Ch 131: Apocalypse Star House Hoarding

Yu Zhenzhen, who was sitting in the back seat, was also stunned by the rocket launcher.

According to the plan, Yu Xi and Ya Tong would be away from the hotel for a longer period this time. They didn’t feel comfortable leaving Yu Zhenzhen alone in the room amidst the increasingly chaotic situation at the scenic area. After all, they were too far away to return quickly if anything happened.

However, in truth, Yu Zhenzhen also didn’t want Yu Xi to go out alone with “Qu Yichen.”

It wasn’t because she had any feelings for “Qu Yichen.” What she had told Yu Xi was genuine—she truly didn’t like him, and at one point had been so annoyed by his relentless pursuit that she found it unbearable.

Now, perhaps due to being deeply affected by his parents’ disappearance, “Qu Yichen” no longer clung to her like before. The problem, however, was that he seemed to have shifted his focus to her mom.

She knew her mom was beautiful and looked like she was only in her thirties. Back at school, many boys had secretly commented that the homeroom teacher of Class 1 in Grade 12 was both attractive and elegant, and they loved attending her classes.

Yu Zhenzhen sympathized with “Qu Yichen” because his parents were missing and likely deceased. But sympathy aside, that didn’t mean he could take advantage of his pitiable situation to monopolize her mom!

What made it worse was that he had started to look at her with the gaze of an elder, patting her head occasionally like a senior, and even speaking to her in a fatherly tone.

It left Yu Zhenzhen utterly speechless. She couldn’t shake the growing sense that he was planning to “do something big” across their age gap. The feeling intensified daily, and though she tolerated it out of consideration for Qu Yichen’s parents’ plight, her patience was running thin.

That was until she overheard him calling her mom “Xiao Xi” behind her back…

Yu Zhenzhen: …

She couldn’t hold it in anymore. Two days ago, when “Qu Yichen” left the room alone, she quietly followed him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, standing in the garden behind the building, frowning slightly in a tone of mild exasperation. “Why are you out here on your own? Did you tell your mom? Even in the hotel, it’s not completely safe these days. At least let her know before you go running off. Be good, don’t be so headstrong, and don’t make your mom worry.”

Yu Zhenzhen stared at his youthful, equally immature face and responded in an even more exasperated tone: “I don’t like you, but you can’t go liking my mom!”

Ya Tong: …

Her hand froze mid-motion as she was lighting a cigarette.

“I understand that recent events have been a huge blow to you, and I also know that boys tend to have an Oedipus complex, but that’s my mom… This kind of liking isn’t appropriate. You two have no future, and it’s never going to work out.”

Ya Tong: …

I like your mom? You’ve got to be kidding me!

“Well, I’ve said my piece. The rest is up to you to think through,” Yu Zhenzhen added before leaving. “Although I admire your courage, I absolutely can’t accept you becoming my dad, so…”

Ya Tong: …

Don’t go! Come back and explain yourself!

That day, Yu Xi noticed that Ya Tong seemed unusually drained after returning from her smoke break, while Yu Zhenzhen had started sticking unusually close to her from then on.

If she went out alone, it wouldn’t be an issue, but whenever she saw Yu Xi and Ya Tong stepping out together, Yu Zhenzhen would always find an excuse to tag along.

Yu Xi thought this was just Yu Zhenzhen’s insecurity manifesting—after all, everyone was trapped in the scenic area, and the tension was escalating daily. She didn’t overthink it and had no idea that her “convenient daughter” had already let her imagination run wild.

On this day, when the tsunami warning and typhoon alert went off simultaneously, both Yu Xi and Ya Tong had a strong premonition: after this disaster, the scenic area would completely descend into chaos.

The beginning of an era of turmoil. In such circumstances, there was no longer any need for subtlety. Strength would soon be the determining factor, and ordinary locals wouldn’t be able to do much against them. The only real threat would be other task-takers.

However, the chances of encountering other task-takers in such a small fragment world were slim.

Yu Xi stowed away the small rocket launcher but still turned back to comfort Yu Zhenzhen, “Don’t be afraid.”

Yu Zhenzhen obediently shook her head, but then a thought crossed her mind. She glanced at “Qu Yichen” in the driver’s seat. More than Yu Xi pulling out a deadly weapon, she was worried about her space ability being exposed to outsiders.

