Cave Refuge

Mr. Dong Tianyu definitely took to heart the matters arranged by Mom, but there was no rush, since the current situation of Grandpa and Uncle had been confirmed. The rest could wait.

Zachary had not expected that the temporary camp chosen merely for refuge would undergo such significant changes.

From an initial population of less than five hundred, the camp’s permanent residents had gradually broken into the tens of thousands.

Owing to the merger with a military base, the camp now far exceeded ordinary settlements in both the number of Martial Artists and firepower.

Through conversations with his father, Zachary gained a deeper understanding of the camp’s current state.

When Zachary prepared to retire for the night, Mrs. Thompson specifically asked about Walker Violet’s well-being. Mrs. Thompson fondly remembered Violet’s last visit and hoped Zachary could bring his wife over again soon, ideally "in twos."

Don’t get the wrong idea; by "in twos," Mrs. Thompson didn’t mean two wives, but rather she hoped her daughter-in-law could bring along the child in her womb as well.

Zachary did not refuse his mother’s request. Once he finished his tasks here and visited Grandpa in Pengcheng, he could indeed bring Violet back to soothe his parents’ worries.

That night, back in his own room, Zachary as usual entered the Cave to practice sequences from classic movie scenes.

The next morning, Mrs. Thompson was already up early preparing breakfast for Zachary. As the old saying goes, "dumplings for the journey, noodles when you get off," he really should have eaten noodles last night.

But it wasn’t like before the disaster, when you could just go out to buy dried noodles if you fancied them. Now, if you wanted noodles, you had to make your own hand-pulled noodles from flour.

Mrs. Thompson got up early and started kneading dough so that her son could have noodles as soon as he woke up.

However, it’s as if Mrs. Thompson, like most mothers, though rising early to work, inevitably made quite a racket, making it almost impossible to sleep in at home.

Even though it was a two-story wooden house with less than ideal soundproofing, and Zachary had not slept in an upstairs room, he promptly responded from his room when Mrs. Thompson called him for breakfast.

After the family of three had breakfast, they each went about their business. Mr. Thompson, now a committee member, had to attend meetings every morning, while Mrs. Thompson had arranged with her friends to play sports for exercise every morning.

Mrs. Thompson and her friends played badminton, and while it might seem like a simple workout to those who don’t play, regular players knew that at this time, playing badminton was several times more luxurious than golf had been before the disaster.

Firstly, there were the rackets, which required high-elasticity threads for the strings. These threads had to meet tough requirements for toughness and elasticity, and not any ordinary thread would do.

Then, there were the shuttlecocks, which at first glance appeared easily replaceable but actually required feathers from chickens, ducks, geese, or other birds. Not just any feathers would work for making shuttlecocks; normally, only a dozen or so shuttlecocks could be made from one bird’s feathers.

These were the reduced standards. If one were to follow the stringent criteria of the Olympic Games, a single duck could provide at most eight feathers suitable for making shuttlecocks (only four feathers per wing met the standard).

Actually, even this wouldn’t be so bad, but badminton is one of the sports where equipment is most easily damaged. Almost every powerful strike would irreversibly damage the shuttlecock.

For an ordinary person playing a couple of hours in the morning, unless they played only gentle "peaceful" shots, damaging two or three shuttlecocks from playing more intensely was quite normal.

Because of space constraints, the pre-disaster status-symbol sport of golf had vanished, replaced by the new standard set by badminton.

Getting involved in the sport seemed simple: you just needed a racket and a tube (ten) of shuttlecocks.

But what seemed straightforward was complicated in practice. When Zachary and his group first arrived here, although they brought plenty of meat, it was either frozen or cooked—no live poultry came with them.

The domesticated poultry now in the camp had primarily been brought by survivors from other settlements when they merged into this one.

Without live poultry, there were no feathers for making shuttlecocks; obtaining them required special channels.

Mrs. Thompson’s social circle might seem open to everyone for small talk, yet the subtle barrier of badminton effectively kept most people out.

Zachary knew that his parents were fond of badminton before the disaster, so when he left for Beijing, he left behind several tubes of shuttlecocks and a few rackets for his mother. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Regarding his father being busy with serious matters and his mother having her own circle of friends, leaving him without their company for a chat, Zachary was actually very pleased.

No matter how close he was with his parents, most of the time, neither could truly relax in each other’s company. This was one reason Zachary had not moved his parents to live inside the Cave.