It was three o'clock in the afternoon, the sun was shining and the weather was warm.
After Si Nan finished his housework, he locked the two geese in the chicken coop on the right side of the yard downstairs, regardless of whether they were willing or not.
She closed all the doors, windows and gates, pushed a shabby-looking mountain bike, walked to the yard next door on the left, and said hello to Sheng's mother: "Aunt Sheng, I have to go out for a while. Please help me listen to the noise next door. If anyone comes to look for me, or breaks into my house, please help me call the patrol team to deal with it."
"Xiao Nan, are you going to the shantytown to inquire about your uncle and his family again?" Sheng's mother came out sewing a torn piece of clothing. "You've been asking for more than a month, and even posted a missing person notice at the entrance of the base. If they were going to come, they should have come a long time ago."
"Maybe they didn't see the missing person notices and moved into the shantytown. I have to go look for them to feel at ease." Si Nan smiled at Sheng's mother, turned around and walked along the path beside the stream towards the shantytown outside the base.
After the base's perimeter wall was built, she often went to the gate of the base to ask the soldiers in charge of registration whether the names of her uncle, aunt and their family had been registered.
The answer she got was that there were too many people who had fled to the Shishan base, and there were many people with the same name and surname, so she could go to the shantytown to look for them.
If you can't find them, you can post a missing person notice on the wall outside the base gate. The soldiers guarding the base gate will remind new survivors to read the missing person notice every day so that they can accurately find their relatives and friends in this large base with a large population.
Many people in the base were separated from their relatives and friends, and the walls outside the base were covered with missing person notices. The missing person notices posted by Sinan would often be covered by them, so every day she would take a few handwritten missing person notices and post them outside the walls of the base, and then go to the shantytowns where the military arranged for the new survivors to temporarily live to look for people.
It takes two hours to walk from Boulder Town to the outer ring gate of the base. She rode her mountain bike and sped towards the gate along the avenue built by the base.
More than two months ago, she took out two brand new mountain bikes from the space, placed them in the room upstairs, and watered them every day. After about half a month, both bikes were rusted and did not look new. She then took one of the bikes downstairs and gave it to Cheng Suming to ride. She told others that Cheng Suming learned to assemble the bike himself for convenience in traveling.
Cheng Suming's workplace is in the old hospital behind the Jushi Town Government Building, which is about 40 minutes' walk from his home. However, riding a bike reduces the time by half. Sometimes, if he rides faster, he can get home in just over ten minutes.
After seeing Cheng Suming's bicycle, Yang Wentao remembered that they had found a lot of bicycle parts in the ruins of Xingcheng before. He tried to assemble two bicycles, one for him and Cheng Wei, and one for Sheng Youqing and her brother.
After the earthquake, most means of transportation were severely damaged and in short supply, and a bicycle can now be sold at a high price.
Each of the three families including Sinan has a tricycle, which is enough to make people envious. Now they have bicycles. Outsiders are envious and jealous, but they also understand that these three families are well-off. Four of them hold important jobs in the base and cannot be easily provoked, so not many troubles have occurred.
Cheng Suming's name was too famous, and since Si Nan specifically mentioned that he had so many points and his family was not short of supplies, she bought a bicycle for riding, which naturally did not attract much attention.
She walked against the wind under the bright sunshine. The spring breeze blew up her tied hair, and her shiny black ponytail fluttered in the wind. Her clean and tidy lavender spring long coat also fluttered in the wind.
Her beautiful face shone brightly in the sunlight, stunning the new survivors who came to the Stone Mountain Base with large and small bags, with dishevelled hair and dirty clothes.
"Who is that woman? She is so beautiful, wearing such clean clothes, and riding a bicycle. Is she from Shishan?"
"I don't know, but those who can ride bicycles nowadays probably have enough supplies at home."
"I don't know if that woman has a man. If not, I don't mind sacrificing my looks and letting her do whatever she wants, as long as she's willing to support me and provide me with food and drink."
"Don't dream. Nowadays, all beautiful women are protected by capable men. With your ugly face and skinny body, you will be beaten by men before you even get close to them."
"Hey, you dare to look down on me? Why don't you take a piss and look in the mirror to see what you look like? Our eldest brother, not to mention the second brother, all look pretty much the same."
......
The noisy discussions made a handsome man sitting in a black car look out the window.
Following the long moving line of survivors, he saw a familiar figure.
The man was shocked and quickly leaned out of the window. Just as he was about to call out the name that haunted him, he heard a slightly older woman's voice: "What's wrong, Shichu?"
Zou Shichu turned around and saw the face of a middle-aged woman with heavy makeup.
This person is a middle-aged woman in her fifties whom he had just hooked up with, and she is the wife of a high-ranking military officer in the base.
