Apocalypse Star House Hoarding-Chapter 28

The next day at noon, under the scorching sun, Yu Xi left two electric batons with her father, had a quick word with Chen Ya, and then drove the old family van to the east gate of the residential area. The east gate was tall and sturdy, so it hadn’t been modified. All she needed to do was unlock the gate and remove the added chain to drive out.
There were gaps in the iron gate’s bars, and occasionally, zombies could be seen wandering outside, so the residents rarely came to this side. Due to the lack of human scent and the sparse shops along the road outside, there weren’t many wandering zombies.
A male zombie missing half its abdomen was lying against the iron gate. The heat had caused severe decomposition, and the stench was overwhelming. Yu Xi got out of the van, holding a metal rod with a knife tied to it, and the foul smell hit her before she even got close.
Taking a deep breath, she aimed for the zombie’s eye and thrust the rod forward. This was her first time killing a zombie. The ones locked in the delivery room had been dealt with by Brother Long and his group a few days ago. Because of the heat and the confined space, the stench from the decaying zombies had become unbearable.
Brother Long and his group had already killed many zombies on their way to the residential area and didn’t want to leave such a hazard inside. Eventually, Gao Yun was persuaded to unlock the delivery room and let the zombies out to be dealt with one by one. They then moved the bodies to the edge of the small park, where they were burned along with accumulated trash.
Initially, some residents whose family members had turned into zombies protested, saying they had no right to kill their relatives. Brother Long got angry and removed the cloth covering a zombie’s head, pushing it towards its former family. He told them he wouldn’t kill it if they were willing to take it home.
The young man who had been angrily insisting they had no right to kill his father screamed and wet his pants at the sight of the hideous face, begging for help and asking Gao Yun to restrain the zombie. Brother Long ended the situation by stabbing the zombie in the eye, explaining to Gao Yun that no matter what these creatures were called, attacking any other part of the body was useless. Even if you decapitated them, their teeth could still bite. Only destroying the brain would truly stop them, and the eyes were the easiest target.
Stabbing the knife into the zombie’s eye felt like piercing through something soft and rotten, which was very disgusting. But Yu Xi wanted to get used to it quickly. Although she had a suitable weapon, she didn’t know how long she would stay in this mission world. The “air hair dryer” would run out eventually, and she didn’t want to adapt only when it was too late.
The zombie, which had been howling moments ago, instantly went silent. Yu Xi pulled the knife out, and the zombie slid down the gate. She wiped the blade on the cleaner part of the zombie’s clothes before letting Chen Ya open the gate for her. He would lock the gate after she left.
Since the phones were out of service, she gave him a walkie-talkie, telling him she would inform him when she was within communication range of the residential area and roughly when she would return.
“Don’t worry, I’ll always have the walkie-talkie with me. Your parents will be safe; anyone going upstairs will have to get past me first. Besides, with only one floor between the third and fifth, I’ll hear if anything happens,” he reassured her.
Her destination was a few auto shops under the overpass to the east. During the past few days at home, she had been busy making a lot of cooked food and listening to the radio using a device she had prepared in her original world. She didn’t know how to adjust the long and short wave stations on her phone, so she had bought a radio instead.
Fortunately, regardless of the world, the wavelength channels are the same. From the night the phone and internet were cut off, the originally quiet radio began to broadcast various news and notifications.
The infection spread very quickly, and even though the roads were closed off on the second day of the mutation, it couldn’t prevent the mutation from spreading within cities. Now, the entire country has fallen, especially the densely populated cities, which have become disaster zones.
The city of S they were in was a third-tier city with a small population, so the disaster was not as severe as in first-tier cities. Some cities near large military units managed to stabilize quickly despite the high infection rate within the units, as the rapid mutation made it easier to identify and clear out the infected. During evacuations, the military also managed to rescue many civilians.
However, the evacuation was rushed, and it was impossible to take everyone. Many civilians were still trapped in zombie-infested cities. Of course, there were also cases like Yu Xi’s community, where sturdy gates and organized zombie clean-ups meant they were trapped but temporarily safe.
After evacuating some civilians, the military quickly established temporary shelters in suitable areas. These shelters needed to be in sparsely populated areas that were easy to clear without too many casualties and not too far from the cities, allowing the military to stabilize the population and continue to search for supplies and rescue operations. They planned to clear the outer areas of the cities step by step, setting up barricades as they went, and encouraged civilians to actively save themselves while watching out for Type A infectees, which were the primary sources of infection.
