"Dr. Li, I feel much better after the acupuncture in my back. Thank you so much!" The middle-aged woman handed the instant noodles in her hand to Li Xue. Grandpa Li then gave the woman's daughter-in-law some instructions and let them leave.
Li Xue and her grandfather were assigned to this three-bedroom apartment. She and her grandfather lived in the second bedroom. The other two families were a middle-aged couple and a young man, who lived in the master bedroom. The other family was a woman with a six or seven-year-old girl, who lived in a smaller bedroom. She got along well with all of them.
"Dr. Li has finished seeing patients. Take a rest. I made some popcorn; you and Xiaoxue, come and have some," the middle-aged woman said. Grandpa Li smiled and agreed, then went to the living room with Li Xue, chatting and eating with the middle-aged woman and the little girl. The middle-aged woman's husband and son worked at the shelter, and the little girl's mother was also a doctor—unlike Grandpa Li, who was an older traditional Chinese medicine doctor, she was a surgeon and also worked at the shelter. As they chatted about their recent experiences at the shelter and their future plans, they heard a knock at the door. Li Xue ran to open it and exclaimed in surprise, "Anran?" Xu Anran said, "Class monitor, it's been a long time! Would you mind coming in and chatting?"
Li Xue nodded and invited Xu Anran in. The middle-aged woman asked in confusion, "Xiao Xue, who is this?" "Aunt Wang, this is my classmate, Xu Anran." She then introduced Xu Anran to Aunt Wang and Nannan, who live with us. Xu Anran greeted them one by one, "Hello Aunt Wang, hello Nannan, hello Grandpa, long time no see." Nannan called out "Hello, sister." Grandpa Li smiled and said, "It's Anran! It's so good that you came. Did you come to the shelter by yourself?" Seeing Xu Anran nod, Grandpa Li sighed, "It's not easy, good child. Come in with Xiao Xue, you two sisters can have a good chat." Aunt Wang took a plate and filled it with popcorn for them to take inside and eat.
Upon entering the room, it was very tidy, with a bed and a table. On the table were some of Grandpa Li's tools. Li Xue invited Xu Anran to sit on the chair by the table. She sat on the bed next to her and asked, "How will you sleep tonight?" "I'll sleep on the floor, and Grandpa will sleep on the bed. At first, Grandpa didn't want to, and he wanted to sleep on the floor by himself. I had to persuade him for a while before he agreed. What about you? When did you arrive, and where are you staying now?"
“I just arrived today and I’m staying in the RV in the parking lot.” “RV?” “Yes, my own RV, I just bought it a while ago.” “My homeroom teacher, Jiang Shan, and I all received a message before, did you send it?” Xu Anran nodded and said, “The situation was quite urgent at the time, so I sent you three the information I knew.” After hearing this, Li Xue grasped Xu Anran’s hand, her eyes reddening: “Thank you, if it weren’t for your message, my grandfather and I might have died long ago.”
Xu Anran patted Li Xue on the shoulder: "How did you get here?" "I was skeptical after seeing the message. When I got to school, I noticed the strange behavior of our homeroom teacher and Jiang Shan. The three of us compared notes and found that we had all received information about monsters. Then, the homeroom teacher decided to conduct an experiment. She secretly pricked the students in the class with needles and found that many of them didn't feel anything, meaning they had probably turned into monsters. We planned to take those who hadn't turned into monsters and leave the school first, but we were discovered, and the homeroom teacher died at the school. Jiang Shan and I split up and escaped the school. Everyone went home. When I got to the entrance of my residential area, my grandfather stopped me. He told me..." "My parents started acting strangely and told me not to go home yet," the class monitor said, her eyes already brimming with tears. "My grandfather is a traditional Chinese medicine doctor. That day, he came to our house for dinner from the old house. When he got home, he noticed that my parents looked off and seemed odd, so he made an excuse to leave and waited for me at the entrance of the residential complex. After learning what had happened, I told my grandfather about what happened at school. He told me to go to the old house and wait for him while he stayed in the complex to see if they had turned into monsters. After discovering that they were monsters, my grandfather and I spent two days in the old house. We met people like us and followed them to the shelter." She wiped away her tears after saying this.
"How did you get here?" "After I sent you the message, I was attacked by monsters. My uncle's whole family turned into monsters. I had nowhere to go, so I bought a campervan and hid in the suburbs for a while. I saw various information online and found out about this shelter, so I came here. I didn't expect that as soon as I got here, I asked if anyone from our school was here, and that's how I found you." The two smiled at each other. "I also came here for something else. I heard that the people in the shelter are going to move to Pengcheng in two days. I wanted to ask you how you plan to get there?"
"My grandfather and I came to the shelter in someone else's car. We don't know how to get there yet. We'll probably have to wait for instructions."
"Why don't you ride in my car? My RV is a decent size, and we know each other well. It'll be convenient for you and your grandfather to come here. There are also two shelter staff members in my car, a young couple. It'll be safer for us to drive in the middle of the convoy. What do you think?"
Li Xue was delighted to hear this: "That's great! I'll tell Grandpa, he'll be happy too. Thank you, Anran." The two chatted for a while, learning about the situation in the shelter. Xu Anran then gave Li Xue her current phone number and the RV's license plate number before leaving.
Back in the RV, Xu Anran turned on the security camera and saw a faint yellow light in the underground parking garage footage—it was a train ticket. The bespectacled man also spotted it. In the footage, he walked straight to the ticket, picked it up, and the light disappeared. He handed the ticket to the burly man who had come later. The burly man took it and said, "Boss, we both have tickets now. Are we still going to stay with this group?" The bespectacled man replied, "It's safer with more people. It's not very safe for just the two of us to go to Pengcheng. Besides, the chances of finding tickets are higher with more people. Let's collect more tickets."
The burly man nodded after hearing this, saying, "That's right, the boss is really smart." The two must have found the ticket in the community's surveillance footage, which is why they were able to go directly to the parking lot to find it. Xu Anran thought that she already had one, so there was no need to look for it specifically, but if she came across one, she could collect it and see if she could find an old passenger to exchange information with.
Xu Anran took out another piece of bread and finished it. It wasn't convenient to exercise now, so she just wandered around the neighborhood. She saw people busy preparing for their departure. Some were packing supplies, some were loading trucks, and some were taking inventory. It seemed that everything in the small supermarket in the neighborhood had been moved out and loaded onto trucks. The supermarket was now crowded with people, like some kind of activity hall.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com