Chapter 62

This was the first proper meal of the new year, so of course they had to eat it clean. The two of them went home to wash themselves. When Jian Chu came over with the wetness still on his body, he sighed, "I don't have to go out anymore, so I don't have to shower so frequently. I can finally drink the water I saved a little more freely."

Mu Nan also felt so. Although they were not short of water, he still felt guilty about wasting water resources by taking a shower every day at this time. If they didn't need to go out, he and Qin Huai would only need to wipe themselves once a day with wet wipes.

Seeing that there was still a pumpkin in Mu Nan's house, Jian Chu was surprised: "Fortunately, the solar energy was installed in time, otherwise the pumpkin would not be able to be preserved in the high temperature for so many days. Why don't you keep it and eat it slowly? Pumpkins are very durable."

Mu Nan said: "Let's do it. It's New Year's Day. I'll open a few packs of Zihaiguo and cook a big pot. You can just watch me cook the pumpkin." The Zihaiguo needs to be heated outside with water, and the water cannot be drunk. It's such a waste. It's better to take out everything inside and then pour water into the pot to cook.

Qin Huai and Yu Zibai were kneading the dough, so there was no way to make dumplings. According to Jian Chu's previous idea, if they put beef jerky as the meat filling, they didn't know what it would taste like. It would be better to make steamed buns or soup. After all, it was also pasta and they could just treat it as dumplings.

Several people were busy with their own tasks, chatting from time to time, but mostly Jian Chu was talking, Mu Nan responded a few words, Yu Zibai would then pull back Jian Chu's exaggerated words, and Qin Huai would listen on the side. The atmosphere was quite harmonious. If it weren't for the limited food and the piles of corpses outside, coupled with some of the background sounds of the Spring Festival Gala in previous years that Mu Nan had specially found, it would really have a festive atmosphere.

After working for several hours, Jian Chu managed to cook a table full of food even with limited ingredients. The pot of red hot pot in the middle was the most appetizing. Mu Nan poured out the fruit pulp from the canned fruit and made it into a dish. He mixed the juice with some ice water, which was neither too sweet nor too sweet, but still had a little sweetness. There were no drinks at the moment, so he could drink some canned water as a drink.

Several people picked up their glasses and clinked them.

Qin Huai said: "I wish everyone peace and good health in the coming year."

Yu Zibai: "I don't ask for everything to go smoothly, I just hope that we can have a chance to sit together and have a meal like this next year."

Jian Chu quickly responded: "Of course it will, the disaster will pass, and tomorrow will be better!"

Mu Nan said: "Cheers!"

It had been a long time since he had eaten heavy-tasting food. Jian Chu reached into the pot with his chopsticks and picked up a piece of meat. However, he did not put it in his own bowl, but in Mu Nan's bowl: "You are the youngest, you should be the first to eat the good things!"

Mu Nan smiled and gave Jian Chu a piece of meat as a courtesy: "You are the second youngest, you eat second."

Yu Zibai said: "According to age, I am not the one who is at the worst disadvantage, I am the oldest."

Jian Chu picked up a vermicelli for him: "Here, here, your favorite."

Mu Nan put a piece of meat into Qin Huai's bowl: "Brother, Happy New Year."

Qin Huai looked at him with a smile. After several years, he could finally say to his child again: "Happy New Year, Nan Nan."

Without having to think about going out, the moment he woke up, Mu Nan seemed to have returned to the time before the earthquake when he was trapped at home by smog and unable to go out. However, he could not stay in bed too long. Today he had to check the entire house thoroughly and try to isolate all loopholes. Qin Huai did not save water either. After Mu Nan put all the things in the living room into the space, he cleaned it inside and out with diluted disinfectant. They had moved back a lot of things from outside in the past two days, and they were all sorted in his living room, so disinfection was necessary.

Fortunately, there were no holes in their living room, and the only air-conditioning outlet had been sealed before. For peace of mind, Mu Nan pasted another layer of tape. Then there were the gaps in the windows and the gaps in the two doors, mainly because the plague could be spread through the air. Although they lived on a high floor, there was a room with solar panels installed and the windows were open, so the gaps in the doors had to be sealed.

