Cave Refuge-Chapter 287 - 281: Away from the Urban Area (6,000-word Mega - )_2

They probably won’t come back in the afternoon either, because, during the escape, there wouldn’t have been many survivors who thought to bring playing cards. Now, here, playing cards must be quite scarce.

Actually, this was the ideal situation for Dong Tianyu, with his parents safe and healthy and having their own social circle, so he didn’t have to constantly worry about their situation.

This way, he also had more personal space and wouldn’t be tied down by his parents’ affairs.

The time Ye Liuyun was away was longer than Dong Tianyu had expected. Initially, Dong Tianyu thought that Ye Liuyun would return from Saxon County in at most two days, but it turned out to be a five-day wait.

During these five days, there was an earthquake every day on average, and the intensity of the earthquakes was gradually increasing, not confined to the early mornings but potentially happening at any time.

Five consecutive days of earthquakes had caused most of the high-rise buildings in the Pengcheng urban area to collapse to some degree, and the low-rise buildings were not spared either—Pengcheng urban area had become a pile of ruins.

Fortunately, the survivors had already left the City Center long ago. There weren’t many casualties in the earthquakes, but some survivors, disdainful of the conditions at the Officials’ shelter sites, left on their own to rest elsewhere.

Because the Officials dealt with the Bug Nests very promptly, many ordinary people were unaware of the dangers of the Bug Nests. After leaving the designated shelter sites, very few managed to survive the night and make it to the next day.

Only a handful of exceedingly lucky survivors who did not sleep at night and spotted the Bugs Clan’s surprise attacks were able to escape by a hair’s breadth and rushed back to the Officials’ shelter sites in a panic.

They shared the concealed news about the Officials with others, and many initially thought that these were rumors spread deliberately by the Officials to keep them from leaving the shelter sites, making it easier for the Officials to manage.

And some unscrupulous Insect Nest Hunters added fuel to the fire, wanting to drive more ordinary survivors away from the shelter sites so they could find more Bug Nests in the wild.

Although the laboratory had attempted to farm Bug Nests and succeeded, these farmed Bug Nests, like cultivated medicinal herbs, while grown in the same environment, weren’t as effective as those found in the wild.

And after trying for so long, though the farmed Bug Nests still produced new Bugs, no matter how much they were fed, the yield of new Bugs kept decreasing.

Due to the difficulty, coupled with the ongoing natural disasters, the plan to farm Bug Nests was put on hold, and the raw materials for nutritional supplements now depended entirely on the Insect Nest Hunters’ captures in the wild. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Moreover, because of this, some Insect Nest Hunters didn’t bother extracting Bug Nests, but rather started ’Feeding’ them in the wild.

During every ’Feeding,’ they would capture most of the Bugs that came out to forage, maintaining a steady trickle of resources by ’raising’ several Bug Nests.

And the source of ’Feeding’ food, well, everyone can guess what that is, for at this time, humans cost less than any other thing.

Especially those survivors who disdained the environment at the shelter and left the official sites; they were the best ’Feeding’ material.

There are only so many areas around Pengville City that can be shelter sites, and those who led the complaints about poor conditions at shelter sites were also an unsettling factor for the shelter managers.

When a small number of survivors were incited to leave the shelter sites, the Official shelter managers did not stop them but let those people go.

Although they also knew some people left just because of herd mentality, they didn’t care for those brainless ones. Maybe before the disaster, they liked them because they were easy to manipulate, but now, they didn’t want to worry about those foolish people.

Of course, they were aware of the impacts of a diminished population. When the number of people at a shelter site dropped below a certain threshold, the shelter managers brought out projectors at night, showing the imagery of Bugs eating people, and also disclosed the case of a hundred missing people that occurred opposite University Town.

Since there weren’t many entertainment activities after the disaster and they couldn’t learn about other cities’ events, anything of slight importance in Pengville City would be known by survivors in the other three regions within a few days, no matter where it had happened.

The case of a hundred missing people was significant, and the survivors surely had heard about it, though for some reason, the case had come to an indeterminate close.

While some were still concerned about the outcome of that case, the emergence of a new round of natural disasters made many forget about it.

Who would have thought that now the Officials would reveal all information about that case?

When the sheltered survivors learned the full information of the case, they unexpectedly began to tremble, unable to comprehend that there were such dangerous creatures outside.

After the shelter sites fell into a stunned silence, they immediately began to buzz with activity as all the survivors started communicating with those around them, their voices growing louder.

And the Officials managing the shelter sites didn’t speak up to soothe them, rather, they just quietly stood there, silently watching the survivors passionately discussing within the shelter sites.