dhibooks Chapter 467 Grouping
Chapter 467 Grouping
Blue Moon finally couldn't hold back any longer.
She tugged at Xu Xiaoyan's sleeve, her voice so low that only the two of them could hear it:
"Xiao Yan, do you think... it's true? We're going to Qing City?"
Xu Xiaoyan glanced at her, and there was something in Lan Yue's eyes that she rarely saw—a sense of bewilderment.
"Whether it's true or not doesn't matter," Xu Xiaoyan said in a voice that was neither too loud nor too soft, just loud enough for Lan Yue to hear but not loud enough for anyone else to hear. "The important thing is that we have to leave."
Blue Moon pursed her lips.
The sounds in the hall were still rising and falling.
Some people have already accepted reality, squatting on the ground and silently packing their things, going through everything in their minds: what they can take, what they can't take, what they can't bear to throw away, and what they have to throw away.
Some people were arguing about the route, some said to go east, some said to go north, as if they really had a choice.
Some people do nothing but stand there blankly, staring at the words on the screen, as if waiting for them to disappear on their own.
The screen flickered, and a new line of text scrolled out:
"Departure time is 2:00 PM for Zone 1, 2:30 PM for Zone 2, 3:00 PM for Zone 3, and so on..."
The meeting point is at the exit of each area's passageway, and each person is limited to 15 kilograms.
Recommended supplies to bring: food, water, warm clothing, waterproof rain gear, medicine, etc.
Xu Xiaoyan loosened her grip on the tent rope, squatted down, and began to dismantle the tent.
She carefully wiped each tent pole clean and put it into a canvas cover.
Fold the canvas into a neat rectangular block, with all four corners perfectly aligned.
Wrap the securing rope tightly around the inside of the backpack and tuck it into the mesh pocket on the side.
Lan Yue watched her sit for more than ten seconds, then squatted down as well, silently dismantling her own tent.
Neither of them spoke.
The noise around was still going on; some people were still shouting "Don't go to Qing City!" and others were arguing with the regional manager.
Xu Xiaoyan filtered out all other sounds; she had only one thought in her mind: pack her things and set off.
As for how long it would take to get to Qing City and what she would encounter along the way, those were not questions she should be concerned with!
At 5 p.m. sharp, people in Zone 7 had been waiting near the main exit for nearly three hours.
From the moment the "evacuation notice" appeared on the LED screen in the early morning, everyone's sense of time was completely disrupted.
Some people were packing their things as fast as they could, while others paced back and forth anxiously.
Some people dozed off during the long wait, leaning against the wall and dozing off, their heads drooping little by little, only to be jolted awake and sit up again, repeating the cycle over and over.
The crack seemed to have grown a little longer that afternoon, but Xu Xiaoyan didn't check, nor did she bother to check.
The two had already disassembled, folded, and tied up the tent. Their backpacks were by their sides, and they had checked their water bottles and compressed biscuits. They were ready to pick them up and leave at any time.
They had remained in this ready-to-depart state for two full hours, but the passageway remained closed.
Every now and then, someone would stand up and walk to the vicinity of the passageway to look around, craning their neck to look in the direction of the door, but unfortunately the door was always closed.
The person who had been looking around stood for a while, then returned to their original seat and sat down.
Then, before long, new people will stand up and repeat the same actions.
Lan Yue has barely eaten anything since last night. She sat there with her hands folded on her knees, her gaze fixed in an uncertain direction.
Xu Xiaoyan took out a compressed biscuit from the side pocket of her backpack. This biscuit tasted completely different from the civilian compressed biscuits she had bought in Xuan County before.
Military rations are distributed according to military ration standards, with an emphasis on satiety.
After opening, it contains light brown blocks with neat patterns pressed on the surface. It smells faintly of wheat and has a stronger preservative odor.
As for the taste, it's hard to describe! It's hard, dry, and sickeningly sweet, and chewing it feels like eating sand mixed with sugar.
A single compressed biscuit has enough calories to sustain an adult for most of the day. In the apocalypse, no one cares about taste; calories are calories, and anything that can be eaten is good.
She broke the compressed biscuit in half and handed the other half to Blue Moon.
Lan Yue shook her head, her lips moved, but she didn't speak.
Xu Xiaoyan didn't pull her hand away; she just held up the compressed biscuit without any change in expression.
Ten seconds later, Lan Yue took it.
She lowered her head, brought the cookie to her mouth, and took small bites, each bite so small that it was almost impossible to tell that the cookie was getting smaller.
"Are you nervous?" Xu Xiaoyan asked.
Blue Moon's gaze moved from the entrance of the passage to the ceiling, then from the ceiling to the floor, and finally she shook her head: "I don't know if it's nervousness or hunger."
This answer made Xu Xiaoyan's lips twitch slightly.
Tension and hunger have too much overlap in physiological responses, such as rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, stomach discomfort, and difficulty concentrating.
Before she could figure it out, the row of digital clocks on the west side of the hall jumped to 17:02.
Then, everyone heard a mechanical roar coming from inside the walls, like some kind of sophisticated lock being turned into the correct position.
The latch pops out from one fixed position and precisely engages in another fixed position.
The hall fell silent again, everyone waiting to see how things would unfold.
Soon, the small door numbered ten opened. The door slid outwards as a whole, and the door moved smoothly along the track inside the wall.
After the door retracts into the wall, a short corridor is revealed. The corridor is about five or six meters long and ends at a corner, so you can't see what's beyond the corner.
The lights in the short corridor were white, brighter than the fluorescent lights in the main hall, so bright that the white wall at the end of the corridor almost glowed.
Then, a whole troop of soldiers came out from behind the door.
Everyone was dressed in dark training uniforms and wearing helmets, with those red lights still flashing on their chests, the red dots standing out against the white walls.
But unlike last night, each of them was carrying a bulging black backpack.
The backpack's fabric was stretched taut by the contents inside, and its surface had a matte sheen.
The soldier at the front was not tall, about half a head shorter than the soldiers behind him, but his presence was in no way inferior.
His face was mostly obscured by the shadow of his helmet, revealing only his chin and lips, which were pressed into a thin line, without a trace of extra expression.
He walked out the door without stopping, and only stopped at the exit of the short corridor.
When they stood still, all the soldiers behind them stopped at the same instant; the sheer uniformity was chilling.
His gaze swept across everyone's faces.
Xu Xiaoyan didn't know what he was looking at, but when his gaze swept over her, she felt an instinctive sense of alertness.
Soon, a young soldier stepped out from behind him, carrying a folder.
The action of turning the pages was somewhat rough, and the pages rustled through the air with a "whoosh" sound.
He cleared his throat, looked down at the folder, and read aloud:
"There are a total of 6,000 people in District 7. According to the plan, they will be divided into 20 teams, with about 300 people in each team. Those whose names are called, please step forward and line up as instructed."