After he entered the base, he was unwilling to live in the shantytown, do hard labor, and earn meager points to make a living. He coaxed Jiang Yiyi to use his body to hook up with the officer's subordinates, recommend him to be the officer's civilian secretary, and then step by step to the side of this woman and become her new favorite. He and Jiang Yiyi also moved from the shantytown to the central area of Jushi Town, to a newly built row of linked villas.
Looking at this woman who made him feel sick but had to rely on him, Zou Shichu lowered his eyes and whispered, "Mrs. Ye, it's nothing. I just caught a glimpse of a figure from behind. It looked like someone I know. I must have seen it wrong."
"Xiao Zou, it doesn't matter if you recognize the wrong person. What matters is who you recognize." Madam Ye stretched out her chubby fingers with red nail polish, and blatantly touched a certain part of Zou Shichu's inner thigh in the car, which was driving at a moderate speed. Her eyes hinted, "Old Ye has a meeting tonight. Send him a document and I'll help him check it."
The driver in front drove with an expressionless face, but his ears perked up when he heard the man in the back seat, whose face was as pale as if he had been powdered, say in a low voice, "Okay."
A gigolo who lives off his wife! The driver sneered in his heart, feeling sorry for Master Ye. He was cuckolded one after another, but he turned a blind eye and deaf ear to it. It was unknown whether he was afraid that the matter would get out of hand and affect his reputation, or he was indifferent to Madam Ye, or Madam Ye loved him so much that he hoped she would come back to the right path.
In short, many people know that Madam Ye has been supporting Zou Shichu for some time. This pretty boy has taken advantage of this relationship to cause a lot of trouble in the military. No one knows what Commander Ye thinks and when he will deal with this pretty boy who he can't stand.
The car passed by Si Nan, but he didn't look back.
After various roads in the base were built, more and more vehicles were driving on the road.
Nowadays, most people who can drive in the base are from the military, Xingcheng government, and wealthy and powerful people.
Si Nan had nothing to do with those people, and was not willing to curry favor with anyone in the base management. He just wanted to close the door and live his own life.
Normally, when she encountered those cars, she would stay far away from them. Today, she rode her bike as close to the side of the road as possible to avoid blocking others.
An hour later, she arrived at the gate of the base.
There were still several long queues outside the gate. They were all people who had received the news that Shishan was sheltering disaster victims, or they were survivors who were brought back by the soldiers at the base when they were out looking for supplies. They lined up at the gate of the base with their families, waiting to register.
Si Nan comes to the gate of the base every day. The soldiers guarding the gate all know her. When they saw her getting off the bicycle, a soldier with rough skin and rashes came over and said, "Mrs. Cheng, this morning a middle-aged man named Liu and two men and women named Si came to our base with their families to register. I told them that their relatives might be looking for them, and asked them to go to the wall outside to check the missing person notice, but they thought no one was looking for them, so they didn't go to check. They are probably being held in the shantytown in the west district now. Do you want to go there and see if it's the person you're looking for?"
There are not so many houses in Jushi Town. Although the wasteland and fields outside the town have been requisitioned by the military, and many houses have been built by working overtime in the past two months, most of the houses are rented by the survivors who arrived earlier or occupied by factories. The number of survivors from outside is still increasing, and the military government can only build shanty towns in remote areas outside the town for temporary residence of new survivors.
The shanty towns closer to the base wall are already full of survivors, and the rest are used to detain criminals. In the more chaotic western shanty towns, which have more criminals, there are also many free and vacant large sheds for new survivors to live in.
If the new survivors do not have food to exchange for other places to live, they can only follow the arrangements of government staff and go to the West District to stay temporarily.
When Si Nan heard the name the soldier reported, he felt that it might be his uncle and aunt. He was very excited. After thanking the soldier, he turned around and rode his bicycle towards the west district at a high speed.
The conditions in the West District shantytown are obviously worse than other shantytowns because it is filled with many criminals. As soon as Sinan arrived at the entrance of the West District, he saw many rows of dimly lit houses with a wall built with wooden boards and adobes. Opposite the wall stood a few wooden pillars, covered with simple asbestos tiles, wooden boards, foam boards, etc. as roofs. There were no doors. Each large shantytown was covered with simple straw mats, or beds with dotted lines drawn with lime, connected row after row, with no end in sight.
It was already five o'clock in the afternoon, time to get off work. Many criminals had finished their work and were escorted back to the shantytowns by groups of armed soldiers, handcuffed and holding a steamed bun. They looked tired but fierce.
Most criminals whose crimes are not so serious live here. A small number of criminals with extremely serious crimes will be escorted to the newly built cells at the innermost part of the shantytown.
The survivors who had lived here for a while, when they saw the criminals coming back, had fear in their eyes and retreated back to their own beds, pulling the bed curtains or wooden boards to avoid coming into eye contact with the murderers, rapists and other criminals who killed people without blinking an eye.
