Apocalypse Star House Hoarding-Chapter 73

It was a clear afternoon, with daytime temperatures ranging from seven to thirteen degrees Celsius.
Ahead lay a dense coniferous forest, and the road wound its way through it. The two-lane road had become uneven in places due to years of neglect. The car rolled over the surface and crossed the grass, stopping at the edge of the forest.
The coniferous forest was tall and dense. They preferred sunny spots, so they decided to take a short break before entering the forest and have some lunch.
Inside the silver RV, Ya Tong turned off the engine. Yu Xi, who had driven most of the night, jumped down from the bunk bed above the driver’s seat, hugged Yu Qi, who was studying the route map at the booth, and went to the bathroom to freshen up.
By the time she came out, Ya Tong had already set the table for lunch.
There were two boxes of salmon, a double-cheese seafood pizza, a crab meat lettuce salad, still-steaming garlic roasted oysters, and three cups of hot cocoa milk.
“We’re only resting for half an hour, so let’s just have a quick bite,” Ya Tong said casually as Yu Xi came out.
Yu Xi: …?
She looked at the table again. Was this considered a quick bite?
Four days ago, when they were riding the “hitchhiking train,” their lunch had been a bottle of cola and two pieces of fried chicken. That was a quick bite…
Yu Qi noticed Yu Xi’s thoughts and laughed, “Ya Tong’s greatest strength is her adaptability. After four days in an RV with water, electricity, air conditioning, and a stove, she really considers this a quick meal.”
Yu Xi recalled two days ago. Because the meteor had destroyed the original road, they took a detour through another forest path, but in the evening, they unexpectedly passed by the famous Tear Lake in the uninhabited area.
The moment they saw the lake, the three of them were stunned.
Finally, Ya Tong gave up the idea of having dinner after dark and directly parked the car. She opened the awning on the car, and with the sapphire-blue lake, rolling green mountains, and the vast orange sky painted by the sunset, she set up a grill and made them a barbecue and seafood feast.
Top-quality snowflake beef steak, tender and succulent; king crab legs from the peninsula, juicy and fresh; grilled salmon head, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside; freshly grilled oysters, salty and rich; teriyaki chicken steak, charred and delicious; and garlic bread slices…
That meal was, for Yu Xi, the pinnacle of her barbecue history.
The freshest, top-quality ingredients, combined with Ya Tong’s culinary skills, she thought she could savor it for a long time.
So, was that kind of meal the standard?
She thought of the images of Ya Tong attending various fashion parties and banquets, suddenly understanding something.
When on the road, with various living conditions severely restricted, Ya Tong naturally kept everything simple, which was why they bought a lot of convenience food during their last purchase.
Little did she know that shortly after they drove into the uninhabited area, Yu Xi brought out this RV.
At that time, looking at the speechless two, she voluntarily explained that she had taken the RV at a desert town before returning to L City, thinking it would be more comfortable for future escapes. Since it was a second-hand car, it wasn’t expensive.
At that point, Ya Tong was still unconscious, having been knocked out by her, so it made sense she didn’t know about it.
However, knowing how meticulous Yu Qi was, she had already removed the car’s license plate early on. As for the car’s origin, it didn’t matter much; there were plenty of foreign cars in M Country.
Yu Qi and Ya Tong toured the RV. It not only had a bed, water, and electricity but also allowed them to take showers and use a clean toilet. This surprise, not just for Ya Tong but even Yu Qi, was hard to suppress. She almost wanted to open a bottle of red wine to celebrate.
The arduous journey suddenly took a turn. Even with the constant threat of meteors, sitting in a comfortable RV, even lying on the bed while the car moved, listening to the radio, and adjusting the news made some of the disaster’s anxiety less pressing.
Humans are always good at self-adjustment. In relatively safe conditions, making oneself more comfortable isn’t that great?
Of course, despite the comfort, the three remained vigilant, always keeping one person driving, another checking the map and watching for road conditions, and the third resting securely.
Every day, they drove for about eighteen hours, aiming to reach a planned rest stop around the same time, parking for five to six hours. These hours mainly allowed the RV’s engine to rest.
In such wilderness, they never all slept at the same time; one person always stayed awake to keep watch for any disturbances in the sky.
Just like last night, when a minor earthquake occurred at their resting place.
Yu Xi was on watch duty. The moment she noticed the quake, she immediately started the car, moving away from their resting spot near a cliffside to an open area, to avoid any potential falling rocks from the earthquake.
