Chapter 783: The Doomsday Life of “Ordinary People”

A lot of people had come to Xi City recently. Almost every day, two or three convoys arrived, bringing an average of more than two hundred people each day.

Xi City was expanding at a rapid pace.

Happy Garden and Sunshine Garden had already become the two liveliest residential compounds.

They were full to the brim.

As a result, those who arrived in Xi City later were all assigned to Shun’an Residential Compound.

Shun’an was a very old residential compound. Judging by when it was built, it predated both Happy Garden and Sunshine Garden.

Before the apocalypse, the government had already planned to demolish Shun’an and rebuild it.

Unfortunately, the apocalypse came before the government could begin the renovation project.

Wan Chao was one of the ordinary survivors who had come to Xi City with a convoy and been assigned to Shun’an afterward.

For survivors like them, where they lived wasn’t something they got to decide for themselves.

Having a safe place to live was the kind of thing that would make you wake up smiling, even if you’d only dreamed of it.

Now, this place... Shun’an might look terribly run-down, but at least it was safe.

Before the apocalypse, Wan Chao had weighed around 230 jin and run a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the city with his wife.

His cooking was pretty good, so their tiny eatery had done fairly well. Though the couple worked hard, their life had still been better than some, if not as good as others.

After the apocalypse came, there was no way to keep the business going. Wan Chao took his wife and followed a convoy from place to place, struggling to survive, until they reached Xi City.

By then, after going so long without enough to eat, the man who had once weighed 230 jin was down to just over 110.

When Wan Chao saw the dilapidated residential compound, he finally couldn’t hold back his tears.

The place reminded him of the room he had rented back when he was struggling to make a living in the city.

Fortunately, Wan Chao was quick-witted. When the people in charge assigned the convoy to this compound, he swiftly claimed a room that was in fairly decent shape.

If he’d been even a little slower, someone else would have snatched it.

When the others saw that Wan Chao had already claimed the room, they went off to pick other ones. No one dared disturb the young couple.

The apartment had two bedrooms and two living rooms. It wasn’t very large, but it did have furniture and other household items.

The only problem was that most of the furniture was covered in a layer of dust.

Anyone who had gone scavenging in the cities after the apocalypse would know that most urban homes had been left intact, as if their owners had gone on a trip and simply hadn’t returned.

As for where those homeowners had gone, nobody knew.

Some of the chairs and tables in the apartment Wan Chao found had been so badly rotted by the damp that they were barely recognizable.

All it took was a light touch for them to collapse on the spot.

But Wan Chao and his wife didn’t mind at all.

As long as they had somewhere to live, that was enough. More than enough.

When they closed the door, Wan Chao and his wife embraced, crying happily for a full ten minutes.

The rest was easy enough.

Wan Chao and his wife, Xu Xiuxiu, cleaned the apartment from top to bottom together.

“Honey, there are a few clothes in the bedroom wardrobe. They look pretty good. I’ll wash them in a bit, and you can wear them!”

His wife, Xu Xiuxiu, came out of the bedroom carrying several garments, her face beaming with delight.

Neither Wan Chao nor Xu Xiuxiu had changed out of the clothes they were wearing in ages.

They were the same clothes they’d had on when they fled the city.

There were still plenty of bloodstains on his wife’s clothes, picked up by accident during their escape.

Wan Chao was fixing the sofa. It was covered in dust, and a nasty damp smell kept wafting off it.

“So many?”

Wan Chao’s eyes lit up when he saw the pile of clothes in his wife’s arms.

The two of them hurriedly set the clothes on the floor and began sorting through them.

They had already swept and mopped the floor, so it was reasonably clean. Besides, all the clothes needed to be washed anyway.

There were both men’s and women’s clothes. Some had rotted so badly that they would tear at the slightest pull, but others still looked pretty good.

“Honey, this red one’s nice too. I bet it’ll look great on you once it’s washed!”

Wan Chao held a red sweater up against his wife.

“This leather jacket’s nice too. What a shame it’s gone moldy...”

Xu Xiuxiu had picked out a black leather jacket as well. She sounded a little regretful.

“What’s there to be sorry about? What time is it now? Moldy bread might not be edible, but why can’t you wear moldy clothes?”

As he spoke, Wan Chao took the jacket from her, pulled off the sweatshirt that had long since become far too big for him, and put the leather jacket on without a second thought, green mold and all.

