The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse – CH225

Chapter 225 — A Thief Never Leaves Empty-Handed

Confronted with a heap of wreckage that had been soaked in rainwater for who knows how long, Luo Xun honestly didn’t know what kind of good things his group could find here. Still, even if the hope was slim, they had to take a turn and check it out, right? They couldn’t just look down on these things simply because they were living a decent life now. After all, how long had it been since the start of the apocalypse? If they waited another three to five years, coming into the city center would truly yield nothing but ruins, and they wouldn’t get a single shred of harvest.

The group first took a turn around the first-floor lobby. To their frustration, the furniture—no matter the material—had either become so rotten that it fell apart at a single touch, or was so rusted that it snapped with the slightest force. There was simply no way to salvage anything good.

However, after looking around, they still managed to find a few usable items that weren’t afraid of water damage—for instance, the tiles hanging on the walls as display samples, or the toilets showcased in the shops…

Although these things wouldn’t serve a major purpose for now, the tiles could at least be used as decorations back home. As for the toilets… they could keep them as backups; it was better than returning completely empty-handed, right? Not to mention, they still had quite a few smart toilet seats stashed at home! When they left the base, those seats had been thoroughly scrubbed and brought along to the new base.

As they wandered outside a shop near the edge, Luo Xun and the team discovered a few bulging gunny sacks piled inside, seemingly packed with quite a lot of items. Opening a sack and peering inside—a heap of multicolored river pebbles meant for home decoration was sitting submerged in standing water!

Needless to say, the water inside the bags must have leaked in during the heavy rainstorm a few days ago. Luo Xun and the guys did a quick tally and discovered there were actually about ten of these half-man-high sacks packed with river pebbles!

“Haul them away, haul them away! We can use these to pave paths, or place them in the water feature inside our orchard!” Everyone instantly grew excited upon seeing these items, rushing forward to drain the water and move them.

Luo Xun temporarily halted their movements, turning to smile at Song Lingling. “Can you draw the water out of here?”

“No problem.” Song Lingling smiled and casually flicked her hand. The water inside the sacks was instantly siphoned dry and thrown by her to an out-of-the-way spot. Looking back at the river pebbles inside the sacks, they were as dry as they could possibly be; even a commercial clothes dryer wasn’t as efficient as her superpower.

After loading these supplies safely into the trucks, the group headed straight up to the second floor. The second floor primarily showcased relatively creative furniture, like sofas, along with decorative fabric goods, cushions, and items of that nature. The group looked around and selected a few sofas that appeared relatively clean. They stripped away the already ruined fabric covers, let Song Lingling extract the moisture, and directly carted away the foam cushioning that was attached to the frames.

What brought an even greater surge of excitement to Luo Xun and the team was—they actually discovered rolls upon rolls of massive foam cushioning sheets tucked in a corner shop!

This shop was situated far away from the collapsed side of the roof. Although some rainwater had leaked across the floor, the foam sheets on the absolute top layer had merely absorbed a bit of ambient moisture without being thoroughly submerged under water. Seeing this, the group gleefully let the Song Lingling-brand spin dryer siphon away the moisture once more, systematically packing and hauling the sheets away.

While foam cushioning was incredibly light in weight, its volume was rather exaggerated. Luo Xun and the team had to compress them as firmly as possible before cramming them into the truck beds.

Once the supplies were fully loaded, Luo Xun patted the truck door with immense gratification. “Perfect. Although we couldn’t find usable mattresses, laying this stuff out on the bed frames will be just as comfortable. Besides, the foam cushioning we found is thick and solid; it’ll definitely provide excellent insulation during the winter.”

“Brother Luo, are we hitting alternative locations to search for supplies?” He Qiankun asked, his face flushed with excitement.

“Yes. I remember there’s another commercial shopping center over that way; let’s check if there’s any harvest over there.” Having made a rare trip out here, Luo Xun naturally wanted to do a comprehensive sweep of every necessary location in the perimeter. A thief never leaves empty-handed, after all.

The convoy pulled up below a nearby shopping plaza. The exterior of this plaza appeared decent; aside from almost all the glass windows being shattered, the structural walls didn’t bear major issues.

Parking the vehicles and heading upstairs, the group began a systematic sweep starting from the first floor. They discovered that all the jewelry counters had been stripped completely bare, and even the display counters showcasing high-end cosmetics and premium perfumes had basically been wiped out entirely, leaving nothing but a few loose cosmetics boxes scattered across the floor, broken into a chaotic mess.

The group expressed their helplessness, filing up the non-functional escalators to the second floor. On the second floor, looking at the hollowed-out watch display cases and the shattered storefronts of various brand boutiques, everyone silently marched up to the third floor together…

An entire commercial plaza had seemingly been thoroughly pillaged back and forth multiple times. By the time Luo Xun and his team arrived, absolutely nothing was left.

The empty-handed group could only step back outside, wandering along the lone commercial street sector of this small township.

Regrettably, although this peripheral area didn’t seem to have suffered heavy zombie raids after the apocalypse—and the baseline population of survivors couldn’t have been very large—as the lone bustling commercial hub of this small township, this single major plaza had been pillaged with absolute thoroughness.