Fortunately, the quake soon stopped, and the road wasn’t severely damaged.
This was why Ya Tong said lunchtime was short and they were just having a quick meal. They aimed to cross several mountain roads before nightfall today and rest on a more open slope after descending the mountains.
Those mountain roads were different from the road where they had rested the previous night. Last night’s road had a cliffside on one side and sparse woods on the other, both on flat ground. But today, the mountain roads had a cliffside on one side and steep slopes or precipices on the other.
They couldn’t rest there overnight; if an emergency occurred, there would be no way to escape.
Unfortunately, today’s mountain roads were quite long, and traversing them entirely would take a lot of time.
“If the mountain roads become difficult to drive, let’s switch to the SUV,” Yu Qi suggested, marking the map with a pen, and they quickly finished their lunch together.
At three in the afternoon, they switched from the RV to the SUV before the winding mountain roads.
Yu Qi drove this time. She drove steadily and slowly, making good progress through the first third of the mountain road until they rounded a ninety-degree bend and found the road ahead blocked.
The narrow two-lane road, bordered by a precipice on one side and the mountain on the other, was now clogged with various-sized rocks and debris, making it impossible for the vehicle to pass.
This situation wasn’t marked on the map. It was unclear whether the rocks had fallen due to meteor strikes or an earthquake.
Yu Xi got out of the car, took out large items from the Star House warehouse, and tried to collect the rocks, then moved them towards the cliffside, using the warehouse’s effortless retrieval feature to clear the mountain road.
However, after a short while, she noticed that the exposed mountain road was already full of cracks, on the verge of collapse. Even her actions of removing rocks caused more debris to fall from above, putting additional pressure on the cracked road, with sections near the cliff starting to crumble.
Seeing that the blocked road ahead still extended quite far and noticing the cracked and unstable path, Yu Xi carefully retreated and put the previously taken-out items back into the Star House warehouse.
“What’s wrong?” Yu Qi asked.
“The road is cracked and could collapse at any time. Even if we clear the rocks, neither the car nor we can pass safely. We need to find an alternate route.”
“An alternate route, huh…” Yu Qi was now in a bit of a dilemma. This mountain road was supposed to be the main route. If they had to take a detour, they would have to descend back to where they started and find another way, which would significantly lengthen their journey, making it uncertain if they could find the right road again.
Ya Tong had already gotten back into the car and turned it around. “Let’s head back down the mountain for now. It’s getting dark. If we can’t find a way today, we’ll rest nearby and figure it out tomorrow.”
Although they often drove at night, that was on flat terrain. Trying to find a new path around the mountain roads in the dark would likely lead to getting lost.
The three of them got back in the car and retraced their route down the mountain. At a fork marked by Yu Qi, they chose the first option and, with the help of a compass, found a barely visible road through a mixed forest.
This road was covered in moss and weeds. If it weren’t for a small marker at the entrance, they wouldn’t have recognized it as a road at all.
The mixed forest at the front was sparse, but as they drove deeper, the vegetation became denser, and the road beneath the car was extremely winding. Judging by the direction, they seemed to be on the right track.
“If we keep driving on this road for another hour, we’ll leave this mixed forest. There will be a fork in the road then; we should take the right fork and drive for another forty minutes. That will get us to a branch of the original road. From there, we just drive straight,” Yu Qi said from the passenger seat, with a map spread out in front of her and a compass in hand.
“We won’t make it before dark,” Ya Tong said after checking the time. “It’s already 5:30. Today, we’ll just get out of this forest and find a place to rest. We’ll continue tomorrow.”
They wouldn’t spend the night in the forest because the canopy would block their view of the sky, and the trees were flammable. If a meteor fell, it could easily start a fire. If the forest caught fire, they wouldn’t be able to escape.
So, generally, they’d rather stay by the mountain wall than in the forest. Of course, the best place to spend the night was in an open field by the road. In the past few days, due to the high latitude and sparse vegetation, finding a place to stay overnight was easy. But as they moved southwest, the temperature rose, the vegetation became denser, and the scenery on either side of the road gradually changed from open fields to forests, making it harder to find a suitable place to stay overnight.
“Yeah,” Yu Qi nodded to Ya Tong. “As long as we get out of the forest today, we’ll find a place to rest.”
At this point, the three of them hadn’t realized that they had already strayed from the correct path twenty minutes ago.
