Chapter 168 Found the person
"Being well is more important than anything else."
The days passed, and soon it was early April.
Three months later, the Jiang family finally received the news that Jiang Hui had asked someone to send to them.
Because there are coal mines in P City, the underground has been hollowed out. The previous heavy rain caused floods, collapsed the mines, and destroyed many ground buildings, including the ground base station.
The weather was bad afterwards, so communication with the outside world has not been restored for such a long time. The only remaining communication channels are all controlled by the base rescue team. Ordinary people can only rely on others to deliver messages and use this most traditional communication method to contact the outside world.
Inside the brown paper envelope were two sheets of paper with uneven edges that had been torn from a notebook. On them were handwriting that everyone in the Jiang family was familiar with, having often seen it on the village bulletin board.
This letter was written by Jiang Hongbing himself.
The letter first stated that the villagers were very happy to know that their family was doing well, and then went on to explain their decision...
Jiang Weimin held the letter, and the other family members gathered around him and read the letter from beginning to end.
Jiang Dong read the letter quickly and strongly disagreed with their decision. "The base in P City is much better than the base along the train line. If they move to A City, we can see each other more often and take care of them. Uncle Hongbing, is he confused this time?"
Ren Ru glanced at him and quietly tugged at his sleeve.
Huang Liping frowned after reading the letter and did not agree with the villagers' ideas, but when she thought of the reasons Hongbing wrote in the letter, she did not say anything.
However, Jiang Weimin shed a few tears of excitement when reading the letter, but he was very open-minded about the decision of Jiang Hui and Jiang Weimin.
"Your Uncle Hongbing has a point. It's snowy and icy right now, and the roads are hard to walk on. They're old and young, and they're doing fine in P City. There's no need to move."
Jiang Weimin said as he folded the letter in his hand and put it back into the envelope. "Besides, according to the experts' forecast, it won't be long before the weather warms up. Even if we need to move, it won't be too late to wait until the weather warms up. It doesn't matter if it's far away, as long as everyone is well."
After so long since the incident, and having witnessed so many separations of life and death, Jiang Weimin has become increasingly able to understand this point.
Mr. Ren, who was standing next to him, was also touched when he heard this. "Yes, a healthy person is more important than anything else."
Jiang Weimin figured it out himself, so naturally no one else said anything, and the matter just passed.
…
After Jiang Qian's identity was exposed, the news was not announced or spread for her protection. It was only known to the senior management of the rescue center and a small number of people who handled the matter.
Although it was known that the train was controlled by humans, the train affairs working group was not disbanded. It was simply placed under the jurisdiction of the female leader that Jiang Qian had met before, but was still responsible for all matters related to the train.
By mid-March, all the stations on Line 3 of the train had been set up. According to the instructions of the working group, Jiang Qian left two trains on Line 3 and began the construction of Line 4, which runs across the east and west, and began to add the final stroke to the "field" network of domestic train trunk lines.
Now, half a month has passed, and this main line running across the east and west has reached the midpoint where it intersects with Line 1.
It should have been April, the month of flowers and plants, but outside the train the sky was still covered with ice and snow, without a single bright color.
This long winter really lasted for more than five months just as the system said.
Fortunately, because of the preparations made in advance, and the high-quality cold-resistant seeds and nutrient solutions that Jiang Qian obtained from time to time through the system and interstellar transactions, although this winter was difficult, there was no shortage of food, and a small portion could even be traded with some foreign rescue organizations.
The rescue center agreed to this deal not out of any ulterior motive, but because they knew the dangers of the crystal core and wanted to recover it while appeasing those jackals that might cause trouble along the coast.
In order to survive and for food, these people abroad have adopted a completely different attitude in the past two months.
Jiang Qian was in frequent contact with the female leader, and after learning about these things from her, she felt that if they had acted earlier, they wouldn't have had to trade with them for food. After all, some of these countries were well-known food exporters, with vast and fertile land that even their own people envied.
However, Jiang Qian only listened to these pieces of news and passed them over. She was more concerned about the train's revenue than the complexities of international trade.
When winter arrived, the zombies' mobility slowed, and many people went to kill zombies to dig out crystal cores and then exchange them for items at vending machines. To help more people survive the winter, Jiang Qian also specially replaced the flashy instant noodles in the vending machines with real food such as rice and flour.
Perhaps because of this reason, there were so many people exchanging the money that Jiang Qian even had to limit the purchase, just like when she sold the special medicine for cooling off the heat before.
But in the following two months, perhaps because the zombies near each station had been almost cleared out, the train's revenue gradually decreased.
Jiang Qian didn't realize this at first. After all, the bulk of the train's revenue still comes from tickets, and the daily revenue fluctuates. Even if there are changes, the difference is not too big.
What made her realize this was that at the end of last month she suddenly discovered that the revenue for that month had dropped significantly compared to the previous month.
After she asked the system to investigate, she found out that the train's largest customer, Mr. Watasha and his family, had checked out and moved to another carriage because they did not have enough crystal cores to pay for their tickets.
It was also at this time that Jiang Qian, who had been staying in the car, realized that surprising changes had taken place outside without her knowing.
