Chapter 4: Man-Made Disaster

Just like last night, tonight, Huang Jin still found the bald man playing cards.

They were in the first-floor hall, and since the shelter had a generator, the hall had electric lights. But electricity was a luxury only available to the shelter's shareholders. As for Huang Jin, being just a tenant, he made do with candles, batteries, and solar-powered devices.

When Huang Jin walked into the hall, he saw three people gathered around the table playing poker. The muscular man in his thirties with a shaved head was the bald man. Behind the three of them were chairs with piles of gambling stakes—cigarettes, liquor, food, and so on. The other two had stacks of goods piled up behind them, forming small mountains nearly half a meter high. Only the bald man had just a few packs of cigarettes left, which showed that he'd probably been heavily beaten tonight.

To be honest, the bald man's poker skills were terrible, but ironically, he was a well-known gambler in the shelter.

The three of them were smoking and playing cards, and the smoke filled the room.

Huang Jin walked over, smiling, and greeted them:

"Hey, Baldie, Bai Ge, Hu Ge, still playing cards?"

"Yeah, why aren't you asleep at this hour?" Bai Ge, a man in his forties, answered.

Hu Ge just smiled slightly, acknowledging Huang Jin with a nod.

Huang Jin had often given these guys gifts, so their attitude toward him was generally friendly. However, the bald man, frustrated from losing too many games, ignored him.

"Full house! Hahaha, farmer wins, pay up!" Bai Ge shouted as he laid down a pair of kings and four twos, beating the bald man, who once again lost.

The bald man cursed as he grabbed the last few packs of cigarettes and tossed them to the other two. He then glared at Huang Jin and cursed:

"Damn it, it's all your fault I lost! If you hadn't distracted me, I would've won!"

The bald man was looking for an excuse, his tone hostile.

Bai Ge laughed at him: "Hey, hey, hey, what's this got to do with Huang Jin? Couldn't you have played your four twos even without him being here?"

As they were collecting the cigarettes, Huang Jin noticed something unusual.

The cigarettes were stained with red ink, and Huang Jin recognized them immediately. The shelter's external warehouse had a batch of expensive cigarettes with the same kind of red ink on them. They were the same brand as the ones used for gambling.

At this point, Huang Jin's heart sank. Could it be that someone had raided his place?

He casually asked:

"Bai Ge, these cigarettes are pretty rare. So many of them, did you guys find a treasure somewhere?"

Bai Ge grinned widely, shuffling the cards as he answered:

"Heh, you guessed it right. Just this afternoon, the three of us were out wandering around the shelter when we happened to stumble upon a collapsed concrete house. And guess what? Inside it, we found an underground warehouse full of supplies. Who knows which idiot left all this stuff there. Probably now, that idiot's tearing his hair out, wondering where it went. Hahaha."

Bai Ge laughed smugly, unaware that Huang Jin's mind was already cursing him out.

Sighing, Bai Ge added, "Why aren't you sleeping, Huang Jin? What's up?"

"Oh, it's almost time to pay my rent, and I'm a bit short on cash. Since I can't sleep, I thought I'd go out and search for some treasures tonight. I mean, I can't afford to miss paying rent, right?"

According to the shelter's rules, tenants weren't allowed to leave at night, so Huang Jin had to ask someone higher up for permission.

"That's it? Go ahead, Bai Ge's fine with it. Just tell the guard you're with me, and you'll be good to go."

"Thanks, Bai Ge."

"You're a smart guy. If all the tenants were like you, we'd have it easy."

Huang Jin quickly left. He needed to check his little treasure vault and see how these bastards had ransacked it.

He arrived at the front gate of the shelter, a five-meter-high iron gate custom-made for the shelter. After explaining his reason to the guard, the gate was opened without much thought. After all, Huang Jin was well-liked in the shelter.

He quickly made his way to the collapsed concrete house and smoothly entered the basement. As expected, half a room full of supplies had been completely looted.

Checked the other rooms? Damn it, even the compressed biscuits hidden in the toilet were gone. These bastards were worse than thieves.

In just one day, Huang Jin had gone from a small boss with everything to a true refugee. His vault was empty, and the only food left in his shelter room was half a bucket of dry rations. That would barely last him two weeks.

"Damn it, just a little bit more..."

Huang Jin, now a frustrated young man, couldn't help but curse under his breath. If only the bald man and his gang had discovered the stash half a month later, he wouldn't be this angry. In fact, he'd already planned to leave the shelter by then.

Two years ago, at the beginning of the zombie outbreak, there was still phone signal, and people could still communicate. At that time, Huang Jin had been in City C on a mission. His boss had called him then.

The phone conversation was simple:

"Damn it, who knows what the hell is going on in this world? Xiao Jin, are you still in City C?"

"Yes, I am."

"Your godfather and Yinyin are in City Z, but things are chaotic here, and it'll take some time before they can get here. But don't worry, your godfather won't forget about you. Stay in City C, don't move. I'll find a way to get a helicopter to pick you up. Once you see the helicopter, fire a flare to signal me."

"Okay!"

And so, Huang Jin waited for two years. But the helicopter never showed up over City C.

Although Huang Jin had a superior-subordinate relationship with his boss, his boss had lost both his wife and son a long time ago, so he'd always treated Huang Jin like his own son. Now, his boss only had a daughter named Yinyin. But as his boss often said:

"Daughters get married and can't take care of you when you're old."

That's why he actually preferred a son.

Besides, Huang Jin was really good at this line of work and had made his boss a lot of money, which made the boss even fonder of him and even adopted him as his godson.

Of course, even though his boss often made jokes about his daughter's future, he still loved her very much.

But… a promise unfulfilled for two whole years made Huang Jin inevitably start to wonder.

Since his boss hadn't come to find him, Huang Jin decided to go find his boss instead.

His boss had told him he was in City Z, so Huang Jin planned to go there.

With that in mind, Huang Jin started hoarding food for the journey to City Z, trying to stock up enough supplies to drive there without worrying about running out.

However, just as his stockpile of food was almost ready, disaster struck—his supplies were raided.