Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 470 Unexpected Situations

Someone wanted to complain, but their mouth was already open, and the first syllable was stuck in their throat.

It was a sentence that began with the word "I," and in this context, what followed "I" was almost certainly a complaint.

But before he could speak, the person next to him gently touched his arm and shook his head—a small gesture, but the meaning was clear.

Stop talking, it's pointless, it will only make things more embarrassing for you.

In the end, the person who wanted to complain opened their mouth, then closed it, swallowing back the complaint that hadn't yet been uttered.

After the turnaround began, everyone struggled to change direction in the narrow passage.

The people in front became the people behind, and the people behind became the people in front; this process was much more chaotic than imagined.

Before some people could even turn around, the people behind them had already come up.

The two stood almost face to face in the passageway, awkwardly glancing at each other before one sidestepped and the other stepped back, making room for the other to pass.

Backpacks clattered against each other in the darkness, making a dull thud. Someone was poked in the waist by the corner of another backpack, letting out a muffled groan, but didn't stop.

Someone stepped on the foot of the person behind them as they turned around, and hurriedly apologized. The other person's response was unclear, but no one got angry.

The passage after the turnaround was narrower than the ones we had walked through before. It was so narrow that a person had to turn slightly to the side and hunch their shoulders to avoid their clothes brushing against the walls on either side.

The wall was now much closer, so close that Xu Xiaoyan could see the texture and patterns on the rock surface.

The air became more humid, carrying an indescribable, fishy smell, a mixture of rust and dirt.

There are fewer emergency lights on the sides.

Although there weren't many lights in the previous passage, there was at least one every ten meters or so. Although the light was dim, it was enough to give you a sense of direction.

But now, sometimes you have to walk dozens of meters through this passage to see a single light, with the filament inside buzzing and vibrating, emitting an extremely fine and high-pitched sound.

The team stopped again, this time not because of the walkie-talkie or because of a problem with the road ahead, but because someone had fallen.

The first sound Xu Xiaoyan heard was the clanging of metal, like something hitting the ground.

Then came the sound of fabric rubbing together, followed by the dull thud of a body hitting the ground.

A middle-aged woman carrying a large hiking backpack missed a step while crossing a raised section of the ground.

She lunged forward, not even having time to scream, as the weight of her backpack carried her half a circle forward.

She lay there motionless for about a minute. Everyone around her stopped. No one spoke, no one moved. Everyone waited for her to get up on her own.

Then she started to move, not to get up, but to try to roll over, but the backpack was too big and heavy, and she couldn't roll over even after several attempts.

Each struggle only created more dust in the same spot, which was kicked up by her movements and formed a gray mist in the air.

One of the soldiers at the back of the line hurried forward.

He moved quickly, grabbing the backpack handle with one hand and supporting the woman's arm with the other. His fingers hooked into the backpack's handle loops, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force.

He pulled her up forcefully, and her upper body left the ground.

Then he used his other hand to put her arm on his shoulder, and used his shoulder to support her underarm, slowly and steadily lifting the woman off the ground.

His movements were swift and decisive, and his expression remained unchanged, but Xu Xiaoyan noticed that after he helped the woman up, he glanced at her again.

That glance was so quick that you wouldn't even notice it unless you were deliberately observing.

His lips moved slightly, then immediately closed again.

In the end, he said nothing, but simply let go of her hand, took a step back, and returned to his seat.

The woman stood there, covered in dust from head to toe.

The pants had a hole worn through at the knee. The hole wasn't big, only about the size of a coin, but it was enough to show you the wound inside.

The area of ​​the abraded skin was not large, but it was very deep. The epidermis was completely gone, exposing the pink dermal tissue underneath.

Blood beads seeped from the capillaries in the dermis, appearing particularly glaring under the dim yellow light.

She didn't cry, didn't complain of pain, and didn't even show any change in expression.

She just stood there catching her breath, her breathing heavy and rapid, her chest heaving dramatically.

Then she looked down at her knee, at the abrasion and the bleeding wound.

He stared blankly for a second or two, then straightened the backpack strap that was tilted to one side of his shoulder, shrugged his shoulder, and the backpack strap slid back to its original position.

She chose to continue walking forward, but her pace was slower than before. It was fine when she stepped out with her left leg, but her knee had to bend when she stepped out with her right leg.

Each bend would aggravate the wound, causing the blood droplets that were congealing to reopen.

New blood seeped from the crack, mixing with the old blood to form a thin, shiny film of water on the skin's surface.

There was an almost imperceptible hesitation in her steps as her right leg touched the ground, but she didn't stop or even slow down; she just kept walking, step by step.

The team started moving again.

Time becomes meaningless in this underground labyrinth.

Xu Xiaoyan's legs started to ache, then hurt, then went numb. She would occasionally look down at her feet to make sure they were still moving.

Her backpack was getting heavier and heavier, so she took advantage of the darkness to put the heavy items in her spatial storage to lighten her load.

Blue Moon's situation is even worse than hers; her steps have shrunk to the point where she's practically standing still.

I don't know how long we walked, but the voices on the walkie-talkie became more and more frequent.

Xu Xiaoyan could no longer tell which team the instructions were for.

All we know is that every time the walkie-talkie rings, the team might stop, turn around, turn back, or wait in place for who knows how long.

Xu Xiaoyan later learned that they had walked through this tunnel for a full eight hours.

Some people sang loudly in the tunnel, while others dug out and ate things they had treasured for a long time, as if it were a ritual of "if I can't get out, at least I'll eat my fill before I die".

Xu Xiaoyan didn't know how she survived the last two hours, and then she saw the light.

The light shone from the front of the tunnel, initially just a small, blurry spot, then it grew brighter and brighter until she emerged from the tunnel.

As the sunlight enveloped her, she closed her eyes.

It wasn't that she was afraid of light, but rather that her eyes had been in darkness for too long, and the sudden exposure to real light from the sky made her vision blur.

She shielded her eyes above her brow bone with her hand, squinted her eyes, and slowly let the light in.

Then she opened her eyes.