Chapter 68: Northern Plateau
There were more people near the museum, and you could see slowly moving cars on the nearby roads. In some places, seven or eight people were gathered together, like a team, and they were having a heated discussion about something.
Shu Fu and Chen Fa arrived at the entrance, handed over two small packages of biscuits, and were allowed in.
When they entered the door, they noticed the unspeakable expressions of several goalkeepers and remembered the weapons in their hands. So they took out two large plastic bags from their pockets and wrapped up the weapons stained with fish entrails, which made the fishy smell around them less severe.
The space inside was large, but it was nothing like any museum in Shu Fu's memory. The originally smooth tiles were now dirty, with mud and water everywhere. The lights were also very dim, and most people didn't even take off their rain gear. After all, these were important supplies and could not be left randomly. It was more convenient to wear them instead of taking them off and holding them in their hands.
There were quite a lot of people inside. The so-called stalls were glass cabinets that used to place cultural relics against the wall. The glass has now been removed, leaving only the cabinets, which are separated by partitions in the middle to form different stalls.
There were one or two people in front of each stall, some were standing there leaning against the wall, and some had moved a chair and sat on it, which was considered a stall.
The people setting up stalls were all from the big team that set up the No. 3 Trading Hall. They were not short of food and water. People who came to set up stalls all wanted something. For example, some stalls clearly stated that they only accepted cigarettes and alcohol, and the price was negotiable. Some said that they could only be exchanged for gold. Some accepted medicines, especially antibiotics...
They looked over one by one and saw a stall set up by a female team member. It said that gold and medicine could be exchanged, but if there was "condoms", the price would be negotiable.
Shu Fu's eyes lit up. There were condoms in her space, and there were quite a few of them, all of which she had harvested in Suicheng during the two months.
These products can be found on the shelves of drugstores and supermarkets, so she will harvest some after casting her rod in nearby waters, and thus she will accumulate a lot and have a variety of styles.
This thing is packaged in several layers inside and outside, and after the automatic "one-click disinfection" of water fishing rods, it looks like it was taken directly from the shelf. Many of them are packaged in large boxes of 10, and the boxes are not big, so it is reasonable to take them out of the backpack.
They wanted to change the drinking water, and it would be better to use this instead of medicine.
On the side, Chen Fa was remembering the incident with the strange fish. He turned on his phone as soon as he entered the museum. He happened to pass by the stairs and found that the network signal was relatively stable, so he sat down directly at the stairs.
While she was surfing the Internet on her mobile phone, Shu Fu quickly went to the stall of the female team member diagonally opposite.
A moment later, when she came back, she had a sturdy nylon bag in her hand, which contained some instant noodles and unopened canned food, including canned luncheon meat and canned fruit, as well as two bottles of Chen Yuezhen's favorite pickles.
Chen Fa was shocked when she saw this. Before even one of her pictures had been buffered, she had already changed the things?
"So, is anyone talking about this online?" Shu Fu asked, immediately diverting Chen Fa's attention.
"Yes, look at this post, it talks about someone accidentally killing a jumping fish..." Chen Fa pointed at the picture that hadn't been buffered yet, "He took a picture and uploaded it, but I don't know if it's the same fish, and he only mentioned one here, not many... And these few posts all talk about similar things..."
These posts were discovered by Chen Fa through keyword search. Currently, there are no hot searches or headlines in this regard on the few websites in Huaguo that are still in operation, but if you search for keywords, you will find several posts.
It was like the same thing happened in other places, but it was just one or two fish occasionally, and no one mentioned the difference between male and female fish, and there was no disaster of fish eggs hatching.
There are two possibilities. One is that this kind of strange fish is indeed rare in other places, and Hexi Town is just an exception, or a precedent.
The second possibility is that perhaps the same fish disaster occurred in other places, but this place, like Hexi Town, has no Internet and the news cannot be spread...
**
The two stayed in the trading station for more than two hours, most of the time waiting for the buffered images. Shu Fu's bracelet was quiet the whole time, and she was not in a hurry. This was only the third day of the mission. On the fifth day, she would need to come to Trading Station No. 3 again.
When the picture appeared, it was indeed possible to tell what a strange fish looked like, but it was not taken very well and the proportions were distorted, so they couldn't tell whether it was a male or female, or even its size.