After sealing the kitchen doors with tape, Qin Huai also sealed the floor drain of the bathroom sewer, as it was easy for reptiles to breed there. Since the bathroom still needed to be used and there was no way to seal it with tape, he could only tape the windows shut and seal the floor drains.

Seeing Qin Huai sealing the toilet, Mu Nan couldn't help but ask, "So are we going to start using cat litter?"

Qin Huai: "Although we are not short of water, we have to prevent viruses. We don't know if sick people will come back to live here. Besides, the sewers have been blocked for a long time since the outside collapsed. Before, only a few of us were still using it. We live on high floors, so it's not affected for now. When more people come, the problem will erupt. Let's use cat litter."

In his previous life, although Mu Nan had stored some water in advance, he didn't know what the future would be like, so he didn't dare to use more. Therefore, during that period, he didn't even have water to flush the toilet. As for how to solve personal needs, it was an embarrassing process. Fortunately, he survived, otherwise he wouldn't have thought of cat litter first when he was reborn and needed to store supplies. So he didn't actually use the toilet much later, and didn't pay attention to the condition of the sewer.

Now that I've heard Qin Huai say this, I might as well use it. It may feel a little awkward at first, but it should be fine once you get used to it.

Qin Huai said: "Didn't your space upgrade?"

Mu Nan was puzzled: "Upgrade?"

Qin Huai: "You said that now we can see what's inside the box without opening it."

Mu Nan said "Oh" twice: "Yeah, what's wrong?"

Qin Huai smiled and said, "Don't put the household garbage in the space. Seal it with a plastic bag and throw it next door. I will throw it down when the elevator is back in operation."

Mu Nan blushed and said, "Okay, hey, why do people need to eat, drink, defecate and urinate? It's really troublesome."

Qin Huai said with a smile: "If you don't eat, drink, defecate and urinate, you can't become an immortal. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. When you were a kid, you pooped in your pants and I helped you clean it up."

At that time, Nan Nan was less than three years old and was sent to the nursery class. He was more than five years old and was in the senior class. Mu Nan was shy and timid when he first went to kindergarten. He wanted to go to the bathroom but didn't dare to tell the teacher, so he couldn't hold it and pooped his pants, and then ran to the senior class crying to find him. He thought something was wrong. He had been worried that Nan Nan would be bullied by other children. When he saw Nan Nan crying and coming to him, he panicked. As a result, he found out that she just pooped her pants after asking.

Mu Nan quickly covered his mouth: "I know you have a good memory, can we put aside the things that happened before the age of three? We still have to eat later!"

After a whole afternoon of hard work, all the safety hazards in the house were eliminated. Everything that could be sealed was sealed, and everything that could be disinfected was disinfected. Then Mu Nan put the bed and the small coffee table back in place, and slowly took out the other things. Now it was time to eat.

Because they had been busy for a while, even in the air-conditioned room, they were still sweating all over, so they simply took a shower. Mu Nan took out a dining table from the space, filled it with food, got beer for Qin Huai and a drink for himself. When Qin Huai came out of the shower, Mu Nan smiled and said, "Brother, come quickly, it's our turn to have the New Year's Eve dinner!"

There were fish, meat, shrimps, wine, and a pot of big, plump dumplings in the middle. At this moment, the computer was playing the sound of collective New Year's greetings from some year's Spring Festival Gala. The festive music added a touch of liveliness to the year that was only for the two of them.

Because of Qin Huai's generous donation, all the medical staff in their camp now wear masks. Although they had some before, not many were dug out from the ruins, so they could only provide them to the medical staff in the tent that was responsible for concentrating infectious disease patients. Now, it's not much more, but it's enough to barely reach one for each medical staff. However, after just one night, the number of sick people increased exponentially.

Xu Ming is just a veterinarian. He has no problem dealing with some external injuries or emergency treatment, but he has not received systematic training in things like infectious diseases. It would be a waste if he were used as a nurse, so he still stays in the tents for the wounded in front, mainly dealing with some sutures or amputations.

