Apocalypse Star House Hoarding-Chapter 23

Yu Xi closed the sliding door to the balcony and returned to the living room. Mother Yu had recovered and was sitting next to Father Yu, trying to call the police, but the line was busy every time.
“Try again later. It’s getting dark, and turning on the lights is too conspicuous. Let’s close the windows and draw the curtains.”
Even though they lived on the sixth floor, far from the ground and the monsters, the bright lights at dusk made them feel unsafe.
Following Father Yu’s suggestion, they closed all the open windows, drew the curtains, and turned off unnecessary lights, leaving only a small floor lamp in the living room.
Mother Yu suddenly remembered the grocery store, which still had a lot of food and supplies. Considering the current situation, it seemed unlikely they could retrieve them.
“Forget it. As long as we’re safe, it’s fine. Thankfully, our daughter made it home in time. If she were still at school… let’s take it one step at a time. Come on, let’s cook! I’ll help you.”
Father Yu and Mother Yu went into the kitchen. They didn’t dare to turn on the range hood or the main light, only using the small light on the range hood. They lit the stove to continue cooking the dish they had started earlier.
Yu Xi glanced at the closed kitchen door and quietly went into the storage room.
Because of the grocery store, Father Yu and Mother Yu often stored the overflow stock at home. About half a month ago, they had restocked, and the ten-square-meter storage room was filled with various items—rice, flour, oil, drinks, snacks, and plenty of daily necessities. They didn’t have to worry about food and drink for a while.
She took out all the daily necessities she had collected from the grocery store and piled them with the other items in the storage room. Then she stored half of the boxed drinks, instant noodles, and snacks in the Star House storage.
Next, she took out a box of apples and three 19-liter water bottles. She placed the apples with the other food and put the three water bottles in the designated area for bottled water, replacing a few empty ones.
She then went to the fridge, using the open fridge door as cover. She filled the fresh produce section with vegetables, eggs, and milk, and stocked the freezer with two bags of frozen dumplings, several bags of pork bones, a few boxes of pork belly, oxtail, and lamb chops.
The fridge wasn’t very large, so she couldn’t fit much more, but it didn’t matter. With her as the “snail girl,” as long as the fridge had power, its contents would never run out.
Father Yu and Mother Yu were usually very frugal and rarely bought expensive meat like oxtail or lamb chops. They might not notice initially due to the shock, but after a few meals, they would definitely realize.
Yu Xi didn’t plan to hide it from them.
In the world’s scenario, Father Yu and Mother Yu were gentle and accommodating but loved their only daughter dearly. They would endure hardships themselves but wouldn’t let her suffer at all. Whenever she was in trouble, they would drop everything to help her.
When they eventually noticed the strange abundance of food and questioned her, she would explain in a suitable manner.
After filling the fridge, Yu Xi went to her room, plugged in her phone to charge, and downloaded an offline map app.
Starting with S City, she downloaded maps of surrounding cities, then extended to the entire country, including all cities, counties, highways, and national roads.
This offline map app can be used for navigation without an internet connection. Besides the regular electronic map features, it can switch to a 3D map, showing all the streets, supermarkets, restaurants, cafes, shopping centers, car dealerships, gas stations, and landmarks.
This will be very helpful for future travel and continuous stockpiling of supplies.
To prevent the risk of losing the maps if her phone breaks, she planned to use Father Yu’s tablet to download the same app and maps as a backup. The Yu family had a small tablet, which Mother Yu used to watch dramas at night. It was well-maintained and still looked new despite being several years old.
Yu Xi set her phone to download the maps and left it to finish on its own. She then went to the bathroom and took out a 500-liter water storage barrel, filling it with warm water.
This water was for daily use, to be stored in case the water supply was cut off. If all the purified water ran out, this water could be boiled and used for drinking. After her previous world ended, she had restocked five more such barrels, bringing the total to ten, which, when filled, would last a long time.
While the water was filling, she sat down to organize the items in the Star House storage. Since arriving in this post-apocalyptic world, she had stored 37 barrels of 19-liter mineral water, nine boxes of fruit, several large bags of various medicines, all the food and water supplies from the grocery store shelves and back storage room, and some supplies from their home storage room.
Compared to what she already had in the Star House storage, this wasn’t a large quantity, but it was a mix of items stored haphazardly. She was too lazy to sort them, so she let them all float in the top layer of the warehouse, which looked quite amusing.
After filling two large barrels with hot water, Father Yu called them for dinner.
Originally planning to host Tan Qian, the dinner was quite lavish: tomato scrambled eggs, stir-fried pork with chili, steamed bass, Mapo tofu, stir-fried lettuce, pork rib and potato soup, and a large pot of salted pork, vegetable, and mushroom rice.
Mother Yu had no appetite, and Father Yu wasn’t very hungry either. Mother Yu spent the entire meal putting food on Yu Xi’s plate, looking at her with concern, saying she had lost weight and must be overworked from studying, urging her to eat more.
