Chapter 79: Northern Plateau
There were four men and two women in the B&B, all of whom received Chen Fa's signal before the monster fish outbreak and then secretly fled to Dama. They hid in Dama's house during the day and didn't know what was happening outside. Later, when the monster fish broke out, they ran to Dama's boat in time and left Hexi Town.
The other Malaysian ship had a deep draft and was unable to pass through the shallow water area north of the town and head towards Lucheng. In the end, it could only continue upstream along the Qing River and docked when its fuel ran out.
Fortunately, the water flow in that section of Qinghe River is gentle, so it is not difficult to go upstream.
The place where they docked was west of Lucheng, which was where Chen Fa and Chen Yuezhen had originally planned to land. After the boat docked, Da Ma no longer cared about them. He didn't even care about the other townspeople in Hexi Town who had fled to the boat in panic. He felt that he was kind enough to take them away from Hexi Town for free. After all, several team members gave gold, but those townspeople didn't.
Afterwards, he took his trusted men with him, used the boat to trade with the people in the town on the shore, exchanged for two cars and some fuel, and unloaded many heavy travel bags from the boat. He planned to go to Lucheng first to exchange for some water, supplies and fuel, and then travel by land through the Beidi Plateau to Xiangzhou Province, and then from Xiangzhou Province to Fengshang Plateau.
After the Malaysian group left, Yue Dong and his friends never saw each other again.
They had no car, so they could only walk west. There were several other small towns nearby, and they planned to try their luck and see if they could get a car and fuel.
In the town they arrived at later, there was also a person who was infected with gray scab. The patient's family did not hide it, so when other people in the town found out, they believed it was a strange contagious disease and they were ostracized and expelled.
The family had a sick child, and the parents couldn't leave the child behind. Yue Dong happened to provide some information about the patient, and finally the family decided to try their luck in Youcheng. Because Yue Dong and his group had provided information and did not show any aversion to the patient, the family gave them a ride.
It was a small pickup truck with a simple compartment made of a sturdy waterproof cloth cover on the back, which was loaded with the family's supplies. The six of them could barely fit in if they squeezed together.
However, along the way, the sick child's condition became worse and worse, and he experienced the same pain as the thin man. The difference was that Lu Zheng and the thin man were just teammates, and even though he was worried and concerned, he was able to handle it calmly when night fell.
But the parents could not bear to see their children screaming in pain every night, and endure the pain of skin cracking. Seeing their loved ones like this, they themselves were about to collapse...
"...When the scabs come into contact with water, they spread further and grow faster. But strangely, when the scabs begin to crack at night, the pain can be relieved by soaking the patient in water. The parents couldn't bear it and had no painkillers, so they could only let their child soak in the rain outside...
But this is only a temporary solution, not a permanent one. After being soaked in rainwater, the gray scabs quickly spread all over the body, and even the face was covered with gray scabs. The child began to lose a lot of hair, and even his scalp was covered with gray scabs..."
"Does the condition involve repeated appearance of gray scabs and their falling off? Does swelling similar to that of gigantism appear after soaking in water?" Chen Fa suddenly asked.
"No." Yue Dong answered quickly, as if he was very sure.
Chen Fa turned around and exchanged a glance with Shu Fu. It seemed that the swollen patient in the basement of Tang Ping's building was the result of an experiment. No one knew what Tang Ping had done to him. His condition was obviously completely different from the thin man they had observed along the way and the one described by Yue Dong.
Yue Dong continued to speak, his expression becoming indescribable, as if he was recalling something very terrifying: "...After the gray scabs covered his entire body, his consciousness was no longer as dull as before, but he was not awake either. It was more like he had lost his human appearance, approached some kind of creature, was easily frightened, and became very aggressive..."
He told them that one night, the child started wailing again, and his parents couldn't stop him, so they could only let him go out to soak in the water. As a result, the rain stopped after a while that night, and none of them noticed that there was a puddle near where the car was parked that night. The child began to waile wildly because the rain stopped, and finally jumped directly into the puddle and disappeared.
The pool had become larger and deeper due to months of rainfall, and the parents searched all night, jumping into the water repeatedly. They also jumped into the water to help, but in the end they did not find their child.
Perhaps because the whole process was too difficult, the parents completely collapsed after their children went missing. When they found them, they had already died in the pool and their bodies had floated up.
They buried their bodies, set out again, and finally arrived near Youcheng.
"How many days have you been here?"
