Chapter 107 Wei County
A moment later, everyone entered the basketball hall and went up to the high standing aisle.
This place is about the height of an ordinary building of six floors, and there are narrow windows here through which you can see what's happening outside. Liu Shuang is leaning in front of an open window, using the telescope in his hand to check the direction of the square opposite.
Shu Fu had already put his backpack back in front of him, and at this moment he "took out" a detachable telescope from it, and handed a monocular to Yao Ruoyun. The two of them each held a monocular and looked out the window.
Outside the south window of the gymnasium is the hotel facing the other end of Wei County Central Square.
That is the tallest building in Wei County, with a total of twelve floors. Unlike hotels in big cities with floor-to-ceiling windows, the exterior walls of the lower floors of this hotel are mostly walls. Although it is not so fashionable visually, it looks safer in today's weather conditions.
At least, originally this should have been a tall and solid building.
But now, there is a big hole in the wall of the eighth floor of the building. The height of that floor is much higher than other floors below, and the windows are also larger than other floors. There may be public facilities such as restaurants or swimming pools inside.
The gap stretched horizontally from left to right of that floor, as if someone had violently torn off a piece of the wall of that floor. From their direction, they could even see the window frame hanging on the outer wall of the building that was about to fall off.
At this moment, there were several people standing at the gap on that floor, looking down at the ground outside the hotel in the cold wind.
ground?
Shu Fu's telescope moved downward, and she saw what they were looking at, and also knew where the last loud noise that caused the ice wall to collapse came from.
That is - a raft!
In the open space in front of the hotel, there was an overturned raft of an awakener. The raft, which had once remained safe and sound in hailstones as big as eggs, had now been broken into pieces. The wooden hut on it was also in pieces, and the furniture and various items that had been collected bit by bit by the owner of the raft to decorate the hut were also scattered all over the ground.
Shu Fu once estimated the sturdiness of the raft and thought that it might be damaged by capsizing in a huge wave or tsunami. But now, there is no need for huge waves or tsunamis. A fall from mid-air can also destroy the raft completely.
Yao Ruoyun turned back to Shu Fu in surprise and pulled her sleeve. Shu Fu knew what she wanted to ask and nodded silently at her.
——That’s right, it’s the raft, the superpower’s golden finger raft.
There were several people pushing aside the ice and snow to surround the broken raft. From time to time, they were stopped by the broken and raised raft deck. They seemed to be cursing dirty words, but still went quickly to the cabin area where furniture and items were scattered, and then picked up something from the ground with rough movements.
It was a person, a woman wearing thick clothes, about thirty or forty years old, with an ordinary appearance. Because the stadium and the hotel were separated by an entire square, and there was an extremely thick layer of snow blocking the way, Shu Fu had not seen the woman before.
She was dragged up by someone, and red liquid spilled on the surrounding ice and snow. She seemed to be still alive, but seriously injured. One of her hands was twisted at a strange angle, her chest was heaving, and she was coughing, while new blood kept flowing out from the corners of her lips and nose.
Shu Fu adjusted the power of the telescope and saw a white light bar above her head. The value seemed to be in single digits. At this moment, the light bar was flickering non-stop, perhaps because its owner was seriously injured. The light bar was gradually fading as the frequency of flickering decreased.
Shu Fu heard that the people who caught her were laughing. They were laughing wildly and wantonly, like wild beasts that were pushed to their limit. They no longer looked like humans.
Some people had already begun to impatiently strip off the woman's warm clothes and put them on themselves. Some people, as if to vent their anger, grabbed her hair and slapped her hard, but more people pounced on the pile of scattered items and began to stuff them into their arms desperately.
This is a dying psychic. Although Shu Fu did not see the whole incident, it can be inferred from the current situation that the raft of this psychic must have been pushed down from the big gap upstairs.
