The war had caused mass destruction and made the green beetles fly around recklessly as if they were in a stew.
Once they went out, Luo Yuan saw a giant shadow. It was too near to see with the naked eye, but he almost felt like going back.
Fortunately, the giant thing was driven mad by a distant noise and was not aware of the food walking by right under its nose.
Luo Yuan was holding his knife tightly in his right hand and was on guard while they quickly run towards the underground parking area. The parking area was located by the entrance of the Jingyue District. It was just a few hundred meters away, but that seemed very far at that particular moment.
Wang Shishi could easily keep up with them at the beginning, but as their speed got faster, she started getting exhausted and her face turned pale. After all, she was still very young and thin, so her speed and stamina were not comparable to an adult’s.
However, she persisted, trying her best to keep up.
About two minutes later, they finally reached the underground parking area, which was full of dusty cars that had been abandoned by their owners. Luo Yuan checked around and killed a few green beetles that had been hiding in there. Everyone felt relieved as they sat down unceremoniously on the dusty floor and gasped for air.
Other than Luo Yuan, Huang Jiahui and Wang Shishi, there was also a couple who seemed to be still passionately in love. The moment they sat down, they started hugging and comforting each other, and generally acting as if no one else was present. The rest were two middle-aged men with big bellies and the bespectacled guy.
“I’m Cheng Guohua, my friend. How shall I call you?” a middle-aged man asked as he shifted nearer to Luo Yuan, trying to win his favor.
“I’m Luo.”
The middle-aged man did not seem to mind Luo Yuan’s cold and indifferent manner and continued, “Brother Luo, you used to practice, right? You’re so skilled. If I knew what would happen today, I would have trained myself.”
Luo Yuan smiled and said nothing.
“What does the future hold for us? This war will turn Donghu City to ruins,” Cheng Guohua sighed.
“The country could be rebuilt, right?” Huang Jiahui said, curling her lips.
“Hehe… rebuilt, you say? Under the current conditions, do you know how many resources we would need to rebuild the whole country? I think the only solution is a massive relocation!” Cheng Guohua said firmly.
Luo Yuan agreed. Crude oil had been categorized as an essential war resource, and the lack of energy as well as the transportation issues would make rebuilding the city an enormous project.
Cheng Guohua sounded pleased, “I think food will get more expensive, and we will all die of starvation if we don’t have money! Oh, can I take a look at your knife?”
Luo Yuan suddenly looked at him seriously and declined, “No.”
The middle-aged man had not thought that Luo Yuan would reject him so directly. He looked tense for a while before he gave him a confident smile and said, “Don’t be so mean. I can pay you a satisfactory price for this knife. It would be enough for you to live in another place. I am interested in buying it.”
Luo Yuan looked at him like an idiot.
“What is it?” the middle-aged man asked.
“Nothing. How much you can offer?” Luo Yuan suddenly felt interested in his offer after the past few days of oppression.
The middle-aged man felt energized. He had tried hard to win Luo Yuan’s favor in order to buy his knife. After all, he could tell how precious it was by the way Luo Yuan had used it to hack the green beetle.
Nobody could be secure without a weapon for self-defense. It was useless to rely on others, and that included the police. He would much rather buy the rifle, but he dared not ask as he could tell that the rifle was a treasure that was not for sale. Therefore, his best option was to buy himself the knife.
He remained silent for a while, guessing what the right price would be, before he said proudly, “Five hundred thousand!”
“Ha!” Huang Jiahui, who was sitting beside him, snorted.
“It seems that the Jingyue District doesn’t really have any rich men,” Luo Yuan sighed.
As the middle-aged man was jeered by the beautiful woman, he glowered. “What about one million?”
“How much rice can a million buy? Do you think we’re still in the old days? Ten million would be just perfect,” Huang Jiahui interrupted him scornfully.
“Poverty must have driven you mad. This is outright robbery,” the middle-aged man cursed inside his mind. The fact that she was holding a gun prevented him from cursing her directly.
The inflation was very high. People could buy less with one million than what they could buy with one hundred thousand in the old days. Plus, there were a lot of things that money could not buy, things that could only be traded with food. One hundred thousand was not enough to buy Luo Yuan’s knife. That price had to be multiplied by one hundred.
The middle-aged man was so enraged that he would not speak another word, much like the bespectacled guy. The couple was still kissing and hugging.
As the barrage gradually got closer, the earth started to shake.
Suddenly, Luo Yuan felt an unexpected throbbing in his heart and he pushed both Huang Jiahui and Wang Shishi to the ground. He didn’t have time to say a word before an ear-splitting sound swallowed everything.
“Boom!”
A missile suddenly blew up with a loud crash over the district.