They realized they were lost when, after driving for more than an hour, they still hadn’t seen the fork in the road that Yu Qi had mentioned. Not only did they not see the fork, but they also hadn’t exited the mixed forest. There were still vast trees ahead, the sky was getting dark, and the surroundings were very quiet.
In such a dense forest, they didn’t know if there might be wolves or other wild animals at night.
“Did I get the direction wrong?” Yu Qi, responsible for reading the map and guiding the direction, felt a bit guilty. She opened the flashlight again and carefully studied the map on her lap.
Yu Xi reached from the back seat, took the compass from Yu Qi’s hand, and compared it with another one she had just taken out from the Star House warehouse: “There seems to be a magnetic field nearby, causing the compass to malfunction.”
She handed the two compasses to them, showing that they pointed in different directions.
“So we’re really lost?” Yu Qi sighed deeply, and various negative thoughts began to surface in her mind.
“Don’t worry. I kept an eye on the setting sun while we were driving. We were roughly heading west, maybe more southwest. We’re still within a controllable range. The map doesn’t detail these small paths, so we must have taken a wrong turn. Let’s keep driving. The vegetation around here is already sparser than before, and there are more shrubs. We should be close to getting out of this forest.”
Sure enough, after another twenty minutes, the tall trees around them gradually gave way to shorter shrubs. The soil also changed, no longer dark and fertile, but lighter in color and dry and loose.
After driving a bit more, the landscape suddenly opened up. By the car’s headlights, they saw the distant night sky and, under the dark blue night, the sea.
They had somehow ended up by the sea.
They were somewhat surprised, but it was acceptable since their chosen route was supposed to go a bit further south anyway. This way, driving back to Jingguo would be closer. If they drove along the northern part of the no-man’s land, it would be a big detour, wasting time and effort.
They were on a highland, with a drop-off leading to the sea below. Ahead to their left was the sea, and to their right was a steep mountain peak with sparse vegetation. Even at night, the bare rock was visible.
Comparing the map, they roughly understood why they got lost. This mountain peak was not the same as the one they intended to cross. They should have gone between two mountains, but the mixed forest they passed earlier was at the foot of this mountain. Due to a deviation in direction, they didn’t find the path between the mountains and ended up on the southern coast instead.
Now, they had two choices: rest for the night and retrace their steps to find the path between the mountains, or rest for the night and continue forward, crossing the current mountain to find another way back to the original road.
Either way, they had to rest here for the night.
Ya Tong drove forward a bit, looking for a suitable place for Yu Xi to bring out the RV. However, as soon as they turned a corner, a figure suddenly appeared in the headlights. She slammed on the brakes, cautiously watching the person in front.
The person seemed startled as well, shielding their eyes and looking towards the car.
Inside the car, the three were stunned. It was an 11- or 12-year-old E country girl!
Half an hour later, the three of them were sitting around a burning campfire. They had stumbled upon an unmarked fishing village. Around them were colorful houses of varying sizes, built on the small highland, with the sea just beyond. There was a path leading down to the bay.
When they brought the girl back to the village, her parents were searching for her.
“I just wanted to pick some pretty red stones at the foot of the mountain…” She was scolded and quickly pulled out the stones from her pocket, explaining that she wasn’t wandering aimlessly but wanted to make the family’s flower garden prettier.
The girl pointed to the three of them, explaining they had brought her back.
As a result, they were warmly welcomed. It was dinner time, and they were invited to eat and stay.
The girl spoke a bit of M country language, though not fluently, but eagerly acted as a translator. She seemed delighted to have guests, showing off her collection of pretty shells and sharing her snacks. She even asked her parents if they could stay longer, saying she hadn’t made new friends since school was closed due to falling stones.
Yu Xi could understand everything the girl said. She patted the girl’s soft, pale blonde hair and took out a box of checkers with beautiful glass pieces from her backpack, asking if she wanted to play.
The girl opened the box, saw the colorful, translucent pieces, and smiled brightly.
While Yu Xi and the girl played by the firelight, the couple took Yu Qi and Ya Tong into the house, drawing maps to explain their current location, the distance to the road they wanted, and the best route to take.
They offered to have the husband drive them past the confusing and easy-to-miss intersections the next day, which would save them a lot of time compared to backtracking.
For Yu Qi and Ya Tong, after dealing with blocked roads, detours, and getting lost, finding this hidden fishing village felt like a beautiful accident.
Outside by the fire, after a while of playing, Yu Xi gave the checker set to the girl as a thank-you gift.