These people lived in the same hotel as this psychic, and they must have known about her uniqueness a long time ago. The raft must be intact to function. They had been living in peace for so many days. Why did they suddenly explode at this time, not hesitating to smash the walls of the hotel and throw the raft down from the upstairs?
They were even afraid that falling from this height would not destroy the raft cabin and kill the woman, so they cleared the ground in front of the hotel in advance and shoveled away the more than three-meter-thick layer of snow there. The workload of clearing snow from such a large open space is enormous, and in today's temperature, it is basically a desperate effort.
Yao Ruoyun was shaking all over as she watched. This scene reminded her of the chaos she had encountered during the transfer. Everyone seemed to be crazy, attacking strangers they didn't even know. Some were beaten to a bloody mess, while others fell to the ground and were trampled by countless feet, wailing in pain...
Yao Ruoyun couldn't help but look at Han Lan who was standing by. He was holding a sniper rifle and looking through the scope of the rifle to see what was happening over there. She knew that such a rifle could easily hit the person on the other side, so she asked, "Can't you save that woman?"
"Want to save people?" Liu Shuang on the other side heard, "You want to save that woman? So you want us to use sniper rifles to kill the other people on the other side?"
Yao Ruoyun was stunned. Indeed, there was an entire square of snow more than three meters high separating the two sides. They couldn't get through at all. If they wanted to save the woman, there was no other way except to shoot everyone else present.
Yao Ruoyun couldn't bring herself to say something like shoot them all, but her current situation made her feel very uncomfortable. After all, those in the gymnasium were all military personnel, and they all looked like elites. Even if they had retired as they had said before, were they just going to do nothing about the tragedy happening across the street?
She knew that she was not in the right state at the moment. Now was not the beginning of the apocalypse. She had seen all kinds of human hearts, and her compassion had long been consumed by various experiences.
But at this moment, through the dying woman, she seemed to see herself.
She also has the golden finger of the raft, and like that woman, she has no ability to protect herself. If something happens outside and she is surrounded, she will probably just hide in her own hut and not go out.
Similarly, if she was the one being thrown down a dozen-story building by those men carrying the raft, she would probably choose the latter between folding up the raft and facing a group of men alone, or holding on to the raft and betting on whether the raft hut could protect her and whether she could survive.
The former is a dead end, while the latter offers a glimmer of hope.
But obviously, the results were not good.
The psychic lost the bet and is about to die.
She looked at the woman who was being held in their hands and abused and tortured, and it was as if she saw her future self...
"That woman is called Qi Ge. You should have heard of her before." Han Lan at the side suddenly spoke, causing Liu Shuang to turn around and frown at him.
Han Lan freed up one hand and spread it out, making a gesture to let others relax, but he glanced at Cheng Yu from the corner of his eyes. Seeing that he had no intention of stopping him, he continued, "Don't hide it. Is there anyone in Hua Country who doesn't know about this? Anyone who has been online should have heard of it more or less - the rumored supernatural person."
"Ah?" Yao Ruoyun was startled and thought her identity was exposed, but fortunately she calmed down and soon realized that Han Lan was not calling her, but just mentioned the title of psychic.
"Brother Qi?" Shu Fu recited these two words and randomly looked at the two people who were still tied up in the corner below the basketball court. After these four days, these two people became haggard, but they were still alive.
She remembered that when they were planning to deal with Cheng Yu and his men, they had mentioned this name, saying that "Qi Ge" had a plan. So she knew that "Qi Ge" should be their leader, coveting military off-road vehicles and armored vehicles, sending people to test them, and also planning to seize vehicles and kill people.
Obviously, what Han Lan meant was that the cruel "brother Qi" mentioned by the other party at that time and the dying woman in the snow now are the same person?
"How is that possible!" As expected, Yao Ruoyun was also surprised.
"We have been monitoring the other side for four days, and it's still connected. Do you want to listen?" Liu Shuang took off one earphone and gestured to Yao Ruoyun, "But the wall on the side where the monitoring device is installed is broken, so the wind noise and noise are quite loud."