"Five days." Yue Dong had been working with Chen Fa for a long time, so he knew what she wanted to ask, so he continued, "At that time, the road outside the city leading to the south had already been destroyed. I guess it was done by people from the north of the city."
They chose to stop here to investigate the situation in the city. Their situation was similar to Chen Fa's. The car had run out of fuel and they couldn't go back. They could only investigate the plan and planned to break through from the north of the city.
After these few days, their food and water were almost used up. They had originally planned to give it a try by tomorrow at the latest, but they didn't expect to see Chen Fa and Chen Yuezhen here.
Yue Dong’s wife is Jiang Dai, a smart and gentle person. What makes her happiest is seeing Chen Fa’s grandmother Chen Yuezhen appear in front of them in good health.
"I've been guessing that your grandmother shouldn't have that strange disease..." Jiang Dai's reason was simple. She had a very sensitive sense of smell. When they occasionally met Chen Fa, they never smelled that kind of stench from her, while other team members whose family members were sick would have that kind of odor on their bodies to a greater or lesser extent.
Even Chen Fa didn't realize this at the beginning.
Tang Ping probably couldn't notice it at all. After all, the fishy smell on his body was stronger, and his nose had been exposed to that smell for a long time, so he naturally couldn't notice this detail.
Because both parties had the same goal, they exchanged information about their respective understanding of Youcheng's situation and began to plan cooperation.
**
The pictures and news that Lu Zheng and Xu Tingfeng saw on the Internet were true, but also misleading.
The people who blew up the bridge were not from the south of the city, and the reason for blowing up the bridge was certainly not to prevent the invasion of forces from the north of the city. The whole thing was done by one of the forces in the north of the city.
This force is somewhat similar to the brainwashing organization that Shu Fu had encountered in Louyun City before. After several months of fermentation, this type of organization is now larger in scale and has more believers.
As early as two months ago, gray scab had already appeared in the northern part of the city, but at that time there were very few people suffering from the disease. This organization called this strange disease of unknown cause "evolution."
The troops in the south of the city actually wanted to rescue the people in the north of the city, but this organization not only blew up the bridge, but also put the blame on the troops in the south of the city, saying that it was to prevent the sick from crossing the river because the disease was contagious and they were afraid of the sick, so they would rather trap them to death in the north of Youcheng.
The rumor spread throughout the north of the city, and soon the network was disconnected. Despair spread among the people in the north of the city, and more and more people were suffering from gray scab disease because of the "evolution" promoted by the brainwashing organization. Many people whose relatives were sick and could not get treatment joined the organization to ease their inner pain.
This organization grew in power, and eventually swallowed up other organizations. It is now the dominant organization in the north of the city.
In the end, even if some people figured out what was going on, it was too late.
"The plan to enter the city directly during the day, pass through the urban area to the river, and then go to the south of the city through the only remaining bridge has a very low success rate. There are too many of them, and they will patrol everywhere during the day. Any outsider will be caught."
Chen Fa got the point: "What about at night?"
Yue Dong nodded: "The breakout operation we planned is scheduled for the night, which is their 'Evolution Night'. So as long as it's night, no one in the entire north of the city will go out."
"What do you mean?" Xu Tingfeng, who had been silent, couldn't help but speak.
Yue Dong glanced at him and said, "There are also patients with scab in your car. You should know that this disease will break out every night. The scab will crack, and the patient will be in great pain and show a certain degree of aggression. Water can relieve this pain, but it will also intensify the spread of scab. So every night, they will open the doors of the houses used to house patients with scab during the day, and then hide in the room, letting these patients wander around the city at will. When the day comes and these patients calm down and become dazed, they will take them back.
Usually after one night, a large area of gray scabs would spread out on the body of the patient who had been caught in the rain. They used this method to speed up the severity of the patient's illness, calling it "accelerated evolution". At the same time, they claimed that these patients could only completely get rid of their pain if they passed the "evolution period" as quickly as possible.
The relatives of those patients have been brainwashed thoroughly, and this organization originally wanted to create an atmosphere where nothing and no one would disturb the "evolution", so every night, as long as it rains, all those who are not sick will not go out. The night of heavy rain belongs only to the gray scab patients. "
"This is too outrageous! How could anyone believe it? If you are sick, you should go to a doctor! What about accelerated evolution? Doesn't anyone raise any objections? Does everyone believe this ridiculous nonsense?!" Xu Jiechu couldn't imagine such an outrageous statement and behavior. "And what is the purpose of this organization doing this? Not allowing people to leave, and accelerating the progress of this disease. What do they want to do? Raise Gu?"