They all felt a loud buzzing in their ears before there was total silence.
The woman of the couple suddenly touched her ears and felt something wet. When she took a look, she saw blood on her hands. She was stunned for a while. Then she suddenly felt a chill and she screamed, only to find out that she could not hear anything.
She wanted to stand up, but her boyfriend was hugging her tightly, so she just wailed.
“Boom! Boom! Boom!”
Missiles blew up one after another, heating the whole underground parking area up to 45 degrees Celsius. The powerful explosion had used up most of the oxygen in the air and left the people feeling like they were suffocating.
Fortunately, the explosion above them lasted for only 30 seconds before it moved on.
Luo Yuan continued prostrating for a little longer until the explosion had gone far enough. Then he got off Wang Shishi and Huang Jiahui. Both Huang Jiahui and Wang Shishi got up as well. Wang Shishi was blushing, but nobody knew what she was thinking about.
“Let’s go out and take a look,” Luo Yuan said softly.
“Okay!” Huang Jiahui responded, holding his hand tightly as they walked towards the exit of the parking area.
The others followed them.
Parts of the exit had collapsed and the floor was full of gravel. The thin edge of the wall had broken, forming several crevices.
Luo Yuan took a look at the exit and considered himself lucky. If the collapsed area were larger, the consequences would have been dreadful.
When they walked out of the parking area, they were stunned by what they saw.
The whole district had turned into ruins. All the buildings looked dilapidated and dangerous, and whole blocks had collapsed. Luo Yuan turned pale. When he had recovered, he walked quickly to his house. He made a turn and saw the block where he stayed.
A large crack had formed from the sixth floor to the first floor and the wall had dropped off, revealing the interior of the house.
Even though the building was barely supporting itself and was no longer safe to live in, Luo Yuan was relieved.
He kept lots of supplies inside his room and they would definitely be worth a big amount of money now.
Everyone grinned.
They walked quickly towards the entrance and found that the iron door was still closed tight. There appeared to be no movement from the inside.
Luo Yuan felt a chill as he came to a stop.
Cheng Guohua walked to the front and knocked on the door hard, but nobody answered it. He muttered under his breath, took out a key from his pocket and opened the iron door.
Next thing they knew, his face had turned very pale and he’d walked a few steps backward and tumbled down on the floor.
“They’re dead, they’re all dead,” he muttered.
They looked through the door and saw more than ten corpses lying in a mess on the floor. The bodies had apparently been blasted to death as their faces were deformed and bleeding. Even more gruesome was the fact that their limbs were still twitching.
Wang Shishi was so frightened that she hid behind Luo Yuan.
Luo Yuan was used to seeing dead bodies, so he recovered from the shock quite quickly and told Huang Jiahui, who still hadn’t recovered, “We can no longer stay here. Both of you wait for me here while I go get something!”
“I’ll go with you!” Huang Jiahui said.
“I want to come too!” said Wang Shishi stubbornly as she stepped out from behind Luo Yuan’s back.
“Both of you stay here. I’m afraid money might lead people to commit crimes. The city is in a terrible mess. Please be careful,” Luo Yuan smiled stiffly.
“Okay, you too. Please be careful, the building may collapse at any time,” Huang Jiahui said with concern.
“Okay!” Luo Yuan nodded.
He crossed over the bodies and walked towards the fourth floor.
It was very dangerous as some parts of the staircase had already collapsed. Although some areas were still intact, they were full of cracks and crevices. Fortunately, the collapsed areas were not too large, the biggest one being only about five or six steps. With his ability, it was not a big deal.
However, even though he was very careful, he came very close to falling down a couple of times.
After about 10 minutes, Luo Yuan finally reached the fourth floor.
The security door was no longer at its original position, and the hallway that led from the staircase to his room had already collapsed and fallen onto the third floor.
He jumped over the two-meter path directly into his own room.
The living room had a huge hole in it and the only furniture - a couch - had also fallen onto the third floor.
However, the storeroom beside the living room was still intact.
There were eight bags of grains, some medicine, snacks, salty eggs, salty vegetables, canned meat, and several large bags of toilet paper. When Luo Yuan had gone grocery shopping, he’d bought everything in sight and as a result there were lots of unused supplies.
As he looked at them, it became apparent that he could not carry them down the stairs. He could only threw them down.
Luo Yuan took off the wooden block and opened the window.
He called for Huang Jiahui to grab them from downstairs and then threw the bags of grains down.
The bags were not strong enough and most of them burst open when they hit the ground. He could not help that.
When Luo Yuan had thrown everything, he looked back towards the kitchen. He thought it would be a pity to leave the pickled meat to be devoured by the rats.