Chapter 9 Chapter nine

"Fuck You!" From the depths of Mr. Steiger's flushed neck, there was a swear word that everyone on Earth could understand. On the second basement floor of the Future Dream Building, the staff locker room of Carlford Supermarket.In this small and enclosed space, rows of metal lockers look like shelves for storing urns in a funeral parlor. Tao Ye stood in the corner with his head bowed, silently enduring the curse from his foreign boss, and poured a series of dirty English words into his ears again—at least he was not numb to it. A minute ago, he sneaked back to the dressing room, and before he had time to take off his supermarket work clothes, he saw Mr. Steiger barging in aggressively, pointing at his nose and yelling at him—it was nothing more than saying that he was lazy and had to leave work early kind.

Mr. Steiger's favorite hobby is to force Tao Ye to work overtime in the middle of the night.As for the other employees under his supervision, they were either male employees who gave him gifts, or female employees who knocked on the door of his apartment in the middle of the night.Tao Ye can neither entertain guests nor give gifts, nor can he undergo sex reassignment surgery, so he cannot avoid being bullied by this foreign devil. At this moment, there were only the two of them in the locker room. Mr. Steiger came to Tao Ye and ordered him to work two extra hours tonight.This time Tao Ye didn't give in anymore, he had already endured to the limit, he didn't want to stay after midnight, let alone endure the possibility of those zombies and ghosts moving in the dark.He clenched his fists tightly, adrenaline was secreted in a large amount, blood rushed to the top of his head, and the veins on his forehead almost burst.

"No!" When Tao Ye raised his head and spoke in front of Mr. Steiger for the first time, the ground began to shake... April 1.Sunday.Night, 22:19. Sixty seconds later. Under the stormy sea, the seabed is so quiet that it makes people crazy at night. Tao Ye gradually surfaced.When he opened his eyes, the changing room of Calfort Supermarket in front of him was still a dark ocean, and there was a huge roar in his ears—could it be that the whole city had sunk to the bottom of the sea? No, how can there be choking dust in the sea?Although I couldn’t see anything, I could feel the dust all around, the heavy pressure on my back, my ribs were almost broken, and it was extremely difficult to even breathe—if it wasn’t for this almost suffocating pain, maybe I would have Sleep forever until you become a zombie.

The fragile wall of the locker room collapsed, and Tao Ye was standing next to a row of cabinets at the moment when the sky collapsed. The collapsed wall was blocked by the cabinets and did not hit him directly, but the cabinets also fell down, just pressing him under. The internal organs are about to be squeezed out! The instinct to survive prompted him to struggle desperately.Fortunately, his hands were not suppressed, and he waved forward blankly, catching a few broken cement blocks, clothes and shoes falling out of the locker, broken bottles and cans... Finally, he found a fixed Objects, like a locker that collapsed on the other side.Tao Ye exerted all his strength to get out from under the cabinet.Fortunately, I have been working as a supermarket tally worker for these years, carrying goods non-stop every day, exercising my muscles beyond ordinary people, and breaking free from the heavy cabinet all at once.

The skin on the back was scratched, and the chest and spinal joints made noises.In the dusty darkness, he took a few gulps of breath, and then coughed, but it was better than being suppressed and suffocated.The wall of the locker room had already collapsed, and Mr. Steiger either escaped or was crushed to death under the wall——Tao Ye had no sympathy for him at all. He turned over a pile of ruins with hands and feet, and various metal objects were scattered on the ground. He bent down and touched a frying pan, which was a kitchen utensil shelf in the store.I walked a few steps blindly, unable to imagine how the supermarket was destroyed.Being attacked by nuclear weapons?Or a devastating earthquake plus tsunami?Or an alien invasion?

From a distance, I saw a few faint lights, hoping to be soldiers rescued by the military, but there were screams and cries for help, and I realized that it was the light of the mobile phone screen.He fumbled in his pocket - guessed the phone was still buried in the locker room. After a few seconds of frustration, Tao Ye pulled himself together, temporarily forgot the pain in his back, and touched to the right.In the store on the second basement floor of Calford Supermarket, he worked day and night for three years. He spent countless horrible midnights wandering alone among the maze-like shelves and playing hide-and-seek with underground ghosts—no one knows this better than him. In a supermarket, even with your eyes closed, you can walk from one end of the store to the other, and pick up the products on the shelves accurately by memory.