Yue Dong sighed: "When people are about to drown, they will desperately grab anything at hand, even if it is just a straw. As for the purpose, who knows, after all, we are all normal people."
Some of this information was obtained from a man who escaped from Youcheng. His family members were all infected with gray scab. He didn't want to join the organization, nor did he want to be locked up and brainwashed, so he pretended to join and escaped at night.
But he was injured and did not have the courage to cross half of Youcheng to the city center at night. There was no boat to cross the river, and he did not have a car or any supplies. In the end, he fled to this homestay.
Unfortunately, he also contracted gray scab. On the second day after Yue Dong and his friends came to the B&B, he started to have a fever and tiny gray moss appeared on his body. He knew what he would look like after contracting this disease, and this fact was tantamount to a death sentence for him.
Later, he took advantage of Yue Dong and the others not noticing and committed suicide...
"What you mean is that no one will come out in the entire northern part of the city at night. Even if an outsider wants to cross the city to the river, no one will come out to stop him?" Chen Fa sharply brought the subject back.
"Yes." Yue Dong nodded.
"How can you be sure?" Xu Jiechu asked again.
"We can't be sure, this is just the result of observation. But we have been observing for a long time, and we know which sections of the road entrances to the city this organization has set up roadblocks, spikes and mines to serve as guards on their behalf at night. We just need to bypass these areas and we can enter the city smoothly."
"This is too risky!" The big guy and the bald guy couldn't help but speak out.
"If you want to go to the south of the city, there is no other way." Yue Dong seemed much calmer. After all, he had been investigating here for several days and had thought of various plans. "It is absolutely impossible to get through during the day. Their armed forces are very powerful. Even bulletproof vehicles probably can't get through, unless you have a tank."
“…”
"Of course, you can also give up this route and bypass Youcheng and take the Great Northwest Route, passing through the no-man's land and going directly to Fengshang Plateau from there."
However, the road is thousands of kilometers long. Even in peacetime, one could get stuck in the no-man's land and die on the spot if one was not careful, let alone in today's severe weather conditions.
The most basic need - fuel - is a big problem.
After all, the reason they are reunited here now is because of the fuel problem.
I've already come this far, but I find that I can't get through, but I can't go back. Continuing to wait would be waiting for death. In this case, I might as well give it a try!
Everyone began to think and looked at their teammates at the same time, wanting to get advice from people they trusted.
The people on Lu Zheng and Xu Tingfeng's side didn't know Yue Dong at all, but Lu Zheng absolutely trusted Shu Fu.
As for Chen Fa, she used to be the deputy captain of Yue Dong and his team. In addition, they left the team early because of her warning and ultimately saved their lives, so Yue Dong and his team trusted Chen Fa very much.
And Chen Fa, like Lu Zheng, absolutely trusts Shu Fu.
In the end, everyone's eyes were focused on Shu Fu.
Shu Fu: ...
She took a step back, letting Chen Fa stand in front of her, and said, "I'll listen to her."
Her personality is not suitable for being a team leader, and after completing this mission, she will most likely be forced to work alone again. But Chen Fa is different. She has lamented before that she has not met a good captain or a team that works together.
And now, it seems.
Several people from Lu Zheng's side had cooperated with them to escape from Lucheng. Except for the thin guy and Xu Jiechu who were a little unreliable, the others were brave and resourceful.
As for the people on Yue Dong's side, since they had agreed with Chen Fa to warn each other with signs beforehand, they must be people she trusted. After receiving her warning, they were able to escape successfully and walk all the way to Youcheng. They should not be stupid people.
In such troubled times, the importance of reliable teammates is self-evident.
Chen Fa thought about it and asked Yue Dong again: "When we get to the river, how do we get across?"
"There is an inflatable boat on the pickup truck we drove over. It can seat 15 people and safely carry 1,700 kilograms. If everyone squeezes together, they should be able to get on together." This inflatable boat is the reason why Yue Dong and his team have stayed here to investigate Youcheng and plan to go through the city to the south bank.
"No need to squeeze." Chen Fa smiled, "We also have an inflatable boat and a hanging machine in the car, which can accommodate the three of us. Use the empty space on the rubber boat to bring as many supplies as possible." As she spoke, she walked to the window to check the weather outside.
