Jiang Chan led Xiao Tao through the village road filled with rubble and broken tiles.
The air was filled with the smell of dust and burnt wood.
They stopped in front of a mud house that was almost half collapsed.
This is the only one left that hasn't been occupied.
This house was more dilapidated than the other houses in the village, with only a few crooked beams remaining on the roof, like broken ribs propping up in the setting sun.
The four walls were barely standing, but the plaster had peeled off, revealing the uneven adobe bricks inside.
"Sleep here tonight." Jiang Chan kicked away a few broken tiles, which rolled on the ground with a crisp clanging sound. She bent down and cleared a space where she could barely lie down.
Xiao Tao obediently sat down, clutching her little bundle.
The setting sun streamed directly down from the roof, casting dappled light and shadow on her dirty little face.
Jiang Chan handed the water pouch to Xiao Tao, "Have some."
Xiao Tao took the water pouch, somewhat puzzled, "Sister Jiang, this water... why can't I finish it? The water pouch was this heavy yesterday, and it's still this heavy now!"
Jiang Chan's fingers stiffened almost imperceptibly, but her expression remained unchanged. "Really? You've probably misjudged. It looks much lighter to me." Her voice was calm and utterly undisturbed.
Xiao Tao blinked, somewhat puzzled, but she simply said "Oh" softly, took a small sip, and then handed the water pouch back as if it were a precious treasure.
Jiang Chan put away the water pouch, glancing at Xiao Tao's thoughtful expression out of the corner of her eye. Her heart tightened slightly; this child was much more perceptive than she had imagined.
...
After a long day's work, everyone found a place to lie down. Even if there were no doors or windows, a few walls would do, which was better than sleeping in the wilderness.
A few suppressed sobs occasionally drifted through the wind, but soon silence returned.
Xiao Tao was already asleep, her small body rising and falling gently with her breath. Several tear streaks were reflected on her dirty face. This child was crying even in her sleep.
Jiang Chan gently tugged at the coat covering Xiao Tao, the movement so subtle that she herself didn't even realize it.
Moonlight streamed through the holes in the roof, casting dappled shadows on the ground.
Only after confirming that Xiao Tao's breathing was steady and that she had fallen into a deep sleep did Jiang Chan's sharp eyes, still bright in the darkness, flicker slightly.
The next second, something appeared in her palm.
The miniature detector, about the size of an adult's thumb, has a streamlined and precise shape, resembling a steel hummingbird shrunk countless times.
At the same time, she pressed her matching surveillance glasses to her temples, and a fleeting glimmer of light appeared before her eyes.
She gently lifted the tiny hummingbird in her palm and quickly ran her fingers across a spot on its back.
"Buzz—"
A very faint buzzing sound, with a frequency so high it almost exceeds the limits of human hearing, rang out.
The folding wings on both sides of the "Steel Hummingbird" instantly unfolded and stabilized, and the entire aircraft hovered just an inch above Jiang Chan's palm, as quiet as a ghost.
Through the invisible "lens" in front of her, Jiang Chan clearly "saw" the holographic projection data of the object floating in her palm: sufficient energy, normal environmental parameter scan, optical camouflage coating activated...
With a slight thought, she sent out a simple command via neural link.
The suspended miniature detector gently adjusted its angle, aiming at the huge, empty window opening in the adjacent wall.
"Whoosh—"
A shadow, swifter and silenter than the night wind, like a true ghost, shot out from the gap in an instant and disappeared into the thick darkness outside.
The light blue interface in Jiang Chan's eyes switched instantly.
The field of vision was divided into two parts: the main field of vision was still the ruins of the deserted village in front of us and Xiao Tao sleeping soundly beside us; while the upper third of the field of vision was occupied by a rapidly changing, stable and clear overhead view - the "hummingbird's eye" from a hundred meters above.
Under the moonlight, the ruins of the deserted village transformed into a gray-white, sharply defined miniature model.
The outlines of those dilapidated houses, the blurry human-shaped heat sources huddled in the corners, the winding, dried-up riverbed, and the lifeless wastelands undulating in the night wind in the distance were all clearly presented before her eyes. At the edges of the image, there were subtle data streams marked with height, direction, wind speed, and other parameters.
The probe, hundreds of meters in the air, was like her extended senses. With her will, it silently increased its altitude, adjusted its direction, and steadily and swiftly swept towards the direction the team was scheduled to travel the next day.
In the night vision mode of the glasses, the unknown darkness ahead was peeled away layer by layer. The detector, like a silent falcon patrolling in the dark, continuously converted the terrain undulations, suspicious obstacles, and even the faint light or heat signals that might exist further away into a clear data stream, which was then projected into Jiang Chan's field of vision.
She stood motionless against the cold, icy earthen wall, only her eyes, reflecting a faint blue light, silently turning in the darkness, calmly scrutinizing the images transmitted back by the detector.
As the probe flew further and further away, the images it transmitted showed nothing unusual except for endless desolation and deathly silence.
The probe flew steadily for about two kilometers when suddenly, at the edge of the image above Jiang Chan's field of vision, an unusual heat source signal was detected. There were quite a few of them, gathered in a relatively open depression near a dry riverbed.
With a slight thought, the detector rapidly descended in altitude, and the optical lens zoomed in.
The image instantly became clear; it was also a group of people fleeing famine.
The number of people was slightly less than that of Liushutun, about thirty or forty.
But their situation cannot be described as "miserable"; they are more like a group of wandering souls who have just crawled out of the edge of hell.
People lay scattered on the cold, hard ground, like tattered sacks carelessly discarded. Most of them didn't even have a piece of cloth; they lay directly on the bare ground covered with gravel and dust. Their clothes were no longer recognizable in color or shape, with only tattered strips of cloth hanging precariously on their withered limbs.
Their postures varied, yet each one was filled with extreme pain and numbness.
A man curled up like a shrimp, his arms tightly wrapped around his abdomen. His body trembled violently, perhaps from pain and hunger, and the sound of his teeth chattering seemed to penetrate the screen and reach Jiang Chan's ears.
An old woman lay on her back with her mouth wide open, like a fish out of water. Her chest barely rose and fell. The moonlight shone on her sunken eye sockets and cheekbones, making her look like a skinned skeleton.
The children huddled together like frightened little animals under a relatively sheltered earthen embankment. The oldest was no more than seven or eight years old, and the youngest looked only three or four. Their small bodies instinctively huddled together, absorbing that little bit of insignificant body heat.
A young woman was lying on her side, seemingly holding something in her arms. The camera zoomed in, and Jiang Chan saw clearly—it was a swaddled baby, but inside the swaddled baby was a small, already stiff and bluish infant corpse.
The woman's withered hands unconsciously patted the baby's back again and again, her movements stiff and slow. Her eyes were completely unfocused, leaving only a heart-wrenching emptiness.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
