Strong winds blew up the sand and dust on the ground, turning the whole world into a chaotic and blurry mess. Even though there was sunshine today, visibility was constantly decreasing, and the dust in the air prevented the sun from shining in.
The survivors lay prone on the ground, covering their mouths and noses with their clothes, starving and praying that the new round of disaster would pass quickly.
Shao Shengan found a car with only the front of the car left. There were no tires or doors, and the surface was rusty. The iron sheet made a crisp sound when touched. He looked inside and found that the seats inside had also been removed. But he was still ecstatic. Although the broken front of the car was ventilated on all sides, at least the frame was still there, which was much better than just standing there in the open space and enduring the dust.
They worked together to move the front of the car to the side of the ruins, and placed the cut on the car body against the ruins to block the largest hole. Then they tried to pick up some stones and wood nearby, and threw the stones in to add weight to the front of the car to prevent the wind from blowing it down easily. They then used wood to seal the left and right windows as much as possible. There was no way to fill the gap in the front windshield, so they could only use an emergency blanket to patch it up.
"Mom and Dad, you go up first!"
Shao's father and mother squeezed together tightly to make room for their son to sit. After Shao Sheng'an came up, he began to look through his backpack. There were no clothes in the backpack, but there were five emergency blankets. These things don't take up space when stacked, but they are very practical. He opened two of them and gave one to Shao's father, asking him to hold that side. The two of them pressed down the emergency blanket with their hands and bodies, barely blocking the wind and sand outside, and the three of them were able to catch their breath for a while.
"What if there is an earthquake?" Shao's mother said worriedly.
Shao Shengan comforted her: "We ran when there was an earthquake. Let's rest first. Only when we have strength can we run fast. Mom, I can't move. Please give me some water."
"Hey!" Shao's mother found something to do, unscrewed the bottle cap as if it were an important task, and gently fed Shao Shengan the drink. He took a sip of the wine and turned his head: "I've had enough, give it to Dad."
"I don't want to drink. I'm not thirsty! You drink it yourself!" Father Shao didn't look back.
Shao's mother screwed the bottle cap on and put it away.
The wind and sand hit the emergency blanket, like a storm destroying banana leaves, making people feel frightened.
That night, the three people on the front of the car did not fall asleep and stayed up until dawn. The situation did not improve after dawn. They stayed in the front of the car all day and felt dizzy.
At noon, the wind reached its strongest. Shao Shengan found that the emergency blanket had cracks, and he felt heavy in his heart. The number of emergency blankets was limited, and they could not withstand such wear and tear, especially when he did not know how long the sandstorm would last.
"Mom and Dad, put on your masks. We need to take down the emergency blanket. Mom, sit with your back to the windshield. Dad, let's count to one, two, three and collect the emergency blanket together."
Shao's mother hurriedly put masks on them and sat close to Shao Shengan.
"Three, two, one!"
The emergency blanket was taken down at the same time, and a large amount of dust poured in instantly. Shao Shengan put on the emergency blanket, turned sideways with his back to the window, and was about to stand up straight to block some of the wind and sand, but unexpectedly, a pair of hands hugged him tightly and pressed his head into a warm embrace.
Shao's mother hugged her son tightly, turned her head to the side and closed her eyes to keep the sand out of her eyes.
Shao Shengan's eyes suddenly became moist. He moved, and his mother's voice came from above his head: "Don't move, Shengan."
He stood up firmly and held his mother to his chest, preventing her from looking up.
"Get some sleep, Mom. You'll be fine once you wake up." He said softly.
He didn't close his eyes, but looked outside through the window on his father's side. The sunlight couldn't penetrate the thick, yellow-brown sand in the air. Everything was yellow-brown, and the sand was rolling and flying happily in the air. His eyes began to sting, so he closed his eyes and pulled the emergency blanket over to cover him and his mother's head.
This sandstorm lasted for six days and six nights, with three aftershocks in between. Fortunately, the power was not strong enough to make humans run for their lives. As long as they stayed away from ruins and cracks in the ground and found flat and intact ground to hide, they could ensure safety.
The tent was under a lot of pressure and there was no way to go out to reinforce it, so Qiao Qingqing put four large buckets of water in the four corners to increase the weight.
On the day when the sandstorm ended, Qiao Songzhi was thankful: "Fortunately, the sandstorm did not occur on the day of the earthquake." Otherwise, the consequences would be disastrous.
"Cough cough." The noise outside stopped at night. Qiao Qingqing and the others did not go out. They waited until the next day when the sun shone on the earth and dispelled all the haze, and then Qiao Qingqing was the first to crawl out.
The tent door could hardly be opened because the sand and soil piled up outside was too thick. After opening the tent door, a large pile of soil poured in from below. Qiao Qingqing looked down and saw that the sand, gravel and polymer piled up on the ground had already formed a thick layer. Taking the tent door as a reference, it was at least 50 centimeters deep. No wonder the tent door could not be opened just now.
"It's so deep! I touched it last night and the cloth at the bottom of the tent was sagging. All the sand and soil were pressing on the tent." Qiao Songzhi looked out with a worried look on his face. "I wonder what the outside looks like."
Qiao Qingqing had already climbed out, and when she stepped on the ground, her knees were invisible. Looking around, there was a thick layer of sand everywhere. No one had come here in the past few days, otherwise there would have been deep footprints on the ground. No, maybe someone passed by, but the footprints were quickly buried by the wind and sand.
