Chapter 195 Stay A Little Farther Away from Me
The temperature continued to rise, and when the remaining puddles of water on the ground were completely evaporated and dried up by the scorching sun, people who originally lived in the high-rise buildings of the community had to move to the basement.
This also means that families that originally lived alone like isolated islands have to meet in underground parking lots.
The underground parking lot is very large, and as soon as you get down you can smell the damp and fishy stench that is difficult to dissipate throughout the space. It is the residual smell after being soaked in heavy rainwater for so long.
There are not many vehicles in the parking lot. Many people drove away from the community and the city after the official notice of relocation, so the underground parking lot is now more spacious than before.
Xingxing walked on the cool ground, sniffing the ubiquitous fishy smell of water. Qiuqiu flew low over its head. The two little ones followed at Tan Zhaozhao's feet. Soon they met other humans when they were choosing a temporary residence.
It was a family of five.
There was an old man, a couple, and two children.
They are both quite old. The two children look to be in their teens and are very tall, about the same height as Tan Zhaozhao.
The two parties were caught off guard and were both stunned.
Tan Zhaozhao's eyes quickly swept over them and said nothing, because before coming down, she had learned about the information of the survivors in the community and within a few kilometers of the community through Li Shan and others. She even checked their identities and names the moment she saw them.
So she just nodded politely, then took Xingxing, holding the foam box in her hand, and passed by these people and went in another direction.
"Brother, look, she has a cat!" The girl's clear and surprised voice sounded behind him.
Tan Zhaozhao paused slightly.
Xingxing turned around to look at the human who was speaking, but in an instant she met several pairs of eyes staring at her.
Tan Zhaozhao didn't look back, just paused, and continued walking forward with a normal expression.
Xingxing also turned around and followed her mother, step by step. When she couldn't keep up, she tried to jump a few times and continued to walk forward close to her mother's feet.
"Kid, when you live down there in the future, don't be too far away from your mother and the others." Qiuqiu recalled many things, and foresightedly reminded the kitten: "These humans may not have any ill will towards you now, but in the future when the situation becomes urgent, it may not be certain. Anyway, it is better to be careful."
"Yeah." Xingxing nodded obediently.
When they got there, Tan Zhaozhao put down the box in his hand, clapped his hands, and after soothing his aching arms, he squatted down and touched Xingxing's head, saying softly, "Xingxing, you must always follow your mother and don't run around. If you want to go out to play, you must tell your mother first, okay?"
"Meow~"
The kitten nodded obediently again.
It seemed to have turned into the little zombie in the apocalypse that was taken care of and protected by everyone.
All dangers seem to befall it at any time, so humans always think carefully and put a lot of thought into protecting it.
But the little zombies are not weak.
Kittens are not weak either.
Xingxing squatted beside the increasing number of salutes, raised her green eyes and looked at the two humans who were walking not far away and looking at her with bright eyes.
"Wow, brother, look at its eyes, they are so beautiful, like green gems!" The girl's tone was more excited than before.
The boy, who was obviously a twin of the girl, was also surprised for a moment, then he took two steps forward with his sister and politely asked Tan Zhaozhao: "Sister, can we pet your cat? What's its name?"
They are very polite.
Tan Zhaozhao smiled and refused, "I'm sorry, my kitten has never seen a stranger before, I'm afraid it will get stressed and scratch you."
When he heard that it would scratch people out of stress, the boy frowned and stopped his sister who was about to say something, "Forget it, don't go forward, don't scare it."
The girl pouted unhappily, but she also responded politely, "Okay, then I'm sorry to bother you, sister."
Tan Zhaozhao: “It’s okay.”
The girl was dragged by her brother, looking back at the stars every few steps, and it was obvious that she was not giving up yet.
And Xingxing was already lying on one of the boxes, with her head tilted and her eyes closed, pretending to sleep.
After a while, other members of the team also came down carrying their things one after another.
The twins and their family met them, and as more and more people came here, they looked over here in surprise.
Until Tang Jin appeared with his men.
The couple in the family recognized them immediately, and their initial confusion and curiosity turned into enthusiasm.
"It's Captain Xiao Tang!" The man came up to them with a smile, holding a pack of cigarettes in his hand and ready to give them. He said with a smile, "So you live in our community. I was wondering why there are so many of you. I didn't expect that you were the comrades who distributed food to us some time ago. This is really..."
He greeted her warmly, and the familiarity in his tone and the content of his words immediately brought the originally unfamiliar atmosphere between the two sides very close.
Tang Jin smiled and refused the cigarette he offered.
After signaling the team members to continue building the temporary shelter, he stayed there alone and continued to chat with the man of the family.
Li Shan came over and rubbed Xingxing first. After rubbing the kitten pretending to sleep so hard that its fur stood up, she whispered to Tan Zhaozhao, who came down first, "Did they come here first?"
The family originally lived downstairs from their house, which was the location decided upon by Tan Zhaozhao and others after discussion.
It seems that family arrived earlier.