No new survivors have been sent here in the past two days. He has not asked about the population statistics of this camp. It seems that there are quite a few people, but this place includes dozens of nearby communities. It is not known whether the number of survivors has exceeded 10,000.

It is said that the situation in other areas is even worse. Because they have a central hospital here, some medical staff inside were rescued in time, so many survivors who were rescued received treatment and survived. However, in other areas, some hospitals are too far away, and by the time they rushed to rescue, the best golden period had been missed. There is a shortage of medical care and medicine. Even if some people who were pulled out of the rubble are still breathing, in the end they can only watch them slowly struggle to death.

Xu Ming thought that he was mentally strong, but his empathy was actually very poor. The sadness in pet hospitals was no less than that in human hospitals. When a pet that he had raised for more than ten years passed away, the collapse of the pet owners was sometimes more direct than the sadness of losing a loved one, but he had never been moved or distressed by this. He seemed to be born to hold a scalpel, but because he lacked respect for life, he was afraid that he would go down a path of no return, so he chose to be a veterinarian.

Normally he hides himself with gentleness and humility, and after hiding for so long, it seems to have become an instinct. He would instinctively step forward when he sees someone in need of help, and would instinctively show sympathy to the young. But in fact, those are just outward manifestations, and rarely do they truly touch his heart.

But now, for the first time, he couldn't bear to look at the devastation outside.

After drinking two sips of water and calming down, Xu Ming left his residence and walked towards the tent for the injured. Yesterday, a man's leg showed signs of necrosis, but there were no conditions to perform surgery on him at that time. He would go and take another look today. If it really doesn't work, amputation will be necessary. However, there is no operating room, no sophisticated instruments, and everything depends on his own experience. In such a harsh environment, that person may not be able to survive.

I was thinking over the treatment plan in my mind when I suddenly heard a child's weak voice shouting that his stomach hurt.

Xu Ming paused and looked in the direction of the voice. He saw a woman who was so dirty that she could not be recognized. She was sitting in an empty corner with disheveled hair, holding a little girl of about six or seven years old in her arms. Even though the little girl's face was dirty, it was abnormally pale and her lips were bloodless. She was held in her mother's lap. What she was wearing could not be considered clothes, but only rags. Although the exposed skin was dirty and black, it could be seen that her body was abnormal, with a sunken abdominal cavity and heavy lymph nodes. The child was in a semi-comatose state, her eyes were dull and she was instinctively crying out in pain to her mother.

Xu Ming walked over, and the woman held the child cautiously to resist his approach.

Xu Ming had no choice but to stop far away and said: "Your daughter is sick, she needs treatment."

The woman looked at him numbly: "Can it be cured? Can it be cured?"

Her daughter fell ill two days ago. At first, she just vomited and had diarrhea, but she could still drink water and eat food. As a result, she was sent to the tent at the back. She could not eat anything except crying in pain. It took less than a day for her to go from diarrhea to bloody water, accompanied by a high fever. She saw that everyone in the tent had similar symptoms, and several of the serious ones had been dragged out. The so-called treatment was just waiting for death.

It is said that a major disaster will inevitably lead to a major epidemic. There is no rescue, and there are ruins everywhere with countless dead bodies buried. They can neither leave nor escape. There are no hospitals, no medicines, and no treatment. What can they do? They are just given some anti-inflammatory drugs and some antibiotics and have to survive on their own.

The woman knew that she was also sick. She was vomiting and had abdominal pain. She also started to have a fever. She was hot and cold. It was incurable. In the past, a shot might have cured her disease, but now it was fatal. She was just waiting to die in agony. It was better to die outside in peace. At least there wouldn't be so many desperate moans of pain. The father of the child was buried down there. It had been so many days. He must be dead. Only the mother and daughter were left. She was sick again. What treatment was there? Two more days of endurance would only mean two more days of pain. It was better to die and be relieved.

Xu Ming knew that there was indeed no cure and no medicine for the disease, so he could only rely on his own immunity to survive.

Xu Ming stepped back and did not try to persuade her any further. He did not know whether the woman could be saved, but the little girl could no longer bear it. The swollen lymph nodes alone were incurable, and judging from the situation, she would probably only live a few hours. The child was gone, but he felt that asking a mother who had lost her husband and child to live on bravely was the cruelest thing of all.