Luo Xun and the team only managed to unearth some unprocessed fabric bolts and curtain textiles from the backrooms of a few shops specializing in fabrics and drapery. Thanks to that, they at least hadn’t made the trip entirely for nothing.

Just as the group was preparing to find a random spot here to spend the night before making a hasty departure the next day, Luo Xun suddenly stared blankly at a kindergarten by the roadside.

“What’s wrong?” Yan Fei looked toward the kindergarten in puzzlement. The glass doors of the entrance had long since been smashed into jagged fragments. Could Luo Xun have spotted something inside?

Luo Xun scratched his head, pointing toward the building. “Let’s step inside to take a look. What if we manage to find something?” They had a seven- or eight-year-old girl at home who was right at a highly active age, along with a genuine baby. What if the kindergarten held some items the kids could use?

Although they didn’t harbor much optimism—and true to expectations, the interior of the kindergarten didn’t leave behind anything worth collecting—the moment they stepped through the kindergarten’s back exit and caught sight of the miniature playground behind, their eyes widened in utter astonishment—an inflatable children’s bouncy castle, and its absolute size was remarkably substantial.

Perhaps some promotional event was being hosted here right before the apocalypse. Luo Xun and the team could faintly discern from a ragged red banner dropped in a corner that someone seemed to have sponsored an event for this kindergarten.

Luo Xun conducted a meticulous circle around the inflatable castle, which looked completely deflated and half-collapsed. He confirmed that the material hadn’t actually suffered a puncture; it had merely lost its air after sitting through the apocalypse for so long. Currently, aside from being quite filthy, it remarkably bore zero other structural issues!

Peering further inside the deflated folds, well, talk about a massive pool of rainwater!

“Drain the water! Haul it away, bring all of it back!” Luo Xun waved his hand with immense excitement—the kids had a playground now! This trip was a total win!

Armed with this successful experience, Luo Xun and the team simply began poking around storefronts that children might visit, along with places parents would bring their kids—such as certain fast-food establishments.

True to expectations, although those locations didn’t house inflatable castles of that massive size, they held indoor play structures and ball pits. Everyone rummaged and turned things over here and there, intermittently expressing their regret—”It’s a pity we didn’t search carefully when we went into the city center previously. Otherwise, how many children’s toys could we have stockpiled for our home by now?”

Although they could unearth these items in their current location, because this was a peripheral township on the city’s edge, the total volume of goods combined wasn’t substantial, and the items they recovered were mostly compact, simplified models. Although that inflatable castle just now was quite large, if it happened to puncture or tear in the future, they wouldn’t have replacements to use anymore.

Still, having something was vastly superior to having nothing, right? Catching the way little Xinran’s eyes lit up upon seeing these toys, everyone felt their physical efforts hadn’t been in vain.

“Once we haul these things back, we must give them a thorough washing and disinfection,” Luo Xun noted as he pondered. Although the supplies recovered on this expedition filled their vehicles to the absolute brim, bizarrely, they carried virtually zero weight. For the Otaku Team, this was truly… the first time ever.

Xu Mei suddenly asked, “Are we going to set these play structures up inside the orchard or somewhere else?”

Luo Xun thought about it for a moment. “Why don’t we just clear out a room on the second floor? We can empty one of the original classrooms; that space is massive, holds excellent natural light, and can easily accommodate the inflatable castle. It’ll be perfect for the kids to play in.”

Among the rooms on the second floor, one of the original classrooms had currently been converted into the quail room, another room housed the storage batteries linked to the solar panels, and a third room was fully packed with various specifications of… refrigerators and freezers.

“Then let’s shift all the freezers down to the first floor. If the space still isn’t enough, we’ll just dig more basements.” Now that the underground storage rooms were finalized, a great number of items had already been shifted downstairs. Besides, even if the above-ground footprint ran short, Luo Xun and the team faced absolutely zero pressure when it came to excavating basements.

Dusk had already fallen, and the group retreated once more into a temporary house fabricated from the metal they had harvested in the vicinity. During the day, they hadn’t detected a single silhouette of a zombie in this area, and regarding mutated animals, they had only spotted that eagle nest and the soaring raptor; aside from that, they hadn’t seen other wildlife. Of course, that was because the group had merely circled the commercial block without penetrating deep into the surrounding residential compounds; perhaps alternative predators were nesting in other sectors.

Gathering in a tight circle around the small campfire inside the room, the recent weather was growing increasingly scorching. This was especially true during midday; from twelve noon until three in the afternoon, the blistering sun hung glaringly overhead, leaving anyone venturing out feeling thoroughly lightheaded. Fortunately, the apocalypse carried its own silver linings; because wild grass grew in rampant abundance and climbing vegetation scaled the old streets and concrete facades everywhere, an occasional breeze filtering through these plants could handily help cool everyone down.

At this moment, although a fire was kindled inside the metal house, because the flame was kept low—and Song Lingling had conjured a substantial volume of water throughout the room to help lower the ambient temperature—the environment inside the metal shelter remained highly bearable.

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