“He’s an ally, so he’s already in the know. Don’t worry; he won’t say anything. Trust my judgment of people,” Yu Xi reassured her.

As she spoke, another lightning bolt struck nearby. Yu Xi reminded everyone to sit tight and focused intently on navigating the road ahead.

Fallen tree trunks were manageable, but a landslide would be disastrous, potentially blocking the entire mountain road. While she and Ya Tong could protect Yu Zhenzhen and traverse on foot, the car behind them carried several more people. They couldn’t ensure everyone’s safety while bringing them back to the hotel.

The only option was to return before the situation deteriorated further.

Fortunately, they reacted quickly, turning back the moment they sensed something was wrong. Thanks to their speed, they managed to return to the hotel just before the thunderstorm escalated.

“Would it be safer to stay in the car for now?” Chen Lei and his son asked through the walkie-talkie.

“It’s not just the thunderstorm—there’s a typhoon coming next. Drive the car to the hotel entrance, get out, and run inside. Forget about the car!”

The two vehicles sped to the entrance, braked abruptly, and the group dashed into the lobby alongside others fleeing indoors.

Outside, the sky churned ominously as lightning struck repeatedly. People scrambled for shelter, but some who moved too slowly were struck by lightning and collapsed lifelessly on the ground.

Wang Fen had originally gone out with her husband to gather food. Their group had been struggling lately; those families who had shown their faces in that infamous video were already ostracized by the others.

Unlike others who hadn’t embarrassed themselves with public outbursts, some could still rely on their children to beg for mercy and manage to buy a little food.

Wang Fen’s family, however, was among those ostracized. This made her resent Zheng Kun even more, and it was impossible for them to cooperate again. Recently, they had barely managed to get by by purchasing food at exorbitant prices.

Bread that used to cost just a few yuan now sold for 20 to 30 yuan in the scenic area. For them, it cost nearly 100 yuan to buy just one or two loaves. Others treated them like fools, buying cheap and reselling to them at a profit to purchase more food for themselves.

Fortunately, there weren’t too many tourists on the mountain, and the hotel hadn’t raised its prices. That was the only way they managed to scrape by.

When the typhoon alert sounded, they had just finished paying for food. However, before they could collect it, the vendor abandoned the shop and ran back to their hotel.

The crowd outside was in chaos. Wang Fen and her husband chased after the vendor but quickly lost them. Remembering that their son was still waiting in their room, they reluctantly returned to the shop and begged another person to sell them food.

This time, the price was even higher.

With the typhoon approaching and no food in their room, they had no choice but to pay. After finally getting the food, they stepped outside, only to encounter the thunderstorm.

A lightning bolt struck nearby, shattering a bush and leaving them stunned.

“We can’t stay here! Let’s hide in the shop!” They turned to run back to the nearest shop, but the door was shut just as they arrived.

They pounded desperately on the door, but the people inside ignored them.

“Please, open the door! The storm is coming—let us in while there’s still time!”

Their begging nearly worked; someone inside was about to open the door. However, another person recognized them through the window and loudly identified them. The would-be helper immediately stopped.

“Go somewhere else! This shop is already full. We can’t take more people!”

No one was willing to take the risk of letting them in, unsure of what trouble they might cause once inside.

As Wang Fen and her husband stood outside, pleading in vain, they finally felt the despair of utter helplessness.

Meanwhile, bolts of lightning like twisted electric serpents struck various parts of the scenic area.

…

In the hotel lobby, a deafening crash shattered the quiet. A floor-to-ceiling glass window, reinforced with wooden boards, was blasted open, leaving a gaping hole.

The lobby of this hotel, like others in the area, featured an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows to showcase the surrounding greenery and views. After the last typhoon, most of the glass had been reinforced with wooden boards, tape, cardboard, or leather.

What had withstood even a super typhoon couldn’t withstand the lightning’s fury. The glass and boards shattered together, and fierce winds poured through the breach, heralding the typhoon’s approach.

Those near the windows screamed and retreated. Some were injured by flying glass, leaving blood on the floor. Hotel staff quickly helped the injured to a sofa away from the windows, fetched a first aid kit to stop the bleeding, and pushed more sofas forward in an attempt to block the opening.