Back when he weighed 230 jin, there was no way he could have squeezed into it.

Now, the jacket even looked a little loose on him.

Still, having something to wear was already pretty good.

Wan Chao turned around in the jacket in front of his wife. “Well? How do I look?”

Xu Xiuxiu smiled brightly. “My husband looks so handsome!”

“Heh...”

“Honey, what were you knocking and hammering away at just now?”

“I was thinking of fixing up this sofa. It’s a bit beat-up, but it should still be usable!”

Xu Xiuxiu walked over to the sofa and pressed down on its foam cushion.

The foam had long since lost its spring, but at least it was a fabric sofa. If it had been leather, the upholstery would probably have fallen apart under that pressure.

“Mm. We can take the cushions off, wash them, and leave them outside to dry for a few days. Then they’ll be good to use!”

“That’s what I thought too!”

Wan Chao hadn’t expected his wife to have the same idea, so the two of them got to work repairing the sofa.

“Once I’ve finished tidying up the house, I’ll go out with them tomorrow and have a look around!”

“Xi City is safe now. The only place we can’t go is Haosheng Hotel on Sunset Avenue. Everywhere else is open to us. We might find something useful!”

“Honey, how about I go with you?”

“No need. I can go by myself. That bunch already scavenged all over Xi City, but there are still plenty of places they didn’t check.”

“I heard the idiot next door found a whole box of expired dried noodles yesterday. My goodness, a whole box!”

“The managers took them, of course, but he must’ve hidden a box. I bet he found two, handed one over, and kept the other for himself!”

“The convoy managers can’t be bothered to investigate stuff like that...”

Wan Chao was telling the truth.

When Chen Ye and the others had first cleared Xi City of Anomalies, they had cleaned out many areas.

But there was no way they could scavenge the entire city with so few people.

So when Chen Ye and his group first moved to Xi City, they focused their scavenging on places like supermarkets and grain and cooking oil shops.

They had only given most residential homes a cursory search, and hadn’t even checked some places at all.

On top of that, all sorts of matters had kept them busy lately, leaving them even less time to scavenge.

That meant there was still plenty left for the other convoys.

Any convoy that arrived early had managed to make a bit of a haul, more or less.

That was one small reason the authorities wanted to collect taxes.

The two of them kept busy until evening, stopping only when their stomachs started growling.

“Honey, take a break. I’ll go get us some food!”

“Mm. Hurry back, honey. I’ll be waiting at home...”

Xu Xiuxiu’s gentle words made Wan Chao feel as if someone had injected him with a shot of adrenaline.

Life was hard, but as long as he and his wife were together, he was happy no matter how tired he got.

Besides, now that the convoy had reached Xi City, they wouldn’t have to keep migrating from place to place like before.

Things were looking up.

It was still the apocalypse, but at that moment, Wan Chao couldn’t help feeling hopeful.

Just as Wan Chao stepped outside,

his wife, Xu Xiuxiu, stood in the doorway, her eyes filled with bone-deep terror.

Seeing that look of terror, Wan Chao couldn’t help shivering.

“Xiuxiu, you...”

“Honey, don’t talk to them when you go out!”

“W-why?”

This wasn’t the first time his wife had cautioned him like this.

Xu Xiuxiu shook her head and didn’t answer. She only said, “Honey, be careful! I’ll be waiting for you!”

“Mm!”

When Wan Chao saw the terrified look fade from his wife’s face, he felt a little better. He picked up the bowls and hurried off.

Talk to them? Even if I wanted to talk to them, they wouldn’t pay me any attention.

With two chipped bowls tucked in his hands, Wan Chao headed for the convoy’s temporary canteen.

Wan Chao’s convoy used a system of centralized distribution.

In other words, all the supplies were managed by the convoy administrators and then distributed among everyone.

He’d heard that the Xi City authorities were planning to collect taxes. When divided among everyone, each person would only have to contribute a very small amount.

The amount each person paid was tiny, but collected from everyone in the convoy, it was enough to make the convoy managers wince a little.

For that reason, Wan Chao’s convoy was one of those opposed to the tax.

By the time Wan Chao reached the temporary canteen, other survivors had already gathered there to wait.

They stood around in small groups, chatting.

The temporary canteen was really just an open patch of ground beneath one of the residential buildings.

Other convoys that used centralized distribution did things the same way Wan Chao’s convoy did.

