Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 475 Soft Mud Pit

When Captain Gu walked back, his pace was a little faster than before.

In this torrent of tens of thousands of people, falling behind is not a matter of "arriving a little later," but a matter of "disappearing forever."

This is the truth behind tens of thousands of people walking together. You may think that having many people means safety, but having many people also means that the individual is insignificant and replaceable.

The afternoon sun began to shift westward, and the shadows slowly stretched eastward from my feet, becoming longer and longer.

Team Leader Gu led them along the edge of the flood for over an hour, but they never made it to the center.

Although the road conditions are worse, with more stones and potholes, the edges also mean you can control your own pace.

You don't have to be swept along, you don't have to be blocked by people in front of you suddenly stopping, and you don't have to be pushed along by people behind you.

After walking for about two hours, the crowd ahead suddenly became restless.

Everyone turned their heads in the same direction.

Xu Xiaoyan followed those gazes and saw a car.

It wasn't a civilian vehicle, but a military green truck that was on the move.

It slowly drove down the distant hillside, its body reflecting a dazzling sheen in the sunlight.

The paint was intact, the tires crunched over the gravel road, and the engine roared with a deep, powerful sound.

Several soldiers stood on the back of the truck, holding onto the railings, their eyes scanning the crowd on both sides.

The appearance of this truck brought reassurance, at least proving that order was still there, the army was still there, and that there were still people who had not abandoned them.

The truck slowly drove past them, following the edge of the crowd to the very front, and then stopped.

The engine was turned off, and the soldiers in the carriage jumped off and joined the soldiers leading the group.

Xu Xiaoyan couldn't see what they were doing, but she saw Gu's walkie-talkie ring again. He answered it, listened for about ten seconds, and then said one word, "Yes."

With vehicles, a command post, and communications, they were no longer isolated survivors fighting alone, but a group being organized.

The sky began to darken.

In the last rays of twilight, Team Leader Gu found a relatively flat, slightly elevated earthen slope to serve as the campsite for Team 12 for the night.

The slope wasn't large, but it was big enough for everyone to sit down, and its height gave them a slight psychological advantage.

You can see the surroundings without being easily seen by them.

Team Leader Gu assigned two people to stand guard, one at the highest point of the earthen slope and the other at the edge of the team, taking turns on duty every two hours.

"We'll spend the night here, get up at 5:30 tomorrow, and leave at 6:00."

After saying that, Captain Gu paused for a moment, then added:

"Try not to leave this hill. Once you choose to leave this place, no matter the reason, I will not come looking for you."

When Lan Yue took the backpack off her shoulder, she let out a very suppressed low cry.

She sat down on the ground, stretched her legs out in front of her, leaned back, lay flat, and stared at the sky where stars were beginning to appear.

Blue Moon beside him was curled up in a ball, her breathing gradually becoming even, but she would occasionally frown, clearly not sleeping soundly.

The surroundings were packed with people, so densely packed that you couldn't see the end of them. Everyone, like them, found a place to sit down and used their backpacks as pillows or their clothes as blankets.

There was no peace and quiet at the campsite with tens of thousands of people.

The sounds included hushed coughs, children's sobs, suppressed groans from the elderly, and the rustling of clothes as people moved about.

In the muddy ground below the slope, someone had laid out a tattered plastic sheet, and the family was huddled together, having to be careful even to turn over.

The wind grew colder in the latter half of the night, and Xu Xiaoyan's hands and feet went numb from the cold. She simply stood up gently and slowly moved her legs and feet in place.

The guards on the edge of the earthen slope have changed shifts.

Just then, a sharp cry suddenly came from afar, followed by chaotic shouts, which quickly spread from the west.

"Someone fell in! It's a mud pit!"

"Help! Don't push!"

"Help, my child!"

The sound pierced the night, instantly causing an uproar throughout the camp.

People who were sitting and resting stood up and stood on tiptoe to look to the west.

The crowd began to stir, and the once orderly line instantly became crowded, with countless people pushing and shoving to get a better look at what was happening.

Team Leader Gu's expression changed, and he immediately barked into the walkie-talkie, "Squad 12, hold your position! Do not push forward! The west side has fallen into soft mud; organize a rescue immediately!"

Before he finished speaking, he had already rushed down the slope and headed west.

Several soldiers followed closely behind, carrying ropes and branches.

Xu Xiaoyan's heart clenched instantly. She pulled the newly awakened Lan Yue, saying, "Don't move! Stay where you are!"

Lan Yue hurriedly asked, "What's wrong? Has something happened?"

"It's a mud pit," Xu Xiaoyan said in a tight voice. "When I was wading through the mud during the day, I felt that something was wrong. It looked like hard mud, but underneath it was all thin slurry. You would sink as soon as you stepped on it."

The cries from the west side grew increasingly desperate, and one could vaguely hear someone shouting, "The more you struggle, the faster you sink."

The crowd surged even more, with people on the earthen slope rushing down, turning the once safe high ground into a crowded area. Some people were pushed down, letting out terrified screams.

"Don't move! Back up!" The soldier's shout pierced the chaos. "Pushing any further will only make things worse! We can't save those who are already trapped, do you want to throw your own lives away?"

He led his soldiers to form a human wall, forcefully blocking the surging crowd.

But how could a mere dozen or so people easily quell the commotion of tens of thousands? People kept squeezing through from the side, rushing towards the mud pit.

Xu Xiaoyan saw a little girl, about five or six years old, being jostled by the crowd and about to fall down the embankment and roll towards the mud pit.

A man nearby immediately rushed over and grabbed the little girl's arm tightly.

"Be careful!"

The little girl was so frightened that she burst into tears. Her mother tried desperately to squeeze through the crowd, but she was swept away by the wave of people and couldn't move at all.

In the chaos, someone suddenly felt their footing give way. The once solid edge of the earthen slope began to loosen and slide due to the repeated trampling of the crowd.

The mud beneath my feet crumbled down, and I nearly fell.

A thin crack appeared at the edge of the earthen slope, and beyond that was the soft, muddy pit that swallowed people.

Just then, news came from afar that a mother and child were stuck in the mud pit. The mother was holding the child up above her head, while she herself was already up to her chest.

The soldiers tied the rope to a wooden stick, passed it over, and with great effort, finally pulled the child up.

The mother, however, sank further down because she was exhausted, and the mud had reached her chin.