Faced with this kind of attitude, the four of them were momentarily at a loss.
After all, it was the apocalypse. Shouting, fighting, even killing was common. But looking down on someone? That was rare. In the outside world, someone who spoke like that might not even get to finish their sentence before losing their life.
Lao Gao frowned, baffled. "Where did you get the idea we can't afford it?"
The sales assistant did not even lift her head. She let out a sharp, dismissive snort, rolled her eyes, and turned away to chat with another salesperson.
None of them were about to buy something just to prove a point. Being looked down on was one thing, but swallowing the insult still felt suffocating. Holding back their frustration, the group made their way to the fifth floor.
The supplies here were far richer. Furniture of all kinds, all sorts of miscellaneous goods — almost anything could be found on the fifth floor. Lan Jin even spotted nail polish and makeup similar to what she had scavenged in an office building before. Now, such items could fetch an astonishingly high price.
Lao Gao stared at the price tags, his earlier resentment forgotten. "Why is it this expensive?" He genuinely could not understand.
Whether he understood or not hardly mattered. In this place, the price was the price.
Although the fifth floor seemed packed with goods, they only needed about half an hour to see everything. Yet these were items they would never find intact outside. Suddenly, Lan Jin understood why people had been going door to door collecting old furniture earlier.
"So all that stuff they picked up from our place ended up here, huh?"
The furniture on display was clearly second-hand. As for brand-new pieces, those with the right connections would probably have them delivered directly, without needing to put them out for sale.
There were only two floors worth visiting. It took them less than an hour to browse both. On their way downstairs, Lan Jin remarked, "Huh, I didn't notice before… this shopping center doesn't have many people wandering around."
"It's not just empty. No one even bothers to greet us. If I were them, I wouldn't come here either," Ling Jiang replied, still simmering from earlier. "And with how few contribution points people have these days, why waste them on useless stuff? Better to save them for food."
By now they had eaten, browsed, and walked around all day. What they wanted most was to sleep.
Each of them returned to their dorms. The atmosphere was livelier than when they had first arrived. Two unfamiliar faces stood out immediately, drawing curious glances. But no one initiated conversation. Everyone went about washing up and chatting among themselves before settling down for the night.
The next morning, Lan Jin was woken from her dreams by loud clanging and banging. She grabbed her phone. Almost eight o'clock.
The noise was too widespread to be intentional, so she did not ask about it right away. Opening her door, she saw people washing up and getting dressed. Clearly, something was going on. Ten minutes later, everyone left, and the dorm suddenly fell quiet again.
Ling Jiang found it odd. She stepped out of her capsule room, knocked on Lan Jin's upper bunk, and asked, "Lan Jin, what's going on? They were so noisy just now, now they're all gone. Feels like they went to work."
Which, in fact, was exactly the case.
Neither Ling Jiang nor Lan Jin were particularly talkative, so they had not chatted much with their dormmates. But Lao Gao had been quick to make friends the night before, even sharing some of the snacks he kept in his pocket. By the time they met in the morning, Lao Gao had learned everything about how the dorm operated.
"I found out last night," Lao Gao began once they gathered, "The capsule dorms are free to stay in, but free doesn't mean without strings attached. The base won't give you a place to live for nothing. Everyone here is assigned a job. The hours depend on the position, but the base is always short-handed. People working here get two meals a day. No salary, but they get a monthly allowance, just enough to buy basic daily necessities."
It actually sounded… pretty decent.
When they left the dorm building and reached the main hall on the ground floor, Lao Gao stopped at the service desk and picked up a few card booklets.
The "booklet" was just a single sheet of paper, folded into four pages. The contents were brief — a map of the base, explanations of each floor, and on the back, the base's rules and regulations.
They tucked the booklets away and headed to the second-floor cafeteria. The same three set menus — A, B, and C — were available, none repeating what they had seen yesterday.
The only real difference was that, by avoiding the shift change rush, they found plenty of empty seats. The noise level was much lower, and people ate at a far more leisurely pace.
Once they sat down, they could finally study the base map properly.
The second and third floors on this side were cafeterias. The third floor also had a supermarket selling not just water and packaged food, but also fruit and vegetables. Lan Jin pointed at the map. "Let's check that out later."
The fourth and fifth floors were the shopping center they had explored yesterday.
The sixth floor was the planting center — and not just on their side, but on the dormitory side as well. The entire sixth floor was dedicated to growing crops. It was not only official staff who could plant; ordinary people could rent plots to grow vegetables for paying rent or for other purposes. Vegetables were extremely valuable here.
The seventh floor was the school. Kindergarten, primary, middle, and high school were all located there. The space was large, but there clearly were not many children.
The eighth floor housed laboratories, but only on half the floor. The other half was residential. The higher the floor, the better the housing.
From the ninth floor upward were the offices and residences of senior officials.
The base was circular in shape. They all lived inside this ring-shaped building, which was divided into two halves using certain security measures. Guards were stationed where the halves were separated, so there was no way to sneak through.
Twelve floors in all, each with a clear purpose. It was an impressive design.
On the back of the booklet, the rules included several food-related restrictions that Lan Jin committed to memory. Capsule dorms could not have any smell of food. Rice and other aromatic dishes were strictly forbidden, but items without a strong smell — like biscuits or candy — were allowed.
And it was not just the dorms. People were expected to avoid producing strong food odors in public areas, even by the roadside or outside the cafeteria. No wonder everyone ate their meals in the cafeteria. With so many long-term residents, following the base's rules was simply a fact of life.