Safe

Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei both looked toward the Mechanical Dog.

After spending the past few days together, Yao Wei had also figured out what it meant when the lights in the Mechanical Dog's eyes came on.

"Tap, tap."

The dog lifted its left front leg and knocked the Toy Motorcycle Wheel attached to it against the floor tile. The sound was solid and muffled, not hollow.

But after traveling together all this way, Lu Xi'an had long since come to trust the dog's abilities. He immediately crouched down and carefully examined the tile.

Yao Wei was skeptical, but she crouched down beside Lu Xi'an anyway.

The two of them examined it for a long time. They felt around and knocked on it, but still found nothing unusual about the tile.

It was perfectly ordinary, fitted tightly against the surrounding tiles. They could even make out traces of the grout applied back then. How could it possibly be hiding something?

"Let's go."

Yao Wei gave up and stood.

But just as she got to her feet, Lu Xi'an suddenly raised his Submachine Gun high and brought the stock crashing down on the tile.

Bang—

Great Strength Creates Miracles. The tile cracked, and small fragments even flew into the air.

Lu Xi'an jerked his head aside to dodge them, then carefully lifted the broken pieces, making sure the jagged edges didn't cut his hands.

Yao Wei stared down at him, her eyes widening.

A thick layer of ash lay beneath the tile, the mortar used to set it. But as the broken pieces were lifted, chunks of hardened mortar came up with them, revealing a metallic gleam underneath.

There really was something hidden down there?!

She glanced at the dog, then crouched down to help Lu Xi'an.

Once they had cleared away the tile and chunks of mortar, a flat metal surface came into view. A mechanical combination lock protruded slightly from it, protected by a cover.

It was a combination safe embedded in the ground!

Being buried underground had saved the safe from disaster.

But even if it hadn't been embedded in the ground, it probably wouldn't have been easy to open, right?

Lu Xi'an knocked on the metal. It felt thick and sturdy, clearly made of exceptional, expensive material. Whatever was inside was probably even more valuable.

It was time to let the dog do its thing again.

"Dog, your turn."

Lu Xi'an lifted the protective cover from the combination lock and gave the Mechanical Dog its instructions.

That was what made this dog so handy. Last time, at Mo Zhou City Police Station, he had relied entirely on it to find guns and ammunition in the armory.

Yao Wei glanced at the Mechanical Dog and stepped aside to make room.

The dog moved closer and lowered its head, aiming its eyes at the combination lock. After scanning it, its eyes lit up.

"Two, four, three, seven, zero, six, seven, one."

Lu Xi'an read the combination from the lights in the Mechanical Dog's eyes, then turned the dial in order.

"Click—"

The lock opened with ease.

Yao Wei pressed her lips together and looked at the Mechanical Dog several more times.

But once Lu Xi'an opened the underground safe, she forgot all about the dog and leaned in with him to look inside.

Then they were both disappointed.

The safe was full of gold bars. In the old days, they would have been the hardest of hard currency. But in this day and age, they were all completely useless.

Lu Xi'an took out a rectangular gold bar and weighed it in his hand. If only this were my old world. A whole safe full of these would make me rich.

"How about using these to bean people like throwing knives?"

He casually said it to Yao Wei.

Now that they were so strong, throwing gold bars would be easy. They had plenty of weight and would hit hard. Maybe they'd actually work pretty well.

Yao Wei said nothing, offering no comment on Lu Xi'an's idea.

Lu Xi'an still wasn't ready to give up. He took all the gold bars out of the safe and looked inside again. Sure enough, there was another surprise.

There was a compartment along the side of the safe, previously hidden behind the gold. Now that the bars had been moved, it was visible.

Lu Xi'an hooked his fingers under the edge and popped open the panel. A black-covered notebook slid out at an angle, pressed against it.

The notebook was stuffed full, and its edges were dark and warped. Years of use and the damp air underground had probably left it like this.

Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei exchanged a glance, then took out the notebook.

When they opened the cover, the first thing they saw was a page with the owner's name and details.

The notebook's owner had neatly recorded his personal information there—

The first line read "Organization": Fengcheng County Emergency Water Supply Administration.

The second line read "Position": Emergency Water Supplier.

The third line read "Name." The handwriting was much messier, all flourishes and sweeping strokes. It looked like a specially designed signature. Lu Xi'an could barely make it out: "Yao Tianlai."

"Same surname as you."

Lu Xi'an looked at Yao Wei as he spoke.

Yao Wei didn't respond.

Lu Xi'an flipped through the notebook. It was a work journal, filled page after page with records of which households he had delivered water to on which dates.

On one particular page, a line had suddenly appeared in the upper-right corner: "Delivering water every day! People are freezing to death! Why is Jiang Yu fine?!"

Lu Xi'an suddenly understood. This must have been a journal from after the apocalypse began. Back then, someone had still been going door to door delivering water.

He didn't know exactly what had happened in those years, but from what he could tell, the extreme cold had descended on this world. The water pipes in Fengcheng County had frozen, while Jiang Yu District remained untouched to this day.

He flipped further through the notebook. Some household numbers had been crossed out, and after that, they never appeared again.

More and more names were crossed out, and more and more began to repeat, until the last few pages were torn and marked with line after line of scratches. The final names had been reduced to fragments.

Lu Xi'an sighed, suddenly remembering when he had first arrived in this world.

There had been nothing but the vast, empty world and the cutting wind. Not a soul in sight. All he could see was snow and a gray sky.

Despair had gripped his heart, and all he could do was rage helplessly.

The person who had kept this work journal must have felt the same way back then, right?

He turned past those shattered pages. On the next intact page, there were just a few simple lines:

I got quite a few gold bars from the bank. I never would have thought of doing that before. But now that the world's turned into this, it doesn't matter if I take them. I'll count them as a bonus for all my hard work.

I'm going to take shelter at the command post.

I only just found out that they'd known the disaster was coming all along. They've been preparing for years.

I'd heard all the public announcements, and thought this was just an extreme cold spell. I thought all the preparations were for getting through the cold. I never imagined they'd also been preparing for an even greater disaster.

So the construction project they closed off at Tan Village Entrance years ago was actually a temporary command post.

The changes to the standards for gasoline and diesel, and the price hikes, were connected to this too. They were adding something to extend the fuel's shelf life.

We were all kept in the dark. Damn it!

But at least I'm one of the lucky ones. I can go to the temporary command post.

There's a lot of supplies at the temporary command post. We should be able to make it through the extreme cold.

I'll leave the gold bars here for now. Once the cold is over, I'll be rich.

We'll make it through. We have to.

Only then did Lu Xi'an learn that gasoline had a shelf life.

Thinking about it now, they were lucky the people back then had prepared in advance and changed the standards for gasoline, extending its shelf life. Otherwise, their vehicles would be useless now.

He noticed there was more writing on the next page, so he turned it over. On the final page, he saw:

The road beneath the reservoir has collapsed.

I'm going back to wait for death.

Fuck! Why did they only build a passage at Tan Village Entrance for the command post?! What the hell is wrong with them?!

I shouldn't have taken the gold bars. This is karma...