Yao Ruoyun didn't answer. She already believed it: "Sorry, it's not that I don't believe it, I'm just too surprised."
Liu Shuang nodded and put the headphones back in.
Han Lan patted Yao Ruoyun on the shoulder and said, "You know about psychics, so you should also know about rafts, right? These two things are the reason why our team is traveling."
Shu Fu looked at him quietly. She felt that she had almost guessed it.
How could a team of elites, carrying sufficient equipment and driving armored vehicles and military off-road vehicles, really be on what they claim is a simple private trip after retirement?
She guessed that their team's real mission was to go out and look for the person with special abilities who possessed the Golden Finger Raft.
As for what to do after finding it, it depends on whether they are willing to tell them.
After Han Lan finished speaking, he reached out and closed the window. The low temperature outside was unbearable even for those of them who were outside all year round. He motioned for Yao Ruoyun and Shu Fu to follow him downstairs to the warmer basement where there was a fire, and then he would slowly tell them.
**
A moment later, except for Liu Shuang and Wen Rou who stayed upstairs to continue monitoring and eavesdropping on the situation in the hotel opposite, and Awen who was guarding the two kidnapped people, everyone else went into the basement.
There are two rooms in the basement. It used to be a sports equipment room, but now except for useful tables, mats and shelves, all other items are piled up in the outer venue.
There is a corridor connecting the two rooms in the basement. Some folding tables and chairs that were previously placed in the venue are now placed in the corridor outside. There are some pots, ration bags and personal kettles here. The smaller room is occupied by female team members, and the larger room outside is occupied by other male team members.
At this moment, they all entered the big room. A fire was quickly lit in the iron barrel inside. The beddings around were neatly rolled up and placed on the rack for sporting goods. The surroundings were also cleaned up. Even in the basement, there was no smell of dampness. It seemed that the team members were very fond of cleanliness.
The other team members moved in the supplies that had been buried in the snow, hoping to dry the damp bags and boxes in a space with an open flame. Some capable team members even pulled out a life rope between the armored vehicles and off-road vehicles outside, hung two thick blankets directly on them, and then lit a honeycomb coal stove to slowly bake them.
"Thank you." Shu Fu and Yao Ruoyun expressed their gratitude sincerely, and said that all the food was brought for everyone to share, especially the box of bacon and rice, which they could not finish, and they could not carry it even if they wanted to move, so they asked everyone to cook it quickly and eat it.
The team members had sufficient supplies on this trip, but as before, they were all portable fast foods. Except for compressed biscuits, energy bars and canned food, most of the others were in military ration bags, including curry chicken rice, minced meat and mushroom noodles, clay pot rice, mushroom and braised pork fried noodles... The flavors were quite rich, but after eating them for so many years, the flavors were always the same and anyone would get tired of them.
The rice in the ration bag is definitely not comparable to the freshly cooked rice, not to mention that there is so much bacon now. When cooking rice, cut some and put a layer on it. It is so fragrant...
Everyone was tempted, but they didn't dare to move without the captain's order.
Shu Fu looked at Cheng Yu and said with a smile, "Now that we are all trapped here, you won't be polite to me at this time, right? Or should we return the food and water supplies you gave us before?"
Cheng Yu glanced at Shu Fu, nodded to the team members who were looking at him on the other side, and at the same time reminded them to just open a bag of bacon and eat it with the canned food after cooking rice.
Team member: ...
Shu Fu was speechless: "But, I want to eat bacon, sausage, salted chicken and pressed duck..."
"..." Cheng Yu stopped his teammates who were about to leave, "...each of you open a bag."
Team member: ...
When the two team members went out with the things, Shu Fu, who was hiding at the back, grabbed a smaller teammate and mouthed to him to open an extra bag of bacon and sausage, as those were more delicious.
The team member winked at her to show that he understood.
Shu Fu's little action was blatant, but the things were brought by them. As long as Yao Ruoyun had no objection, how could they have any objection?
