On the last night in the camp, Qiao Qingqing and her friends cooked as usual. The stove was made of stone and did not need to be removed, so they could continue cooking tonight. Shao Shengan made egg fried rice again. The eggs laid by the chickens he raised before were a circle bigger than those before the disaster. Four eggs were beaten for four people's egg fried rice. The rice was covered with golden egg liquid, and sprinkled with chopped green onions, which made it more fragrant.
"Oh, these green onions are growing so well. They can still grow." After handing the chopped green onions to Shao Sheng'an, Shao's father wiped the kitchen knife and cutting board with a dry towel, put them on the tricycle, turned around and squatted beside the bamboo basket, looking at the green onion seedlings in the basket with heartache. He cut off some of the wilted green onions, and the rest did not look very healthy either.
Plants still prefer the earth rather than soil wrapped in plastic bags.
Father Shao sighed, fetched some water and gently watered the seedlings.
"Dad, come and have dinner." Qiao Qingqing called him.
"Hey, here I come." Father Shao stood up on his knees.
The four people were still sitting in the awning eating, with only a thin candle lit.
"After dinner, Sheng An and I will go out. Dad, you and big brother will guard the family boat." Qiao Qingqing instructed, "Don't let anyone rob it. If anything happens, call Liu Zhen and the others next door."
"Okay, where are you going?" Shao's father asked with concern, "Are you going to your mother's place?"
"No, we're going to entrust the tricycle to the Tangzhou fleet. I've already made arrangements with someone I know. I'll go to Mom's place tomorrow. Dad, I'll take you there tomorrow."
Mr. Shao nodded happily.
After dinner, Qiao Qingqing washed the pots and pans and put them on the tricycle. The entire camp was cleaned up, and she and Shao Shengan went out with a tricycle full of luggage.
Liu Zhen couldn't help but raise his voice and ask, "Shao Bo, where are they going?"
Father Shao laughed and said, "Go find someone to help you get this truckload of luggage delivered. The boat is not big enough to hold this truckload of stuff."
"Going to the Tangzhou fleet? That's great, don't waste it! By the way, Aunt Xia and Aunt Qiao, why didn't I see them today?" Liu Zhen had been busy all day and started to rest after dark. Suddenly, he found that Aunt Xia and Aunt Qiao seemed to be missing.
"They are on the fleet..."
An hour later, Qiao Qingqing and his wife came back in the dark. As a result, the only luggage they had was a large backpack for each person, three bamboo baskets of chickens and ducks, a bamboo basket of fruit and vegetable seedlings, and some miscellaneous supplies in the wooden boat.
At night, Qiao Qingqing and her companions slept in the sun awning, wrapped in emergency blankets, and fell asleep to the noise ahead. When it was almost dawn, she was awakened by the sound of an engine. The engine noise continued, and she sat up and looked in the direction of the sound. She vaguely saw the convoy camping in the direction of the camp, and the convoy was moving away from the coast. In addition to the convoy, there were more people evacuating on foot, and from a distance they looked like teams of ants moving their homes.
Cui Xing was sweating profusely as he carried his luggage. His wife Chen Xiao and daughter also carried slightly lighter luggage. The three of them were very inconspicuous in the large migrating group.
It’s too hot, too tiring, too sad.
He thought he could live a peaceful life, but in the end... who could have imagined it! However, one day, the scope of the collapse affected his camp. The harder he tried to save supplies, the more trouble he had to move. He could only pick and choose, some to take away and some to discard. At dawn, his family set out.
There was the sound of an engine not far away, and he looked over to see the convoy roaring past. There was only one force nearby that had so many vehicles, and it was said that many people went to join the convoy camp, but the requirements there were very high, and they would not accept the elderly or children, only young men and women.
He didn't have a car, and he didn't have the extra energy to make a boat before, and his family didn't have a boat.
"Where are we going?" Chen Xiao asked.
"Let's follow the car. Those people have cars, so they should be able to find a new habitable place faster." He envied those people who had cars, envied their wealth, resented their stinginess, and resented their selfishness. However, what suppressed all the negative emotions was the fear of the future. Cui Xing thought, he still hoped that the people in the car team could find a new safe place. They had cars and could run fast. If his family followed the car team, they might be saved together, right?
