Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 367 The Continuous Search

I'd better not go in; it's too dangerous.

The fourth location was "Huangnikeng", the fifth was "Shikeng", and the sixth was "Luokeng Village". Each one was farther and more remote than the last, and each one disappointed her more and more.

There was indeed a pit in Huangni Pit, which was large but not deep, and filled entirely with yellow mud. The area around the pit was bare, without even a single tree to provide shade.

Once the sun comes out, the entire pit becomes a giant oven; a person can be roasted into a dried-up corpse if they stay inside for an hour.

The stone pit was even more outrageous; it wasn't a pit at all, but a quarry.

Half of the mountain was blasted open, revealing a bluish-gray rock face. The rubble was piled up everywhere, some as big as houses and some as small as fists. Cars couldn't drive in, and people couldn't walk in either.

She stood at the edge of the quarry and looked down. The wind blew up from the valley floor, cold and sharp, carrying the smell of crushed stone.

Luokeng Village is nestled in a mountain valley, surrounded by mountains on three sides and water on one side, which is a dried-up stream.

She didn't go into the village because she could see people inside from a distance.

Several cars were parked in the threshing ground at the village entrance, and a few tents were set up nearby. People were cooking over a fire, and wisps of smoke rose in the morning breeze.

She stopped by the roadside for a moment, looking at the tents and vehicles, and silently estimated the number of people—at least a dozen or so, clearly an organized small group.

She turned around and drove back the way she came.

The time on her watch jumped to 11:40. From 2 a.m. until now, nearly ten hours have passed, and she has visited six different places, none of which she was satisfied with.

The sun was high overhead, and the blinding sunlight poured down the windshield, making the plastic on the dial gleam with a blinding light.

The temperature inside the car had risen to a certain level; she could feel the leather seats getting hot, the steering wheel was burning hot to the touch, and the air felt stuffy, like a sauna.

We can't keep going! Xu Xiaoyan slowed down, scanning both sides of the road for a place to stop and rest.

Ahead was an overpass, part of an abandoned highway, with sturdy piers and a wide deck, casting a large, heavy shadow.

The ground under the bridge is paved with gravel, shady, quiet, and secluded.

People passing by on the road would not notice the car parked there unless they specifically looked under the bridge.

Xu Xiaoyan turned the steering wheel, and the car turned off the main road, rolled over a gravel road, and bumped its way into the shadow of the overpass.

She chose a spot on the inside, with the rear of the car facing the bridge pier and the front facing outwards, so that she could see anyone coming from the road immediately.

She turned off the engine and rested on the spot.

Xu Xiaoyan took the watch off the stand, glanced at the time, and saw it was 12:08 PM.

When the sun is at its strongest, the outside temperature is at least fifty degrees Celsius, but in the shade under the bridge, the temperature is at least seven or eight degrees lower.

She rolled down the car window a crack to let in some air, then closed her eyes.

The sun moved slowly overhead, and the shadows under the bridge piers moved with it, but her car remained in those shadows.

When she opened her eyes again, it was already dark.

When Xu Xiaoyan woke up, the first thing she did was check if anyone was around. She leaned on the steering wheel and scanned the car from all sides.

To the left are bridge piers, thick concrete pillars, with some incomprehensible symbols spray-painted on them.

To the right is the gravel path we came from, which extends all the way to the edge of the main road, and it's completely empty.

Ahead lay an open wasteland covered with withered grass as tall as a person.

Behind it is the direction of the elevated bridge's extension, with bridge piers lined up one after another.

There were no people, no cars, only the dry smell of concrete and gravel after a day of being baked by the sun.

After confirming that no one was around, she rolled up the car window, turned on the air conditioning, and then, with a thought, took out a plate of braised chicken from her spatial storage.

She lifted the lid, and that familiar, strong aroma immediately wafted out.

The chicken was stewed until tender, the potatoes were soaked with broth, and bits of green and red bell peppers were scattered in the golden broth, glistening with oil.

She bought this from that stir-fry shop when she went to Jinshi. It was not only affordable but also tasted great. She picked up a piece of chicken leg and put it in her mouth.

The chicken fibers loosen between your teeth, and the broth seeps out from the meat, savory and slightly spicy with a hint of numbing sensation.

She shoveled large mouthfuls of rice into the broth of the braised chicken, coating each grain with a golden sheen of oil, before shoveling it into her mouth one bite at a time.

After finishing her meal, she stacked the two empty lunchboxes together and put them back in her storage space, then unscrewed a bottle of mineral water and took a few sips.

Xu Xiaoyan straightened the seat, fastened her seatbelt, and the car silently slid out of the shadows under the bridge, rolled over the gravel road, and turned onto the main road.

What she was really looking for was a sinkhole-type survival location, not those popular tourist attractions with familiar names on the map, such as "Dashiwei Sinkhole", "Xiaozhai Sinkhole", or "Leye Sinkhole Cluster".

She knew those places; just typing "sinkhole" into the search bar would bring up a long list of results. Choosing one of those places was tantamount to suicide.

Xu Xiaoyan's goal was clear: to find a small sinkhole, a natural sinkhole that was unnamed on the map and had never been developed.

Such places are usually not large, ranging from tens to hundreds of meters in diameter. From above, they appear as a depression filled with greenery, and you can't see them at all unless you get close.

The bottom of the pit often has its own microclimate, which is warm in winter and cool in summer. Some pits also have underground rivers or seepage, which can solve the problem of water supply.

More importantly, since she lives alone, the existence of her own space is her biggest trump card, so she must find a place where no one else is.

She drove slowly through the night, the map on her watch moving little by little.

Her finger would occasionally swipe across the screen, zooming in, zooming out, and panning the map, and then Xu Xiaoyan discovered how to use contour lines correctly.

She began searching for suspicious depressions in areas where there were no place names, only contour lines drawn in circles to depict the shapes of mountains.

The shape of contour lines is regular; the contour lines on a normal hillside are smooth arcs.

In areas with sinkholes, the contour lines suddenly break, forming a closed circle that shrinks inwards in circles.

She searched for over a week.

For more than a week, she slept under overpasses, in tunnels, and behind abandoned buildings during the day, and drove on bumpy country roads and mountain roads without road signs at night.

If you enjoy stories about surviving the apocalypse by stockpiling supplies, please bookmark: Apocalypse Stockpiling Survival Story