Chapter 95

"Finished reading."

Rubbing his eyes, which were already too tired to keep open, Chu Guang put down the diary and the notes he had taken, and tossed aside the pen he had been holding.

Although he didn't find the answers he was looking for, the stories inside still provided him with many interesting clues.

At first, he thought the diary was about a group of survivors losing their humanity and eventually transforming into plunderers.

But in the end, it turned out to be a simple modern version of the fable "The Farmer and the Snake."

There were three main characters in the diary.

The owner of the diary was named Li Xiu, an ordinary sports journalist, whom we can call Xiao Li for short.

Another character was a woman named Sun Lai, whom we can call Xiao Sun for short.

The third person was Xiao Sun's husband, who served as a guard in the shelter.

Since the diary didn't mention the guard's name, we can call him the "sufferer" for now.

After reading the entire diary, Chu Guang had one feeling: the guy in the diary was truly miserable.

The beginning of the diary was narrated quite plainly, with Xiao Li, who had survived the disaster, recounting his experiences and observations during the nuclear war in a reflective tone.

At the time, a regional basketball game was being held at the gymnasium in the northern suburbs of Qingquan City. The game was in the second half, and it was a tense and exciting final round.

Just then, the loudspeaker suddenly sounded the nuclear attack alarm.

"... Almost no one reacted, and even my assistant thought it was a special effect arranged by the organizers to liven up the atmosphere. But I panicked and instinctively ran, instinctively rushed into the basement, and found the cryopod there. When I stepped into it, I hesitated for a moment.

'What if this was just a crude joke? In a month, my audience would forget me completely, and I would have nothing... But in the end, I closed the door and unlocked the start button.

'It started to get cold around me, and my consciousness gradually faded. When I opened my eyes again and pushed open the pod door, the mechanical clock on the door told me that the nuclear war had indeed happened. I had been in cryosleep for more than three years, and the world outside was unrecognizable. I had made the right bet, but I didn't feel lucky at all... I would rather have been wrong, and everything was just a crude joke. At least I could have gotten a substantial compensation from the organizers. Or let everything end three years ago, dying in a utopia wasn't a bad thing, living was a torment.'"

In the next section, Xiao Li described the scenes he saw on the streets from his perspective.

The streets were in ruins, the concrete buildings were riddled with holes, and the dead bodies were scattered on the streets, left to be pecked by crows. Everything was like a hell.

It was suffocatingly hopeless!

It was August, but snow was already falling from the gray sky. There was no sunlight, and no warmth could be felt.

He wandered aimlessly on the streets.

Finally, just before he was about to collapse, he found a group of other survivors in a nearby abandoned tire factory.

In that era when humanity had not yet been lost, the survivors in the tire factory helped him, and it was there that he met a woman named Sun Lai.

The woman was a nurse, with a child under seven years old. She had been separated from her husband during the nuclear explosion and had been searching for him for years.

Li Xiu felt very sympathetic towards her and offered to help her.

At this point, the diary had a yellowed photo attached, a picture of the two of them. The woman, though her face was marked by the hardships of life, was still beautiful.

Chu Guang didn't care about their romantic development or the complex ethical issues, so he quickly skipped over at least 30 pages of psychological activities and detailed descriptions until he finally found the clues that truly interested him.

Xiao Li and Xiao Sun used scavenged parts to assemble a primitive but reliable radio and successfully tuned into a broadcast from the shelter.

The person in the broadcast was Sun Lai's husband, the guard in the shelter.

For three years, the broadcast had never been interrupted, sounding every noon and ending at 3 PM.

The content of the broadcast was the same every day, searching for his lost wife and child.

When she realized that her husband had never given up looking for her, Xiao Sun, who had been wavering, cried in Xiao Li's arms.

Chu Guang could sense that the diary's owner was not very happy. He didn't even mention her husband's name in the diary, just referring to him as "the man" and glossing over the entire situation.

But the story became more interesting from there.

As a guard in the shelter, the "sufferer" had been inside the shelter before the nuclear war.

Upon learning that his wife and child were still alive, he immediately contacted his friend from the police department and guided him to bring supplies to help the survivors in the tire factory.

These supplies were very useful.

Not only that, but the "sufferer" used the almost unlimited knowledge resources in the shelter, looking up useful information from the electronic library and actively helping the survivors in the tire factory to gather useful items, build their own shelters, and fight against the harsh cold and hunger.

It was like remote control.

Xiao Li and Xiao Sun were very cooperative, but they kept one thing a secret: they didn't tell the survivors about the shelter.

People are selfish.

If the survivors knew there was a shelter nearby that could be contacted, it was hard to say whether they would still be brave, united, and helpful. They might even have bad ideas, forcing the people who helped them to reveal the location of the shelter, or even do worse things.

The credit and prestige temporarily went to Xiao Li, while the existence of the shelter was kept secret. He seemed like an all-powerful genius, gaining the admiration of everyone.

This wasn't a bad thing.

But leading a group of survivors was not an easy task.

Especially since the supplies they gathered would eventually run out, and the endless winter showed no signs of ending.

The diary's owner was clear from the beginning that only by entering the shelter could they achieve permanent safety.

So he began to try to persuade Xiao Sun, instilling some ideas in her, telling her that the shelter was the only way out.

This was not only for her sake but also for her child.

Regardless of the reasons, Xiao Sun was clearly convinced. Compared to the hell they were in, no one wanted to stay and suffer.

Moreover, her husband was in the shelter, so it wasn't impossible to enter.