Similar temporary canteens had been set up in open areas elsewhere in the compound.

By the time Wan Chao arrived, quite a few people had gathered. He found an empty spot and squatted down, listening to those around him talk.

“Damn it, I heard that old bastard say everyone’s supplies are getting cut in half again. How the hell are we supposed to live like this?”

A man as thin as a skeleton cursed furiously. Maybe it was his prolonged malnutrition, but his voice sounded weak and breathless, and even his cursing lacked any strength.

“Didn’t they say Xi City had plenty of supplies? Why are they cutting our rations in half?”

Someone else chimed in, dissatisfied.

“There are plenty of supplies, sure, but a lot of them are expired. The price of Revitalization Talismans has gone up again! So all in all, there still isn’t enough food we can eat.”

“Damn, we can’t go on like this!”

“Shh, keep your voice down. If the managers hear you, you’re in trouble!”

Wan Chao stood to one side with his head lowered, waiting. He held two bowls, one for his wife, Xu Xiuxiu, and one for himself.

Nobody came over to speak to him.

Wan Chao didn’t start conversations with anyone either.

Before long, someone carried out two large buckets of gruel.

A middle-aged man in somewhat cleaner clothes stood in front of everyone.

The people there looked at him with awe.

“The authorities in Xi City are going to start collecting taxes. The convoy captains and the Superhuman lords have discussed it!”

“To make sure everyone pays their share, each person’s daily ration is being cut in half!”

The moment he said that, the crowd erupted.

“They’re really cutting it in half?”

“Damn those bastards in Xi City! We can barely stay alive as it is, and they still want to collect taxes? What gives them the right?”

“Heh... What gives them the right? The fact that they’re the ones who took this place!”

“So what? It’s nothing special. We can just leave!”

“Leave? You think you can go back out there? Don’t you know what it’s like outside?”

“This is the safest place! The only safe place!”

The crowd broke into a heated discussion.

Some cursed Chu Che and Hou Junji for being heartless, while others cursed the wretched state of the world. People had all sorts of things to say.

“Quiet... Quiet...”

The manager slammed the ladle against the table beside him, making a tremendous racket. Only then did the crowd gradually quiet down.

“Quit whining. If you want to eat, get over here and line up!”

At that, everyone hurried into a line.

Wan Chao joined at the very end.

Throughout the whole process, nobody spoke to him. It was as if people were deliberately avoiding him.

At last, they started serving the food.

The manager used the ladle he’d just banged against the table to scoop a ladleful of gruel into each person’s bowl.

Nobody knew exactly what this gruel was made of.

It was just a mix of all kinds of expired food with a little water added, then boiled over a fierce fire.

As long as it didn’t kill anyone, that was good enough.

Nobody in their convoy cared what life was like for ordinary people.

Wan Chao had heard that some convoys treated ordinary people as the private property of Superhumans, beating and killing them whenever they pleased.

His own convoy might not be very good, but at least it was better than some.

Finally, it was Wan Chao’s turn.

He held out both bowls and gave the manager a fawning smile.

The manager frowned slightly. “Why two bowls?”

Wan Chao answered ingratiatingly, “My wife didn’t come, so I’m here for her!”

The manager was about to fly into a rage, but when he looked at Wan Chao, he forced it back down and casually ladled gruel into both bowls.

Wan Chao then hunched over and walked away.

Everyone moved aside to clear a path wherever Wan Chao went.

Beaming, Wan Chao was just about to leave with his two small bowls of gruel.

Just then, a commotion erupted outside.

Wan Chao then saw several people leap out of the windows on the sixth floor of the building where he lived.

One was so fat he looked like a mountain of flesh.

Another was a woman wearing a windproof jacket.

The third was short, but gave off an eerie feeling.

Wan Chao knew all three of them. They were Superhumans from the convoy.

Could another Anomaly have shown up?

Wan Chao jumped in fright and hurriedly ran back, still holding his bowls.

In his haste, he seemed to catch sight of a figure that made him feel a shiver deep in his soul.

It was a figure standing in the shadows.

No, more precisely, there were two of them, one large and one small.

The larger one was nearly three meters tall, with the graceful figure of a woman. She wore a red evening gown and held a blood-red scythe in her hand.

The smaller one wore a long white dress and was as quiet as the girl next door, simple and elegant.

But the woman in the white dress made Wan Chao feel uncomfortable all over, and he quickened his pace as he hurried away.