Yu Xi: …
Whether it was her mother from her original world or this one, they were the same in some aspects.
After dinner, Father Yu washed the dishes while Yu Xi cleared the table, storing the leftovers in the fridge. She took out two apples, washed and sliced them, and brought them to the living room to watch the news with Mother Yu.
Two local TV stations had stopped broadcasting. The remaining stations were either repeatedly playing a notice about suspending work and school to stay home or showing prerecorded news.
Unlike the calmness of the TV stations, online platforms were flooded with real-time updates.
People were anxiously live streaming for help, uploading videos of chaotic street scenes, trying to contact family members, or asking about the situation in nearby cities.
So far, the infection and mutation had spread on a small scale in S City, and the neighboring H City and Y City. Many people, upon hearing the news, rushed to nearby supermarkets to stock up. Some managed to buy food and leave safely, while others were trapped by suddenly mutated infected people inside the supermarkets.
Many packed their belongings and fled overnight. The high-speed rail and long-distance bus stations were overwhelmed, bringing numerous dangers as infected individuals appeared in the crowds, causing panic and stampedes.
Highways were soon gridlocked, city traffic paralyzed, students were trapped in schools, and hotels were overcrowded with people unable to return home.
Since dinner, the sounds of ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks outside had not stopped. Although Yu Xi’s home wasn’t very high, limiting the view, the chaotic noises gave a clear picture of the turmoil outside.
The light in the security room at the main gate of the neighborhood was always on, indicating at least one security guard was still there. When the car collision occurred on the street, the guard had promptly closed the electric gate.
Next to the electric gate was a small gate for pedestrians and electric scooters, accessible via facial recognition for residents.
The closed electric gate gave some a sense of security, and throughout the evening, people chased by zombies pounded on the gate, begging to be let in.
Initially, the small gate opened a few times, but later it remained shut for unknown reasons. Those who pounded on the gate attracted the zombies wandering in the neighborhood, scaring away the people but leaving the zombies lingering near the gate.
Because of the zombies near the gate, the infected zombies from the street did not gather around the neighborhood but were drawn away by the sounds of police and ambulance sirens.
That night, almost no one slept well.
Yu Xi knew that not only were new infections occurring outside, but also within the neighborhood. Several people bitten during the accident had returned home, only to mutate and spread the infection. She could hear roars, painful screams, and cries of despair.
Fortunately, their unit remained quiet throughout the night, with no signs of infection.
When Yu Xi woke up in the morning, Mother Yu had already prepared breakfast: millet porridge, egg pancakes, fried bacon, and a lot of steamed buns.
The buns were freshly made, with meat and mushroom-vegetable fillings.
While urging her to eat, Mother Yu continued to busy herself in the kitchen: “Your dad is worried about the water and gas supply being cut off, so we’re planning to turn all the flour in the storage room into cooked food, freeze it, and reheat it when we need to eat.”
Yu Xi nodded while eating the buns, not pointing out the flaw in Father Yu’s reasoning.
He was worried about the water and gas supply but not about a power outage?
Even if the flour and rice were turned into cooked food, if the power went out, the food would spoil quickly in this weather.
She knew Father Yu said this to keep Mother Yu busy and prevent her from overthinking. Having something to do would keep her mind occupied.
However, his actions gave her an idea. While a water and gas supply cut would deplete her Star House storage’s water and solid fuel reserves, a power cut wouldn’t be a problem for her.
With her large preservation space, she needed to encourage Mother Yu to turn raw food into cooked food while also “increasing” the consumption of cooked food.
Seizing the moment when Father Yu and Mother Yu went to the kitchen, she quietly moved five steamed buns from the pile into the Star House storage.
Then she continued eating and moved a few bags of buns from the freezer into the food shelf.
She returned to the table and sat down, sipping her porridge when there was a sudden knock on the door. The sound startled Father Yu and Mother Yu in the kitchen. Yu Xi put down her chopsticks, gesturing for them to stay quiet, and went to the door to check the peephole.
Two young men in security uniforms, one tall and one short, were standing outside. They were the same ones who had dealt with the zombie near the small park yesterday.
“Hello, is anyone there?”
“What do you need?”
“Hello, we are the security guards from the neighborhood. Last night, we inadvertently entered this building while fleeing with some other residents. It was chaotic outside, and with the darkness, we stayed inside. But the situation outside hasn’t improved this morning. We lost contact with our colleague who closed the electric gate yesterday, and the zombies are still wandering inside the neighborhood. If this continues, everyone will be trapped in the buildings. We are looking for a few people to help us eliminate the zombies inside the neighborhood and then gather everyone to discuss the next steps.”
This neighborhood was small, with only two entrances. There was an iron gate at the east wall, usually closed, tall, and sturdy, integrated with the surrounding wall about three to four meters high, making it hard for the monsters to break in for now.