The Type A infectees had longer incubation periods, catching people off guard, and showed symptoms like lethargy, poor appetite, slow reactions, and most notably, twitching and black lines spreading near the neck’s blood vessels.
For Yu Xi, the most crucial information was the temporary shelters set up around the country. There were two relatively close to S City: one about an hour away by car, and the other about three hours away, though the latter would take about a day to reach given the current road conditions.
She chose to go to the one farther away. After studying the route repeatedly, she confirmed it was feasible. Originally, she hadn’t planned to leave so soon, but Gao Yun’s decision yesterday and the water stoppage changed her mind.
Perhaps inspired by their search of two households, Gao Yun and his group began organizing searches of all unoccupied houses in the community. These houses belonged to people either trapped outside since the beginning of the apocalypse or families wiped out by infection. Initially, they didn’t search house-to-house due to various considerations, but now it seemed a switch had been flipped. They knocked on every door and broke into any house with no answer, finding quite a bit of food and drink, temporarily alleviating the supply crisis.
With the water stopped, Yu Xi estimated that the electricity would soon follow. As resources dwindled, the community would become more chaotic, and people hiding in the city’s corners would be forced out to find food and water. At that point, people would have to fight both zombies and each other. Given the unpredictable nature of human behavior, Yu Xi preferred facing zombies.
The shelter three hours away was set up in a wetland park in the suburbs, near a national highway. The park covered about 200 hectares, situated on a wetland with only two cross-lake roads and two bridges connecting it to the outside, making it easy to defend. Once the inside was cleared and barricades were set up on the roads and bridges, it would become a secure, isolated area. The tourist area buildings only occupied half of the park, with the rest being various ecological wetlands connected by small bridges, resembling a series of small, scattered islands.
Even if there were issues within the park, the bridges connecting the various islands could be quickly disconnected to ensure the highest survival rate. This way, they could conduct rescue and cleanup operations without risking the entire group.
The zombie outbreaks in the nearby cities began around 5 PM, while the wetland park closed at 4:30 PM. Typically, visitors would start heading towards the entrance before 4 PM. Therefore, Yu Xi estimated that the situation inside the wetland park was not too dire, which was why the military was able to establish a shelter there so quickly.
The journey to the shelter could be taken via the national highway. Although the Yu family’s van was functional, it wasn’t very sturdy. Her main objective today was to find a better vehicle and, if possible, some gasoline.
The Yu family’s community was closer to the eastern overpass, so she chose routes with fewer people. The roads were littered with crashed vehicles but were not entirely blocked. Most zombies lay motionless on the ground, only slowly rising and moving towards any noise they heard.
The zombies in this world seemed to prefer sunlight, lying in sunny spots during the day and moving more sluggishly than at night. This was why she chose to go out at noon. Due to the remote location, she barely saw any living people. The roadsides were strewn with garbage and dismembered bodies, some still twitching due to intact brains, while others were completely lifeless.
Shops and residences along the road had doors either tightly shut or broken open, resembling dark, gaping holes in the sunlight. This depressing and desolate scene could evoke immense sorrow if observed for too long.
Yu Xi couldn’t help but feel grateful that this wasn’t her original world but a post-apocalyptic task world. Once she completed her task, she could return to her peaceful and warm world.
As she approached the overpass, she saw a car speeding away, lifting several plastic bags into the air. She parked her van at the road junction under the overpass. There were car dealerships on both her left and right. She climbed onto the van’s roof to get a better view. To the left, there were two dealerships; to the right, four, all in a row.
Recalling the car brands of this world, she decided to head left. Jumping down from the van, she pulled out her [air hair dryer], unlocked it with her fingerprint, and aimed it at a staggering zombie approaching her. As soon as the laser sight locked onto the zombie’s face, she pressed the button. Instantly, the zombie’s face exploded into a gaping hole, and it collapsed to the ground.
The head was like a watermelon smashed with a sledgehammer, with fluids and debris splattering everywhere. Yu Xi was speechless. No wonder the Star House system advised against using the [air hair dryer] indoors—this was more of a mini air bomb than an air gun!
Fortunately, the zombie was still some distance away, so she wasn’t splattered with blood. This weapon, if used at close range, could be as dangerous to her as it was to the zombies.
Yu Xi complained to the system, “No wonder this thing only costs 8 star coins. Don’t you have any normal attack weapons?”