Tan Zhaozhao nodded, looking at the man who was chatting with Tang Jin and his family members who were obviously listening curiously behind him. His brows frowned unconsciously, and he whispered to Li Shan: "Don't hang around me, stay away from me."
Li Shan was stunned. "Ah? What's going on?"
Su Mingyue and a few others also looked over.
Song Qianyi rolled her eyes silently, and followed Tan Zhaozhao's words, "And me, you should stay away from me too. It's best to pretend that we don't know each other. Otherwise, I'm afraid that I will soon become a public volunteer for this community with you, the kind who works diligently and willingly to devote their lives to the people without asking for anything in return."
Judging from her tone, she seemed extremely disgusted.
It also made Su Mingyue and the others look a little ugly.
Tan Zhaozhao was silent for a moment. Although Song Qianyi's words were blunt, rude and full of disgust, Tan Zhaozhao did think the same as she did.
So she spoke up to break the awkward atmosphere created by Song Qianyi, and said helplessly: "That's right, if you live too close to us, and if you really get into trouble or someone uses your identity to morally kidnap us... we will either be condemned by thousands of people or be wiped out."
Song Qianyi is not an absolutely selfless person. She hates being morally kidnapped, and she doesn't like being forced to do insincere things just because of a certain identity.
Although they are in the same team, she is different from Li Shan. She has never appeared on a mission with her team members, so she hopes to be an individual in the eyes of the public.
This will also ensure freedom as much as possible when the team is "coerced" in the future, and then provide help to the team.
After hearing her say this, Su Mingyue and the others looked even worse.
But just now I was angry, now I am worried.
Because if there are only two of them, they can get a glimpse of the future that is very likely to happen.
“……”No one spoke.
But they all tacitly began to build temporary settlements.
Since Tan Zhaozhao decided to separate from them, he had no intention of asking them to help.
The problem is…
"What should we do with the poultry chicks and vegetable seedlings?" Li Shan leaned close to Tan Zhaozhao and asked in a low voice.
Tan Zhaozhao's movements to pack up his things made him move slightly, then he shook his head at her regretfully: "We can't take it down, otherwise the situation will only get worse. From now on, we'll have people go up there for a while to take care of them, taking turns. When no one is there, we'll lock the passages."
"…I'm just afraid that if there's a power outage or water shortage, they'll all die." Li Shan muttered, and then asked her, "Should I get the cats down? Should I really lock them up at home? I'm afraid something might happen."
Before coming down, she had thought about what to do with the cat at home. At that time, Tan Zhaozhao asked her to leave it at home.
But now that she had come down, Li Shan looked at the little orange cat lying obediently beside her and guarding Tan Zhaozhao, and she couldn't help feeling a little itchy in her heart.
Missing my furry kids.
Tan Zhaozhao only has one, but she has three, big and small!
"Don't bring it down." Tan Zhaozhao shook his head at her and whispered, "You know why I brought Xingxing down."
Of course Li Shan knew.
Because Xingxing is not an ordinary cat. Xingxing can understand human language and is very well behaved. It will not run around or poop everywhere, and it will not disappear in the blink of an eye.
"…But is it true that nothing bad will happen if we keep cats and poultry in the same room?" Li Shan always felt that it was absurd to be sending meat to a weasel's mouth.
Tan Zhaozhao smiled and shook his head and said nothing more.
Li Shan didn't talk any more and separated from Tan Zhaozhao before more people discovered the place.
After everyone was settled downstairs, it was time to eat.
It was too hot outside. The underground parking lot was not particularly hot, but the wind coming in from outside was not cool either. Coupled with the ubiquitous moisture in the air, I felt cool when I first came down, but the longer I stayed down there, the more I felt a stuffy, breathless, hot and humid feeling.
Before coming down, we had many discussions, so everything was well prepared.
So when the man brought his wife over, he was surprised to find that the people sitting there having lunch were not really "eating". Instead, each of them had a piece of compressed biscuit in their hand and ate it hastily while soaking it in cold water. They looked even more miserable than his family.
At least his family had daily supplies distributed by the government and could eat a bowl of delicious instant noodles.
So the words on the tip of my tongue changed direction and became: "Why do you eat this? How can this be nutritious?"
When Tan Zhaozhao heard the noise, he just glanced over there and paid no more attention.
She was tearing the sausage in her hand, breaking it into small pieces and feeding them to Xingxing.
By the afternoon, Tan Zhaozhao found that there seemed to be a lot more people gathering around him.
Even though Tang Jin and his group did not go anywhere during this afternoon, some of them had not seen a "living person" for a long time, so they were running around "socializing". As a result, in just this afternoon, all the survivors in the community knew that there was an official team stationed in their community.
So more and more people moved here, and finally all the survivors in the entire community basically lived around here.
Looking at this scene, Tan Zhaozhao could only be thankful that he had foresight, but he was helpless as more and more eyes were staring at him.
So when it was time for dinner, she didn't even feed Xingxing with sausage. Instead, she went upstairs and got down a bag of cat food, and tried to pick out some freeze-dried food from it to fill Xingxing's stomach.
But even so, she and Xingxing still attracted some people's attention.
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