The Invasion Day – Chapter 13

Table of Contents | Character Guide

Chapter 13

As Fu Shiwu drove the off-road SUV out of the parking lot, Wen Zhaoming looked at the front anxiously. It was completely dark now. If they couldn’t reach the central warehouse in the eastern suburbs by the time the red shroud moved to above Yun City, they would likely be surrounded by more aliens.

“We should hurry up.” Wen Zhaoming couldn’t help but worry.

“I’m doing my best!” Fu Shiwu stared hard at the road ahead and hit the pedal at full throttle.

There weren’t a lot of people on the road now. Most of the traffic that used to amass jams everyday had completely disappeared, along with the usual traffic police. The cameras at the intersections were still taking pictures with due diligence, but no one cared about the tickets by this time.

Perhaps stimulated by Tang Xuhai’s driving skills, Fu Shiwu focused 110 percent of his attention on the wheel, manoeuvring the off-road SUV at scorching speed and flawlessly surpassing the whole flow of vehicles.

Fu Shiwu felt like he had cleared up his shame and was even thrilled at himself.

He glanced at Tang Xuhai, who was sitting sullenly in the passenger seat, with proud eyes. How about it? My technique isn’t that bad, right?

Tang Xuhai seemed troubled and his eyebrows furrowed: “Stop the car.”

“What happens?” Hearing these three words, Wen Zhaoming stopped leaning on the back of the chair and quickly straightened up. 

“We can’t pass them.” Fu Shiwu could also see that the cars in front were slowing down, many of them looking impatient and continuously honking their horns.

As they really couldn’t move forward any longer, Fu Shiwu had to step on the brakes.

Tang Xuhai hesitated for a moment, then turned to face Shi Wu and said: “Can you go down and take a look, what’s the situation ahead? Can it be solved soon?”

Fu Shiwu didn’t delay another second. He quickly jumped out of the car and started running along the traffic.

Tang Xuhai thought he would have to convince Fu Shiwu further, but the brat had walked out before the words even left his throat. He let out a sigh of relief.

This brat may seem out of it sometimes, but he’s really unfaltering at the critical moment.

There were even more people here than before and the odds of being attacked was greater.

But these are the moments that Fu Shiwu wouldn’t even think about whether he would be hurt or come across an alien. When important things had to be done, he would let go of unnecessary thoughts and get right into the work.

A short while later, Fu Shiwu ran back. The weather was still awfully hot. Although it was nighttime now, the heat hadn’t dispersed much.

“There’s a series of accidents in front.” Fu Shiwu took out a tissue from his pocket and wiped his sweat: “Many cars are jammed up over there. I don’t think anyone will deal with the accidents, and even if someone does something, we won’t have enough time.”

Tang Xuhai glanced at his pack of tissues and said decisively: “Turn around immediately.” 

Fu Shiwu threw the tissues into the trash bin and, without another word, he started turning the car around.

He directly drove against the traffic flow. Seeing him doing this, some other cars also began to make U-turns.

“It’s too late to go to the eastern suburbs, where should we go now?” Fu Shiwu asked nervously.

“I’ll show you the way.” Tang Xuhai took a deep breath and slammed one hand on his right knee.

Fu Shiwu caught the movement from the corner of his eye and couldn’t help asking: “Does your leg hurt?” 

Tang Xuhai breathed out roughly: “It’s okay. Turn right at the intersection ahead.”

Under Tang Xuhai’s exact command, Fu Shiwu did so and found themselves on an old street.

“Then?” Fu Shiwu hesitated. He had visited this street a few times before and never noticed that there was a hiding spot around here.

“Go straight ahead and you’ll find Dongtian Theater. Let’s head there.” Tang Xuhai said.

Dongtian Theater?

Fu Shiwu knew this place. When he was in middle school, they used to rent it for a performance.

This theater was extremely old, said to be built back in the 1950s and had undergone several renovations. In his impression, it was a rather small theater with extended stairs heading downwards, only one main hall and audience’s seats that were divided into upper and lower floors.

In the past two decades, as things garnered advancement along with modernisation, the old equipment of Dongtian Theater simply couldn’t provide the best audio-visual enjoyment anymore. The place gradually became forgotten, and when one passed by, he could clearly see the outer wall peeling off, revealing the bleak, ugly cement wall inside.

Wen Zhaoming obviously didn’t know what kind of place Dongtian Theater was, so he asked: “What is special about this theater? Can we be safe there?”

“Dongtian Theater is a reconstruction of an air defence facility that was built in the early days of The Republic’s founding. There’s a bomb shelter underground.” Tang Xuhai said lightly.

“A bomb shelter?!” Fu Shiwu and Wen Zhaoming responded in unison.

“No wonder! That’s why this place was never demolished!” Fu Shiwu suddenly came to a realisation.

The nearby structures had all been converted into small modern houses, while only this Dongtian Theater still stood there swaggeringly!

“Amazing, you even know this kind of thing.” Fu Shiwu exclaimed in awe.

Tang Xuhai only replied with a “Well”, then he fell silent.