The system responded, [We suggest the host complete the world mission and then remain to complete other tasks to earn more star coins and unlock additional star tools in the store.]
So, they wanted her to work overtime! Yu Xi chuckled, “Alright, I’ll think about it.”
She got back into the van and drove along a side road into the dealership. The parking lot was in better condition than the roads outside. About a quarter of the parking spaces were occupied, indicating that some cars had already been taken by those who fled.
The driveway had several obvious bloodstains and scattered body parts, emitting a nauseating stench under the glaring sunlight. Yu Xi put on a mask and hat, grabbed her metal pipe, and got out of the van.
Several zombies lying in the open space were wobbling and howling as they lunged towards her. She used the [air hair dryer] to blow up two of them from a distance. For the third one that got close, she accurately stabbed it in the eye with the knife tied to the metal pipe.
She didn’t hurry into the showroom but walked around the exterior glass wall of the showroom, cleaning up another zombie near the maintenance area before entering the showroom itself.
Inside the showroom, there were off-road vehicles on display from a well-known domestic brand in this mission world, known for their durability and crash resistance. There were two models, both hatchbacks, with foldable back seats that extended into the trunk, allowing for more storage space.
Half of the showroom was the display area, and the other half consisted of offices, lounges, VIP reception rooms, a break room, and restrooms. The midday sun shone through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the display area, casting light on the white tiles, which had accumulated a thin layer of dust over the days of neglect. Near the office area, there was a pool of blood on the floor, and the office window facing the corridor was shattered, with a broken chair lying on the ground.
She carefully checked the office, ensuring there were no zombies or people inside. She inspected each room in the corridor one by one and found them all empty.
Car dealerships typically didn’t have high foot traffic, especially on a Friday evening when the outbreak occurred, so there were even fewer visitors. The zombies she dealt with outside, all wearing matching outfits, appeared to be sales personnel from the dealership.
It seemed that when the zombie outbreak happened, some people turned into zombies while others hid in the office. Eventually, due to the lack of food and water, they had to escape for their lives, though it was unclear whether they succeeded.
Yu Xi managed to find several car keys in the office and chose a black, easy-to-clean jeep with one-way window tint from the labeled keys. The vehicle, used for test drives, had half a tank of fuel.
She then explored the area behind the showroom and found various car maintenance tools, parts, spare tires, and engine oil. After disabling the surveillance cameras, she stored everything in the Star House storage.
Additionally, she found three empty diesel drums, which she cleaned out and stored, along with five 50-liter portable gasoline barrels left as a backup by the dealership, which was a pleasant surprise.
She filled the jeep’s tank, drove it out from behind the showroom, and parked it next to the van. After thoroughly searching the van and transferring all personal items into her space, she left the van keys on the steering wheel. In case someone fleeing happened to pass by, they could take the van and leave.
Next, she opened her phone’s navigation app to check the pre-downloaded map. From her current location, driving south along the underpass of the overpass for about 800 meters would lead her to a small gas station. If she wanted to return to her neighborhood, this route would also take her home. She decided to check out the gas station on the way and try to get some fuel if possible.
The Star House storage, with its 180 cubic meters of space, was quite large. Although it could be chaotic with things piled together, she planned to leave room for the car. By reserving 18 cubic meters of space, she could fit the car, and if she packed the car full of items, it would maximize the use of space.
Probably due to the lack of sunlight under the overpass and its remote location, she barely saw any zombies on the way, although many cars were scattered haphazardly on the road. Some cars had open doors, revealing half-eaten bodies of people who hadn’t escaped in time, now mutilated beyond recognition. Even if a car passed by, they would only twitch slightly, unable to crawl out.
Yu Xi zigzagged her way through the road, and as she neared the gas station, she saw a pickup truck parked at the entrance. Three men and one woman had gotten out and were using various weapons, like sticks and knives, to clear the zombies at the entrance and those attracted by the noise nearby.
The group moved swiftly, and even the young woman wasn’t cowering in the car but was helping from the side.
Yu Xi turned off her engine, grabbed the metal pipe, locked the car, and climbed onto the roof to survey the gas station.
The gas station was small, with eight fuel pumps arranged in two rows, a small convenience store that was no more than fifteen square meters, and a restroom near the left wall. Two sedans were blocking the station, with more zombies inside than outside—about a dozen—gathering around the convenience store’s glass door, unwilling to leave.