But the deafening thunder continued, and two more windows shattered in quick succession.

“The typhoon is almost here. The lobby can’t hold out. Everyone, go upstairs now! Don’t use the elevators! Reinforce the glass windows in your rooms again, and if that doesn’t work, take food and water and hide in the bathroom!”

Ya Tong, holding a megaphone, shouted over the roaring thunder, pointing people toward safety. “If you’re not a hotel guest, go to the front desk and get a room card for any vacant room. In times like this, saving lives comes first! Guests on higher floors are advised to move to lower levels for now. This typhoon is likely to be stronger than the last! Don’t forget to grab food and water first!”

After Ya Tong finished shouting instructions, everyone who had taken shelter in the hotel started to act. The Chen father-and-son duo, along with a few technicians, went to the front desk to get room cards. After greeting them briefly, Ya Tong followed Yu Xi back to their suite.

The windows in this suite were likely the most securely reinforced in the entire hotel. Upon entering the room, Yu Xi checked the previously left-open observation gap. She split another piece from the bed’s wooden frame and used it to block the gap completely.

Recalling something, she handed a hammer and long nails to Ya Tong, signaling her to reinforce the previously nailed boards again. Meanwhile, Yu Xi retrieved two additional hammers, a bag of long nails, and a backpack from the Star House storage. She filled the bag with bottled water, instant noodles, sausages, and ready-to-eat rice, then headed to the stairwell to intercept Chen Lei and his group as they were coming upstairs.

Over the past few days, Yu Xi had been forming a team. So far, the Chen father and son had been involved, along with a few reliable local technicians from the scenic area. However, she knew Chen Lei had a few other people in his group whom she hadn’t had time to interact with yet. She planned to meet them later.

Giving some food to the Chen father and son now served as a subtle way of establishing Chen Lei’s authority within her team.

“Got it! Understood!” Chen Lei was admittedly a bit nervous upon seeing Yu Xi. After all, in peacetime, the idea of civilians wielding firearms was unthinkable, and here she was, pulling out a rocket launcher with ease.

However, when he thought about it, it seemed likely that she was some kind of elite military personnel. Only someone with such a background could think of safeguarding an entire scenic area and reopening the mountain roads in such a dire situation.

This realization made Chen Lei suppress his unease. He understood there was no room for hesitation in this crisis.

He accepted the backpack, noticing that it contained not just tools like hammers but also food and water. The importance of such supplies in a time like this was self-evident.

Grateful and in need, he didn’t try to decline but instead sincerely thanked Yu Xi.

Chen Lei and the technicians he was assisting had been assigned rooms on the fourth floor. After expressing their gratitude, the group quickly ascended the stairs.

When Yu Xi returned to her suite, she pushed the long bar counter in the room against the door as an additional barricade.

Boom! Several deafening claps of thunder sounded outside. The lights in the room flickered twice before going out.

It seemed the scenic area’s power grid had been damaged by the lightning. Fortunately, the hotel had its own generator. Once the external power supply failed, the generator would kick in. However, generators required fuel to operate.

Under normal circumstances, the generator could provide electricity for 4–5 hours before needing to be refueled manually.

Backup generators are usually located on the ground floor of hotels, and it was unclear whether anyone could make it there in time to refuel under these circumstances.

As Yu Xi was pondering this, the lights in the room flickered back on. However, with the emergency power activated, only the lights were functional, and all other electrical appliances were disabled.

Fortunately, this didn’t bother Yu Xi and Ya Tong.

Yu Xi still had a compact gasoline generator stored in her warehouse. It was small, portable, and operated quietly. Paired with the gasoline in her fuel storage, it could ensure they always had electricity when needed.

Yu Zhenzhen sat on the sofa, fidgeting nervously as she used her phone to check the outside situation, hoping to gather as much information as possible before the signal cut off.

Ya Tong tossed the hammer back to Yu Xi and pulled a change of clothes from her travel bag. “While there’s still water, let’s each take a shower quickly.”

Yu Zhenzhen: …

It turned out that Ya Tong’s decision was spot on. Two hours later, the emergency power was still running, but the water supply had been cut off—likely due to damage to some water pipes.

While the hotel had a backup water supply, unlike electricity, which could be generated with fuel, water was finite. As such, the hotel had temporarily decided not to activate it.