At this moment, the rain outside was getting heavier, and the whole sky was gloomy and depressing. It seemed that this heavy rain would continue until evening.
Chen Faxia always makes decisions quickly: "It will rain tonight. If you want to go to the south of the city, today is indeed a good opportunity. If you have different opinions, you can raise them now. If you agree, there are still six hours from now until the evening. We will organize the supplies and plan the specific route."
Yue Dong had wanted to leave a long time ago, and no one disagreed.
It is even less likely that Shu Fu and Chen Yuezhen would have it.
As for Lu Zheng and Xu Tingfeng, Xu Jiechu, who had spoken the most before, attracted everyone's attention.
"Why are you all looking at me?" He felt a little embarrassed. He felt like he was the most cowardly person at this moment. "I didn't say I wouldn't go. Just go if you want to. Everyone else is leaving anyway..."
"Okay, let's decide and take action tonight!"
**
The rain was like a waterfall.
The street lights are dim on the streets in the north of Youcheng. Tonight, Youcheng belongs to the "evolvers", while "non-evolvers" are prohibited from going out. Everyone is treated equally, without exception.
On a street in the north of the city, three cars were lined up in a row, moving slowly from north to south.
The pickup truck was in the lead, the bus was in the middle, and the off-road vehicle was at the end. The three vehicles had successfully passed the obstacle area and trap area on the edge of the city and officially entered the city center. The number of buildings around here had obviously increased, and they didn't know if there were eyes watching them in these buildings at this moment.
None of the three cars turned on their headlights. In the rainy night, with the help of the dim street lights, they drove silently towards the river in the center of Youcheng.
The person driving the pickup truck tonight is Jiang Dai. She was an urban architect before the chaos, and she has extraordinary abilities in recognizing roads and remembering directions. There are few seats inside the pickup truck, so Yue Dong took another person to the bus in the middle. That person was inside the bus, while Yue Dong and Xu Tingfeng sat on the roof of the bus together, wearing raincoats.
They were using binoculars to check the surrounding road conditions, and then Yue Dong informed Jiang Dai of the road conditions through the only pair of walkie-talkies to ensure that their team would not drive into the streets where the northern forces had set up roadblocks and guardrails.
They speculated that the roadblocks and guardrails were meant to stop the gray scab patients from running towards the river. After all, they would risk their lives to see water. If the rain suddenly stopped one night, they would most likely jump into the river together.
Obviously, this is not the result that the forces in the north of the city want to see.
The rain was too heavy and the telescope was of limited use. Perhaps it was because it was still young or there were no houses nearby to house patients with gray scab, but since they entered the central city, they still hadn't seen many patients with gray scab coming out to get wet in the rain.
Youcheng is much larger than Lucheng. At their current speed, it will take at least another hour to reach the river bank.
After Yue Dong and Xu Tingfeng confirmed, they used the intercom to ask Jiang Dai to speed up slightly.
The car passed several intersections safely, with less than half the distance left. However, after turning a bend, a large number of gray scab patients suddenly appeared in front of the car, blocking the street.
"There are a lot of patients on the road!" Jiang Dai's voice trembled slightly on the intercom. Even though she had stayed in the B&B for several days and knew the situation in Youcheng, she was mentally prepared. At this moment, she was still shocked by the number of gray scab patients wandering on the street.
"Don't panic. As long as the patient is not exposed to external stimulation, he will not react to moving vehicles. Keep driving. There is a fork in the road three meters ahead. Turn there." Yue Dong's voice came from the intercom. Jiang Dai calmed down again, slowed down the car, and successfully drove the car into the fork in the road.
Buses and SUVs followed closely behind.
In the SUV, Chen Yuezhen was driving tonight, and Shu Fu was sitting in the back seat. Looking out through the water-stained glass, she saw that some of those suffering from gray scab were standing in the rain, some were lying on the rain-soaked road, and some were squatting there, twisting their bodies from time to time.
They were almost naked. Some of the patients had only parts of their bodies covered with gray scabs, while others had lost half of their hair, with their scalps and cheeks covered with horrible gray scabs. When they turned their heads, their blood-red eyes looked like the pupils of animals under the dim street lights.
Shu Fu's mind was shattered by the dazzling fire and loud noise that suddenly exploded in front of the SUV. In such a quiet city, the noise at this moment was no less than a bomb dropped from the air.
bomb?
When Shu Fu reacted, it was really an explosion!
The bus had an accident!
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