There were ten people in their team. Apart from Liu Shuang and the other two who were monitoring, eavesdropping and guarding, two were outside helping Shu Fu and Yao Ruoyun to bake blankets, two were in the corridor washing rice, cutting bacon and cooking, and besides Cheng Yu and Han Lan, there was only one team member left in the room.
He thought about it, said, "I'd better go and replace Captain Liu," and went out.
A moment later, Liu Shuang also came in. The earphones were no longer on her ears. She sat down on the exercise mat next to Shu Fu and reached out to warm her hands over the burning iron barrel.
Shu Fu took out the jar of candy again, handed it to Liu Shuang and shook it gently.
Liu Shuang turned around and smiled at her: "Keep it for yourself and eat it slowly."
Shu Fu poured out one directly and handed it to her lips. She had no choice but to eat it, and he rubbed it on her head.
After Shu Fu finished feeding everyone in the room, Han Lan spoke, referring to that "Qi brother".
**
The information about her brother was dug out by Wenrou from those two people that day. Her brother was a superpower and had been in Wei County for more than half a month. She did not come alone, but had a team with her when she came.
There were men and women, young and old in the team. The two of them joined later, and when they heard others calling her "Qi Ge", they followed suit.
At first they didn't understand why those people were so respectful to a seemingly ordinary woman, but later they found out that she was the rumored supernatural person.
She is the leader of this team, claiming to be the person of destiny, and has transcended the category of ordinary people. Anyone who joins her team is required to respect her as a superior.
All supplies found by the group must be handed over to her for safekeeping and distribution. She has the final say and anyone who doesn't want to obey will be immediately kicked out of the team.
But she had a raft that could carry people through the flooded area. In addition to the original cabin on her raft, she also found a container house from somewhere and installed it on the larger deck, so that other people could hide inside when there was heavy rain or hail, and could also take them safely through the flooded area.
She could also provide clean water, and when she was on the water, she had an endless supply of fish.
These points alone are enough to make some people follow her wholeheartedly.
But whether it was clean water, food or supplies, she was extremely demanding.
Before the blizzard, the team had already had some problems, and the team members wanted to get more supplies, after all, they were the ones who found them. But she was unwilling to do so, thinking that the team members who asked for it were daydreaming. In the philosophy she had instilled in them, ordinary people could not make demands on the people of destiny.
Moreover, she always abides by the law of hunger, believing that a little kindness is repaid with a little hatred.
She had those who spoke up tied up, and had others beat them up, saying that anyone willing to take action would get an extra share of the food, water and supplies that originally belonged to those people.
Some people took action to share more water. After the first one, there was a second one.
Later, she ordered them to lock the beaten people in a room without giving them food or water.
The others took the extra water and supplies, but dared not say anything because they had given all their supplies to her - including all the supply packages they had received from several previous rescue stations, which she had placed in the wooden house that no one else could enter. As long as she didn't give them, no one could do anything to her.
In fact, they regret it now, but they have handed over too many supplies along the way. Leaving the team now is equivalent to starting over with nothing, and they will have nothing.
Later, Cheng Yu's team came to Wei County. She set her eyes on the two cars, which could make up for her shortcomings on land. She planned to seize the cars, lure the other party over by using her identity as a psychic, and then set traps to kill people and seize the cars.
At that time, some people in the team opposed this plan. They had never seen blood on their hands, even if they sometimes robbed some weak people of their supplies privately. Now they were suddenly asked to attack the troops, how could they dare?
Even if they really dared, they didn't think they could do it.
As the two men had just joined the team and wanted to show off, they volunteered to come over to inquire about the information and pretended to want to take a ride, mainly to see how many people there were in the team, what their weapons and equipment were, and how long they would stay in Wei County.
As a result, when the two men were leaving, they were caught by Shu Fu and Yao Ruoyun who came in from the side door. The subsequent plan to seize the car was also completely interrupted because of the snowstorm that night.
