Wasteland Survivalist: A Scientific Guide to Post-Apocalyptic Survival

Occasionally, words written in red paint can be seen among the broken walls and ruins.

The handwriting sizes varied, but the content was roughly the same.

It had a few words written on it, followed by a date.

"Someone is trapped, at 11:20 a.m. on July 24."

"There are three people below, 07:25, 08:55..."

"There are children in need of rescue, July 25, 10:40."

Zhao Xun stared at the words and read them aloud.

"These are probably marks left by locals when they attempted to carry out a rescue themselves."

Write words on the rubble to inform those who come after that there are still people trapped underneath, making it easier for subsequent rescue teams to search for them.

"However, the rescue team I had imagined never showed up," Zhao Xun added slowly.

Gu Lang didn't reply, but just gripped the steering wheel tighter.

The Lynx assault vehicle's tires crunched over a patch of shattered glass with a screeching sound.

Zhao Xun's home is located in the Cadakasse neighborhood.

When Gu Lang first heard this name, he thought Zhao Xun had mispronounced it.

It's not unusual for a neighborhood to have a foreign name, but choosing one like this is practically a deliberate attempt to make things difficult for people's tongues.

In this context, the tongue-twisting name actually gave him a strange sense of absurdity.

It's as if the world, before completely collapsing, doesn't forget to leave behind a not-so-funny joke.

The Lynx drove into the community gate, where the security guard post had collapsed.

The boom was also smashed in half and left in the green belt.

After making two turns along the main road of the residential area, Zhao Xun had Gu Lang stop in front of a building.

Gu Lang turned off the engine, looked up, and felt a chill run down his spine.

According to Zhao Xun, his home is located in a seven-story villa.

However, the building in front of us is located on an earthquake fault line and has tilted significantly backward, with its angle to the ground deviating by at least twenty degrees.

To make matters worse, the house is now down to its fifth floor.

The bottom two layers have completely disappeared and been pressed underground.

The original third floor has become the ground floor, with the bottom edge of the window less than a meter from the ground.

Before he could say anything, Zhao Xun had already opened the car door and jumped out without hesitation, quickly walking to the third-floor window.

Zhao Xun braced himself against the windowsill with both hands, flipped over, and squeezed inside.

Gu Lang quickly grabbed a flashlight and followed him through the window.

The window should have led to a living room, but all the furniture was overturned and piled up at the bottom of the room.

Zhao Xun did not linger there. He passed through a crooked doorway and walked deeper into the corridor.

Gu Lang followed behind, shining his flashlight on the road ahead, the beam of light flickering between the sloping walls and the ceiling.

The stairwell was completely deformed and twisted, with the steps warped and sticking up like twisted noodles.

Zhao Xun observed his surroundings for a moment, then turned his gaze to his feet.

The first and second floors have been buried underground, but they have not completely disappeared.

Between the sloping floor slabs, some narrow gaps can be seen.

That is the distorted space formed by the uneven stress on different parts of the building during the settlement process.

Zhao Xun took the second flashlight from Gu Lang and shone it down.

A barely passable passage was found, which appeared to have been cleared before.

"This is a rescue passage." Zhao Xun squatted down and looked at it carefully, a glimmer of hope igniting within him.

The broken bricks and stones on both sides of the passageway show obvious signs of being moved. In some places, simple supports were even made with wooden boards and steel pipes to prevent secondary collapse.

Zhao Xun slid down the passage, with Gu Lang following closely behind, climbing while keeping an eye on the surrounding supporting structures.

The two walked hunched over through the gaps in the ruins, eventually arriving at Zhao Xun's house.

Next to the crushed furniture wreckage by the door, several pairs of dusty plastic slippers lay scattered.

Three big and one small pair; the small one's shoes were brightly colored and had cartoon patterns printed on them.

There were several dark stains on the floor tiles, which had dried completely over time.

Dark brown patches form on the surface, their shape and size evoking a sense of unease.

Gu Lang had always considered himself to be quite eloquent, but at this moment he couldn't utter a single word.

Zhao Xun followed his gaze and saw the bloodstains in the corner of the wall. He remained silent for a few seconds before speaking.

His tone was unexpectedly calm, as if he were talking about something that had nothing to do with him.

"In this catastrophe, the number of people who died was in the hundreds of millions."

Even I only survived the battle by sheer luck.

My family are just ordinary people. If we let them struggle to survive in the apocalypse like we did, they'd probably just suffer in vain.

He straightened up, his head almost touching the deformed ceiling.

"Compared to being torn to pieces by the madmen, dying in an earthquake at the very beginning of the apocalypse is already a relatively happy ending."

Gu Lang opened his mouth, as if to say something.

Zhao Xun waved his hand, indicating that he didn't need to comfort him.

Then he came to a collapsed bookshelf and pulled out a photo album from it.

I gently patted off the dust and stuffed it into my backpack.

After leaving the building, the two continued searching the surrounding area for nearly an hour.

Examine the surrounding signs and walls piece by piece, trying to find valuable clues.

Four months is neither a long nor a short time.

But enough to cause paper products that are posted outdoors to be eroded by rainwater until they are unrecognizable.

The missing person notices posted on the bulletin board are now reduced to just a small section of paper with tape stuck to the top.

Zhao Xun walked around the neighborhood and headed straight for the local community service center.

Pushing open the crooked door, I went inside, and the beam of a flashlight illuminated the scattered fragments of documents and the overturned filing cabinet.

After searching, Gu Lang found a disaster relief work register in a metal cabinet.

The document records the handling of the remains of those who died in the disaster.

The remains of the victims from this location and several surrounding residential areas have all been collected in a unified manner.

It was then transported to a mountain park about three kilometers away, where it was temporarily buried.

The person who wrote these words also drew a simple route map, marking the exact location of the burial site.

The Lynx assault vehicle restarted and drove along the broken road toward the mountain park.

Gu Lang controlled the car's speed, giving Zhao Xun some time to prepare mentally.

The car slowly climbed up the road, and after about ten minutes, it turned a corner and arrived at the park gate.

Near the entrance was a large exhibition hall. Gu Lang walked to the glass curtain wall and glanced inside.

The interior space has been rearranged; the original exhibits have been piled up in the corners, and the display cases have been pushed over to the ground.

Several rows of folding tables and plastic chairs were placed on the empty floor, with folders and half-empty mineral water bottles scattered on the tables.

There were also dusty laptops and printers around, and in the corner, cardboard boxes were piled with bundles of unopened A4 paper and several boxes of printing supplies.

It appears this place was temporarily requisitioned as a disaster relief command post, but it has been deserted for at least several months.