Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 213 Global Notification

She saw someone excitedly gesturing the famous hand gesture, waving their arms wildly, their voice rising involuntarily due to emotional outburst. They were quickly pulled down by their companion's sleeve and whispered in their ear, forcibly lowering their voice to a broken sob squeezed from deep in their throat.

Some people were deathly pale, not from the cold, but from the sudden loss of blood from their faces. Their lips trembled uncontrollably, their eyes were fixed, staring blankly in a certain direction, yet without focus. They were just muttering to themselves, their syllables indistinct.

Others exhibit a different state—their eyes dart rapidly around in their sockets, glancing left and right, their brows furrowed into deep furrows, their fingers unconsciously rubbing the hem of their clothes, or they seem to be calculating in the air. Clearly, upon hearing the news, these people's brains have already begun to instinctively weigh the pros and cons, calculate gains and losses, and search for possible solutions or loopholes.

Even the guards who usually stood at the city gates, who were always stern-faced and indifferent to everything, were now standing ramrod straight, but their eyes were frequently and warily scanning the restless crowd. Their positions seemed to be closer together, and their hands seemed to be gripping the gun handles tighter. The air was filled with a low pressure and tension, like the calm before a storm.

"What happened?" Alarm bells rang in Xu Xiaoyan's mind. This kind of large-scale, collective panic and commotion, clearly caused by a common piece of information, was not common in the base. Although daily life in the base was boring and depressing, most of the time, people numbly followed the established rules and struggled for food. Such a large-scale loss of emotional control was rare.

This can only mean that a message or event with a wide-ranging impact and a strong influence has definitely occurred, and it has just happened, and the message is grabbing everyone who hears it.

She forcefully suppressed the slight sense of relief that came over her when she saw the city walls and thought she was about to return to the relative safety of her home.

Instead of immediately heading towards the end of the somewhat distorted queue for entering the city, where people occasionally cut in or shoved, she casually slowed her pace and, under the guise of adjusting the strap of a backpack that wasn't actually on her shoulder, subtly approached the largest and most vocal group of people.

She hid herself behind an old man pushing a wheelbarrow and a few passersby who were also listening with surprise on their faces, straining her ears and holding her breath to salvage those key fragments of words from the cacophony of sounds.

"...Minus seventy degrees?! Even lower?! Are you kidding me! Is this any way to survive?!" A burly man, wrapped in a tattered military green cotton coat, his cheeks red and even a little purple from the cold, spoke in a hoarse and rough voice, each word filled with deep despair and disbelief.

He waved his arms wildly, as if trying to grab some non-existent entity in the air to prove it was just an absurd rumor. "It's below minus twenty degrees Celsius now. You need a stick to break the ice even to pee. I can't take it anymore! Seventy degrees? People will turn into popsicles the moment they go outside! No, ice shards!"

Several of his equally ragged companions around him sighed heavily, some with dejected eyes, and one of the younger ones even raised his hand to wipe his face, whether to wipe away frost or tears, it was unclear.

"Dungeon...E Zone quota...Really? Anyone can apply now?" Another voice interrupted, trembling. It was a middle-aged woman tightly gripping the arm of a thin little boy next to her.

She was wearing a faded floral cotton-padded jacket and a scarf of indeterminate color wrapped around her head, revealing only a pair of terrified eyes. Her voice trembled, filled with both fear of the horrifyingly low temperature and a faint glimmer of hope that had suddenly appeared.

Her eyes darted around in a panic, her lips moving as if seeking confirmation from anyone around her who might know more, or as if she couldn't believe this sudden "opportunity."

"0.5 points a day? That's just for going in to warm up? What about food? Drinks? You have to earn points to get them... This isn't exactly a low barrier to entry..." A man who looked like a vendor who often set up a stall at the market frowned and interrupted the woman.