On the contrary, it was because of these two people that Cheng Yu and his team knew about the other party's existence. Through reconnaissance, they found that the superpower person had been staying in the swimming pool activity room on the eighth floor. Finding superpower people was originally their mission, so at the beginning of the night, they used a new type of shooting device to set up several listening devices on the outer walls of the surveyed floors.
Although the swimming pool on the eighth floor is empty now, the overall space is large and the single floor is high, which is very suitable for her to put out the raft and use.
After all, in this world, no place is safer and more comfortable than her own mobile home. Later, a snowstorm came and the entire Wei County was covered in snow, making her even more reluctant to leave the home.
But other people staying in the hotel were not so comfortable. First, the backup generator ran out of fuel, and the power went out. Without electricity, it was pitch black everywhere, and the air conditioner could not be turned on. They did not have enough warm clothes, and they were still freezing even when wrapped in quilts at night. They wanted to burn firewood to keep warm, but found that there was no axe to chop tables and chairs.
They secretly released several people who were locked in the room, but they were first beaten and starved for a few days. Then the temperature dropped sharply and they caught a cold, and they either fell into a coma or had a fever.
They begged his brother to give them medicine, but his brother was unwilling, thinking that the medicine should not be wasted on people with ulterior motives.
Later, one of their children caught a cold and had a high fever. They went to ask for medicine again, but she still refused to give it to them, thinking that they had deliberately let the child pretend to be sick so that they could use the medicine to save the previous people.
Children are not like adults. They had already been frozen for several days, feeling cold and hungry. Now they had a high fever. Their illness was so severe that they did not survive the night.
That night, the child's mother, father, grandmother and uncle knelt outside the raft cabin and begged her for fever-reducing medicine. They knew she had it because it was in the supply package they had received earlier.
But every time they arrived at a place to collect supply packages, she would watch them, or send a few loyal people to watch them, not allowing them to move without permission and requiring them to hand over all the supplies.
So now they don't have any medicine on them, and they regret not leaving the team before the heavy snow. There is a rescue station in Wei County, and even if they have received supplies and cannot receive a second one, they can still take a free car to transfer to Xizhou Province.
But they were unwilling to do so. They had invested too much in the early stages and had too high sunk costs, so they had been hesitating and not leaving. As a result, they were now trapped in this hotel with nothing in it by this huge snowstorm, feeling extremely desperate.
The worst thing was that the raft cabin had windows. Even if she installed curtains, they could still see her shadow through the curtains and see her eating comfortably in the house.
But their child died painfully that night.
After that, they were quiet for the whole day, quietly united all those who were dissatisfied with her, and started this plan.
They first went downstairs and cleared a space under the pretext of clearing snow, then killed several of her most loyal people swiftly and efficiently, and then threatened her outside her cabin, demanding that she either come out and return all their supplies in the cabin to them, or she stay inside and never come out, and they would give her a ride.
They don't want any of the psychics, the damn destined people, or the raft huts anymore. They just want their supplies back.
And the result is already obvious.
Her brother refused, as she didn't believe that someone who had been oppressed all the way would actually do anything.
But they really did it. They first moved the cabinets, tables and chairs that were used to reinforce the floor-to-ceiling glass at the corner of the swimming pool activity room on the eighth floor, and then began to hit the glass with any heavy objects they could get their hands on. Although the glass was double-layered, it was not tempered glass, and with so many people taking turns smashing it madly, it was soon shattered.
They smashed a hole as wide as the raft and pushed all the scattered tables, chairs and cabinets around it downstairs. Then everyone lifted the raft together and aimed it at the gap in the wall on the eighth floor.
It took only about five minutes from the time they smashed the glass to the time they dropped the raft. By the time Wenrou, who was monitoring them, noticed something was wrong, figured out what they were trying to do, and notified Liu Shuang, the raft had already been pushed out from mid-air by them.
At this point, both the fish and the net are broken.
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