Chapter 987 The Fate of Fallout Shelter 118
It was already late into the night when the light in the office went out.
When Jiang Chen brought Sun Jiao into the bathroom, then into the bedroom, and then till the room returned to silence, the hour hand had already passed the 12 o’clock position.
With Sun Jiao peacefully sleeping in his arm, Jiang Chen wiped the sweat from his forehead and collapsed into the pillows.
The desk lamp on the bedside table was turned off, and Jiang Chen pulled up the quilt.
They started when they were taking a shower and because he used up too much of his stamina, he quickly drifted to sleep.
A silent night.
The next morning, after eating breakfast with the girls, Jiang Chen, Sun Jiao, and Xiaorou went out together.
After dropping the girls off at the community center, he took the long way to the warehouses of the Fishbone Base before heading to the helipad.
Although the Fishbone Base is strictly speaking a military area, with the increase in population and the natural buff of the NAC “Capital”, the development speed here was not inferior to any economic zone within the NAC. This was evident based on the growing number of warehouses and the number of people traversing between the warehouses.
In Jiang Chen’s memory, at the early stage of the Fishbone Base, there were only a few small warehouses that stored the materials from the modern world. Now, the area completely turned into a cargo distribution center at a size only second to the Sixth Street’s cargo distribution center. Not far from the airship ports, giant mechanical arms were loading cargo onto a helium airship set to fly to Hongcheng
Most of the supplies sent to Hongcheng were arms and some grains produced in the Garden of Eden.
After his short tour, Jiang Chen came to Transport Helicopter-51. The young man piloting saw him and immediately saluted. Then he hopped into the helicopter and started the engine, transporting Jiang Chen to the Sixth Street.
Heavy snow hindered the population’s growth but didn’t freeze the prosperity of the Sixth Street.
Looking from above, the size of the Sixth Street more than doubled compared to last year. The trade interrupted by heavy snow resumed with the spring breeze, and wasteland traders from all over wasteland swarmed to the Sixth Street.
After the helicopter landed, Jiang Chen went to the parliament building.
Members of the Sixth Street Council were in a meeting, so Jiang Chen did not bother them. After chatting with the security officer on duty, he came to the general office on the top floor of the parliament building.
Other than the cleaning staff who come here regularly, this office was mostly empty. Located in the middle of the top floor of the parliament building, it served as a symbolic presence. The offices of the executives of the Sixth Street were beside it.
Like a magic trick, Jiang Chen took out a small can of coffee beans from the Blue Mountains of Jamaica and tossed it to the assistant in Chu Nan’s office. After asking her to make him a pot of coffee, he also requested she brings the fallout shelter director to him.
After a little while, a pot of aromatic coffee was placed on his desk.
Jiang Chen poured a cup for himself. The thick white mist was still lingering above the coffee when a polite knock was heard on the door.
“Please come in.”
The door opened, and a young man walked in. When he saw the pot of coffee on the table, his expression changed and his eyes widened, but soon he calmed himself down and stood in front of Jiang Chen.
“Please free feel to sit,” Jiang Chen said with a smile, made a gesture to the chair next to him, and at the same time poured a cup of coffee for him.
“Thank you.” The young man nodded politely. After tasting the coffee, he said with some emotions. “The nostalgic taste reminds me of the morning before the nuclear war broke out… this should be expensive in the apocalypse right?”
“Yes, after all, after more than twenty years, even with the best preservation technique, everything would almost be expired by now,” Jiang Chen said with a smile, “I heard you wanted to see me? Now that you have seen me, what do you want to talk about?”
The young man nodded.
“Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lu Yihua, Director of Fallout Shelter 118. When the door of Fallout Shelter 118 opened, we met the messenger sent by you and learned about what happened on the surface.”
Lu Yihua paused, and then said with reminiscence.
“Before the door opened, we had imagined the end of the war but did not expect the final outcome to be like this… no victorious country, no defeated country.”
“It’s all happened over twenty years ago,” Jiang Chen looked at the clock on the wall. “Do you just want to talk to me about this?”
Lu Yihua shook his head.
“No. To be precise, I am going to give you something.”
As he spoke, he took off the pendant hanging on his neck and gently placed it on the table.
Jiang Chen leaned forward and looked at the pendant on the table. The silver ring had strange patterns carved into it and in the center of the ring, there was a ruby the size of a grain of rice.
It just looked like an ordinary accessory.
Jiang Chen looked confused. He did not understand why he was given this.
“This is?”
“This is a key,” Lu Yihua said while looking at Jiang Chen, “It is also the mission of Fallout Shelter 118.”
“Can you elaborate?” Jiang Chen asked.
“Unlike most social experimental fallout shelters as well as fallout shelters with the purpose of preserving population, the meaning of our existence is only to leave a little hope for the possibly dark future,” Lu Yihua said, as he gently pushed the key in front of Jiang Chen. “At the bottom of the Poyang Lake next to Hongcheng, there is a completely dormant fallout shelter, coded T7. Two thousand researchers are lying in those hibernation chambers. Their professions cover a total of 167 fields from particle physics to aerospace technology. They will sleep through the passage of time until someone opens the fallout shelter, wake them up and take their knowledge from under the ruins.”
“Fallout Shelter T7 was not constructed as part of the Fallout Shelter Project. The construction party of the shelter is the Pan-Asia Cooperation Science Research Institute, and the project is called ‘Seed of Civilization.’ Over the past few days in the Sixth Street, I did see the germination of civilization. I hope that you can make good use of these researchers and revitalize the glory of civilization on this land.”
Under the sunlight, the rice-sized ruby cast a faint ray called hope.
Picking the pendant up from the table, Jiang Chen solemnly said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I should be the one saying thank you. I have already planned to treat this as an heirloom. I didn’t expect that I can fulfill my mission in my lifetime.” Lu Yihua stood up, bowed to Jiang Chen, and left the office.