He wore a dark cotton-padded jacket with oily sheen on the cuffs and chest, and his face carried the shrewdness and worry characteristic of someone who had long dealt with the mundane aspects of life. His fingers tapped in the air, clearly doing quick mental calculations, assessing the true cost behind this "opportunity."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the people around him who were also listening. His voice lowered, but remained clear. "However... then again, it's better than freezing to death outside. If this weather really drops to seventy degrees Celsius, it's unbearable to stand on the ground. Forget about working, even breathing will be difficult. Greenhouses? These days, those plastic greenhouses already need several layers of straw mats and stoves when it's minus thirty degrees Celsius. Seventy degrees? Any greenhouse will freeze and crack!"

"3000 points for Zone D! 6000 points for Zone C! 10000 points for Zone B! And that's just the entry fee! How long will it take to accumulate that much?" Another voice, filled with resentment and helplessness, boomed from the other side of the crowd.

He was a man in his thirties, with a stubble beard and sunken eyes, wearing work clothes so dirty they were unrecognizable. "I toil away outside all day, sometimes I get six points, sometimes nothing, and I still have to pay rent and eat! Even if I don't eat or drink for a year, I can't save a thousand points! Three thousand? Six thousand? Ten thousand? A pipe dream! Pure empty promises!"

He scoffed, a laugh filled with bitterness and sharp sarcasm. "They're showing us peasants what it's all about, telling us there are better places up there, heaven is down here, but you can't climb up! You can't even reach the top of the stairs! This base is really good at this!"

"Area A is not open to the public at all... Hmph, as expected," a cold voice added, its tone numb and sarcastic after seeing through everything. "The best things are always kept inside, reserved for those at the top. We don't even have the right to know what it's like inside or what kind of gods live there. Area E? Heh, listen to this, it's probably just a large air-raid shelter, not much better than the surface, and you have to pay every day."

-70 degrees Celsius? Underground city? Qualification for Zone E? Zone D? Zone C? Zone B? Zone A? Points threshold?

These fragmented yet increasingly shocking words bombarded Xu Xiaoyan's ears. No complete narrative was needed; these keywords alone were enough to paint a chilling picture: extreme weather warnings! Massive opening of underground shelters! Rigorous, blatant class distinctions! Exorbitantly high entry costs!

She instantly understood the root of the almost tangible panic and commotion that permeated the city gate. The base must have recently issued a major announcement through some official channel that was enough to overturn everyone's future survival plans! Its core content was undoubtedly related to the upcoming super cold that far exceeded previous understanding, as well as the ultimate solution to deal with this cold—the activation and access rules of the "underground city".

Minus seventy degrees Celsius... Even though Xu Xiaoyan was mentally prepared and knew that the cold of this winter was extraordinary, this number still hit her heart like a heavy hammer. It would be a true forbidden zone for life.

Outdoor activities will become suicidal. Most existing, non-professional-grade insulation measures will become completely ineffective, water pipes will freeze and burst, most mechanical equipment will stop working, and fuel demand will surge to unimaginable levels... It's an indiscriminate and brutal survival screening for all ground creatures! No wonder the base suddenly announced the underground city at this time. This is not a choice, but the only way out—at least, the only publicly available way out provided by the authorities.

However, this path to survival is clearly marked with a stark and cruel price tag. From Zone E to Zone A, it's like a pyramid. Zone A certainly offers better living conditions and safety, but the "ticket" required is also more expensive.

The daily cost of 0.5 points in Zone E may seem within reach, but as the vendor said, it's just an "entry fee for warmth." The real cost of survival is far more than that. In higher zones, the threshold of thousands or even tens of thousands of points is an astronomical figure for the vast majority of low-income residents struggling to make ends meet.

Is the base just making empty promises? Perhaps, but it also presents a stark reality: severe cold is coming, and life on the ground will be unbearable. Either pay the price and go underground, or gamble on finding a glimmer of hope in the hellish minus seventy degrees Celsius.