The new survivors were already on their way here. They heard from others what the West District was. When they saw the group of criminals coming over, many of whom had done hard labor, they were so hot that they took off their spring clothes, revealing their muscular bodies covered with tattoos, knife marks, bullet scars, etc. Each of them had a sinister expression and looked at people unkindly. They were so scared that they huddled in their assigned beds in the shed, wondering when to move to another place.
At this time, many survivors who had finished their work and were temporarily unable to move to other places came back from get off work. They went in groups of three or four to build a wall specially built for the greenhouse area in the west district, surrounding the entire west district and building a large iron gate. The gate would be closed at night to prevent the criminals inside from walking in through the door outside.
Sinan was dressed neatly and pushing a bicycle, undoubtedly becoming the focus of attention.
Everyone, including the group of criminals walking in front, turned to look at her.
Other people would feel somewhat uncomfortable when being stared at by the criminals with fierce, teasing, or obscene eyes, or even hearing them whistle, or would be so scared that they would simply turn around and run away.
Si Nan looked at everyone expressionlessly, especially those criminals who showed ill intentions towards her. Her eyes were extremely cold, and she looked at those criminals as if she were dead. She gave off an aura that someone was not to be trifled with, which surprised those criminals.
Most of the women in the shantytowns in the West District are weak and vulnerable to bullying. Si Nan has a clean, gentle and easy-to-bully face, but her eyes and her aura tell everyone who looks at her that no good will come of messing with her.
This caused many people to whisper and speculate about her identity, which allowed a beautiful woman like her to dare to come alone to the West District where criminals were everywhere.
Si Nan ignored the discussions of those people and pushed his bicycle forward, searching for his target.
The greenhouse was filled with a great deal of noise, with the sounds of people talking and chatting, as well as children crying, women wailing, old people groaning in illness, and men furiously beating, scolding and roaring.
The entire greenhouse area was filled with a foul smell, which was caused by the inconvenience of washing for people in the West District, the mixed smell of sweat, foot odor, and body odor due to the long-term lack of showers and laundry, rotting food, swollen and festering wounds, and the lack of food to exchange for medicine. There were also many suffocating smells.
Si Nan wrinkled his nose as he passed by one bed in the shed after another, carefully looking for the shadows of his uncle and others in the dim light.
After looking around for a long time but not seeing anyone, just when he was about to shout their names at the top of his lungs, he suddenly saw a familiar figure. Si Nan took a closer look at the man and shouted excitedly, "Uncle!"
Liu Dalin turned around when he heard the voice and saw his long-missed niece standing in the narrow road of the shantytown. The basin he was about to collect water in fell to the ground with a clang. With tears in his eyes, he walked towards Si Nan in disbelief: "Xiao Nan, is it really you?! You are still alive and well!"
"Uncle! It's me! You're not seeing things!" Si Nan parked the car aside, rushed into Liu Dalin's arms, hugged him and cried: "Uncle, it's been more than two years, and I finally see you. I miss you so much!"
"Xiao Nan?" Si Yufang, her husband and son, Liu Dalin's wife and daughter, who were not far away, came out from the dim beds when they heard the voice. They were excited and surprised to see Si Nan.
Si Yufang, like Liu Dalin, rushed forward excitedly and hugged Si Nan tightly, tears streaming down her cheeks like pearls from a broken string: "Xiao Nan, auntie finally found you, have you been well these past two years?"
"Aunt, I'm doing fine, but I couldn't get in touch with you and was worried about you. Fortunately, you came to find me." Si Nan turned around and hugged Si Yufang tightly and cried for a while. He looked at her and Liu Dalin with heartache and said, "You must have had a hard time in the past two years. You are so thin that you are just skin and bones. I almost didn't recognize you! But it doesn't matter. I have already rented two houses for you, and I am waiting for you to come and live in. Uncle, aunt, don't stand here and talk, take your things and follow me."
Before the end of the world, Liu Dalin was a sturdy, slightly plump middle-aged man with a beer belly. Now he has lost so much weight that he has no beer belly at all. When the wind blows through his clothes, you can even see his ribs. He has lost weight so much that he looks like two different people.
Si Yufang was already very thin, and now she was even thinner, with sunken eyes and a chin so sharp that it could kill someone. A gust of wind could blow her down.
The others were equally skinny, and Si Nan felt extremely distressed when he saw this. Without saying a word, he went to help them carry their luggage.
They had very little luggage, just some iron pots, basins and bowls that were not easily broken, and a pitiful amount of clothing and food. They didn't even have bedding or thick clothes.
When Liu Dalin and his companions heard Si Nan say that he had rented a house for them, they were shocked and confused. Before they could ask, a middle-aged man in his 50s or 50s suddenly came over, stood in front of Si Nan, looked her up and said, "Are you Si Nan?"
