. The fog creatures don’t seem to attack vehicles, and as long as they don’t get out, they should be safe. Even if they do step out, the soldiers have protective suits, don’t they?”
“Wait—no way! Are they planning to leave us behind and escape on their own?”
“That’s impossible… There are so many of us here. They’ve been distributing food and water until now. Why would they—”
The rational voices quickly drowned beneath the panicked and chaotic speculations. Still, in a crowded building, even amid arguments, differing opinions prevented rash actions.
In a remote building, however, the situation was different.
One survivor, Zhang Jian, could no longer endure the circumstances. His building housed only a few survivors, many of whom were elderly.
The military’s last distribution of food and water had been five days ago. At that time, they’d warned that supplies were running low and asked everyone to ration carefully while they worked on solutions.
One of the survivors in the building was a Subordinate. Their master had perished during the “Red Lotus” disaster, entrusting their elderly parents to the Subordinate before their death. The Subordinate, bound by loyalty, had rescued their master’s parents, along with a few elderly neighbors, and managed to escape to the resort, eventually encountering a military rescue team.
Despite the Subordinate’s efforts, Zhang Jian’s resentment festered. He couldn’t accept that a Subordinate and a group of frail, elderly individuals were allotted the same amount of rations as himself—instant rice, canned meat, dried fruit, and water.
Four nights ago, he attacked the Subordinate, striking them on the head and knocking them unconscious. He tied the Subordinate to a metal rack in a room. Without their protector, Zhang Jian forced the elderly survivors into a windowless room, threw in a few packs of instant noodles and bottles of water, and locked the door.
Claiming all their food and water, Zhang Jian began indulging himself. For four days, he ate three full meals a day, occasionally giving the Subordinate scraps of leftover noodles and sips of water.
But four days later, the supplies were nearly gone.
Hearing the sound of the military vehicles, Zhang Jian assumed the soldiers were abandoning the survivors to escape on their own. With no one to consult, he hastily wrapped his exposed skin in layers of clothing, opened the building door, and dashed into the fog to catch up with the convoy.
Having been confined indoors for over ten days, Zhang Jian was immediately disoriented upon stepping into the gray fog.
Indoors, the fog’s effects had felt distant. Outside, he quickly realized that everything—nearby buildings, plants along the paths—had vanished from view. Even the door he had just exited was now obscured, swallowed by the dense fog. It was as if the world had shrunk, leaving him utterly alone.
Then, he heard a faint rustling sound nearby. He strained to discern the source and finally realized it was a tree. But there was no wind… so why were the leaves rustling?
Seconds later, a faint plop sounded as a small blood-red organism landed on Zhang Jian’s shoulder. Then, as if it were raining, more of the organisms began falling continuously from the tree, quickly crawling all over his body.
Even though he had wrapped himself tightly in clothing, he could still feel the pain as they adhered to him. Panicking, he frantically tried to swat them off, but soon his arms and hands were covered in the organisms as well.
They clung to him like suction cups, impossible to remove once attached. Sharp stinging pain spread across his body, but it quickly faded.
He felt as though his body had doubled in weight, and his thoughts grew sluggish. Struggling through the gray fog, he tried to find the building he had come from, but at some point, he realized he had lost his original direction.
Finally, he spotted the wall of another building through the dense fog. Rushing toward it, he slammed into the closed windows and pounded on the glass.
Inside, someone hesitantly pulled back the curtain. Upon seeing Zhang Jian, they screamed in terror and stumbled backward.
It was horrifying!
The figure outside was covered head to toe in blood-red organisms. Even his face and the area around his eyes were infested, leaving his bloodshot eyes bulging grotesquely as he stared back. It was like a scene straight out of a nightmare.
The person inside pointed at the window, shouting incoherently in panic, which drew their companions over. They quickly shut the heavy curtains again and retreated to a safe distance of at least one meter from the window.
By now, everyone in the building had learned about the blood-red organisms’ tendency to target humans. At first, they had been terrified by the organisms suddenly latching onto their windows, but over time, they understood the pattern. They kept their curtains drawn and maintained a safe distance, ensuring the creatures couldn’t detect them.