Xu Xiaoyan forcibly suppressed the surging fear in her chest. She fixed her gaze once again on the vendor-looking man who seemed to be the most well-informed and pragmatic in his analysis. He seemed to be the relatively calm one among the group, and the few words he had just spoken indicated that he may have directly heard the broadcast or seen the original text of the official announcement.

Xu Xiaoyan calmed herself down, gently pushed aside the old man who was listening intently, moved closer to the group, and spoke politely and clearly to the man who looked like a vendor. Her voice wasn't loud, but it was enough for him to hear, "Excuse me, sir, what were you talking about just now?"

The vendor, interrupted, turned around, his face still showing impatience at being interrupted and a heavy weight from being immersed in the news. He looked Xu Xiaoyan up and down—a young woman, travel-worn, dressed in ordinary winter clothes, her face showing the weariness of having just returned from outside the city, but her eyes were clear and she didn't seem too flustered.

His guard lessened slightly, his brows relaxed a little, and in his place was a complex expression that said, "So you didn't know that," a mixture of sympathy and a subtle sense that "you're about to face this terrible thing too."

He sighed heavily. "Girl, you don't know yet, do you?" He deliberately lowered his voice, as if sharing a heavy and terrible secret, but everyone around him was listening intently. This "lowering" of his voice had no real meaning; instead, it attracted even more attention.

Xu Xiaoyan shook her head slightly, looking at him intently, showing just the right amount of confusion and urgency.

"Just over an hour ago," the vendor licked his dry, cracked lips, seemingly recalling the specific wording of the notification and organizing his thoughts, "the base simultaneously released a... highest-level emergency notification through all available public address systems, internal radio channels, city bulletin board screens, and the base's official app on our phones—basically, through every available channel."

He paused, and the surrounding murmur seemed to subside. Many people, including the burly man waving his arms excitedly and the woman clutching her child tightly, listened with bated breath. Although they may have heard it once before, they still needed to confirm it again from others or catch any details that might have been missed.

"The notice started by saying that the vendor's expression became even more serious, even with a hint of barely perceptible fear. "According to the latest comprehensive analysis and forecast from the base's meteorological station and observation station, the terminology used was quite professional, and I can't remember them all, such as 'polar vortex anomaly,' 'global climate change phase,' 'comparison with historical data for the same period'... Anyway, the conclusion is that what we are about to face is not an ordinary cold wave that we have experienced before, or even a once-in-decades event like last year's."

He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "It's not a 'super cold snap,' or rather, an 'extreme cold wave.' The temperature won't stay at the current minus twenty degrees Celsius; it will continue to drop, gradually, and rapidly, reaching a low of at least minus seventy degrees Celsius!"

When he clearly stated the number again, a chorus of suppressed gasps and low sobs rose from the surrounding area. Although many people had heard it before, or even shouted it out themselves, the suffocating sense of despair brought about by the official confirmation and unquestionable tone of a relatively calm person repeating it was still fresh and sharp.

"Moreover," the vendor's voice deepened, and he glanced at Xu Xiaoyan as if to confirm whether she could withstand it, "the notice specifically emphasized—I remember the exact words were roughly—'Based on the existing model, this is not the final bottom line, and there is a possibility of further decline. All residents must prepare for the worst.'"

Xu Xiaoyan felt a slight tingling in her fingertips.

"As for the duration," the vendor shook his head, a bitter look on his face. "The notice didn't specify the exact number of months, but the implication... it sounds like it won't be short. They used terms like 'long-term response to extreme cold weather,' 'survival mode switch,' and 'protracted war,' telling everyone to prepare for a 'long-term,' possibly several months, or even longer... to survive in this kind of awful weather."

His last few words were almost uttered with a sigh. The combination of words like "long-term," "minus seventy degrees Celsius or even lower," and "switching survival modes" paints a picture of bone-chilling despair.

Xu Xiaoyan stood there, the dim yellow lights and pale white searchlights of the city gate shining on her face, highlighting the tense lines of her profile and the calculating glint in her eyes.