Apocalypse Survival: Starting with a Shelter

"Though it's built to the specifications of a small shelter, it once housed hundreds of people," Su Wu mused. "It's more than sufficient as a massive warehouse."

Su Wu's current expectation for the watchtower base was to serve as a storage hub for low-value materials. Compared to the small bunker at the farmhouse ruins, the watchtower base offered more space and security. Unless faced with disasters like earthquakes, the stored materials would remain relatively safe.

Having organized internal affairs, Su Wu turned his focus outward.

The surface temperature had dropped slightly, now hovering between 62°C and 65°C. While still too hot for human survival, it was marginally better than the 70°C+ conditions of the past, offering a faint glimmer of opportunity.

As the official post-quake rescue operations wound down, some resource-strapped shelters noticed the environmental shift and began recruiting residents to scavenge the surface for metal, plastic, and anything with potential reuse value.

These scavengers were poorly equipped. At best, they wore outdated radiation suits bought online before the apocalypse. Most lacked even basic protection, using only damp cloths over their faces to ease breathing as they braved the surface to work.

Despite their dire conditions, scavengers were accompanied by vehicles. These served dual purposes: transporting salvaged materials and providing temporary shelter, allowing scavengers to cool down and recover between short stints of labor.

"There are a lot of them," Su Wu noted.

Reconnaissance drones dispatched to Jianghe City's ruins revealed scavengers in nearly every area. Individually inefficient, their sheer numbers resulted in an impressive haul of resources.

This sight pained Su Wu slightly. To him, the resources in the ruins were akin to treasures in his backyard. Seeing others take them away was hard to stomach.

However, Su Wu understood the reality. Without the capacity to harvest an entire city's resources in a short time, such scenes were inevitable.

Moreover, with the official government still functional and order mostly intact, he couldn't act too aggressively against the scavengers.

Since stopping them was impossible, joining them seemed like the only option.

Su Wu's hydroponic farm produced surplus vegetables daily, which he could use to barter with scavengers for valuable materials. Additionally, survivors from the Lime Shelter could be organized into scavenging teams.

Unlike the scavengers outside, Su Wu wasn't willing to send his people to work under such harsh conditions without proper protection. He resolved to wait until his manufacturing center could produce a batch of insulated suits with radiation-proof coatings before deploying them.

Reflecting on his long manufacturing queue, Su Wu once again felt that his production capacity was inadequate.

Logically, however, he knew this was a temporary bottleneck. His current production capability far exceeded his resource reserves. Once the initial surge of tasks was completed, the lack of raw materials would likely cause frequent production downtimes.

Expanding production capacity now would only lead to waste.

"Slow and steady," Su Wu muttered. "No use rushing."

He delegated the scavenger trade negotiations to Chen Xin and logged onto the official satellite network.

Within the exclusive chat group for Jianghe City's elite, the conversation was lively.

Skimming through the messages, Su Wu noticed two main topics: radiation disasters and official shelter gossip.

After the massive earthquake yesterday, most small and medium shelters had shifted their focus from radiation concerns to immediate casualties. In contrast, the leaders of larger shelters, supported by expert advisors, remained keenly aware of the long-term threat posed by radiation.

Interestingly, the earthquake appeared to have suppressed the radiation disaster to some extent.

Reports indicated no new radiation hotspots had appeared in Jianghe City, and the existing three radiation zones were showing signs of contraction and weakening. This brought some relief to the elites.

As for the official shelter gossip, it revolved around the severe impact of the earthquake on the deep shelters, which were considered the last bastion of safety. At least seven deep shelters had gone completely dark, cutting off all communication with the surface. The fate of those inside was unknown.

Considering the robust defenses and abundant resources of the deep shelters, survivors were likely. However, their predicament held little practical significance.

No one knew their exact locations after the quake, though they were assumed to be buried hundreds, if not thousands, of meters underground. Escaping to the surface was unlikely, and the occupants might not even wish to leave, believing the surface to be uninhabitable due to radiation.

"Let's hope they enjoy life underground," one large shelter leader remarked cynically. "At least they've got fewer people and plenty of resources. If they ration well, they should last a lifetime."

Another member of the elite group chimed in with morbid humor. His longtime rival had moved his family into one of the deep shelters shortly after the first radiation disasters. Now, with the shelter lost, his enemy was effectively entombed far below.

"Looks like building a shallower shelter isn't all bad," said another. "At least the survival rate during an earthquake is higher."

This member admitted he had considered relocating to a deep shelter but ultimately stayed behind, reluctant to abandon his possessions. In hindsight, that decision had saved his life.

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