freenovelworld Chapter 1376 The Flow of People Refusing to Refuge
Chapter 1376 The Flow of People Refusing to Refuge
Located in the heart of Qinglong Mountain in the eastern suburbs of Nanjing, outside the main entrance of the "Eagle's Nest".
With the complete loss of the Gucheng Lake settlement, the sky at the horizon in the direction of Gucheng Lake was completely stained with an ominous dark purple glow.
The continuous, booming sounds of gunfire abruptly ceased, leaving only a chilling, deathly silence in the world.
A faint, indescribable smell of burnt and gunpowder, carried by the wind, filled the air.
At this moment, Old Zhou was holding his son Xiao Shitou's hand tightly, his rough palms covered in cold sweat.
Their old blue van was led off the main road and turned into a weed-covered field some distance from Eagle's Nest sanctuary.
When Lao Zhou and his group arrived at that field, it was already densely packed with all sorts of vehicles:
Dilapidated buses, trucks with peeling paint, private cars, and even farm tricycles and tractor cabs with trailers... The vehicles are lined up crookedly, stretching as far as the eye can see, like a huge and sloppy steel graveyard!
Old Zhou was deeply shocked when he first saw it, but at the same time, he also felt a sense of security because of it.
"Get off! Everyone get off! Take your small bags! No large luggage allowed! Move forward! Line up to enter the cave!"
Soldiers in gray uniforms with "Guard" armbands held megaphones and shouted hoarsely as they weaved through the traffic and crowds, herding the terrified people from one vehicle to another, leading them towards the long, winding line of vehicles further ahead.
The place was bustling with noise.
The cries of children, the suppressed sobs of women, the anxious curses and questions of men, and the soldiers' repeated commands...
The various sounds mingled together, forming a huge and chaotic sound wave that crashed against the gray-black rock walls of Qinglong Mountain and bounced back, making people even more agitated.
Panic, like an invisible plague, was clearly visible on the faces and in the eyes of everyone in line.
People instinctively wrapped their thin clothes tighter, hugged their relatives, and held onto their companions, constantly looking back nervously in the direction they had come from, as if the approaching aura of death might pounce on them from behind at any moment.
Old Zhou carried the small stone on his back, with only a deflated canvas bag in his hand containing a few changes of clothes and the last bit of dry food. He moved forward with the flow of people, stumbling along.
Underfoot was a muddy, makeshift dirt road, trampled by countless people, mixed with gravel and weeds.
The procession moved extremely slowly, coming to a complete stop every now and then. Each pause caused a small commotion and more indistinct shouts of command from ahead.
On both sides of the column, one or two soldiers from the garrison regiment stood every ten meters or so.
They were also covered in dust, with sunken eyes, and many of them had their gun-holding arms trembling slightly, clearly having experienced a night of fighting or high-intensity guard duty.
Instead of standing upright as they used to when patrolling the settlement, they hunched over slightly, leaning against the rocks or trees, their sharp but weary eyes scanning the restless crowd.
"Don't push! One after another!"
"Keep an eye on the elderly and children! Don't let them get lost!"
"Anyone who pushes forward and disrupts order will be court-martialed!"
A hoarse roar occasionally escaped from the soldier's throat, as he tried to maintain this fragile lifeline.
Even so, despair spread rapidly among the crowd, like ink dripping into water.
An elderly woman collapsed to the ground due to exhaustion, immediately causing a small commotion. Her family cried out, and the soldiers nearby rushed forward. Together with several strong young men, they dragged and lifted her to the side of the road, and the column could then move forward a little more with difficulty.
Little Stone lay on his father's broad but slightly hunched back, his little hands tightly wrapped around Old Zhou's neck, his face buried in his sweaty and dusty collar, only occasionally raising his big, dark eyes filled with fear to timidly survey the unfamiliar and chaotic world around him.
"Dad...where are we going?" Little Stone asked, his voice trembling with tears, his dark eyes filled with unease.
"Go...go to a safe place, Stone, don't be afraid. Look, there are soldiers all around us protecting us!" Old Zhou gasped, trying his best to keep his voice steady.