He carefully stepped over those pots and pans, stepped over the cleaning tool shelves lying on the ground, crawled over the sockets and wires all over the floor, finally walked around dozens of folding chairs and small benches, and touched a bunch of flashlights! The battery shelf is also nearby, and he has collected hundreds of dry batteries, which he puts in all the lighting equipment, and the positive and negative poles are almost never wrong. Tao Ye turned on a few flashlights to illuminate the surrounding world—it was a little better than expected, at least there were no mutilated dead bodies or charred explosion marks.I don't know when there will be aftershocks and when the ceiling will come down, but I can't run like a coward until my customers and colleagues are safely evacuated.He shouted with all his strength to see if there were any survivors calling for help nearby.

There was the light of the mobile phone next to the cashier, and he walked around a corpse and messy goods to illuminate the faces of a mother and child. The Japanese mother and son who met before the earthquake. is her? Although the long hair has long been disheveled, the face is pale, and the eyes are terrified in the flashlight beam, this face is still impressive. Tao Ye asked shyly, "You... are you okay?" "Thank you! We are all fine!" The young mother's Chinese is very good, but with a Japanese accent, she bows politely at this moment.At the same time, with the help of a flashlight, she carefully checked whether her son was injured.

"Please wait!" He handed a flashlight to the Japanese woman.She bowed deeply to Tao Ye again, and turned on the flashlight to illuminate his face.Her eyes shone with gratitude, clearly remembering his face. Tao Ye didn't dare to look into her eyes anymore.He turned around and returned to the ruins, turned on all the flashlights, and placed them in each corner of the supermarket in turn.He put dry batteries into other electrical appliances, and dim lights lit up everywhere.The survivors who were wandering around with their mobile phones, and the colleagues who were about to get off work a few minutes ago, all escaped from the tomb-like ground under the light brought by Tao Ye.

He decided to wait until the last living person escaped. A few minutes later, the entire second basement floor of the supermarket was silent. Tao Ye tied several flashlights together, and then disappeared outside the cash register by illuminating the Japanese mother and child. When he confirmed that there was no living person here except himself, and it had become a huge underground coffin, he deliberately picked a backpack from the luggage shelf, stuffed it with some mineral water and bagged food, as well as different types of flashlights and Dry batteries, and a few more masks and gloves.

He was carrying a heavy travel bag, and as soon as he reached the exit of the cashier, he heard a miserable "help" from behind him. It was the voice of a middle-aged man, coming from the book counter not far away.Tao Ye turned around and ran over.All the bookshelves were knocked down, and the floor was covered with all kinds of health and life books, but the most eye-catching part of the flashlight was Professor Wu Hanlei's "Dark Days - The End of the World is Coming". Just on this pile of bestsellers scattered on the ground, there is a sudden extra hand! Tao Ye thought it was just a broken hand, which is not uncommon in earthquakes.However, the hand moved again, and a few fingers struck the book cover vigorously, pointing to the photo of the author with a strong aura on the cover. Only then did he realize that there was a person under the collapsed bookshelf, only the back of his head and one hand were exposed.He hurriedly moved the bookshelves, unloaded the remaining books, and barely moved a few centimeters after reducing the weight.It is such a small gap that allows the people under the pressure to crawl out. Trembling, the man climbed up the pile of books.Tao Ye's flashlight illuminated his face, but he realized where he had seen it before. He was a middle-aged man, with a lock of white hair between his messy black hair. The sunglasses he had just lost were gone, and he had replaced the original glasses, but one lens was broken.Tao Ye took out mineral water and handed it to him. He drank most of the bottle in one go and coughed violently a few times. At this time, Tao Ye noticed the covers of the best-selling books under his feet. The photos of the authors and the survivors in front of him were surprisingly the same face. "Are you—Professor Wu?" Who in the world does not know you!The famous professor nodded weakly: "Yes... I am... Wu Hanlei..." "Ah...it's really Professor Wu...it's a pleasure to meet you..." Tao Ye was so nervous that he couldn't speak. He didn't expect to personally save Professor Wu Hanlei, the most popular scholar today. The professor took a few breaths, looked at the supermarket that looked like a demolition construction site, and sighed clearly: "Oh! The end of the world is here!"