Outside, the howling typhoon raged across the scenic area, accompanied by torrential rain and booming thunder.

Unknown objects repeatedly slammed against the outer walls of the building, producing loud thuds. Occasionally, the impacts were so strong that the occupants could feel the building tremble slightly.

Unlike the other guests, who huddled in their rooms filled with anxiety and fear, the atmosphere in the first suite near the stairs on the second floor was unusually relaxed.

In the mundane world, what do people do when trapped indoors during a heavy rainstorm?

Without access to electronics or the ability to go outside, they’d usually stay home, cook something delicious, and gather to play board games or cards.

Yu Zhenzhen stared at the playing cards in her hands, still in shock from witnessing Yu Xi pull out mahjong tiles, poker cards, and even a board game from seemingly nowhere.

She had thought her mom was joking, testing her crisis awareness during the disaster. But instead…

In addition to the games, Yu Xi had also produced three cups of bubble tea in different flavors, potato chips, spicy snacks, lychees, a nine-grid mousse cake, fried squid tentacles, and spicy chicken wings.

As she set the items down, she sighed, “It’s rare to have nowhere to go. Let’s take this chance to relax for a day.”

Yu Zhenzhen immediately glanced at “Qu Yichen.” While it was one thing for him to know her mom had spatial storage, seeing her casually pull out such an array of resources might make him even more enamored with her mom, potentially sparking thoughts of seeking “sponsorship” and clinging to her forever.

Ya Tong, sensing Yu Zhenzhen’s wary and distrustful gaze: …

So exhausted. I just want to smoke…

Four hours later, the network signal was completely cut off. They could no longer check the outside situation online, but based on what they saw before the disconnection, the entire Lushan Peninsula was in dire straits.

The tsunami that had made landfall in the northern coastal region had already destroyed nearly half of several seaside cities in the north. The super typhoon had impacted the entire peninsula, and even the western inland areas were experiencing torrential rain.

Many rescue teams and supplies were stuck on impassable roads, struggling to save themselves while trying to protect the most critical resources.

Numerous cities were facing water and power outages, floods were wreaking havoc, and countless civilians were trapped in pitch-dark buildings, unable to move.

At this stage, even Yu Xi and Ya Tong were powerless to help.

The card game had ended, and Yu Zhenzhen was now cooking tomato and egg noodles on the coffee table using the gas stove Yu Xi had brought out.

They had eaten so many snacks in the afternoon that they decided to keep dinner simple: noodles paired with pre-prepared dishes like Sichuan pepper chicken, “couple’s lung slices,” and cold kelp salad.

While Yu Zhenzhen couldn’t handle complicated dishes, she was confident in making simple meals like tomato and egg noodles and had volunteered to cook.

Meanwhile, Yu Xi and Ya Tong were not idle. They spread out a map of the peninsula on the dining table and, using the information they had gathered online earlier, tried to assess the state of the Lushan Peninsula after the typhoon.

Several areas marked in black pen on the map indicated time-loop zones—absolute blind spots they must avoid.

In addition, they had circled potential locations for refugee bases in red pen, including the high ground they were currently on.

However, without an organized team or sufficient supplies, and with morale still fragile though not completely collapsed, even if they managed to set up a base, it would likely disband quickly.

More importantly, they still didn’t know the full extent of the disaster’s destruction in this world and couldn’t be sure whether the buildings in the scenic area could hold out.

“We’re out of luck this time. Just when we figured out how to clear the mountain road, a typhoon hits again. Anyway, once the typhoon passes, we’ll take our assembled team down the mountain to gather supplies. Here—”

Ya Tong circled two coastal areas on the map. “These places were hit too quickly by the tsunami, leaving a lot of supplies underwater or in partially submerged buildings during the evacuation. With no external aid for the peninsula and the limited manpower focused on rescuing civilians, no one has the resources to search such dangerous areas for supplies. But we can.”

Before arriving in this world, Ya Tong had hacked into the files on the peninsula’s supply depots while the network was still active.

Thanks to this, they knew exactly where intact supplies could be found. Some places were buried deep underwater, making it impossible for ordinary people to open the warehouses under immense water pressure or retrieve all the supplies in one trip.

But these problems were solvable for them.

The only thing they needed now was a reliable boat.