"Where are you from?" The soldier who was sitting at the outermost part of the tent with half of his body wet in the rain stood up, covered his head with a piece of wood to avoid the rain and came over.
"Hello, hello, we are from outside. This is my daughter and my son." Qiao Songzhi greeted them hurriedly.
Qiao Qingqing added: "Hello, when the earthquake happened we ran out and it took us a long time to get back."
The soldier looked at their raincoats and the bulges on their backs and waists, with a somewhat alert expression.
"This is a crossbow. I used to be a member of the crossbow team. This is my ID." Qiao Qingqing noticed this and took the initiative to lift up her raincoat to reveal the crossbow inside. "The one on my back is a backpack. My mother and my eldest brother both participated in the Yeshan crossbow team selection competition, so they also have crossbows."
The soldier looked at the ID and breathed a sigh of relief: "Come here and register your names first. I'll find a place for you to sit in the wind. There are no other rules in the camp, except that you can't hurt other survivors at will. We will distribute food, but the quantity will not be much..." He gave a brief introduction to the camp as he walked. Qiao Qingqing looked around the camp. Some tent doors were ajar, and some people were looking at them from the tents, with curiosity and indifference in their eyes.
Registering the name was very simple. The soldier called out to a tent and a man poked his head out: "Come on, tell me. I remember it!"
Qiao Qingqing took out the ID cards of the three of them and handed them in for her to register.
"I'd like to ask, are Shao Shengan, Shao Dacheng and Huang Xia in this camp?" Qiao Qingqing asked expectantly.
"Wait a moment, find a place to take shelter from the rain first, and I'll help you find someone later." The soldier comforted them, "Almost everyone looks for their relatives when they come here, but we only have paper lists now, and it takes time to search. Write down your names on paper, and I'll let Xiujun find them for you one by one."
"Thank you! Sorry for bothering you."
Suppressing their anxiety, Qiao Qingqing and the others followed the soldiers to a tent.
"Please squeeze in. There's room for one more person."
"I can't squeeze in! It's already squeezed to death!"
"They have raincoats, why don't they just stay outside?"
The soldier frowned: "Even if you have a raincoat, you can't stand outside all the time. It's easy to get sick--"
After walking for a while, Qiao Qingqing realized that there were many people in the camp and there were not enough tents.
"It's okay, we have our own tents. Please find a place for us to set up the tents." Since there are not enough tents, they can use their own.
As soon as Qiao Qingqing said this, the noise disappeared instantly.
"You have tents?" the soldier asked in surprise.
Shao Shengfei patted himself on the back. He was tall, and the tent bag on his back, separated by a raincoat, made him completely inconspicuous.
"Here it is!" Shao Shengfei said happily.
The soldier was obviously relieved. "That's great. We don't have enough tents right now. We lost a lot of supplies in the earthquake... You three, come with me. How big is your tent?"
"About four or five square meters."
"That's great. There's a place that's perfect for your tent."
That was the open space between the two tents.
Qiao Qingqing and the other two began to quickly install the tent and soon finished it. It was very small and low in the middle of the tents in the camp. After the three of them got in, Qiao Qingqing took out the curtain to separate the tent, and then took out hot water and towels.
"Change your clothes first, don't catch a cold."
The three of them wiped their bodies and changed their clothes, and they all felt much more relaxed.
This was the first time they washed their bodies after the earthquake. The rain was a good reason. Isn't it normal for rain to wash away the dirt left on their bodies by the sandstorm?
The water after scrubbing was all black, and there was a layer of dirt in the bucket. Qiao Qingqing temporarily collected the dirty water, then took out a pen and paper to write down the names of Shao Shengan and the other three.
"I'm going to go out for a while, you all be careful."
"Don't worry, Qingqing, you should also wear a mask." Qiao Songzhi said. After they changed their clothes, they put on raincoats. If an accident happened, they could immediately escape from the tent and run in the rain.
Qiao Qingqing nodded and put on the mask.
She walked on the muddy dirt road, and every step of her water shoes made an uncomfortable squeaking sound, which made her heart beat uneasily.
The paper was handed in, and a few drops of rain soaked it, dissolving some of the strokes. Qiao Qingqing almost blurted out, "Can you see it clearly? I can write another one."
"You can see clearly, Shao Shengan, Shao Dacheng and Huang Xia, right? I will find them, you go back and I will give you the results later."
She wanted to say, could she just stand here and wait for the results?
But she also thought rationally that standing here was like a supervisor. What if the other party was urged by her and became anxious and missed someone when checking the roster?
"...Okay." Qiao Qingqing finally walked back step by step.
In a temporary camp, Shao Shengan was walking on a muddy road in the rain. He passed by a group of survivors who had just been rescued from outside. He looked up and searched carefully, then withdrew his gaze in disappointment and hurried on his way.
Soon he came to a tent, opened the door and went in.