Qiao Songzhi then came out and was shocked by the dark scene in the sky. "It's just like what they said in the news. Ahem! The air is full of dust."
"Mom, put on your mask and let big brother wear his mask before coming out."
The three of them walked out of the tent and looked at the new environment outside with surprise and shock, feeling as if they were dreaming.
Everywhere I looked was dark and yellow, with no vegetation or survivors in sight. The weakening wind blew up the dust, and it seemed that this world no longer belonged to humans. The only protagonists of the world were the rolling sand in the air.
The tent behind him made a sound of being overwhelmed. Qiao Qingqing came to her senses and said, "Let's have breakfast first, and then pack up the tent." Qiao Qingqing said that if the sandstorm continued for another two days, the tent would have been completely scrapped, but fortunately it survived.
Qiao Qingqing was reluctant to discard the severely damaged tent. If she had the chance, she would repair it and it should be usable again. After breakfast, Qiao Qingqing put the tent into her space and planned to get a new one next time. Before leaving, she said to Qiao Songzhi and Shao Shengfei, "Let's roll on the ground and get our clothes dirty."
After dirtying her clothes, hair, exposed neck, hands, feet, and backpack, Qiao Qingqing grabbed some dirt and camouflaged Qiao Songzhi and Shao Shengfei's faces: "Okay, where are the masks? Dirty the outer layer of the mask a little bit, too."
After a quick cleanup, the three of them looked almost the same as the others.
"Let's go." Qiao Qingqing exhaled and said to them with a smile, "Let's go find Sheng An and the others."
They have no material pressure, no fundamental survival crisis, so what can they do? Just squat aimlessly in the same place day after day? No, they can go look for their lost family members. People living in this world cannot do without ties, and that tie is her anchor at present, which prevents her from losing all direction and goals.
"Great! Looking for my brother and my parents!"
Qiao Songzhi held Shao Shengfei's hand and said to Qiao Qingqing, "Then how should we go? Do you have any idea?"
"I have an idea. We should first look for Ye Shan's location, and then find the location of the base's periphery based on Ye Shan's location. Then we will go around the periphery, and maybe we can find the place where we separated. If Sheng An and the others are also looking for us, they may do the same."
Even if it's like looking for a needle in a haystack, Qiao Qingqing also wants to do this.
"Okay, as long as you have an idea."
"Brother, stop playing and put on your windproof glasses." Qiao Qingqing looked at Shao Shengfei.
"Oh, I'll put it on right away!" Shao Shengfei quickly put on the glasses hanging around his neck. Qiao Qingqing saw a string on the glasses, hanging around Shao Shengfei's neck like a necklace. She smiled and said, "Did you make this?"
Qiao Songzhi said, "I made this because I was afraid Feifei might accidentally drop her glasses." She adjusted Shao Shengfei's necklace to prevent it from strangling his neck, and took out another one for Qiao Qingqing, "Here you go."
The three of them set off in a gloomy state. There were still traces of the sandstorm in the air, and the vision was still obstructed. They walked about a hundred meters before they saw other survivors. The survivors were rummaging through the soil for supplies, silent, and exhausted. As soon as the sandstorm stopped, they dragged their hungry and weak bodies out to look for food. But the sandstorm covered everything. A few days ago, they could still find plants and even living things such as mice to fill their stomachs, but now they can't find anything.
There were cries of despair on the wind.
Qiao Qingqing and her friends passed by one survivor after another.
Shao Shengfei held Qiao Songzhi with one hand and Qiao Qingqing with the other. He saw a man sitting motionless on the side of the road, covered in dirt, looking like a statue.
But he vaguely knew that it was not a statue. So he looked back again and again, and then he couldn't help wanting to cry.
After walking for a while, they came to a three or four meter wide crack blocking the road. Qiao Qingqing saw someone on the other side of the crack making a fire and cooking something. Qiao Qingqing and the others went around it, and the wind brought the smell of food cooking on the other side of the crack, like some kind of rotten barbecue.
"Stop for a moment." Qiao Qingqing said as she took out a telescope and looked over.
There were seven or eight people there, they were surrounding a fire, some of them were eating, and some were grilling meat.
Seeing this, her breathing became heavier. She looked to the side and saw a mound of earth with something resembling hair leaking out of it. A person had finished eating something in his hand and threw away what he didn't want. It was a piece of human hand bone.
"What did you see?"
"They are roasting human flesh. I don't know if it's alive or dead." Qiao Qingqing put down the telescope. She put it away without any intention of showing it to her mother.
Qiao Songzhi's eyes widened.
"Mom, I told you before that cannibalism is not uncommon outside the base. After the earthquake, more people will have nothing to eat... Mom, you have to be careful of strangers, brother. Don't talk to strangers and don't let them get close to you. Do you remember what I taught you before?"
Shao Shengfei nodded and patted the crossbow on his back: "I still have this. If the bad guys bully us, I will shoot them!"
"Okay." Qiao Qingqing smiled at Shao Shengfei, but in her heart she was worried that Shao Shengfei would be bullied in the future. He was too naive. She just hoped that natural disasters would not separate the three of them so that they could still take care of each other.
"Let's keep going." Qiao Songzhi didn't dare to look in that direction again.
Qiao Qingqing nodded, holding one of them by the hand, the three of them continued walking forward.
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