Chapter 24
The steaming hot meal was served, with three dishes and one soup in total: stewed pork ribs with corn, stir-fried tofu with scallions, shredded cabbage, and shredded pork with green peppers.
The woman filled Xiaolu Shiyu's special cartoon bowl with white rice. Xiaolu Shiyu was not very skilled in using children's chopsticks to pick up food. He picked up a piece of tofu with anticipation, but it tasted bland when he ate it.
"Hmm?" Xiaolu Yurou's little face wrinkled up. She picked up another piece of cabbage, but it still had no taste.
"Mom, why are the dishes tasteless?" Xiao Lushi said, pointing at the tofu and cabbage.
"Did I forget to add salt?" The woman picked up a piece of tofu and said, "No, it tastes normal."
The man also picked up a piece of cabbage with chopsticks, tasted it and said it tasted normal.
"But, but it just has no taste." Xiaolu Shiyu spoke a little anxiously.
"Baby, children can't eat too much seasoning. This tastes just right."
The woman thought that Xiaolu Shiyu felt that the taste of the food was not strong enough, so she touched Xiaolu Shiyu's head soothingly. Only then did Xiaolu Shiyu close his mouth and lower his head to eat the tasteless food.
How strange! It clearly had no taste at all, so why did Mom and Dad say it was normal? Xiaolu finished his meal with a lingering aftertaste. Afterwards, he ran back to his room, rummaged through his toy box, found a bag of candy, bit it open with his teeth, and ate the candy inside. Still, there was no taste.
Xiaolu Shiyu sat depressed on the small bay window in his room, unable to understand why nothing he ate tasted good.
Should I tell my parents? But if I tell them, I'll probably be taken to the hospital. Xiaolu Shiyu doesn't like hospitals, injections, or taking medicine.
Just as Xiaolu Shiyu was staring at the scenery outside the window, a big bird with two heads flew straight into the window. The whole bird was stuck to the window, and the glass was cracked. Then the bird fell from the window due to gravity and landed vertically below the building. Only some unknown transparent liquid was left on the glass.
"Why?"
Things happened so fast that Xiaolu Shiyu hadn't even reacted to what had just happened. Just as he was about to stick to the window to look down, the woman ran in in a panic.
"Yubao! Come with mommy quickly!"
Xiaolu Shiyu was picked up from under the armpit by the woman and taken away from the bay window. Xiaolu Shiyu blinked at the broken glass until he was taken out of the room and could no longer see him.
The woman took Lu Shiyu into the car and drove away, not knowing where their destination was. Along the way, there were many other cars like theirs, all heading in the same direction. Lu Shiyu looked out the window, occasionally catching sight of strange-looking things passing by.
When Xiaolu Shiyu realized that the man was not in the car, he leaned on the backrest of the front seat and asked the woman, "Mom, where is Dad?"
The woman looked nervous and a little scared, but she still managed a very forced smile towards Xiaolu Shiyu in the back seat: "Be good, baby. Daddy has something else to do, so he'll leave first. He'll be back when we get there."
The final destination of the traffic was a venue that was previously used to display art works and is now requisitioned as a temporary collective shelter.
There were many people like them who drove here, so the vehicles were stopped several kilometers away from the venue and asked to walk to the venue. Driving in was prohibited.
The people in the car had no choice but to get out and run as fast as they could, as if they would be caught up by something if they ran too slowly.
"Come on, baby, let's get off the bus."
The woman pulled Xiao Lu Shi Yu and ran with the main group, but Xiao Lu Shi Yu slowed down after running for a while and began to breathe heavily due to exhaustion.
"Mom, Mom, I can't run anymore."
The woman turned around and picked up Xiaolu Shiyu, then continued running. After running all the way, they finally arrived outside the venue. At this time, the woman was so tired that she was sweating profusely and didn't even bother to wipe it off. She put Xiaolu Shiyu down and held his hand and lined up at the entrance of the venue.
Xiaolu Shiyu looked around and saw that the people here seemed to be mothers with children. After waiting in line for a long time, Xiaolu Shiyu and the woman finally entered the venue. Although the air conditioning was turned on, it still felt stuffy and hot. And because of the running all the way, almost everyone had a sweaty smell on their bodies. The sweaty smell mixed with the smell of the air conditioning wafted through the venue. Xiaolu Shiyu didn't like this smell and asked the woman if he could leave.
The woman squatted down and tucked Xiaolu Shiyu's hair behind her ears. She said in a gentle tone, "Yubao, remember, don't listen to anything anyone says except what those uncles and aunts in uniform say. Don't go out either. Stay close to your mother. Got it?"
"knew."
"Then repeat what your mother just said."
"Don't talk to anyone, don't go out, and stay with mom."
"Baby, you're awesome," the woman said, kissing Xiaolu Shiyu's cheek. "Remember this: no matter what you see, don't be afraid. The uncles and aunties in uniform will protect us."
"Um!"
There were more and more people in the venue and the space inside was starting to run out.
Xiaolu Shiyu secretly heard two uniformed men talking outside. One of them said that they could not accept any more people because accidents were likely to happen, but the other said that this was the nearest shelter nearby. If they refused to accept them, what would happen to those who had not arrived in time?
Xiaolu Shiyu didn't understand what they were saying, he just knew his mother was calling him, so he ran back.
The woman tore open the bread bag and handed the bread inside to Xiaolu Shiyu. Xiaolu Shiyu took a bite, but it still had no taste.
"Mom, when can we go home?"