"I found this. Since there is no way to cook it, just eat it raw." He did not take off his raincoat, but took out a piece of something similar to a sweet potato from the bag tied around his waist.
There were more than 20 people living in the tent, not just the three of them. As soon as this thing was taken out, it attracted many people's attention, and Shao's mother even heard the sound of swallowing saliva.
A patrolling soldier walked outside the tent door which was not closed tightly.
Shao Sheng'an remained expressionless as he cut the tuber into three pieces and gave one to each of his parents.
"Eat it." He said softly. The doctor in the camp said that these things can be eaten raw. The bitterness and numbness of the mouth and tongue are minor problems in the face of hunger. Starving to death is a big deal. Of course, they have not yet reached the desperate situation of starving to death, but the crisis of insufficient food is always hanging over their heads. Although finding a camp allows them to temporarily live and get a small amount of food that barely sustains life, Shao Shengan still feels uneasy.
This makeshift base with its food and medicine shortages made him uneasy, and the weather that continued to deteriorate and show no signs of improvement made him uneasy.
Only by hoarding food can Shao Shengan feel a little relieved. People need to eat enough to have strength, otherwise they will not have the strength to escape when they encounter danger. The food distributed in the camp is too little, and Shao Shengan is very grateful for the food, at least it can stop them from continuing to waste the compressed biscuits in their backpacks. It doesn't matter if he is not full, he can go out to find food and come back to replenish it.
Mother Shao took a bite. If it was not cooked, it would be very bitter. The bitterness would stick to the throat and tongue, and the whole mouth would be numb. Even speaking was a little slurred. After swallowing the first bite of the tuber, Mother Shao felt the bitterness spread from the esophagus to the stomach, and then to the heart, making her eyes red.
"Sheng An, don't go looking for food. The supplies we have been given are enough for us." Shao's mother said. This kind of tuberous plant usually appears in the cracks of the ground. The power of the earthquake lifted up large pieces of land, turned over the tubers that grew deep in it, and provided food for the survivors. They came to the camp the day before yesterday. There are tents here to shelter from the rain and sleep well. The only drawback is the shortage of food. The food distributed is not enough to starve people to death, and they are still hungry all day. Sheng An said that the compressed biscuits in the backpack should not be eaten for the time being, in case of emergency in the future, so he often went out to find food, which made Shao's mother very worried. The cracks in the ground are so dangerous.
Shao Shengan knew his parents' concerns, but he was confident that he could protect himself. He smiled at Shao's mother and said, "I'm fine. Let's go out and find something to eat so that we can take care of each other."
Just as he said this, the door of the tent suddenly opened, and a teenager looked around at Shao Shengan and shouted excitedly: "Where's my dad! Where's my dad who you went out with? They all said they didn't see my dad, have you seen my dad?"
"I didn't see it." Shao Shengan said.
"You must have seen it, but you just didn't want to tell me..." The boy shook his head, tears streaming down his face. "You must have seen it! Where's my dad? Where's my dad!"
Shao Shengan looked at him in silence. He did not see the boy's father, but he heard some noises. On the way back, he met two people with strange looks, one of whom had scratches on his face and neck. They had a lot of gains in their pockets, probably finding a place rich in tubers.
He did not express his guess and could only watch the boy run away crying and look for clues about his father elsewhere.
There was another voice scolding faintly heard from outside: "I told you I didn't see it! Go find it yourself!"
"Hey stop arguing! No fighting in the camp!"
"Hey, we didn't quarrel. He's just always looking for trouble. Who knows where his dad is..."
Listening to the noise outside, Shao Shengan lost his appetite, but he still forced himself to continue eating.
"Let me go next time. We'll take turns looking for it." Father Shao ate all the tubers and spoke with a lisp due to a numb tongue.
"……good."
Shao Shengan finished all the food and then began to stare at the rain outside in a trance.
Qingqing and the others are not in this camp. Where would they be now?
Seven kilometers away, Qiao Qingqing returned to her tent and suddenly heard someone calling her.
"Girl, girl, wait a minute!"
Someone called her, and Qiao Qingqing stopped and turned her head. A man came out of a tent next to her and tried to hold her hand in the rain. Qiao Qingqing immediately stepped aside, and the woman hurriedly said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I don't mean any harm, I just want to ask you for a favor. I heard you said you brought a tent and there are only three people living there. Can you let my daughter live in your tent?" She licked her lips, "There are too many people in the tent, and my daughter is young and weak, she really can't bear it, can you take my daughter in?"
"No." Qiao Qingqing refused.
"Please, my daughter is very thin and doesn't take up any space—"
Qiao Qingqing shook her head: "Our tent is not big enough to accommodate a fourth person." She lowered her head and entered the tent.
"Girl!"
The woman was unwilling to give up and chased him out of the tent.
"Please, sister, can you have a little compassion? We are really miserable. If you lend a hand, you will definitely be rewarded!"
Qiao Qingqing went straight into the tent without answering her. The woman couldn't stand the rain and left soon.
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