Fortunately, while the blood-red organisms were frightening and relentless in pursuing humans, they couldn’t penetrate walls or glass. As long as no one ventured outside, they were safe.
Even though food and water were scarce, the group rationed carefully, planning their daily intake to stretch their supplies as far as possible.
Earlier, they too had heard the sound of military vehicles. Anxiety rippled through the group, and some had expressed a desire to take a chance and go outside to investigate.
But before they could decide, the glass window had been struck, revealing the horrifying scene outside.
That sight was enough to quash any thoughts of venturing out. The outside world was far too terrifying. If the military truly intended to abandon them, they would have no choice but to accept their fate.
For now, they resolved to stay hidden in the building, rationing their supplies to the bare minimum. After all, with no way out, they spent their days lying or sitting, keeping their energy consumption low.
The knocking on the glass eventually stopped. When someone cautiously peeked out again, the thick gray fog still shrouded everything, and the bloated “blood-soaked figure” from before was gone.
Shortly after, the military broadcasted an announcement explaining the reason for the convoy’s earlier activity. The outdoor loudspeakers positioned in several areas of the resort were now the only means of communication with the civilians.
Broadcasting required power, which was in short supply. The “Red Lotus” had destroyed the resort’s main power source, and the military had been relying on fuel-powered generators for temporary electricity.
Given the scarcity of resources, generators were reserved for critical zones such as the research team, medical center, and command center. But today, the commanding officer deemed it necessary to use the loudspeakers to reassure the trapped civilians, letting them know that the military was still working hard and had not abandoned them.
Inside the building, the people who heard the broadcast finally felt a weight lifted from their hearts. Parents hugged their children, friends leaned on each other, lovers clasped hands. Together, they began planning how to further ration their remaining food, determined to hold out until the rescuers returned with new supplies.
Halfway up the mountain, the floating villa.
After being trapped indoors for several days by the gray fog, Hei Mu’s crisis instincts had kicked in. He conducted a meticulous inventory of the villa’s stockpile: food, water, daily necessities, medical supplies, and extreme weather equipment. While the abundance of supplies eased some of his concerns, he still adjusted meal plans for the coming days.
Yu Xi and her friend were of high social standing, so they naturally deserved freshly prepared meals every day, carefully balanced with fish, meat, eggs, dairy, vegetables, and fruit. For the four Subordinates, Hei Mu decided five days a week of instant meals would suffice, with fresh food added for nutritional balance on the remaining two days.
However, this plan was vetoed by Yu Xi at the very first meal.
“If I can afford to keep you, you can eat well. Just don’t waste food,” Yu Xi said dismissively. She glanced at her 888-cubic-meter Star House warehouse, stocked to the brim with supplies, and almost added that even waste wouldn’t be an issue. But she held back since Hei Mu and the others only saw the villa’s storage room inventory.
Yu Xi’s real concern lay elsewhere.
This floating villa had been designed for apocalyptic scenarios, equipped with solar power and multiple generators. Even with external power outages, the villa remained unaffected.
The water supply, though externally sourced, did not share the same pipeline as the resort below. Instead, a costly underground freshwater source had been secured exclusively for the villa. This special supply route had miraculously avoided damage during the “Red Lotus” disaster, ensuring a steady water supply despite the gray fog. Still, Yu Xi couldn’t guarantee how long this situation would last.
With over ten days of gray fog blocking sunlight, solar power had ceased, leaving the villa reliant on its generators.
Fortunately, the generators used fuel crystals, the same type as the hover cars, rather than conventional fuel. These fuel crystals were exceptionally efficient—one could power a hover car for 12 hours or sustain the villa’s electricity for a week. With Hei Mu’s careful management, each crystal could last over ten days.
Yu Xi had 36 boxes of these crystals, each containing 100 pieces.
The day Hei Mu saw her casually retrieve a small box of ten fuel crystals from her closet, his gaze was filled with near-reverence.
Electricity was no longer a concern; the focus now shifted to water.
Following Yu Xi’s orders, Hei Mu and Yan Shang worked daily to process the villa’s fresh ingredients. They cleaned and cooked the perishables from the fridge and freezer, as well as rice from the storage room, packaging everything into environmentally friendly containers Yu Xi had prepared in advance. Each portion was carefully balanced for nutrition and convenience.
