Jincheng Department Store was a five story comprehensive shopping mall. The two basement levels were filled with various restaurants.
The ground floor housed gold shops and jewelry stores. The second floor was for women’s clothing, the third floor for men’s and children’s clothing, the fourth floor was an amusement park, and the fifth floor was a cinema. Among the nearby shopping malls, this one was the closest.
After walking through the snow for about an hour, at four in the afternoon, Rong Hui finally found the large mall.
The main structure of the mall had been battered and now leaked wind from all sides. The panoramic glass roof that the developers had originally installed as a selling point was now covered with spiderweb like cracks after being battered by hail for several days. Broken advertisement boards hung crookedly, creaking under the blowing north wind.
On the empty plaza outside, many electric scooters that had not been dealt with in time were still scattered around. Most of them had already been smashed into scrap metal.
Rong Hui sighed. Looking at the mall that had once been prosperous but was now in ruins, she felt deeply emotional. Even if she cleared this instance, would the disasters in the instance world end? Or would they continue through endless catastrophes, struggling until human civilization finally perished?
She only hoped that, regardless of whether the instance world was real or not, people would survive through all kinds of disasters and continue passing down their brilliant civilization.
Not wanting to dwell on it further, Rong Hui cautiously walked into the mall. As soon as she stepped inside, she could clearly feel that the indoor temperature was slightly warmer. The wind and snow were blocked outside, leaving only the sound of snow grains scraping against the glass.
The condition inside the mall was still fairly good. Although the power outage made it somewhat dim, at least the hail and blizzard had not broken inside.
However, Rong Hui glanced at the glass roof above her head. Although it had not been completely shattered by hail, it was only barely holding on. With the blizzard continuously piling up on top, no one knew how long it could continue to endure.
Walking farther inside, she saw several gold shops. Rong Hui frowned. The glass of these gold shops had been shattered everywhere, while the milk tea shop beside them remained completely intact. It was clearly man made damage.
She carefully stepped over the glass fragments and entered one of the gold shops. The gold jewelry that had once been displayed on the counters had been completely looted. Even the gold plated display items such as decorative golden apples were gone.
Rong Hui guessed that survivors were most likely responsible. The extreme cold had descended less than a week ago.
Most people in the instance world were still waiting for the blizzard to end and remained optimistic about the future. They would not likely brazenly rob gold shops.
Only the survivors deployed by the system clearly knew that the disasters would continue indefinitely, and that the nation and government would have no time to pursue people stealing things.
After carefully searching several of the gold shops, she found a box of gold jewelry that had not yet been placed on display in the staff storage room.
When she opened the box, trays of glittering rings, earrings, and necklaces shone dazzlingly. Rong Hui did not hesitate to store them in the System Backpack.
Aside from that, she only found a few grams of scattered small gold ornaments wedged in the gaps of the counters. They had probably been accidentally dropped by the people who came to rob the store. Rong Hui collected them all as well.
She would not take the initiative to rob others, but in a situation that could no longer be reversed, she still had to take what she could. On this trip alone she had gained several hundred grams of gold, and she was quite satisfied.
Her next stop was the cinema on the fifth floor. That was the primary objective of her trip.
As soon as she reached the fifth floor, the lighting became even dimmer. Fortunately, her eyes had already adapted to the darkness, and she immediately saw the red object she had been looking for, a small but fully equipped fire safety cabinet.
Because cinemas gathered large crowds, in order to prevent casualties in case of fire, they were usually equipped with large fire safety cabinets.
Inside were three iron shovels, three fire axes, and five fire extinguishers. Rong Hui directly stored them in the System Backpack, leaving only one fire axe in her hand. These tools were all very useful.
She removed the leather covering wrapped around the blade. The cold gleam of the axe made Rong Hui’s eyes light up. It was sharpened, which was good. She had just been worried about what she would do if the fire axe she found was not sharpened.
Her ski jacket had a cross body strap on the outside. She inserted the fire axe behind her back so that the long handle slanted across her back. In this way it could both intimidate others and be conveniently drawn for use.
With the most crucial weapon secured, Rong Hui relaxed considerably. She summoned the system to check the time, and it was already five in the afternoon.
She took out the hiking backpack she had previously bought and carried it on her back. From now on, anything she saw that could be carried away would be taken with her. It was already getting late. After walking around the mall once, she would return home.
“Tap, tap, tap.”
Rong Hui’s boots stepped across the tiles, and the sound of her footsteps echoed through the mall. It really felt somewhat like a horror movie. Especially in places that were usually bustling with crowds, once they became completely empty, an inexplicable sense of eeriness appeared.
At the corner ahead there was a stall selling dried goods. The shopkeeper had not locked it when leaving, and some nuts and packaging bags were scattered on the ground, showing how urgent the situation must have been at the time.
Rong Hui selected a few items from the stall. She already had plenty of food and did not plan to take everything away. Leaving these items here might help more people later. In the end, she took a bucket of ginger candy, which could be boiled in water to ward off the cold.
She walked while looking around. She did not pay special attention to the shops that were locked, nor did she expect to break in. Later she also replenished a large box of heating pads and disposable underwear from a general goods store.
By the time she returned to the first floor again, the backpack was already half full. After hesitating for a moment, Rong Hui headed down to the first basement level. The two basement floors were filled with various restaurants. She decided to take a look at them as well. Knowing roughly what supplies were there might be useful for future visits.
The two basement levels were noticeably warmer than the floors above. Rong Hui felt the temperature. It was probably around minus twenty something degrees. Compared to the minus forty degrees outside, it felt almost like warm air heating.
The first basement level contained many hot pot restaurants, stir fry restaurants, porridge shops, and braised food stores. It was obvious that no one had taken care of them for nearly a week.
Rong Hui did not touch the remaining cooked food. Instead, she found some dried kelp, dried scallops, dried seafood, and rice, which she placed into her backpack.
Just as she stepped down to the second basement level, a distinctive smell drifted into her nose. It was the scent of burning wood mixed with the smell of food. Rong Hui carefully walked forward along the wall. If she had guessed correctly, there should be people here.
Sure enough, after walking another hundred meters forward, a cluster of flames flickered with warm yellow light, dispersing the darkness of the underground mall.
A simple campfire burned there. Several people sat around it. Rong Hui roughly counted them.
Five women and three men, along with three small children, eleven people in total.
They were wearing very little clothing, their expressions exhausted. Packaging bags were scattered all around the campfire, and a pot was set over the flames, cooking porridge.
“I wonder what’s happening outside. When will this damned hail finally stop?” One middle aged woman suddenly said bitterly, her voice somewhat hoarse.
“Who knows? I don’t even dare go near the first floor. As soon as I get close I freeze to death,” a young man with yellow hair sighed.
“Mommy, when will the police officers come rescue us? I’m so cold. I want to go home, sob, sob, sob…” The little girl, only four or five years old, buried herself in her mother’s arms and cried.
“Yueyue, be good. Once you drink a bowl of fragrant porridge you won’t feel cold anymore. The police officers will come soon.” The woman looked distressed as she gently stroked the child’s head, her expression both tender and worried.
Nearby, a short haired young man held a piece of biscuit in his mouth and lazily said, “Those police officers aren’t coming. They themselves…”
The woman turned and glared at him, covering the child’s ears. Under her angry gaze, the short haired young man stopped talking and leisurely continued chewing his biscuit.
Overall, the group looked quite miserable, as if they had been trapped here.
Rong Hui pressed her lips together and deliberately made her footsteps heavier as she walked toward the firelight.
“Who is it? Who’s hiding over there?”
The short haired young man suddenly flipped to his feet, staring intently in Rong Hui’s direction.
…