After Xu Ming reported the situation of the mother and daughter, he no longer cared about it. This was not an isolated case. Some people were afraid of death and struggled to live, while others were afraid of living and naturally waited for death. For Xu Ming, this was a personal choice.

In the end, the person who needed amputation did not survive. Amputation is a major surgery, and even in the past when medicine was not scarce, this surgery carried fatal risks. What's more, now, because they had already been mentally prepared, the doctors and nurses who performed the surgery calmly let people drag the body away, although this calmness might have been only on the surface.

Xu Ming took off his surgical gown. He was certainly not the lead surgeon, even though he had performed this type of surgery on many pets. Unless there were no more doctors available in the camp, he would not be the lead surgeon. So in terms of mentality, he was probably the calmest of all.

Just when she was leaving the operating tent after cleaning and disinfection, there was another noise outside. Xu Ming looked over and saw a nurse who had been helping out just now, sitting on the ground with her head down and crying. The nurse was not very old, only 20 years old. It was said that she had only graduated from medical school a few years ago. After being assigned to the hospital, she had been a contract worker. During the last smog epidemic, she chose to stay in the hospital because the hospital told her that anyone who participated in the rescue could be transferred to a formal position. As a result, not long after the girl became a regular employee, she encountered extreme heat and then an earthquake.

It can be said that from the beginning of the smog until now, the tense nerves have never relaxed at all, and the number of dead people is probably more than that of some old nurses who have worked for a lifetime. The death of the patient who needed amputation just now may be the last straw that broke the camel's back. The girl collapsed and could not bear it anymore.

Xu Ming felt that this girl was actually quite strong and brave. Many doctors and nurses collapsed during the smog period, and the death toll from the heatwave continued to rise. She was able to hold on until now, which was really strong. After all, she was only in her twenties. But what would it matter if she collapsed? She could escape from this job, but she couldn't escape from the desperate environment now.

The rescue work has ended. After so many days, the possibility of survivors is almost zero, so now the work begins to remove the bodies. Some protective clothing had been found in the hospital before. In addition to the doctors in the infectious disease tent, the soldiers in charge of the removal also wore protective clothing. As for the others who participated in the removal for a ration, they could be allocated a mask and gloves. They only needed to clear the collapsed ruins. If a body was found, they would call people wearing protective clothing to deal with it, and try to avoid direct contact with the bodies without protective clothing.

But even so, this job carries a high risk of infection, so not many people are willing to do it. As a result, the progress of cleaning up the bodies has been very slow. However, in the area marked out for cremation, except for a brief break during the day, the thick black smoke has never stopped from the time it gets dark to the time it gets light again.

The whole city was shrouded in black smoke from burning corpses and the ubiquitous stench of corpses. When the sun was setting, Mu Nan lifted the curtain outside to take a quick look. The situation outside was getting closer and closer to the darkest period in his previous life. As people gradually recovered from the earthquake, the despair of never being able to go back was more terrifying than the spread of the outbreak. Even though he was hiding upstairs and looking outside, even if he couldn't see anyone, he seemed to be able to feel the breath of despair.

Qin Huai sat next to him. As the sun was about to set, the sunlight was not so glaring, so he pulled the outer shield a little further open and watched outside with him.

Mu Nan leaned on Qin Huai: "Brother, I never thought that the world we live in would become like this."

Qin Huai reached out and touched his face: "It's okay, don't be afraid, I'm here."

Mu Nan smiled and said, "Don't be afraid." This time with Qin Huai here, he was not afraid at all.

It was not until the sky outside was completely dark that he could even see several fires in the distance from upstairs. Mu Nan knew that they were burning corpses, so he stopped watching and put down the film covering the outside and the temperature-isolating curtain inside the house. "What are we going to eat later?"

Seeing that Mu Nan didn't take the situation outside to heart, at least the desolation outside didn't affect his appetite, Qin Huai finally felt relieved: "You can eat whatever you want."

Mu Nan thought for a moment and said, "Eat barbecue?"