As for where all this food was going, Yu Xi didn’t say. She simply instructed them to place the prepared meals in her suite every day.
Despite the dire situation outside, Hei Mu and the others were kept too busy to dwell on it. Half their day was spent preparing meals—washing, chopping, frying, and cooking—while the other half was dedicated to physical and combat training under Jian Shou and Yu Xi’s supervision. Even Hei Mu wasn’t exempt, enduring grueling physical drills and basic combat training daily.
On the day Jian Shou’s arm fully healed, Yu Xi brought out two hotpot sets from her suite—one spicy beef and lamb, and the other mushroom and seafood. Each set included burners, fuel, pots, soup bases, pre-chopped condiments like green onions, garlic, and cilantro, and enough ingredients to serve four people. With six of them in total, two sets were more than enough.
However, Hei Mu’s frugal instincts kicked in. He suggested that one set was sufficient and offered to prepare some instant noodles to stretch the meal.
“Not today!” Yu Xi sighed, exasperated by her butler’s relentless thriftiness. She couldn’t tell him that she had forty such hotpot sets in her inventory. Instead, she explained that this meal was to celebrate their upcoming field operation.
Far from being conservative, Yu Xi retrieved additional frozen fish and hotpot meatballs from the freezer, encouraging everyone to enjoy the feast freely.
She also prepared two special platters for Xing Min—one of assorted vegetables and the other of fresh-cut fruit.
Hei Mu immediately noticed that the vegetables and fruit didn’t come from their usual fridge stock. After so many days, only hardy vegetables like carrots, potatoes, and cabbage could remain this fresh, and fruit should have been similarly diminished. Yet Yu Xi presented them without hesitation, as though daring him to ask.
He didn’t.
Hei Mu had long picked up on subtle clues in Yu Xi’s habits and lifestyle, small details that hinted at something extraordinary. Yet he remained silent, continuing to perform his duties without question.
The Yu Xi he knew before had seemed almost inhumanly perfect. If he hadn’t known she was a natural human, he might have thought she was more precise and meticulous than any Subordinate.
Now, however, she had personal preferences, distinct habits, and quirks—tiny things that made her seem more real.
Hei Mu never mentioned his observations, nor did he share them with the other three Subordinates. But he knew Yu Xi was aware of his suspicions and chose not to react, as if confident that these minor anomalies wouldn’t affect her control over the situation.
The “field operation” Yu Xi mentioned was a planned test after days of training.
Equipped with robust protective gear, they were prepared to face the blood-red organisms lurking in the gray fog. As long as they didn’t get lost, Yu Xi was confident they could return safely.
Accompanying her on this mission were Jian Shou, Xi Yuan, and Xing Min. Xing Min was essential because he was the only one who could navigate accurately through the fog.
Xi Yuan, the most improved among the four Subordinates, absorbed everything like a sponge. Yu Xi wanted to test his situational awareness and crisis management skills in a real scenario.
As for Jian Shou, he was Xing Min’s backup—just in case Xing Min fainted again, someone had to carry him back.
The next day, the four of them, fully suited in protective gear, climbed out of the window onto the platform steps, temporarily cleared of fog by Xing Min. Using climbing gear and ropes, they anchored themselves and descended from the floating villa.
Yu Xi had left Hei Mu and Yan Shang with transparent smartphones that could bypass the fog’s interference for local communication. Although the range was limited to ten kilometers, it was sufficient for their needs.
Once Hei Mu received confirmation that they had landed safely, he retrieved the dangling ropes.
Standing nearby with a long dagger in hand, Yan Shang vigilantly watched for blood-red organisms and quickly shut the window. Compared to Hei Mu’s calm demeanor, Yan Shang felt both anxious and envious. Unlike Xi Yuan, who trained relentlessly every day, Yan Shang knew he wasn’t strong enough to avoid being a burden if he went outside.
No matter how much he worried or envied, all he could do was stay behind.
Beneath the floating villa, a durable yet flexible metallic rope secured the four of them together by their harnesses.
Drawing their weapons, they stepped into the thick gray fog ahead.