However, what they didn't know was that once the shelter's door was closed, it wasn't easy to open. The idea of entering was just wishful thinking.

The "sufferer" was eager to see his wife and child, but only the manager had the authority to open the shelter's door.

As a guard, he didn't even have the qualifications to meet the manager, let alone open the door.

Moreover, in principle, the shelter's door would immediately enter radio silence after closing, and no one was allowed to send messages to the outside world in any form. If discovered, they would face severe punishment.

The reason he could send signals and receive information from the outside was largely because the shelter he was in was a bit special.

There was a low-power signal tower hidden on the surface, and monitoring nearby signals was part of his daily duties.

Yes, he used his position for personal gain.

Regardless of the reasons, this was not a glorious thing.

He hadn't figured out how to confess, or how to beg the manager to show mercy and let him go.

The worst-case scenario was that after he confessed everything, the manager would sentence him to life imprisonment, freezing him in a cryopod, and he would be tried by the law when order was restored.

At that point, he would lose contact with his wife and child forever.

All of this was Chu Guang's speculation based on the diary's content.

After all, the diary didn't record the "sufferer's" psychological activities, only briefly mentioning the clues about "radio silence" and "inability to open the door."

Later, out of guilt for his wife and child, the "sufferer" guided them through the radio to find some hidden supply points not marked on regular survival maps.

These supplies were very rich, not only food and medicine but also clean drinking water and even police-grade weapons for protection.

These supplies allowed the survivors in the tire factory to live a prosperous life for a while, even helping a group of survivors who had wandered over from a neighboring city.

The diary's owner naturally became a savior in the eyes of these people, and a hero in the eyes of his wife and child.

However, this prosperous period didn't last long.

From the later part of the diary, it was clear that as the supplies ran out, conflicts and friction among the survivors began to escalate.

At first, everyone, regardless of age or gender, could enjoy two cans of meat and unlimited self-heating rice every day, and even had cold, refreshing beer to drink.

Later, the survivor community banned alcohol, and meat was reserved for the young and strong men who went out to explore, hunt, and scavenge, as well as pregnant women. The porridge became thinner, and they even had to add tree bark.

Finally, all the stored supplies were exhausted, and the weather became colder.

Everything was getting worse, with no signs of improvement. Even the most optimistic people saw no hope.

Some said the winter would last a long time.

Others said it was a rumor, and there was no nuclear winter.

Then there were those who argued that it might not just be nuclear weapons. After all, the news had once said they had already mastered weapons more powerful than nuclear weapons.

But if they really existed, was everything they saw just a lie?

They had never even seen a basic nuclear bomb, and their knowledge came from second-hand sources, unable to distinguish what was real and what was just speculation.

Doubt and complaints spread among the survivors, and some chose to leave, while those who stayed gradually turned against each other.

Perhaps...

From the beginning, they shouldn't have taken in those wandering survivors.

But who wasn't a wanderer?

Or, from which person should they have started to accept?

When the conflicts became irreconcilable, they eventually erupted into a violent fight. The cause might have been a moldy piece of bread or even a bone, but that didn't matter.

The fight ended with Xiao Li's gunshot, but from that moment on, his dream of being a savior was shattered.

Sun Lai's child died in the fight, and she herself went mad, disappearing into the snow one night and never returning.

Xiao Li himself was immersed in regret and pain, and the diary's content gradually became more extreme. The once clear and elegant writing became sloppy and perfunctory.

Sometimes he would write a few lines after a few days, and sometimes he would forget to update for a whole month.

The last page's date was set in the fourth year of the wasteland era.

"... I am still looking for that shelter, the only hope. Although I know the hope is slim, this world is beyond saving."

This was his last line.

Until the end of his life, he was still searching for the utopia he never found.

"This diary could be put on display in a museum... if museums and history ever reappear on this planet, someone should know what happened here."

"Forget it, I'll just spend some time updating the 'Blood Hand Clan' entry on the official website."

"The servers in another world are more reliable than a museum in the wasteland."

The diary explained the origin of the Blood Hand Clan but didn't mention Xiao Li's fate.

But that didn't matter.

The blood handprint on the cover, in a sense, said it all. If it wasn't an accident, it was left by him.

Chu Guang had heard from Hain that two years ago, the leader of the Blood Hand Clan wasn't called "Bear" but a man named "Eagle," whose body was hung on a lamppost near the tire factory.

Before "Eagle," there was "Snake," who had been blinded.

Before that, it was unknown, maybe someone else.

According to legend, no leader of the Blood Hand Clan had a good end. Almost all died at the hands of their successors, or by the brutal laws of nature.

The diary with the blood handprint seemed to be cursed, revered as a spiritual totem by the plunderers, and passed down with their violent culture from generation to generation.

Now, with "Bear," the cycle of evil was finally shattered by the hammer of justice.

Chu Guang sighed softly and closed the diary.

"Xiao Qi, I'm going to sleep. Turn off the lights for me and don't forget to wake Xia Yan up."

"As for me, wake me up at 1 PM... forget it, let me sleep until I wake up naturally."

"Wait until I wake up to distribute the loot. If any players ask, tell them... the equipment hasn't been appraised yet."

As everyone knows, unappraised equipment cannot be equipped, a common sense in MMORPGs, very reasonable.

Xiao Qi's voice was always so considerate.

"Sure, Master."

"Go to sleep."

The room's lights gradually dimmed and finally went dark.

It would be a good dream.