Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 527 Escape

The staff member tapped a few times on the keyboard, the interface on the screen changed, and her eyes swept across the screen.

"There's no news yet," she said, looking up at Xu Xiaoyan. "If we receive any further notifications, we will contact you using the contact information you provided."

Xu Xiaoyan's heart sank, but she didn't leave. She stood in front of the table, as if she had something to say but didn't know how to say it.

The staff member glanced at her, probably noticing her hesitation, put down the mouse, leaned back, and said in a slightly gentler tone:

"However, from what I understand, this operation did indeed rescue many people."

I can't disclose the exact figures, but I can tell you it's much more than we expected.

All rescued individuals are currently under investigation, including identity verification, information collection, and health checks, all of which require time.

Xu Xiaoyan's eyes lit up: "Is my friend among these people?"

"I don't know the specifics either," the young woman said, gripping the mouse again and turning her gaze back to the screen.

"I can only tell you that it is still under investigation, and many things are still undecided. I cannot give you any uncertain information."

Go back and wait for notification. We'll contact you when we have news. Keep your phone accessible and be ready to answer calls.

Xu Xiaoyan opened her mouth, wanting to ask something more, but seeing that the staff had already started flipping through the forms on the table, she knew that she wouldn't get any more information.

She nodded, said "thank you," and turned to leave the small room enclosed by temporary partitions.

On the third day after Xu Xiaoyan returned to the shop, she received a landline call.

"Is this Xu Xiaoyan?" A female voice answered the phone. "Your friend Lan Yue is at the Eighth District Trading Center. Can you come and pick her up?"

She practically ran all the way to the trading center, passed through the cordoned-off passages at the entrance, rushed into the hall, and her eyes searched anxiously through the crowd.

Then she saw the blue moon.

Lan Yue sat on a row of plastic chairs in the corner of the hall. Her hair was much messier than it had been a few days ago, as if it had been pulled by something and then haphazardly gathered up.

She had several shallow abrasions on her face, a purplish-blue patch the size of a fingernail on her left cheek near her cheekbone, and her lips were chapped and peeling.

"Blue Moon!" Xu Xiaoyan shouted, attracting the attention of several people nearby.

When Lan Yue looked up and saw Xu Xiaoyan, tears welled up in her eyes and silently streamed down her cheeks.

Xu Xiaoyan rushed over, squatted down in front of her, grabbed her shoulders with both hands, and looked her up and down several times.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

Lan Yue shook her head and finally spoke, her voice so hoarse it was almost inaudible: "It's nothing... I'm fine..."

A young woman in uniform peeked out from behind the counter, then withdrew.

After leaving the trading center, Xu Xiaoyan accompanied Lan Yue back to her residence.

Xu Xiaoyan moved a chair and sat opposite her, without urging her to speak.

"Xiao Yan," she finally spoke, her voice still hoarse but a little more steady than before, "Thank you."

Xu Xiaoyan was taken aback: "Thank me for what?"

"Thank you for reporting it in time." Lan Yue looked up at Xu Xiaoyan, her eyes filled with lingering fear. "If it had been a day later... no, even half a day later, I might have..."

She didn't finish her sentence, but Xu Xiaoyan understood the unspoken part.

"What exactly happened?" Xu Xiaoyan's voice was very soft, as if she was afraid of scaring her. "Tell me, it's okay if you don't want to tell me, we can talk about it when you're ready."

Lan Yue took a deep breath, clasped her hands together, and rubbed her thumbs together. She stared at her fingers for a long time, as if organizing her thoughts.

"After I got back from your place that day," she said slowly.

"When I arrived at the shop, the owner was already packing up. I thought he was going to catch fish in preparation, so I didn't think much of it."

He asked me to go to the kitchen to help move things, saying that we would leave in the afternoon and that there would be a lot of people in the store, so we should all go downstream to reserve seats.

Xu Xiaoyan didn't interrupt and listened quietly.

"Then we got into a truck," Blue Moon's voice began to tremble slightly, but she continued, "a white truck, with a canvas tarpaulin covering the cargo area."

The owner said the car was borrowed for transporting fish, and there were several other people on it, all of whom were colleagues from the shop.

There were a few other people I didn't recognize. I assumed they were people the boss had invited to fish together, so I didn't think much of it.

"The car drove around in a winding path for a while, and I fell asleep leaning against the side of the car. When I woke up, the car had already stopped."

But it didn't stop on the riverbank downstream; it stopped in a place I'd never been before, like a warehouse, very big, with no windows, only a light hanging down from a very high place.

As Lan Yue spoke, she couldn't help but burst into tears. "They locked us all up, not in one room, but in a cage for each of us."

The iron cage was very small; you couldn't stand up straight or lie flat, you could only curl up, like...like the kind of cage used to keep dogs.

Xu Xiaoyan's fingers gripped the armrests of the chair tightly.

"I don't know how many people there are in total. The cage next to me is a man in his twenties. He doesn't talk and keeps banging his head against the cage."

In the cage on my other side was a woman, not much older than me. She kept crying all night long. I called to her, but she didn't respond. She just kept crying.

Lan Yue picked up the empty bowl on the table, found that there was no water in it, and put it down again.

"That place is an abandoned underground warehouse. I don't know who built it before. It might be an air-raid shelter or some kind of underground facility. It's very big, very dark, and very cold."

They blindfolded us when they kicked us off the truck.

We had no idea where that place was, whether it was day or night outside, or how long we had been there.

Someone brings food once a day: a bowl of porridge and half a steamed bun. Sometimes the steamed bun is even spoiled, but we still have to eat it because we have to wait another day for the next meal.

The toilet was a plastic bucket placed next to the cage, visible to everyone.

Lan Yue lowered her head and looked at her hands. There were several scratches on the back of her hands, and there was dirt that couldn't be washed out under her fingernails.

"Later I found out that those who were arrested were all young people, just like me, who had been tricked out of their homes with various excuses."

Some said they were going to introduce good jobs, some said they were going to collect free supplies, and some said they were going to fish downstream. The methods of deception were different, but the result was the same: they all ended up in the cage.

"What...what do they want to do?" Xu Xiaoyan finally asked.

Lan Yue looked up at Xu Xiaoyan and said, "These people want our organs, and they didn't just capture this group."

Lan Yue's lips twitched slightly. "I heard there have been several batches before. They... they harvested organs from those people, apparently to hold some kind of ceremony."