Although it was still covered with ice and snow, it seemed as if something was about to break through the ice.
Jiang Qian looked out the window and muttered to herself.
"How long until spring arrives?"
[There is still about a month left.]
The system showed her in her mind the information about this period recorded by the interstellar people that the two of them had previously looked through.
[Didn't we see this before? It's expected that by mid-May, temperatures will generally rise above freezing, and the snow will melt.]
Jiang Qian wanted to explain that she was not talking about this, but she swallowed her words back when she thought that this was the system's concern.
"Will there be any crisis when the weather warms up?"
[There's no detailed information in the data, so I think the concerns are probably about zombies and the spread of germs.]
Jiang Qian thought about it and realized that with the warmer weather, the zombies, confined by the low temperatures for the entire winter, would probably start to move around again. The various pathogens that had been dormant due to the low temperatures would also awaken as the earth gradually warmed.
But she is not worried about that now.
This winter, due to everyone's enthusiasm in exchanging food, the zombies around the major bases have almost disappeared and no longer pose much of a threat to the people living in the bases.
As for the pathogens, after the research institute confirmed the purification ability of the fungi that it had previously obtained from the train and was able to decompose the pathogens, it named this fungus "Hope" and has been working hard to cultivate it this winter.
I heard from the female leader that they have now cultivated enough "hope" for purification, and are waiting for the ice and snow to melt and spread all over the earth!
At the end of April, official media released public information to remind all bases and the public that the temperature is about to rise and to pay attention to flood prevention.
After receiving the news, each base became busy. The low-lying areas began to migrate the population first, while the areas with relatively low terrain began to gather people to clear the snow inside and outside the base.
Amidst this busyness, people discovered that the temperature was indeed rising day by day, just as predicted. There were even reports from some areas in the south that the ice and snow had begun to melt.
Seeing that this strange and long winter is about to pass, everyone is excited.
Although the zombies were less active in winter and it was relatively safe, no one wanted to stay in the base all the time. Moreover, although there was no shortage of food this winter, it was still impossible to eat enough, let alone as much as before.
Some people had already planned to wait until spring to see if they could apply for a plot of land from the rescue team so they could grow whatever they wanted to eat. Now that they heard the snow had started to melt, they couldn't wait to get to work cultivating the land.
But before the ground was exposed, another piece of news came across the sea.
When Jiang Qian heard the female leader say this, she was a little bit unbelieving.
"What did you say? Have you found the person?"
"Yes." During the video call, the female leader's face showed a complicated expression. But after more contact with her recently, Jiang Qian could still see a hint of joy in that complicated expression.
"Someone found Edmund's student, Keith, on a wealthy man's ship. He was serving as a ship's doctor. Foreign rescue organizations have taken him into custody and learned a lot from him."
The female leader didn't keep Jiang Qian in suspense and directly told her the result.
"According to him, Edmund secretly preserved an original sample of the pathogen when he evacuated the previous laboratory. Later, after the mutation occurred, a wealthy man secretly contacted them and wanted to take them aboard to continue their research. Edmund agreed and asked to take him along."
"Gis said that his relatives had passed away and he had nowhere to go. There were zombies everywhere, so he followed Edmund to survive. But later, an infected person accidentally mixed into the rich man's ship. That person turned into a zombie and infected the other crew members. As a result, a riot broke out on the ship, and Edmund and the rich man both died accidentally in the riot."
"Gis and a few others on board decisively jumped overboard and escaped. Later, while drifting at sea, he was found by the current owner of this ship. After being rescued, he became the ship's doctor."
"According to Gis, the monkey wanted for scratching a local tycoon was indeed a lab animal that escaped from their research institute. The virus that caused the mutation may have been carried and spread at that time. The monkey sneaked onto a ship out to sea, and by the time they discovered it, it was too late to recover it. Later, they discovered that those attacked by the monkey began to show mutations, and the virus continued to spread to those around them..."
"Researchers like Edmund and Gis had already sensed the potential crisis and reported it to the wealthy individuals sponsoring the research. However, upon learning the news, they simply found an excuse to close the research institute early, relocate the people living on the island, and privately provide medical assistance to those who had experienced the abnormalities. However, no information regarding the research was made public..."
"After experiencing the incident and the riot on the ship, Gies became even more deeply aware that this research could no longer proceed. After Edmund's death, as the person most familiar with the research, he worried that someone would ask him to continue the work, so he changed his name and stayed on board. Fortunately, at that time, everything was in chaos. He was a medical student with strong professional skills, exactly the kind of technical talent the ship needed, so no one strictly checked his ID, which allowed him to hide for so long..."
"As for the original sample of the virus that Edmond kept, he said Edmond gave it to him before he died. It was on his body before he jumped into the sea, but no one knows where it ended up after he jumped..."
"He said he had never imagined the original data would be so useful and regretted his decision to participate in the research."
…
【Author’s words】
There will be a small red envelope for leaving a 2-point comment in this chapter!
Thank you for your support! The next chapter will be updated before 10 pm on Friday.
There is still a list this week, and it will be updated with 15,000+ [dog head holding a rose]
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
