Chapter 2 — I Built an Empire in the Wasteland

The next morning, Bạt Phong woke up earlier than usual, his stomach was hungry but his mind was unusually alert. He checked the radiation meter again, shook it a few times to make the indicator work stably, then stuffed into his coat pocket an old roll of rope, a hand-cranked flashlight, and the only dagger he had - his few self-defense weapons after the small ax had been confiscated by Lôi Quang Việt a few months ago.

The fenced area is located about three kilometers east of the Black Market Area, which used to be a high-rise apartment complex before the war. Now there is only a giant mountain of ruins, concrete slabs tilting on top of each other, creating a maze of darkness and dust. The rusty barbed wire surrounding the area was broken in many places, showing that at least a few daredevils had been loitering nearby, but no one dared to go deep inside.

Bạt Phong stood at the outer edge, observing the radioactive warning sign that had almost all of its letters faded. He held up the meter and walked slowly step by step inside the barrier area, never taking his eyes off the indicator needle. Kim still lies at a safe level. He breathed a sigh of relief and continued to go deeper.

The deeper you go, the more bizarre the scenery becomes. The collapsed buildings here are unlike other places Bạt Phong has ever explored — they seem to have been forced down from above by some force, with concrete floors overlapping each other at an unusual angle, creating dark cavernous spaces below. He followed a gap between two concrete slabs. He had to bend over to get through. The hand-cranked flashlight emitted a weak yellow light.

After nearly an hour of weaving through the dilapidated maze, Bạt Phong's limbs were quite scratched, he stopped in front of a larger space, where the flashlight's light touched something that was not concrete or rubble. A flat, metallic surface, completely different from everything around it.

He moved closer, using his hand to brush off the thick layer of dust clinging to the surface. It was a circular trap door, about two meters in diameter, made of thick alloy, with a steel rotating wheel in the middle - the type of sealing door Ba Phong had seen in some science and engineering books when he was in school, the type of door designed for military projects or anti-radiation shelters. Around the door, there were still a few faint symbols that had been almost completely corroded, only a vaguely recognizable symbol of an eagle with spread wings, the black paint had mostly peeled off.

Bac Phong's heart beats faster. He had heard oral stories about secret military bunkers that existed before the Great War, places that were said to be filled with weapons, high-tech equipment, even huge stores of food enough to feed hundreds of people for years. Most of those stories were dismissed as exaggerated legends of Black Market drunks, but standing in front of this sealed door, Bạt Phong couldn't help but believe that perhaps at least some of them were true.

He tried turning the steel wheel in the middle of the door. At first it didn't budge, covered in rust after many years of being left untouched. Bạt Phong used all his strength, held both hands tightly, and pushed. A sharp creaking sound rang out, then the wheel began to move, slowly but surely.

After nearly fifteen minutes of struggling, sweat drenched the back of his shirt even though the weather in Pha Tho was not warm at all, the door finally let out a dry "thump" sound, revealing a deep darkness inside, along with a stream of cold, musty air blowing out - air that had been sealed for seven years.

Bạt Phong stood silently for a moment in front of the tunnel door, his heart filled with a feeling of both nervousness and fear. If this was indeed a military bunker, inside there may be remained of automated traps, security systems, or worse, things that seven years of isolation had turned into something no longer human. But if you turn your back and leave now, tomorrow you will still be the scrap collector whose path was blocked by Lôi Quang Việt, forever unable to escape that vicious circle.

He tightened his grip on the dagger, turned on the hand-cranked flashlight as brightly as possible, and stepped across the threshold.

Inside was a narrow hallway, the metal-paneled walls were rust-colored and mottled, the floor was covered with a layer of dust so thick that Bạt Phong's footsteps leave clear traces behind. Along the hallway there were several emergency lit mounted on the wall, all of which had long been extinguished. He took each cautious step, his ears listening to every little sound, his hand holding a flashlight to scan all the dark corners.

After about thirty meters, the hallway opened into a larger room — perhaps once a security control area. Several metal tables were tilted, broken screens were scattered about, and in the corner of the room was a human skeleton that had turned into a skeleton, still wearing a tattered military uniform, still clutching a completely rusted gun. Bạt Phong shivered, but still tried to stay calm, walking across the room to find a way forward.

At the end of the security control room there is a smaller door, not sealed as tightly as the main door, perhaps because the electrical system has stopped working a long time ago, making the automatic locking mechanism no longer effective. Bạt Phong pushed lightly, the door opened without much difficulty, leading into a spiral staircase going deeper into the ground.

He hesitated for a moment before stepping down. The deeper you go, the less likely you are to return safely, and if something happens down there, no one will know where you are to look for you. But curiosity and a vague premonition that something important was waiting below overwhelmed fear. He tightened his grip on the knife and began to walk down the spiral staircase, step by step, his footsteps echoing softly in the chillingly quiet space.

The stairs led down to a deeper basement, where the air was much colder, and Bạt Phong began to hear a strange sound — the quiet sound of machines running, as if somewhere in this shelter there was still some source of energy that had not been completely exhausted after seven years. He stopped and listened carefully. The sound came from the end of another hallway, where a faint blue light shone through the door.

His heart was pounding. If there is a functioning energy source, there is likely to be equipment, weapons, or anything else of value still preserved intact inside. He walked closer to the crack in the door and peered through.

It was a circular room, its walls lined with control panels with buttons and small screens, most of which were dark but a few still blinked a faint blue light — evidence that some kind of battery backup system, perhaps powered by stored geothermal or solar energy, had been quietly maintaining minimal operation for the past seven years. But what stunned Bạt Phong were not the control panels, but what lay in the middle of the room: a transparent cylinder about two meters high, inside of which a human silhouette could be faintly discerned.

He pressed his body close to the crack of the door, trying to see more clearly through the glass, which was opaque due to long-term condensation. Inside the cylinder, a girl was lying in a floating position, seemingly kept in some state that was neither quite asleep nor quite awake, her long hair falling around her pale face, small wires and tubes entwined with her body from many sides.

Bạt Phong stood dumbfounded for a long time, not believing what his eyes were seeing. After all he imagined he might find in an abandoned military bunker—weapons, money, food—never did he think he would come face to face with a living human being, held captive for seven years in this underground darkness.

He raised his hand and gently pushed the door. It made a dry creak but opened anyway, revealing the entire room to him. Bạt Phong walked in, his heart beating rapidly, his eyes never leaving the transparent cylinder and the girl inside. On a nearby control panel, small text flashed in a faint red light, words that even seven years of dust could not completely erase: PROMOTION STATUS — STABLE.

Bạt Phong did not fully understand the meaning of that line, but he knew one thing for sure: the girl in the cylinder was not an object, and he could not turn around and leave her in this darkness one more day.