They also tried to post the information they knew about the strange fish online, but the Internet speed was too slow, so the video could not be uploaded at all, and the pictures failed to upload after a long time. No one paid attention to the text message after it was published, and it was unknown how much of a warning it could have.
In addition to the strange fish, they also looked for news about strange patients, but there was even less news about this. Only a few hospitals in safe cities had reported the emergence of new flu symptoms. The initial symptoms of the patients were cold, fever, and lack of energy. Some patients had high fever and convulsions, which meant that they were not contagious at the moment, but the patients needed to seek medical treatment in time.
Judging from the symptoms, this is probably the same disease.
Afterwards, Shu Fu looked up the locations of these cities online. They are widely distributed and not concentrated. If one must talk about commonalities, these cities, like the small town in Hexi, are all close to water...
Chen Fa did not give up. She changed the keywords again and found another post. It said that a family member had a strange disease, repeated fever, and the medicine was ineffective. They didn’t know if the fever was too high. They always felt that the person had become stupid, didn’t speak, and his eyes were full of red bloodshot. He had a serious skin disease... They didn’t know what to do and were very worried...
Some people replied to the post, while others asked for further information.
However, the poster seemed to have disappeared. About half a month later, he replied again, saying that his sick family member had been admitted to the hospital, received proper treatment, and was now in good condition. It was his delay in sending the family member to the hospital that caused the condition to deteriorate, etc.
"Do you think what this person said about his improvement is true?" Shu Fu asked.
Chen Fa replied with two words: "It's hard to say."
Looking back now, Zhou Feng must have known more about the patient than them, but unfortunately the incident with the strange fish happened at that time, so he missed the opportunity. Now Hexi Town is occupied by the strange fish, and I don’t know if Zhou Feng is still alive...
At almost two o'clock in the afternoon, the two were preparing to leave and return. Before leaving, Shu Fu exchanged the medicine for some paper towels and purified drinking water. Because the bottled purified water she exchanged for had never been opened, the price was a bit higher. The other party took a box of ibuprofen from Shu Fu, which had 8 pills on it.
She actually wanted to use this transaction to get some information, because the patient's initial symptoms were cold and fever, and ibuprofen is used to treat these symptoms.
However, as soon as she opened her mouth, the other party looked at her with gloomy eyes, as if giving her some kind of warning.
Shu Fu immediately understood and stopped talking. She handed the big bag of canned food to Chen Fa, then put the purified water she got in exchange into her backpack one by one, and left quickly.
Although the other party didn't say anything, the two "patients" alone made him show a warning expression, and his reaction itself was the answer.
After leaving the museum, the two men removed the plastic bags from the weapons and casually stuffed them into the pockets of their raincoats.
Fala Chen pulled her rain hat down, leaned closer to Shu Fu, and said one word: Yes.
Shu Fu nodded.
Not only that, but the people around them, like the families of the patients in Yang Can's team, are also very secretive about it.
**
After Shu Fu and Chen Fa came out of the museum, they clearly felt that more eyes were on them. Their waterproof backpacks were filled with canned food, purified water and other supplies, and were wrapped in raincoats, so they became a little bulging, and it was obvious that there was something inside.
However, because the backpack was inside the raincoat, if any refugees nearby wanted to snatch it, they would have to confront them head-on first.
For the refugees, whether they can beat them or not is not the point for now. In today's world, any girl who dares to walk alone cannot be underestimated. It is very likely that there is a team behind them. If they accidentally provoke someone with a large team behind them, it will be very troublesome afterwards.
Once caught, they would either have their arms and legs broken or be beaten to death.
The refugees are not stupid. They want to steal things and they also want to stay alive, so they usually wait and see and will not take such a direct approach.
Chen Fa held the multi-purpose shovel in one hand and held Shu Fu in the other. He was alert to the surroundings and warned from time to time: "There are often women and children who have been 'abused' or people who have quarreled at the corners of the streets nearby. There are also good-looking girls who block the road and say they will do anything as long as you give them some food... Ignore them all, they are all traps and routines.
They usually show up in the afternoon, because many people who come to trade will use the internet, and most of them will stay until the afternoon and leave. During this period, people like us are fat sheep in their eyes. "
"The city has been in chaos for so long. People who come here to trade will be more or less cautious. Will anyone really be fooled?" Even she would feel sympathy when she saw the hungry refugees, but she also knew that no matter how much sympathy she felt for these people, she could not give out her sympathy in such an environment.