The girl stared at her wide-eyed, “Sister, you can speak—”
Yu Xi put a finger to her lips, signaling for secrecy. The girl’s eyes sparkled, and she mimicked the gesture, understanding it was their secret.
Knowing Yu Xi could understand and speak her language, the girl felt even closer, showing her the cliff and explaining the path down to the bay. She also showed her the warehouse behind the house, where a large fishing boat was stored.
The boat had been damaged by falling stones, so her father, uncles, and other family members had been at home repairing it. Fortunately, they were skilled, and the boat was almost ready, with just some work left on the deck before it could go out to sea again.
Finally, the girl led her to the rooftop, telling her it was her favorite place. From there, she could see the beautiful starry sky above and the vast sea below.
“Every day I pray here, hoping the stars stay up there and don’t fall anymore… I miss my classmates and teachers, especially Naliya… She’s still in the hospital. Her house got hit, and her parents are gone… Every time I call her, she cries… I wish no one else loses their parents or home. Stars are so beautiful, they should stay in the sky.”
The girl looked up at the stars, fingers clasped together in a prayer pose, eyes closed in silent prayer.
Yu Xi’s gaze shifted from the girl’s peaceful profile to the night sky.
The stars above the sea were indeed beautiful, brighter than in the city without the interference of lights. Yet, who could have imagined these beautiful stars turning into terrifying meteors, crashing down with heat, destroying homes, and taking lives?
Even knowing this, looking at the stars still brought awe, marveling at nature’s beauty… and the cruelty behind it.
A faint rumbling sound, like distant thunder, reached her ears. Yu Xi pulled her attention back from the stars, listening intently, but the sound did not come again.
“What’s wrong, sister?” The girl finished her prayer and saw Yu Xi’s serious expression.
“Did you hear something just now?”
The girl shook her head. “No, what was it?”
Yu Xi frowned, scanning the surroundings. The small fishing village by the sea was lit by campfires. Some people were eating dinner, some tidying up dried fish, everything orderly and quiet.
Was that rumbling sound her imagination?
After midnight, when Yu Xi heard the rumbling sound again, she confirmed it was not an illusion.
She had slept through the morning, so she took the night watch. Yu Qi and Ya Tong were resting in the bed the couple had prepared for them. Yu Xi, after the couple went to bed, slipped out the window and into the SUV parked nearby, keeping watch for meteors.
The rumbling was initially faint, barely audible, like something was quietly changing behind a thick barrier. The rumbling signaled the beginning of change.
Gradually, she detected a strange smell, sharp and unpleasant.
Yu Xi got up, lowered the car window, and sniffed the air. The pungent, unusual smell was definitely there, not an illusion.
It was like… sulfur.
Could there be hot springs nearby?
She stepped out of the car, scanning the dark forest behind. The silent night revealed the mountain peak they had skirted earlier, standing like a massive black silhouette.
Yu Xi focused, eventually noticing something odd: smoke seemed to be coming from the mountain’s summit.
All the clues connected instantly.
The barren peak, the red stones the girl picked at the foot, the faint rumbling, the sulfur smell, and now the smoke…
Yu Xi jumped back through the window, quickly woke Yu Qi and Ya Tong, and told them to get ready to leave. Then she rushed to the couple’s room, asking, “Is that peak behind an active volcano?”
They were groggy, but since the room only had them and Yu Xi, they understood her words.
Surprised by her fluent E country language, they didn’t react immediately.
Yu Xi repeated, “Is that mountain a volcano?”
This time, the woman responded, “No, it’s just a mountain…”
The man frowned, thinking, “I remember my grandfather saying it was a volcano long ago, but it’s been inactive for centuries. People think of it as a dormant volcano.”
“When the meteors fell, did any hit that mountain?”
They exchanged glances, realizing the implication, their expressions tense. “Yes, several meteors hit it. The explosions were loud… We didn’t investigate much because our village was spared… Do you think…”
“I suspect the volcano is awakening. There’s sulfur in the air, smoke at the summit, and rumbling from the mountain. You need to evacuate the village quickly. If it erupts, there’s no escape!”
“How can that be? We’ve lived here for generations, always safe…” The woman, panicked, started dressing while waking her daughter and other family members.
Before leaving the room, Yu Xi asked, “How many routes are there out of the village?”
The man focused, then answered, “Two! One is the road you came on, through the forest at the mountain’s base. The other is the route I planned to show you tomorrow—”
His face turned pale. “That route also passes by the other side of the mountain!”