How could he reveal that he was just bored to death and did some research because of occupational habits?! In his last mission, his right leg suffered a comminuted fracture and a steel plate had to be put in. The single choice he was given was to wait for the bone to recover, and even after recovery, it might not gain back its original strength. Simultaneously, he also had to avoid strenuous activities for several years.

Tang Xuhai could only retire in despair.

In the first year, he often harboured a very gloomy and aggressive mood and had to resort to exercising his upper limbs incessantly to keep himself sane. Upon the full recovery of his leg, he could walk and exercise like ordinary people, but he started working so hard that the doctors had to advise him against exhausting himself.

After he was discharged from the hospital and moved to Heavenly Gardens, no one bothered him anymore, so Tang Xuhai turned to torture himself by using his legs constantly. If strenuous activities weren’t allowed, he would move his legs as much as his limit could possibly allow. He didn’t even touch the elevators for a whole year and entirely depended on his two legs to climb up and down all the stairs.

Over the past year, his right leg had pretty much come back to normal and was ready for the steel plate to be removed, but this unexpected crisis came knocking.

Back then, when he wasn’t exercising, out of boredom, he just took out the city map and used his collectibles to act out a war rehearsal, imagining all sorts of battles and ambushes along the streets with himself fighting against himself. But he never thought that those things would actually be useful one day.

Indeed, life was full of surprises.

Tang Xuhai frowned as he thought of several strategic army posts around Yun City.

He quietly prayed inside that the situation hadn’t worsened over there.

Fu Shiwu drove to Dongtian Theater, and under yet another command from Tang Xuhai, he directly crashed through the run-down iron gate and brought the car to the side door of the theater.

“We can enter from the front, but we’ll end up directly in the theater that way. It might hold against an airstrike, but is unlikely able to hold against aliens. There’s a path to the bomb shelter behind this side door. According to the design, it should be used to store war supplies, but I have no idea if there’s anything inside at the moment.” With stagnating movements, Tang Xuhai got out of the car and slowly walked to the side door.

“It’s locked.” Fu Shiwu looked at the side door that had been securely chained up.

Tang Xuhai took a quick glance at the handle entangled in an iron chain, then he turned around and said: “Go take my bag.”

Fu Shiwu walked over to pull out Tang Xuhai’s backpack, and Wen Zhaoming asked from the backseat: “How is it?”

“The door is locked, let’s see how we can open it now.” Fu Shiwu explained.

He carried the backpack and walked back to Tang Xuhai, who then opened it up and straight away took out a tool that resembled a shovel.

The handle and the blade were folded in the middle, with a particularly intricate structure that looked like pliers’ jaws at the joint.

Tang Xuhai held it up and directly clamped the iron chain with the jaws. The chain was snapped off at once.

Fu Shiwu was stunned.

Tang Xuhai looked at Fu Shiwu’s stupefied expression and felt his bad mood slightly lifted. He waved his hand proudly: “It’s a multi-purpose tactical shovel1A foldable shovel with a very sharp joint in the middle. The ‘intricate structure’ at the joint looks like below..”

As the door flicked open, Fu Shiwu could notice that Tang Xuhai’s leg didn’t seem okay. He refused to let the guy carry heavy items, then he ran a few rounds to unload the water from the car before bringing out Wen Zhaoming’s electric wheelchair.

Finally, Fu Shiwu blocked as much of the side door as he could with the SUV. The three then entered the shelter and chained the door from inside.

Tang Xuhai pulled out a flashlight from his backpack to search for the power circuit. Fu Shiwu had to press down his shame to take a good look at what Tang Xuhai had prepared, then at what he himself had brought!

As the light was on, it turned out that there was only a single lightbulb in this place. Compared with avant-garde indoor lighting of modern buildings these days, this felt truly monotonous.

The bomb shelter was a tunnel that led them into a small room at the end after two turns. Like Tang Xuhai said, the room was rather small, spanning around 80 or 90 square meters. 

Also according to what Tang Xuhai knew, this place should store war supplies, but likely because of the long-lasting peace and neglect of management, there was now no reserve inside. Today, Yun City had built a new air defence facility with a more scientifically favourable design. This bomb shelter had been abandoned, but it wasn’t demolished and just left completely idle.

“The air isn’t too bad.” Fu Shiwu took a deep breath as he indulged in the coolness of the shelter. Despite the humidity, the air felt fresh.

“It’s a given. Ventilation in a bomb shelter must be considered carefully during design.” Tang Xuhai leaned against the wall and said with a heavy breath.

Fu Shiwu could feel that something wasn’t quite right with him. He walked forward to find that Tang Xuhai’s head was drenched in sweat.

“Tang Xuhai! Are you okay?” Fu Shiwu hurriedly stretched out a hand, only to realise that his body was frightfully hot: “You have a fever?!”

Wen Zhaoming drove his electric wheelchair towards them. He bent down and pulled up the hem of Tang Xuhai’s pants, and was scared stiff.

The middle of his right calf was bulging and terribly swollen.

“This can’t be just ‘a bit of twisting’?!” Fu Shiwu couldn’t help shouting in anger.

“It’s okay.” Tang Xuhai could feel even his breath getting hotter, and he feebly waved his hand: “My bone hasn’t fully grown. The steel plate only acts as a support, so excessive movement will cause swelling and inflammation. It’s just normal.”