Apocalypse Star House Hoarding-Chapter 21

“Hey, hey! Why did you get out of the car? You can’t get out here, don’t make me get a ticket!”
The driver called out from the car. In the cars on either side of the lane, some people were complaining on the phone, some couldn’t help but honk the horn, and some, seeing her get out, also opened their doors to look ahead.
Although Yu Xi’s vision and hearing were much better than most people’s, she couldn’t see what was happening ahead due to the number of vehicles, the distance, and the height restriction.
She put away her phone, knocked on the taxi’s window, apologized, and then sprang from the trunk onto the roof of the car.
“Hey, hey, what are you doing!”
Despite the driver’s continuous complaints, she finally saw what was happening two or three hundred meters ahead.
Two cars had rear-ended each other and were lying across the road. The doors of the car behind were open, and the driver had gotten out and was forcefully knocking on the front car’s door, asking the driver to get out.
Since the middle of the four lanes was a green belt, the cars on the two lanes couldn’t go around, causing all the cars to be stuck behind.
People from the blocked cars were also getting out; some were watching the situation, some were calling the police, and some joined the driver in knocking on the front car’s window, telling the person inside to move the car if they wouldn’t get out.
However, no matter how hard they knocked on the glass, the person inside the car remained unresponsive.
The two people who were trying to reason with the person inside the car began to lose their temper. Their knocking grew more forceful, and they even attempted to open the car door.
Yu Xi had a bad feeling.
Sure enough, before she could get down from the roof, a scream pierced the air. The previously closed car door had somehow opened, and the person who had been knocking was half-dragged into the car, screaming in terror and pain, desperately trying to break free.
The person standing next to him was momentarily stunned, standing motionless as he watched the horror inside the car.
Soon, the person who had been dragged into the car fell to the ground, clutching his bleeding neck and convulsing. A gray-black hand extended out, and a mutated zombie pounced, knocking the stunned person to the ground.
The onlookers panicked instantly. Some bravely rushed forward to help, some recorded the scene on their phones, some stood frozen in shock, and some smartly ran back to their cars, closed the doors tightly, and tried to drive over the green belt to escape.
Yu Xi quickly jumped down from the roof, got into the passenger seat, and urged the driver to drive over the green belt and turn around to leave.
The driver refused, angrily accusing her of various violations.
They were still some distance from their destination, and Yu Xi didn’t want to waste time finding another taxi. She took out a stun baton: “Either drive, or I’ll drive!”
“Oh, you’re pulling out a stick! How can a young girl like you be so fierce, I’m going to call the police—” The rest of the driver’s words were drowned out by the crackling sound of electricity.
Yu Xi held the stun baton close to his face, her expression turning cold as she blocked his hand from trying to grab the baton. “Last chance, drive!”
With a face full of grievance, the driver revved the engine, forcefully driving over the green belt while complaining about how many fines and points he would lose.
Just as he crossed the green belt, he saw several cars from the blocked direction also driving over the green belt to turn around.
One car was the fastest, and after turning around, it immediately sped up and almost collided with the taxi, narrowly missing the taxi’s right side mirror as it sped away.
“Damn it, have they all gone mad? What the hell is going on?!” The driver was dumbfounded.
“Don’t ask, just get me to my destination, then check the news online yourself!”
As Yu Xi spoke, the screams from the traffic jam behind them began to spread, followed by a series of car collisions. She looked back through the window and saw that the cars closest to the accident scene were in chaos.
She knew that not every car was near the green belt, and not every car had enough space to turn around. In such a situation, forcing a turn or reversing would only cause more blockage and immobilization.
Terrifying screams continued to echo, with some people decisively abandoning their cars to escape, while others, panicking and fumbling as they opened their car doors, were grabbed by newly mutated zombies.
“What on earth is happening?” The driver was getting scared.
“Let’s get out of here first!” Urged by Yu Xi, the driver pressed the gas pedal again, heading back where there was another road leading to Yu Xi’s neighborhood.
Fortunately, the remaining road was clear of such incidents. It was still the early stage of the zombie outbreak, and she managed to return home within the golden time.
Ten minutes later, the car stopped outside the neighborhood.
During those ten minutes, she briefly explained the situation outside to the driver: “Thank you for bringing me back. There aren’t many places in S City with incidents yet. Stay indoors with enough supplies for now, and you’ll be safe temporarily. If you plan to leave the city, avoid train and bus stations. If you’re driving, remember to avoid heading towards H City and Y City, as there are infected people there too.”
“Th-thank you!” The driver, struggling to accept the situation, hastily nodded, trying to remember her words.
Yu Xi scanned the QR code in the car and paid double the fare, then headed straight for the water station next to the neighborhood.
Things were still calm in this area, indicating no mutations had occurred yet. Since it wasn’t a main road, there were fewer cars.
The largest water bottles at the station were 19 liters each. She ordered 40 bottles and requested immediate home delivery. Of course, she didn’t have them delivered directly to her home but left the address of the garage at the grocery store.
“Young lady, do you need all this water right away?” Because it was a large order, both the owner and his wife were quite enthusiastic. “But our two delivery guys are out, and we still have other deliveries to make ourselves.”
“I’ll pay you extra, can you prioritize my delivery?”
