Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Xu Xiaoyan's voice was clear and calm: "I need a single cave, and I want to exchange the extra work points for a kettle, an iron pot or something."

The staff member nodded, quickly wrote "7.5" on a new work point voucher, stamped it with a small red seal, and handed it to her.

Then, he pushed aside the huge "Cave Distribution Map" again and let Xu Xiaoyan make a choice.

"The single-person cave is in the S section on the right, and there are currently vacancies on all eight floors," he routinely explained.

Xu Xiaoyan's gaze swept past the first and second floors and landed on the third floor. Her finger pointed to the middle section of the third floor of the mountain on the map. "Sector S, third floor, Cave 10," she said with certainty.

The staff member drew a circle on the square with a pen and handed her a small wooden tag with the corresponding number. The edges of the tag were still rough, indicating that it was newly made.

"This is your receipt. Please keep it safe. The cave has been basically reinforced, but you need to take care of your personal belongings."

Xu Xiaoyan didn't say anything more, put away her backpack, and turned to walk towards the table with "tools and sundries" hanging on it.

The line in front of the grocery stall was quite long, and everyone looked anxious.

Most of the items on the stalls were old and worn, but every single item that would normally go unnoticed had become a hot commodity at this moment.

Her gaze landed precisely on a corner of the stall—there was a kettle there, with several dents in its body, but it still looked usable.

Next to it was a small cast iron pot, with some carbon buildup on the bottom, clearly indicating that it had been dug out of the ruins and cleaned up.

When it was Xu Xiaoyan's turn, she immediately asked, "How much for the kettle and the iron pot?"

The stall owner was a dark-skinned logistics soldier who spoke concisely: "4 work points for a kettle, 5 work points for an iron pot, 9 work points in total."

The price was much higher than Xu Xiaoyan had estimated. She frowned slightly. "Didn't the staff at the supplies exchange office say that these kinds of supplies could be exchanged for about 7 or 8 work points?"

The staff member at the tools and general merchandise section had no expression on his face, he simply shook his head:

"These are in short supply everywhere right now, everyone is strapped for cash. I'm only exchanging them for you at this price because you're among the first batch to exchange caves today. I didn't even want to take them out."

Xu Xiaoyan paused for a moment, then took out another compressed biscuit from her inner pocket and, along with the slip of paper listing her remaining work points, pushed it in front of the other person.

"One compressed biscuit is worth 1.5 work points. I just came from there and never expected it wouldn't be enough. There's a long line over there now. How about I just give you the compressed biscuits to offset the cost? Is that okay?"

The staff member nodded. "Okay, here you go, kettle and pot!"

When she arrived at the cave numbered S-3-10, carrying her newly acquired pot and kettle, she finally saw her "home":

It was really just a hole that had been carved out of the mountainside, about 1.5 meters wide and nearly 2 meters deep, with rough earthen walls inside, and nothing else.

What made her heart clench most was that the entrance to the cave was completely unobstructed, without even a symbolic curtain.

From where she stood, she could see every corner of the cave at a glance. Similarly, anyone passing by in the passage outside could easily see the situation inside the cave clearly.

Without a door, there is no privacy, no security, and no way to guard against potential malice. How can one rest at night?

"I have to get a door..." she muttered to herself, her eyes unconsciously searching around as she racked her brains for suitable materials.

Planks? Scrap iron sheets? Even a thick straw mat? How many work points would that require? Or... could we trade it for something else?

She stepped out of the cave, leaned against the cold earthen wall, and carefully observed the entire platform and the bustling camp below.

People moved back and forth, some carrying simple tools toward the excavation area, some laboriously carrying the broken items they found back to their caves, and others gathering together, exchanging information and supplies in hushed tones.

She noticed a soldier in the camp below leading several people, gathering together some relatively intact wooden strips and planks that had been cleared from the ruins, seemingly preparing to transport them somewhere.

Her heart skipped a beat. Were any of those wooden strips the right size?

Almost simultaneously, she saw another direction.

A middle-aged man was struggling to drag a huge, twisted plastic GG sign into his cave. The thing was old and worn, but it was large enough that it could perhaps be cut.

Xu Xiaoyan's brain quickly weighed the options: the pile of wooden strips was obviously sturdier, but it was more difficult to obtain.

GG brand is readily available, but plastic materials are probably neither sturdy nor warm in the cold wind. Wood should be the first choice, but how can we get these wooden strips and boards from under the soldiers' noses?

Instead of heading straight for the pile of timber, she turned and quickly returned to her S-3-10 cave.

She took out two packets of compressed biscuits from the deepest part of her backpack and quickly stuffed them into the inside pocket of her coat, making sure there was no visible bulge.

Then, she approached the pile of wood empty-handed.

Instead of approaching the soldier on guard, she focused on a young man who was helping to move things.

He didn't look like a soldier, but rather like one of the earlier survivors, his face showing a tired but hardworking expression.

Taking advantage of the moment when he was carrying a wooden plank towards the material storage area, Xu Xiaoyan naturally leaned closer, her voice extremely low but her speech rapid:

"Brother, I have a question. Are those shorter wooden planks over there, the ones that are a bit cracked, discarded? The floor in my cave is so damp I can't sleep, so I'm thinking of putting a plank down."

The young man paused for a moment, put down the wooden stick, glanced warily at the soldier not far away, and replied in a low voice, "This... I don't know either, I have to follow orders." Xu Xiaoyan immediately noticed his hesitation.

She quickly glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention to their brief exchange, then spoke in a whisper that was barely audible to the two of them.

"Can I trade a pack of compressed biscuits for five short ones, the kind you have at your feet? My cave is so damp I can't stand it."

The words "compressed biscuits" seemed to have a magical power, and the young man's Adam's apple visibly bobbed.

His gaze unconsciously drifted to the five short, somewhat cracked and uneven planks that Xu Xiaoyan had indicated, then quickly glanced in the direction of the soldiers, who were facing away from them, directing the others to clear larger stones.

In a flash, the young man nodded very slightly, and with a swift kick, he pushed the five planks, each about a meter long and of varying widths, behind the rubble, and said in a hoarse voice, "...Hurry up."