Chapter 556: Overnight in The Undercity
The food in the cafeteria was relatively simple. They had rice noodles, wheat noodles, filled and steamed buns, soy milk with fried dough sticks, and rice with a selection of two meat and two vegetable dishes.
Evelyn Ford ordered a bowl of noodles with fried bean paste. Miles Vaughn and Peter Owens were hungry after working all day, so they got four dishes and two steamed buns between them.
Ronan Kendrick and Liam Sterling both had big appetites. After eating four steamed buns, they went back and got a bowl of noodles.
"Your stomach is still so flat. Where does it all go?" Evelyn Ford felt Ronan Kendrick’s stomach, looking at him with curiosity.
"I hid it away."
"They have drinks over there. Would you like some juice or beer?"
Evelyn waved a hand. "I’m good. These facilities are so well-equipped, and there’s such a wide variety of things. Are the soft drinks and beer produced by the base?"
Liam Sterling nodded. "The base used to have a food processing plant that produced a lot of small snacks. It was partly to make it easy for the carriage merchants to peddle them everywhere. But since the polar night started, the carriage merchants aren’t in business anymore. I wonder how the villagers in the settlements outside are doing."
"We know about that. We actually traded with a carriage merchant for some safflower liniment while we were on the road."
"There’s a lot of safflower liniment piled in a corner of the pharmaceutical warehouse, just gathering dust. We’ll collect it all tomorrow. By the way, Evelyn, would you like a tour of The Undercity?"
"Let’s skip the tour for now. I’d rather just go back and rest. I’m pretty tired today. We can go to the warehouse to collect the medicine early tomorrow."
"Alright, then I’ll take you to the living quarters."
On their way out of the cafeteria, they ran into Lynn Pierce. Lynn seemed to have something to say to Liam Sterling, so Ronan led Evelyn away first.
Miles Vaughn and Peter Owens went to the fitness area to play badminton. Evelyn was impressed by their stamina. They had been moving boxes in the warehouse all day, yet they still had energy to work out.
"I wish we had a shelter like this. You wouldn’t have to worry about the high temperatures or radiation. Life inside here must be so safe."
"The ore from the fourth region could probably be forged into heat-resistant and radiation-proof shielding. The Undercity was designed by Rhys Chase; he must have the design blueprints somewhere."
As they reached the living quarters, a few young people approached. They greeted Ronan, then looked at Evelyn with curiosity.
"This is my wife, Evelyn."
"Nice to meet you, ma’am," the young people said in unison. Evelyn blushed a little.
"Hello."
After they left, Evelyn shook Ronan’s arm. "Are those the ’elites’ Liam was talking about?"
"Mhm."
"Impressive. You’ve only been here a few days and everyone’s already calling you Mr. Kendrick. Judging by the way they look at you, they seem a little scared of you."
Ronan stopped at a door and pressed his thumb to the handle. A confirmation sounded as the fingerprint lock disengaged, and the door opened automatically. Ronan pulled Evelyn into the room.
"I fought them once. After that, no one dared to challenge me again." He said it so casually, but Evelyn’s heart ached a little.
"They were giving you a hard time?"
Ronan closed the door and lifted Evelyn into his arms with one hand. "Not really. They were just resentful."
Evelyn looked around the room. It was like a small suite in a five-star hotel from before the apocalypse. The space wasn’t huge, but it had a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room, and a separate bedroom.
"Ronan, this room is so luxurious."
Ronan chuckled. "It’s *our* room. I’ll go run a bath for you. You can wash up first."
Ronan put Evelyn down, letting her explore on her own while he went into the bathroom and started filling the tub with warm water.
"Once we get that ore mined, I’m going to build a shelter just as luxurious as this one."
"Mhm. Whatever you say."
Everything in the room was new. The toothpaste and shampoo were from a new line produced by the base. Evelyn gave them a sniff. She liked the light, pleasant scent.
Ronan came out of the bathroom and sat across from Evelyn. "The plane the base sent to find a new habitat crashed mid-flight. The one heading to The South Pole had to turn back. Everyone on that flight made it back alive, but they ran into severe turbulence. They were all bleeding from their eyes, ears, and noses. Their limbs grew weak, and some even lost the ability to speak. The magnetic field in the Southern Hemisphere is in chaos. There are no safe havens left on all of Azure."
Now, everyone was pinning their hopes on the sun. If the sun would just come out, life would return, and everything would get better.
"So except for the plane that went to The South Pole, all the others crashed?"
Ronan shook his head. "Liam said they lost contact with two of the planes. The signal is completely gone. If they didn’t crash, they might have entered a concealed area... or a fourth-dimensional space, something like that."
’Fourth-dimensional space... referring to spacetime.’
Evelyn frowned. "If the Southern Hemisphere is that bad, could there be any survivors left?"
"Ronan, do you think the sun will ever come out again?"
"It will." Ronan’s answer was firm. He held to his conviction: the polar night was just like the polar day, a matter of yin and yang. It had to end eventually.
His reasoning was deeply esoteric, not unlike the principles in "The Book of Changes".
He was the product of a scientific experiment, the most perfect genetic specimen to come from human trials. Yet Ronan had once told Evelyn that some things simply couldn’t be explained by science.
"Don’t overthink it. No matter what happens, we will survive."
After they washed up, Evelyn took out her tablet, found a comedy, and they watched it together.
The room was very well soundproofed, blocking out all outside noise, so Evelyn could laugh as loudly and freely as she wanted.
After a night’s rest in The Undercity, Evelyn was refreshed and full of energy. At seven in the morning, she was already dragging Ronan to the cafeteria for breakfast.
"They have luosifen! Ronan, do you want some?"
Ronan declined. He preferred the filled and steamed buns.
Two young women at the next table were also eating luosifen, and the strong, sour, pungent aroma was perfectly authentic. Evelyn didn’t care whether Ronan wanted any or not; she hurried to the service window to order a large bowl for herself.
"Evelyn, Ronan, good morning." Miles Vaughn and Peter Owens came over, carrying a bowl of rice noodles.
"Morning."
"You two are up early! I was sleeping like a log when Liam knocked on our door and said you were in the cafeteria. Peter and I didn’t even wash our faces, we just rushed right over."
Evelyn looked up at them. Peter Owens had serious dark circles under his eyes and was still yawning as he ate his breakfast.
"Did you two stay up late?"
"I didn’t. Peter stayed up all night reading," Miles said. "There were a few mystery novels in the room. He was reading until four in the morning, so he probably only got a couple of hours of sleep."
Peter yawned again. "I couldn’t help it. My curiosity got the better of me. I had to find out who the killer was, or I wouldn’t have been able to sleep."
"Then why didn’t you just skip to the last page?" Miles simply couldn’t comprehend Peter’s logic.
"When you read a mystery, the most important part is the process of unraveling it all, clue by clue! If you just skip to the last page, what’s the point of the story?"
The two of them actually started bickering about it. Evelyn and Ronan exchanged a look, and in a moment of silent agreement, they stood up and moved to an adjacent table.
"Order for table eleven! Large luosifen with extra egg, pig’s trotter, and duck feet is ready!" a voice called from the service window. Evelyn shot her hand up and hurried over.
"Coming! That’s me! My big bowl of luosifen!"