Because this charity may not only be giving away a little food or clean water, but also one's own life.
There was no need for Chen Fa to respond, the facts told her that it really happened.
On the street in the heavy rain, a young man in a waterproof jacket was in a panic pushing the woman who had fallen into his arms: "What are you doing! Didn't I give you food? Go back quickly!... Ah, don't touch me, you are so dirty, I don't need you to repay me, my clothes are new... Okay, okay, don't come closer, at most I can give you some more food--"
When he turned around, he happened to see Shu Fu and Chen Fa passing by. He immediately shouted "two sisters" as if he had seen his savior, asking them for help.
Shu Fu: ...
I never thought that even though the world has been in chaos for so long, there are still such naive people.
In order to avoid getting into trouble, she and Chen Fa instantly quickened their pace, from walking fast to jogging, and stayed away from them.
The man saw them quicken their pace and leave, and suddenly became anxious: "Hey! Why are you running! Are you two women? Are you misogynistic? Why do you pretend not to see when you see a female compatriot in need of help!... Hey! I don't want you to give me anything, I just want you to help pull her away!... Did you hear me! Why are you running!"
The man's voice kept coming from behind, but the more he shouted, the faster Shu Fu and Chen Fa ran.
They even began to suspect that this man was also part of the "trap" and "routine". Otherwise, how could there be such a stupid person in this world?
When Chen Fa and Shu Fu were running cautiously down the street, the situation over there had already changed.
The two men looked back and saw that there were several more people around the man. One was trying to snatch the baseball bat he was holding as a weapon, one grabbed his arms from behind and quickly stuffed a dirty cloth into his mouth, and the third one snatched the backpack from his hand.
The woman who was originally leaning against him was quickly taking off his waterproof jacket, and then taking out some things from his pockets and stuffing them into her arms.
While she was taking things away, she deliberately smeared the dirty mud on her hands on the man's face. It was obvious that she was deliberately taking revenge on him for calling her dirty.
That was not all. Seeing that he did not put up much resistance and seemed to be only strong on the outside but weak on the inside, the men quickly pinned him to the ground and stripped him of his waterproof pants and boots, leaving him with only his underwear and a T-shirt. They then quickly tied his wrists behind his back and fled before he could get up.
"Oh my god!" Chen Fa exclaimed, then pulled Shu Fu and quickened their pace again, leaving the street at lightning speed.
**
Because of this accident, Shu Fu and Chen Fa were more careful on their way back. After all, they had no team support behind them, so they could only rely on themselves no matter what situation they encountered.
Later on, they were also targeted by other eyes on the way, but Shu Fu had a map and Chen Fa had been to Lucheng before, so they deliberately chose streets with no buildings on both sides where people could not hide, or they deliberately passed by the territories of other teams.
There are patrolling teammates in these areas where teams are entrenched. Ordinary refugees dare not ambush and rob here, and these territories will also be wary of strangers who appear without reason, but if they just pass along the border, they will not attract the team's attack.
Using these methods, they shook off several people who were following them, and eventually left the city safely, passed through the ruins area, and returned to the edge of the city.
It was already evening, the heavy rain had turned into a downpour, and the wind picked up. The faces and hair of the two were already wet, and the strong wind and rain beat down together, making their faces feel cold and numb. The rain seeped in through their collars, and most of the clothes inside were also wet.
A flash of lightning streaked across the gloomy sky in the distance, followed by a dull thunder.
"It's windy and rainy today, and it may turn into a thunderstorm. Let's go faster." They had been walking and jogging in the heavy rain for more than two hours, and their physical strength was almost exhausted. Now that they saw that the weather conditions were not right, they had to encourage themselves again.
When they finally returned to the abandoned community, another thunder streaked across the sky, exploding even louder thunder. They both heard teeth-grinding creaking sounds and huge rumbling sounds coming from the tributary of Qing River not far away.
The two were at a limited height, surrounded by messy plants, and could not see what was happening in the direction of the sound.
At this moment, hurried footsteps were heard from the small building where they were temporarily staying. It was Chen Yuezhen running down.
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