The other entrance faced south, comprising the electric gate and a small iron gate. Though solid, it was only about two meters high, with wide gaps and many footholds. An average adult could climb over it, and it was only a matter of time before the monsters figured out how to stack themselves and get in.
With the situation outside chaotic and rescue uncertain, they decided to take matters into their own hands. They planned to eliminate the zombies in the neighborhood and reinforce the south gate. They needed strong people to help but had found no volunteers despite knocking on doors from the third to the fifth floor.
The two households on the fifth floor included the left one, where no one was home, and the right one, where a young woman’s voice answered the door. They had little hope but decided to explain anyway before heading downstairs.
At this moment, the tightly shut door opened, revealing a beautiful girl of about seventeen or eighteen standing inside. She was dressed in a neat black tracksuit, her hair tied up, holding a metal baton. “I’ll go with you.”
Father Yu closed his daughter’s bedroom door, creating the illusion that she was inside sleeping, and didn’t let Mother Yu, who was busy in the kitchen, know about it.
He reached into his pocket, gripping the stun baton Yu Xi had given him ten minutes earlier, trying to suppress his worry and anxiety.
“Dad, remember, don’t open the door for anyone,” she had instructed him on how to use the stun baton and told him to use it immediately if someone tried to force their way in.
Of course, the chances of that happening were slim since all the apartment doors opened outward.
This meant that anyone trying to break in would be obstructed by the door frame, making it difficult to force entry from the outside.
She also took him to the storage room and conjured a box of small watermelons from thin air.
She explained to him that she had a space that was invisible and intangible but could store and retrieve items anytime and anywhere.
This ability had existed for a long time, and she had hesitated to tell them before, fearing that revealing such an unusual ability might cause trouble.
For instance, being discovered and ed, becoming a research subject, or being targeted by malicious people for smuggling or other crimes.
Any outcome would be terrifying. To protect herself, she had kept it a secret and had been learning various self-defense and martial arts techniques.
She didn’t expect the sudden outbreak of a zombie crisis at school, but it was thanks to her martial arts skills that she managed to escape and return home safely.
Later, his seemingly delicate daughter had lifted two bags of fifty-pound rice to prove she had the ability to protect herself.
For now, she could only tell Father Yu about this and keep it a secret from Mother Yu.
Father Yu was initially stunned by this revelation, but having already faced zombies the day before, he quickly accepted this new information.
He understood the importance of this matter and the need to protect the secret.
Mother Yu was empathetic and could easily bring trouble to the family in this situation due to her compassion.
She then gave Father Yu a task: before the water and gas were cut off, they should cook all the raw food in the fridge and storage room because her space could keep it fresh.
Vegetables, eggs, meat, flour, rice, and grains—whatever the ingredients, once cooked, she would discreetly store them in her space.
Father Yu understood that his daughter wanted him to cover for her.
From the time the incident started until now, he had contacted some relatives and friends while there was still a signal. Without exception, all were in chaos, with missing family members, crying children, and anxious elders.
Compared to them, his daughter was brave and resourceful, having escaped school safely and informed them of the situation. Knowing her secret made him even more confident.
His daughter had a plan, and he needed to trust her, keep the secret, and not hold her back.
With this resolve, Father Yu opened the fridge and took out several boxes of pork belly, bags of pork bones, and boxes of lamb ribs, along with two boxes of eggs.
Once cooked and cooled, these could be packed into containers for Yu Xi to store.
Their grocery store sold packing boxes, and there were plenty in the storage room.
“Wife, our daughter has gotten too skinny. Let’s take this chance to give her a good meal. Today, let’s make a big pot of braised pork and eggs, boil a pot of pork bone soup, and roast the lamb ribs. How about it?”
Mother Yu: …
Meanwhile, on the ground floor, Yu Xi and the two security guards—Gao Yun, the tall one, and Wu Di, the short one—along with Chen Ya, a burly thirty-something gym instructor, whose son was the one who nearly got hit by a car yesterday, and Bian An, a young man who got trapped with the security guards while picking up a package, were preparing for action.
Chen Ya’s five-year-old son was almost trampled in the chaos yesterday, but Bian An saved him by picking him up. They managed to escape into the building because Chen Ya had a door card.
Unable to leave, they returned to Chen Ya’s home, where they had a simple meal and slept on makeshift beds.
After discussing the situation, they decided to clear the neighborhood of zombies. The security guards knocked on doors from the third floor up, while Chen Ya and Bian An took the lower floors.
They found no volunteers except Yu Xi.
The four men looked at the young girl with her delicate face and slender arms, falling into silence.
Finally, Gao Yun spoke, “It’s okay. She can help us by holding the door open for the electric scooters.”
Yu Xi sighed and walked over to the scooter, lifting it easily. “I have a martial arts background and a lot of strength.”
The four men: …!!
Yu Xi put down the scooter, took out paper and a pen from her pocket, and quickly sketched a map of the neighborhood. “Now, tell me your planned route.”
The four men: …