Chapter 40

Chen Xin drove past dilapidated yet familiar streets. He stopped at a junction and used a pair of binoculars to look at a building.

The small building was at the corner of the junction. It was an L-shaped three-floored building that took up a wide space.

The ground floor looked like it was tiled with stone yet it was all charred from burning. The stores with glass and metal doors were in luck. Although they were charred too, the insides of the store were still intact.

The second and third floor was installed with anti-theft windows which were black with charring so Chen Xin could not see what was inside.

This building was owned by one of his friends in the survival group chat. The ground floor was used for her outdoor gear shop. The second and third floors had an archery arena and a gym. The facilities were awesome but it was exclusive to members only, it was not open to the public.

The building had two more floors underground. The first floor underground was a bar opened for members only. The other floor beneath it was her bunker.

His friend was a lover of outdoor sports and was a fan of camping and survivalists. She did not come from an outstanding family, she moved twice when the city was expanding. She initially bought the land so she could move for the third time, but after she studied overseas and came back, she constructed this building and made a living by selling outdoor gear.

The entire building was planned with the capability of housing an emergency shelter in mind. The underground floor was designed as a triple-proof bunker. Chen Xin used her bunker as a reference while he was building his own.

The construction of the building was solid, plus her family was rich so she used the best construction materials. The building was alright despite the apocalypse with only the surface turning black from charring.

Chen Xin looked up with his binoculars. He saw an installed antenna at the top of the building and smiled. He turned on his shortwave antenna on his car and adjust to their planned radio channel.

“Hello, hello, this is Author, I’m at your place Nanana Ryūgajō, over.”

‘Author’ was his nickname in the survival group chat. Nanana Ryūgajō was his friend. He called her Nanana Ryūgajō because they met in a Final Fantasy XIV game. She created a final fantasy Nanana Ryūgajō character with white hair and dark skin as her videogame avatar.

She was the one who asked the big shots to take her, her sister, and her bestie to their bunkers in the group chat. She was also the admin of the survival group chat.

She was the one who started the survival group chat and the group chat members were mostly her loyal outdoor gear customers. They were also members of her archery arena, gym, and underground bar.

Chen Xin always called her Nanana Ryūgajō as her nickname, then he found out she was living in the same city. She was the one who introduced him to the world of outdoor sports too.

Chen Xin was used to calling her by her nickname but her real name was Morgan, it was quite an artistic name.

He felt nostalgic when he remembered how they got to know each other. It was a shame that they could no longer play together anymore because of the apocalypse.

He sighed. He thought he was out of luck and the signal call did not go through. Suddenly, he heard something.

“Mayday! This is Nanana Ryūgajō. Why are you here, stupid? Didn’t you have a bunker? Why are you out?”

Morgan sounded as energetic as usual. Her spirit could not be broken despite the apocalypse.

“As I said before, we have to keep in contact with each other after a month. I harvested a bunch of vegetables from my greenhouse farm. I recall that you did not have a greenhouse farm so I brought some for you. If you don’t want it, I’ll trade it with the government bunker.”

“Fresh vegetables? How much do you have? I want them all! What do you want to trade it with? Just tell me because I haven’t eaten fresh vegetables for a whole month! I’m almost puking from eating just spam!”

Chen Xin listened to her unique accent and chuckled. Morgan was still the same Morgan.

Chen Xin smiled, despite feeling depressed at the sight of the apocalypse, he was overjoyed at hearing the voice of his friend.

He spoke on the radio, “I have four hundred grams of fresh Chinese cabbages and cabbages. I can trade half of it for your spam and booze. I know you keep stock of those. If you have extra gas fuel or a refrigerator, I can trade you another hundred grams.”

Chen Xin drove his car to the side of the building and waited for Morgan to come out.

Chen Xin came around here a lot so he was familiar with the building. The three floors on the surface were not actually connected to the two underground floors. You could not walk to the underground floors with the building stairs. There was a side door next to the building with an elevator connected to the underground floors. Chen Xin had to wait for Morgan to open the door from the inside.

Soon, someone with a gas mask on walked out from the charred side door. The person had a crossbow and was on guard.

The person walked to his car and knocked on his window. Although the person was wearing a gas mask, Chen Xin could tell they were smiling.

Chen Xin had on a gas mask too, he did not remove it. He waved and signaled that he was going to drive over there.

The person nodded and pointed at the opened side door. They were signaling him to drive inside.

Chen Xin drove into this familiar lobby. He did not stop driving, he went for the area that looked like a garage. Someone pressed the elevator button for him.

Chen Xin drove in the elevator at their guidance.

The person outside the lobby hurriedly closed the side door and walked with the person with a crossbow. Three of them walked in and they went down slowly through the elevator.

Morgan had a huge elevator used for heavyweight loads. She was used to parking her car in her underground parking garage.

Chen Xin drove out of the elevator and got out of his car. He took off his gas mask at the same time Morgan did, he said, “Long time no see, Nanana Ryūgajō.”