"We can go home once the uncles and aunts in uniform have finished dealing with things outside."
"Where's Dad?" Xiaolu Shiyu took a bite of bread and asked, "Why hasn't Dad come yet?"
The woman was silent for a moment and shook her head: "My mother doesn't know this either."
After a few more days, the people in the venue gradually began to have opinions about this kind of life with little to do in the cramped space, and quarrels and thefts began to occur. Xiaolu Shiyu sneaked out of the venue gate at night, wanting to go out and breathe some fresh air.
But she was soon discovered by an uncle in uniform. The uncle in uniform had a gun in his hand and relaxed a little when he saw that it was just a child.
"Didn't your mother tell you not to come out? Go back quickly."
Lu Shiyu trotted back into the venue, but still squatted at the door looking out. The man in uniform saw her go in and didn't care anymore, and continued to stand on duty at the door.
At this moment, a creature with four legs suddenly ran out from outside.
Because the ground near the venue was flat and open, it was discovered as soon as it appeared. Xiaolu Shiyu squinted his eyes and looked carefully. The thing looked very much like a deer, but it was a little different from the deer on TV. It had many eyes on its body, and the original sika deer patterns were occupied by eyes that opened and closed.
Xiaolu Shiyu thought he was seeing things, so he opened his eyes wide to see more clearly, but someone blindfolded him from behind.
"Mom?" Xiaolu Shiyu did not struggle when she smelled the familiar scent. Then she heard several gunshots and the sound of something falling to the ground. Then she was blindfolded and taken inside.
This time the woman got angry, which was rare. Xiaolu Shiyu could only lower his head and listen to the woman's criticism under suppressed anger.
This kind of thing happened frequently in the next few days. Suddenly, some strange-looking animals appeared and were then killed and dragged away by people in uniform. The security in the venue became even more chaotic.
On this day, two women suddenly had an argument over whether one of them had stolen the other's gold ring. In the end, it escalated into a physical fight. The space around the two women was left empty, forming a vacuum zone, which was surrounded by people who were eager to watch the fun. In the end, several people in uniform came in to prevent the conflict from escalating further.
Just when it was about to be revealed whether one party stole the other's things or one party falsely accused the other of stealing, an accident occurred.
A glass window in the stadium was suddenly shattered, and the things that suddenly rushed into the stadium were actually several bats as big as basketballs!
These bats may have been attracted by the lights in the venue at night. The ferocious-looking bats began to attack everywhere as soon as they entered the venue. Although the team responsible for protecting the safety of the venue had guns and could kill one bat with one shot, these bats flew without any trajectory and were difficult to hit. The venue suddenly fell into chaos. No one knew who took the lead, but suddenly some people started running out.
Xiaolu Shiyu and the woman were also separated by the panicked crowd, and at this moment, a bat rushed straight towards Xiaolu Shiyu.
Just as the bat was about to get close to Lu Shiyu's face, Lu Shiyu woke up.
Lu Shiyu was so frightened that she sat down on the ground with a layer of cold sweat on her back. The other people also had expressions of fear on their faces like her.
Lu Shiyu looked at his hands and the surrounding environment returned to normal.
"What's going on now?" Lu Shiyu gasped with lingering fear, his heart beating like a drum. He even began to wonder whether it was real or an illusion.
"It's probably the powder of this plant that has a hallucinogenic effect," Tang Zeyu said, sweat beads on his forehead, and he looked like he had just escaped from a nightmare. "But now the powder is used up."
The egg-like plant before it unfolded is still there, but now several petals have fully unfolded and the tentacles inside have become active.
Chen Yunliang immediately took out tools from his bag and collected the remaining powder before it was blown away by the wind.
Lu Shiyu took a deep breath, adjusted his thoughts, and then completely separated the illusion from reality.
Yes, her parents did look like that, and her family did look like that, but she was already in her teens when the aberration apocalypse broke out, and was not a kindergartener at all. She did not go to the shelter in the hallucination, but hid in the underground air-raid shelter in the community. Because the adults thought it was unsafe for children to go out, Lu Shiyu did not leave the air-raid shelter until the base was built, let alone squeeze with other people in the venue to watch a few aberrations suddenly appear from time to time.
Therefore, as long as you analyze carefully, you can quickly find out which memories are real and which are false memories created by hallucinations.
Lu Shiyu guessed that these hallucinations might be pieced together based on his own cognition, just like a dream, with pieces of this and that finally pieced together into a weird monster.
So even though she had never been to the shelter, she had heard several members of the Eagle Squad talk about it, and so she could see the shelter in her hallucinations.
However, Lu Shiyu couldn't help but sigh when she thought of the illusion she had just seen. If it wasn't an illusion, she would have probably forgotten what her biological parents looked like. The time had passed too long, and she didn't have any photos of her parents, so her memory began to become fuzzy. She didn't expect to see her parents again by accident, even though it was just a brief illusion.
"We just lost consciousness for three minutes," Chen Yunliang said, checking his watch. "Luckily, we didn't encounter any danger."
"No way? It feels like at least a month has passed." Shaoxing Yang scratched his head.
Yan Hong said, "Because this is just an illusion caused by the powder, just think of it as a nightmare."
The plant opened completely after spraying the powder. The petals were covered with golden pollen, and a little bit of crystal clear liquid began to be secreted between the tentacles. Several flying insects were attracted to it to feed.
Lu Shiyu looked at the fully opened plant and suddenly remembered that he had seen this plant in a book.
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