The owner clearly wanted to charge a bit more for delivery, so they agreed after she offered extra payment.
Finally, the owner and his wife personally loaded the water bottles onto a covered electric tricycle. The tricycle wasn’t large, capable of carrying twenty bottles at a time, just enough for two trips to deliver all forty bottles.
While they were loading the water, Yu Xi went next door to the fruit store and bought ten boxes of fruit: two boxes of apples, two boxes of pears, two boxes of oranges, two boxes of small watermelons, and two boxes of cantaloupes. She also requested immediate delivery to the garage address.
The water and fruit together cost about 1,700 yuan. She had less than 300 yuan left, so she went to a nearby pharmacy and bought all the headache, fever, cold medicines, cephalosporin antibiotics, disinfectant alcohol wipes, iodine, gauze, bandages, and 500 masks she could with her remaining balance and credit.
This amount of supplies was just a drop in the bucket, but she didn’t want to waste the funds available on Taobao, WeChat, and her credit.
Actually, she had stocked up on a lot of medicines before the novice apocalypse mission, and since she hadn’t used much in the previous world, her inventory was still quite sufficient. Combined with what she bought this time, it would be more than enough.
Then she hurried back to the neighborhood. As she entered, memories of the neighborhood’s settings slowly surfaced in her mind.
It was an older neighborhood with lax security but a guard room and an electric gate. Since it was off work hours, the gate was open.
The neighborhood was small, originally built on relocation land. The real estate developer couldn’t secure a larger plot and abandoned plans to build villas, opting for residential buildings instead. The entire neighborhood had nine buildings and a small park, with a low occupancy rate.
Most of the residential buildings are five or six stories high, without elevators or basements. Each building has three units, and each unit has two households. The first floor consists of garages and electric vehicle garages, with each unit building having security doors.
The garage rented by the original Yu Xi’s parents is in Building 8, located to the left front of the small park. It is only about twenty square meters, with half of it partitioned off as a storage area for selling miscellaneous items.
Rice, oil, instant noodles, sausages, salt, MSG-type seasonings, towels, toothbrushes, snacks like chips, cookies, chocolate, gum, popping candy, small items like scissors, double-sided tape, batteries, and light bulbs—everything was available despite the small size of the shop.
The original’s mother stayed in the grocery store all day. Even when she went home to cook, she wouldn’t close the store because it had surveillance cameras. Everything customers took was clearly recorded.
Typically, people took items from the shelves, checked the price, and paid using the store’s QR code.
Since the items were small and inexpensive, the grocery store had never encountered theft since its opening.
Yu Xi was alert to the situation in the neighborhood as she made her way to her family’s grocery store. The south-facing shutter door was open, so she turned off the surveillance, slightly moved the shelves, and created a small empty space.
The fruit store owner was quick. He arrived soon after she did, pushing an iron flatbed cart for unloading and quickly delivered the goods.
The water station owner had to make two trips, taking more than twenty minutes in total to deliver all forty barrels of water. She thanked him and paid. The owner wanted to chat, asking if she was planning to start a cooked food business with so much water.
Before he could say more, he received a call from his wife, who was panicking and urging him to return home immediately due to an incident outside.
After sending the owner off, Yu Xi lowered and locked the shutter door. Then she stored all forty barrels of water and ten boxes of fruit in the Star House warehouse, followed by sweeping all the items off the shelves into it.
She was only doing a transfer job for now, so she didn’t worry about organizing everything neatly; she just filled the space as much as possible.
The small warehouse partitioned off at the back of the grocery store had even more stuff. Fortunately, the Star House storage had a capacity of 180 cubic meters, enough to fit everything if she ignored the messiness.
It was a pity she couldn’t fit a small RV into the Star House storage now. With all these items stored, there wouldn’t be space for the RV, but a regular car might still fit.
Since her task involved transferring her character’s parents, she would need a suitable vehicle later. This issue would have to be dealt with after the initial chaos of the outbreak subsided.
However, this gave Yu Xi an idea: “System, didn’t you say the Star House storage could be upgraded? Will the space increase after upgrading?”
【The Star House storage will upgrade with the Star House. The warehouse space will increase after upgrading, but specific details will be available only after the host upgrades the Star House.】
The system’s straightforward answer pleased Yu Xi.
After finishing the packing, she didn’t open the shutter door again but exited through the small door at the back of the garage.
The exit led to the corridor on the first floor of Building 8. Her home was in Building 3, on the highest floor, the fifth floor, in the westernmost unit, just on the other side of the small park.
The location was good, as there were no sight obstructions on the west side, allowing a view of most of the neighborhood from the balcony.
Before the door opened, she wondered if they would look exactly like her parents from her original world.
Their voices on the phone sounded very similar to her father’s. If their appearances were also identical, it might feel strange.
When the door opened, the faces of a middle-aged couple appeared.
Their faces were somewhat familiar, but not identical to her parents. Their features had a seven to eight percent resemblance, looking younger but more worn out, as if life had been hard on them.
Their clothing styles and body shapes differed too, giving her a sense of familiarity without the eerie feeling of identical appearances.
As she stepped into the house, the Star House system ed in her mind:
【World Task 1: Escape the school and safely arrive home is completed. The host has earned 20 Star Coins. Total Star Coins: 32】