Si Nan looked at the middle-aged man in front of her. He was tall and thin, with regular facial features. Even though he was old, he still combed his greasy hair into a neat middle part. He wore a dirty white shirt, trousers, and a pair of leather shoes that were so worn out that they had several small holes. He looked at her with a sour face as if she owed him eight million yuan.
"Who are you?" Si Nan asked with a frown, feeling that the middle-aged man in front of him looked familiar.
"You don't even recognize your father. You are really an ungrateful traitor!" the middle-aged man sneered.
A person he just met for the first time cursed him like this. Si Nan cursed back without any hesitation: "Who do you think you are? How dare I recognize you! You are such an ungrateful person. What do you have that would make me betray you? You are crazy!"
She turned to leave, but was stopped by Si Yufang, who looked at her awkwardly and said, "Sinan, he is your father."
With that attitude and the clothes that had hardly changed in his vague memory, Si Nan had actually recognized who he was as soon as he opened his mouth to speak.
She sneered, "I only have a mother, no father. My mother and I were kicked out of the Si family. After my mother died, I became an orphan without a father or a mother. My father died a long time ago!"
"You! You unfilial daughter, how dare you scold me!" Seeing that his daughter, whom he hadn't seen for many years, was so rude and uneducated, and didn't recognize him as her father, Si Chengye was so angry that he was shaking all over. He raised his hand and wanted to teach this unfilial daughter a lesson.
"What are you doing?!" Liu Dalin quickly grabbed his arm, stood in front of Si Nan and said, "You know how you treated my sister back then. Don't act like a big shot in front of Xiao Nan. Get out of here before I lose my temper!"
Si Nan ignored what was happening behind him. He pushed the cart carrying the few luggage bags of Si Yufang and Liu Dalin and walked forward without looking back.
Si Yufang held back Si Chengye who was on the verge of a rage and said, "Brother, Xiaonan still resents you for what you did back then and will not forgive you in the short term. Don't get angry in front of her. Stay here first. I will persuade her. Find a time for you and your daughter to have a good talk."
Si Chengye is also a man with a bad temper. The reason why he came to the Shishan base was because he listened to Si Yufang's words, saying that Si Nan told them before the end of the world that a natural disaster was coming, and that they must go find her, and she could make their lives better.
At first they did not believe her, thinking that the child had a weird personality since childhood, was rather withdrawn, kept to herself, was not sociable, and spoke in mysterious ways, just like her mother who was unreliable. However, they did not expect that the natural disasters that occurred one after another later were exactly as she had said.
Fortunately, before they completely lost contact with Si Nan, Si Nan had told them that if they lost contact after the end of the world and could not find her, they could come to the Shishan Military Base to seek refuge with the military, so as to avoid being bullied, frozen or starved to death in the small base. Only then did Si Chengye bring his wife and daughter and follow Si Yufang and others to Shishan.
Unexpectedly, when they arrived at Shishan, they were placed in a squalid and poor shantytown in the West District. Si Chengye felt that he had been cheated. His eldest daughter was still as treacherous as before, wishing him dead. How could he not be angry? If Liu Dalin hadn't stopped him, he would have wanted to beat Si Nan to death on the spot.
"You'd better convince her to come here before tonight and kneel down and kowtow to apologize." Si Chengye said with a cold face: "Looking at the way she is pushing the bicycle, she must have enough supplies to ride the bicycle. As long as she is willing to admit her mistakes and use the food to support me, I will forgive the past."
He paused and continued, "That damn girl just now said that she rented two houses for you? Humph, she really thought I was dead and didn't think of me at all. You go with her to look at the house and come back to pick us up later. Your sister-in-law is weak, Miaomiao is pregnant, Miaomiao has caught a cold, and the eldest son-in-law is useless. We don't want to squeeze in this stinking place and suffer."
Si Yufang stammered a few times, wanting to say something, but in the end she said nothing and left with a sigh.
The group followed Si Nan from the West District to the alley of old houses in the stream of Jushi Town. It took almost two hours to arrive at the two blue brick and tile houses that Si Nan had rented earlier.
Over the past two months, she has hired people to repair the beams, tiles, glass windows, wells, and beds of the two houses, cleaned the houses and yards, and bought some old furniture inside. She usually locks the door, takes some food and asks neighbors to help watch the house, but no thieves break in and steal things.
During this period, many people found her and wanted to offer her two houses in exchange for large sums of money, but she declined them all, always believing that her uncle and aunt would come to find her, and sure enough, she waited for them.
She led Liu Dalin and his group around the two houses and said to them with a smile: "The houses are a bit simple, but I have repaired the well, kang bed, windows and so on in advance. Living here, we can safely get through the next severe cold weather."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com