Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

The next morning, Xu Xiaoyan was awakened by a sharp whistle.

The whistle wasn't the short, urgent signal it had been during the march; instead, it was a series of increasingly urgent calls.

She opened her eyes abruptly, her body reacting faster than her brain. She gripped the fruit knife beside her pillow with her right hand and braced her left hand on her sleeping bag, ready to get up at any moment.

The whistles didn't stop; three, four, five whistles, one after another, came from a certain direction of the camp.

Xu Xiaoyan loosened the hilt of the knife, her consciousness returned, and she remembered where she was.

It's not a danger, it's a signal from the military.

She hurriedly crawled out of the tent; there were already quite a few people standing outside.

Everyone was dragged out of their sleeping bags by the whistle, their hair was messy, their eyes were half open, and some were yawning while fastening their belts.

All eyes were drawn to the open space in the center of the camp, enclosed by military tents, where two rows of soldiers in military green raincoats stood in neat rows.

Rain dripped from their hat brims, onto their shoulders, onto their cuffs; no one moved, no one wiped it away, no one whispered to each other.

She looked at the crowd around her, none of them knowing why the soldiers had suddenly gathered, nor what the urgent whistle meant.

People peeked out from their tents, under tarpaulins, and into tree holes, looking at each other with blank and uneasy expressions.

Someone asked quietly, "What's wrong?", but no one answered.

Some people tried to squeeze through the crowd to get closer to the open space, but were stopped by the soldiers standing on the perimeter. They retreated, stood still, rubbing their hands, tiptoeing, and peering towards the open space.

Whispers spread through the crowd, with all sorts of rumors circulating, but no one knew the exact details.

Xu Xiaoyan stood in front of her tent, her hands in the pockets of her windproof suit, her gaze passing over the heads of the crowd and fixed on the two rows of motionless soldiers in the open space.

Several possibilities were running through her mind at the same time, but she didn't discuss them with anyone. She simply waited quietly for the next instructions from the military.

She knew that this kind of scale could not be a trivial matter.

If it's a simple "disband on the spot" or "continue marching," there's no need to assemble the soldiers or blow those urgent, life-threatening whistles.

There must be something important to announce that affects everyone.

She didn't need to ask; she just needed to wait for the soldiers to say what they wanted to say, and she would know.

Soon, the loudspeaker was handed to a soldier who appeared to be a military rank.

He stepped out from between two rows of soldiers. His raincoat was similar to that of ordinary soldiers, but his hat brim had an extra red trim.

He had an epaulette on his shoulder covered by a waterproof cloth cover, making it impossible to discern his rank.

He stood in front of two rows of soldiers, facing the crowd, and held the megaphone to his mouth.

He announced that from now on, each soldier would lead fifty men to a hilltop to settle temporarily.

This includes, but is not limited to, all forms of housing such as tents, self-built houses, tree hollows, cave dwellings, and tree dwellings.

This means that the allocation is a temporary formation based on soldiers, with each formation corresponding to a hilltop, and they do not overlap. It seems that they are going to stay there.

Moreover, the army is not responsible for solving your accommodation problem; they are only responsible for taking you to a mountain, and then you have to figure it out yourself.

Cut down trees to build sheds, find ready-made tree holes to crawl into, find cracks in the mountain or natural caves, or even climb up a tree to build a nest—it's up to you.

Anything is fine. Everyone needs their own place to live, and everyone should be responsible for their own place to live.

When the words "Everyone is randomly assigned" were spoken over the loudspeaker, a low, suppressed commotion arose in the crowd.

Some people frowned, some shook their heads, and some turned to whisper something to the person next to them.

Random assignment means there is no choice; you can't choose your own mountain, your own leader, or find familiar partners to team up with.

Whichever mountain you draw is the mountain you're on, and whoever you're grouped with is who you're with.

When Xu Xiaoyan heard the word "random," her eyebrows twitched slightly, but she didn't react much.

Randomness has its disadvantages, but it also has its advantages.

The downside is that you might be assigned to a barren, rocky hilltop, and you might be assigned to live next to some difficult people.

The advantage is that no one can use connections or power to seize the best resources; at least in the allocation process, it is fair.

Finally, the loudspeaker added that anyone unwilling to follow orders could leave on their own, and the unit would only be responsible to those who obeyed the assignments.

No one said a word. Everyone understood that the military wasn't negotiating with them, but rather explaining the rules.

If you can accept the rules, stay; if you can't, leave. There is no third way.

The loudspeaker was put down, and the soldier with military rank did not say anything more.

He simply removed the megaphone from his mouth, turned around, and walked back into the queue, leaving the crowd with his straight back.

The crowd was silent for three seconds, then immediately erupted into a heated discussion.

The sounds of discussion, questioning, complaining, sighing, coughing, and children crying were all mixed together.

Some people even pushed their way to the front to argue with the soldiers about "why they were randomly assigned," only to be turned away with blank expressions.

Someone was squatting on the ground, holding their head and muttering something, as if making a decision they couldn't possibly bear.

Some people have already started packing their bags, not because they've decided to leave, but because whatever choice they make, they want to pack their things first.

Xu Xiaoyan stood there, her hands still in her pockets, her gaze shifting away from the two rows of soldiers.

My gaze swept over the noisy, panicked, and bewildered crowd around me, finally settling on the distant, faintly visible outline of the mountains.

She wasn't panicked; she was simply calculating quickly: what was the probability that she would be assigned to a tree-covered hilltop under random allocation?

If the hilltop she is assigned is not ideal, does she have the ability to exchange it for another one herself, not through the army, but by finding another place among the mountains?

If she chooses to leave, can she survive alone in the torrential rain, and can she find a better place to stay than here?

Finally, she came to a vague but generally acceptable conclusion: stay, wait for the assignment, and take it one step at a time.

She had the confidence that she wouldn't starve even if she had nothing. If she was assigned a good spot, she would stay there; if she was assigned a bad spot, she would try to change it; if she couldn't change it, she would leave on her own.

Her fate has never been in the hands of others, neither in the past nor now.

Xu Xiaoyan bent down, crawled back into the tent, and began packing her things.

Roll up the sleeping bag and stuff it into the storage bag; disassemble the tent, fold it, and stuff it into the tent bag.

She quickly got everything ready.