"Cars behind, keep up, hurry up!"
In front of the Peace Base, several trucks that looked very worn drove out of the base gate, sped away, and drove out of the valley.
Lin Man was carrying a small, torn backpack and a large tin kettle. He was wearing patched and tattered clothes. His face was dry and dirty, with deeply sunken cheeks. He looked at the departing truck with indifferent eyes.
Looking around, it was a barren land with almost no greenery in the fields and hillsides. Scattered old people and children were digging tree roots and weeds to satisfy their hunger.
In the seventeenth year of the apocalypse, even weeds rarely grow in the fields. It is said that this is because the environment has been severely polluted and the existing plants cannot adapt to the environment.
The base worked hard to grow some crops, but in the end they could harvest very little, so even though there have been fewer and fewer zombies in recent years, people's lives have become more and more difficult.
I heard that only those large bases have built closed planting bases and developed new types of seeds that can produce some food. The trucks just now were heading towards the large bases.
Lin Man withdrew her gaze and entered the base. There was a panic everywhere and people were packing up to leave. After walking for about ten minutes, she came to a bungalow.
Their peaceful base was built after the end of the world. It was difficult to get any decent building materials in the isolated valley. The few materials they got from outside with great difficulty were all used to build the city walls. As for housing, earthen bricks and some yellow mud were enough.
The area around Lin Man’s home is like this. It looks gray. Lin Man has lived here since he can remember.
"Xiaoman is back." There are three people living next door to Lin Man's house, an old lady with a granddaughter and a grandson. The former is two years younger than Lin Man, and the latter is four years younger than Lin Man. Both of their parents died in the tide of corpses in the fifth year of the apocalypse. Because they are "martyr's relatives", they can get subsidies from the base.
Although the base was struggling in the past few years, there was still food. Over the past two years, most of the base's management has left, leaving the remaining families on the brink of starvation, and naturally, the so-called subsidies have also disappeared. So, this family's life has been particularly difficult.
It was this old lady who greeted Lin Man, and Lin Man smiled and called her "Grandma Wu".
As she spoke, she grabbed two large wild vegetables from the bag on her back. She couldn't name them, but they were green and edible. "Grandma Wu, this is for you."
"Hey, that won't do! You should save it for you and your daughter."
"I still have some in my bag."
Grandma Wu was also very excited when she saw the green and tender wild vegetables in her hand. The two children at home had not eaten such fresh food for a long time. Now they are busy outside every day, and all they can bring back are either tree roots, bark or weeds. This wild vegetable is really a rare and good thing.
"Then grandma will accept it. I'll go get you a bowl of cricket powder."
Grandma Wu hurried into the house. Lin Man looked at the dead earthworms drying on the rack in her yard and sighed.
Grandma Wu has been raising earthworms for decades, and she's quite skilled at it. She used to raise chickens and ducks and grow vegetables and melons, so her yard was full of food, which she could sell to the base or neighbors for a good profit. Because they were relatives of martyrs, the base had made a point of protecting them, so no one dared to steal them, and Lin Man and her daughter also benefited from it.
Now the chickens and ducks are gone, and vegetables and melons can no longer be grown. The only things left are earthworms. These things are dried and ground into powder. In the past, they were mixed together to feed the chickens, but now they have become the staple food of the Wu family.
Lin Man really doesn't like eating this, but thinking of the kindness that Grandma Wu had shown her family in the past, she can't bear to see the Wu family, young and old, living on earthworms every day, so if she gets any wild animals or vegetables, she will come and exchange them with Grandma Wu for this.
Although it tastes bad, it at least contains protein, which is a rare nutrient.
Lin Man carried a half-full bowl of earthworm powder into her home. Hers was only about ten square meters, with a wooden bed, a table, a stove, and several cabinets, chairs, pots, and pans. With light streaming in from the window, it wasn't too dim, but there was a strong odor—a result of chronic water shortages and infrequent cleaning, a common odor in every household.
A skinny figure was sitting at the table, fiddling with something.
"Mom, why did you get out of bed?" Lin Man put down the bowl.
Mother Lin fled with Lin Man in her pregnant belly at the beginning of the apocalypse. Later, she took little Lin Man to several bases alone and finally settled down in this peaceful base. In order to survive, she did heavy physical work that only men could do. Her body was seriously damaged. She suffered from back and leg pain for many years, and gradually she could not walk anymore. She fell three years ago and has been unable to walk since then. The most she can do is take a few steps with the help of a cane.
There is a medical clinic in the base, but it can't do anything for Mother Lin's condition. There is a healing psychic who is said to be very powerful, but such a rare talent will not appear in this small base in the mountains, so Mother Lin has been bedridden for many years.
Mother Lin's face was even thinner than Lin Man's, and she looked very sick. She smiled slowly at Lin Man and said, "Mrs. Zhang came over this morning and brought some old clothes. I was wondering if I could make you a new set."