He looked up and saw the front of the line disappear into the bend of the mountain, with no end in sight.
He glanced back at the vast, silent vehicle graveyard. The faint fantasies he held about the "night market" and the future, like those abandoned vehicles, were left behind in this wilderness, covered in a thick layer of dust.
Just then, something seemed to happen at the front of the group. A louder commotion erupted, accompanied by a few short, stern rebukes and a woman's scream.
The crowd recoiled like startled deer, then surged forward due to the pushing and shoving of those behind them, instantly descending into chaos.
Old Zhou quickly clung tightly to a protruding rock by the roadside, shielding the small stone in front of him, his heart pounding wildly.
Several soldiers rushed forward from both sides, forcefully separating an area with their rifle butts and bodies.
In the middle, a man was frantically trying to push forward with a large suitcase, the wheels carving deep furrows in the mud, and the people around him were jostled and knocked over.
"Put it down! Don't you understand the order?! You're only allowed to bring a small bag!" A young soldier with fresh abrasions on his face shouted sternly, reaching out to stop him.
"This contains all my possessions! Food! Supplies! Medicine! How can I survive without these?!" The man's eyes were bloodshot as he retorted in a hoarse voice, gripping the lever tightly.
"boom!"
A crisp gunshot rang out, not aimed at a person, but at the sky.
Everyone was startled and fell silent for a moment...
A captain stepped forward, his face ashen, and shouted, "Damn it, supplies, supplies, supplies my ass!!"
"Do you know you're racing against death?! Every second you delay, someone will pay with their life!"
After berating the man, the captain looked around at the silent crowd, sighed helplessly, and patiently tried to appease them again:
"I've emphasized this many times: the shelter will make proper arrangements for everyone. I can't guarantee that everyone will be well-fed, but there will definitely be a minimum standard of living to ensure that everyone survives!"
"So this is the final warning! Obey orders, put down your burdens, and move forward lightly! Anyone who obstructs the evacuation will be punished for delaying the battle and executed on the spot!!"
The last four words were like ice water poured over my head.
The color drained from the man's face instantly. He glanced at the dark muzzles of the soldiers' guns and the fearful eyes of the crowd, then at the box he treasured. Finally, as if his spine had been ripped out, he dejectedly let go of the box.
The heavy box crashed to the ground in the mud, and he was shoved by the soldiers, staggering back into the crowd, his back view filled with despair.
Old Zhou was horrified and instinctively hugged his small canvas bag even tighter to his chest.
The line continued to crawl forward at a snail's pace. After an unknown amount of time, Old Zhou, drenched in sweat, finally carried his son and, with the flow of people, rounded the huge bend in the mountain.
The sight before them stunned both him and Little Stone: the mountainside had caved inward, forming a natural, enormous rock shelter.
Below the rock shelter is a nearly vertical, artificially reinforced steep mountain wall, and at the bottom of the mountain wall, an enormous, arc-shaped protective door with a cold metallic luster is wide open!
The door was so huge, tall enough for heavy trucks to pass through easily, its thick body made of multiple layers of special alloy, with a complex hydraulic and mechanical locking mechanism at the edges, now revealing a bottomless, dark passage behind it that seemed to swallow all light.
Above the lintel, there are no signs, only mottled marks left by years of wind and rain erosion and a kind of cold, gloomy atmosphere unique to long-term closure.
This is the entrance to the "Eagle's Nest".
The troops were more strictly guided here, divided into several groups, guarded by more fully armed and stern-faced soldiers, and were guided like a thin stream into the huge "metal maw".
The powerful ventilation system at the entrance emitted a deep rumble, and the wind blowing out of the cave carried the coolness of the earth, which made one's sweaty body shiver.
The flow of people quickened slightly at the entrance, but the moment they entered the deep passage, almost everyone involuntarily shrank back, turned around for one last look at the chaotic world outside where the light of day still lingered, and then were slowly swallowed up by the darkness that symbolized survival.