Qin Huai nodded: "Okay."

Although I couldn't feel the joy of eating skewers at a busy night market, it was still quite comfortable to rewatch thousands of episodes of anime while drinking wine and eating skewers with Qin Huai leaning on the bed. However, Mu Nan looked at Qin Huai's mature face with sharp lines, and then looked at the anime on the computer, and couldn't help but said, "Brother, do you think it's boring to watch this with me? You can watch a movie if you want."

Qin Huai didn't care: "Fortunately, this washing machine is OK. It's not easy for me to be a primary school student even though I have been working for so many years."

Mu Nan laughed and poured it on the ground: "What washing machine? I still have a drum machine."

Qin Huai supported him to prevent him from kicking over the small coffee table.

After eating and drinking, Mu Nan and Qin Huai returned to bed, but Mu Nan continued to look at his washing machine, while Qin Huai held his own computer and typed something. Mu Nan tilted his head to take a look, and saw a bunch of characters: "Brother, what are you doing?"

Qin Huai: "I'll try to play some small games for you. You have nothing to do anyway."

Mu Nan said, "Then why don't you make a snake, but the things it eats are no longer squares, but the ones on my recipe."

Qin Huai turned to look at him: "It's a bit difficult." After all, the Internet is down now, and I can't find the materials directly from the Internet. I have to do it myself. But looking at Mu Nan's sparkling eyes, Qin Huai said: "I'll try."

Mu Nan watched some anime for a while, and then dug out some makeup videos he had saved. He thought that he would learn how to put on makeup in winter when water resources were not so scarce. Forget it now, as there was not enough water to wash his face. "I will try to make my face look sallow and haggard in the future."

Qin Huai: "Why not just rub it on the ground a few times and make your face a little dirty?"

Mu Nan: "Take a look, maybe it will come in handy someday." When he and Qin Huai went to the mall in City B to go shopping, he bought a full set of cosmetics. He bought everything recommended by the lady at the counter, just in case.

When Mu Nan was about to take out the cosmetics from the space and compare them with the beauty blogger one by one to see what they were, there was a knock on the iron door outside, but the distance was a bit far, it seemed that the anti-theft iron door installed at the end of Yu Zibai's house was knocked.

Mu Nan quickly closed the computer and turned to look at Qin Huai. Qin Huai said, "It may be the army sweeping the building. I'll go check it out."

Mu Nan climbed up and said, "Brother, be careful."

Qin Huai nodded, put on a mask, took out a small crossbow, opened the door carefully and went out. As soon as Qin Huai opened the door, Yu Zibai next door also opened the door and looked inside. At the staircase where there was an anti-theft door, someone was looking inside with a flashlight.

Seeing that the people behind them were all in military uniforms, the two of them did not take it lightly and stood a little further away before asking, "What's the matter?"

The man with the flashlight knocked on the security door blocking the staircase: "You have a very high safety factor here. Has everyone on your floor returned? Is anyone sick?"

Yu Zibai was not wearing a mask, so when he saw Qin Huai wearing a mask, he realized what time it was, so he did not approach. Qin Huai said, "Can you please show me your ID?"

The man didn't expect Qin Huai to be so alert. Didn't their clothes clearly reveal their identities? However, he still showed his officer ID, thinking that it was a good thing that he was careful when he came to patrol the building.

After looking at the other party's ID, Qin Huai said, "Only the family of No. 3 came back two days ago. They must have packed up their things and left. There is also a doctor in the family of No. 7 who joined the medical team and has not returned. The other three families are all here."

Someone in the back was taking notes and did not ask them to open the iron gate. Instead, he said, "First, register the house number and the name of the householder. We will do a statistics."

Qin Huai reported his and Mu Nan's house numbers and names, and Yu Zibai then stepped forward to report his own and Jian Chu's. The man said, "If there is a sick person at home, send him to the medical station in the camp as soon as possible. There are doctors and nurses there. Don't just bear it at home."

Seeing them nod, several soldiers said: "You guys go inside, don't go out if you can." Being in the center of the epidemic area, no matter whether you can survive or not, the best way to survive is to stay at home.