Mrs. Zhang is the wife of Zhang Chengtao, the second-in-command of the base. When Lin Man heard this, he knew that the Zhang family must be in the trucks that just left. Because they were leaving, some things were difficult to take with them, so they gave them to others. Lin Man saw that the pile of clothes on the table was so tattered that it couldn't be any more.
She put down her backpack and water bottle and asked, "Can you spell it out?"
"Sure, put the tops together. I'll take apart one of your clothes and make you two proper underwear." Mother Lin cut the fabric with scissors with shaking hands.
The hand tremors may be caused by injuries to the hands, which make them weak, or hunger and low blood sugar.
Lin Man hurriedly said, "Mom, leave it there. I'll cut it later. I'll cook something to eat first."
She poured out all the wild vegetables from her backpack, there were quite a lot of them. She went out before dawn today and found a sparse wild vegetable field after climbing over a mountain. She picked all the wild vegetables she could, but left the roots and small wild vegetables untouched, hoping that they would grow longer.
Mother Lin was surprised: "So many."
"Well, it's enough for us to eat for two days." Lin Man quickly took out the stove, lit a fire, and boiled water.
The water came from the base's wells. Over the past few years, more and more wells had been drilled, but the yield had been decreasing, and it looked like it was about to dry up. As for the water in the kettle, it came from a small puddle in the wild vegetable patch. Lin Man had been busy for a long time filling the kettle with water from there. It was a little murky, but it was fine for washing.
Firewood is branches and the like. No new trees have grown in recent years, and there are not many old tree trunks left on the nearby hills. Even the tree roots have been almost dug up by hungry people.
Lin Man looked at the smoke rising from the pot, carefully put the washed wild vegetables in one by one, and sprinkled a few grains of salt on them. The salt jar was almost empty. This was the last batch of salt in the base, and there would be no more after eating it.
In the small towns outside the mountain, seventeen years have passed and the shops and factories there have been looted more than seventeen times. Not even a needle or thread is left, let alone salt.
Whether it is food, drink, supplies or clothing, everything is almost at the end of its supply.
Mother Lin looked at her daughter's back and suddenly said, "Mrs. Zhang said that at least two or three more groups of people will have to leave. Xiaoman, you should go with them then."
Lin Man paused and said in a relaxed tone, "Okay, I'll go out and ask, and then we'll go together."
Mother Lin said slowly, "Mom can't leave in this condition. You're a child, you don't eat much, but you're quite strong, so you can help with a lot of things. Those people will like you, and you don't have to go too far. A slightly larger base will always provide a better life than here. It's always a way out."
Staying here is a foreseeable dead end.
What Lin's mother didn't say was that there are generally more men than women nowadays. Lin Man actually has very good-looking facial features and is so young. After he gets out, if he can rely on a strong person, he should be able to live a good life.
But as a mother, she really couldn't say such words.
In fact, in the past two years, many people in the base have been interested in Lin Man, including several good young people who have already left the base. However, those people like Lin Man and are willing to take care of her, but are unwilling to take Lin's mother, who is a burden, with them. Lin Man is determined not to leave her mother, so there is always no result.
But if it drags on any longer, it won’t be as simple as not being able to find a home, it will be a matter of life and death.
Mother Lin's bony hands suddenly clenched the scissors tightly.
Lin Man smiled and went to sit next to Lin's mother. "But where is the real way out? We are in the deep mountains and old forests here, and there is almost no grass growing. People in other places must be starving to death. We are annoying wherever we go. Besides, it's so dangerous out there. What if we die before we even reach the main base? Wouldn't that be a waste of time?"
There are just fewer zombies now, which doesn't mean there are none. Moreover, the zombies that can survive to this day are basically elites. Ordinary people will die if they encounter them.
I heard that the nearest base was across the province, which was far away. Who knew what they would encounter along the way? Therefore, those who dared to go out and cross thousands of mountains and rivers at this time were all powerful and brave people. People like Lin Man, who only had a little strength, would look down on them.
Of course, if she was willing to go all out and insist on it, people might be willing to take her with them because they saw that she was strong and could serve as two grown men. But considering what Mother Lin said, no team would be willing to take them on the journey.
But if Lin Man had to abandon her mother and escape on his own, she would rather stay here and die with her mother.
Mother Lin: "What nonsense."
Lin Man hugged his mother and said, "I'm serious, Mom. I've never left here since I was a child. At most, I've been to a few small towns outside. I don't know what the world outside is like. I'm scared. There are zombies hiding somewhere, and the people outside are much worse than those in the base. I heard that they eat people when they're hungry. Mom, please don't kick me out."
Mother Lin's eyes turned red when she heard this: "But stay here..."
"If we really can't live anymore, let's die together. At least I'm with my mother, so I'm not afraid." Lin Man's voice was soft but firm.
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