Cui Xing looked back, but the scorching sun distorted his vision and he could not see anything. However, he could imagine that those forces with boats were probably sitting leisurely on the boats now. No matter how much the ground collapsed, they did not have to run for their lives like them, they could just sit on the boats.
Cui Xing gritted his teeth and turned back to continue walking, deciding that after the crisis was over, he would definitely get a boat! No, a wooden basin would be fine, at least he had to let his wife and daughter sit on it.
Qiao Qingqing's family did not move and remained in the camp. At around ten o'clock in the morning, Qiao Qingqing took Shao's father and Shao Shengfei in a kayak to visit Qiao Songzhi and Shao's mother. They all expressed their feelings of parting and gave each other instructions. There were tears in their eyes when they parted.
In the evening, the ground collapsed to ten meters in front of Qiao Qingqing's camp. There were almost no other people nearby except them, Song Sanhe, Su Cong and others.
"Let's feed the chickens and ducks, then we can have lunch." said Qiao Qingqing.
The chickens and ducks have been trapped in the bamboo basket for two days. They used to be full of energy, but now they are all wilted. Fortunately, their appetites are still there. When Qiao Qingqing feeds them, they fight for food and several feathers fly off.
By the time lunch was over, it was almost time.
The smell of moist soil and the sound of water approached, and Qiao Qingqing and her family got on the wooden boat.
She had calmed down. On this small slope, she could barely see the lights of the Tangzhou fleet in the distance. She knew that her mother was on one of the ships, a two-decker passenger ship, and was very safe.
The mother and mother-in-law who are most vulnerable have been taken care of. Qiao Qingqing is ready for the next disaster. Come on! As long as it is impossible to wipe out all humans in one fell swoop, humans can continue to survive in the cracks!
It was getting darker.
On a two-decker passenger ship, Qiao Songzhi and Shao's mother squeezed on the deck and looked worriedly at the distance. She found the lights, used a telescope to identify them one by one, and finally found the location of her family!
"They are there! On the wooden boat!" Qiao Songzhi said excitedly to Shao's mother. Shao's mother looked over and said, "Where, where? Let me see!"
She couldn't help wanting to cry as soon as she saw it. She grabbed Qiao Songzhi's hand tightly: "Sister Zhi, why don't I step down and let Qingqing come." She was tormented in her heart, because this was Qingqing's position.
"Don't think like that anymore. This is Qingqing's intention." Qiao Songzhi comforted her. "She is the younger generation and the daughter-in-law. She should take care of you. Qingqing and Sheng An are also worried about us and want us to be safer so that they don't have to worry about anything. Besides, you and I have the worst physical fitness in the family. We don't have enough strength and endurance to paddle on the wooden boat. Now we will only be a drag on the wooden boat. You listen to me. The two of us take good care of ourselves on this boat. This is the greatest help to them, understand?"
Mother Shao nodded with tears in her eyes, and a thought emerged in her mind again: It must be a blessing from my previous life that I have such a good daughter-in-law in this life.
While the two were talking, someone swam over from underwater and tried to climb up by pulling the rope hanging on the outer wall of the boat.
"Someone got up! Give me a hand!"
"Uncle Chen! Someone is getting on board!"
"We have already stopped outsiders from boarding the boat, why is there still someone swimming over here?"
The noise attracted the attention of the two people, and Qiao Songzhi and the others also looked over.
Uncle Chen, the person in charge of the passenger ship, pushed through the crowd and came to the deck. Two people climbed up, a man and a woman, both of whom looked very young. They were completely wet and their luggage was also dripping with water.
Neither of them spoke. They just looked at Uncle Chen and the other people on the deck with pleading eyes.
Uncle Chen sighed and said, "Since they are here, let's squeeze in and make room for them in two beds."
"Uncle Chen, won't it be too heavy?"
Uncle Chen didn't look at the person who was talking, but waved his hand: "Come with me."
The two hurriedly pulled up their luggage. They had swum so far and finally got on the boat. After exhausting their strength, their hands and feet became weak. The woman stumbled and fell. The man hesitated for a moment and quickly pulled her up. They rushed here with all their might. He didn't know about the other boats. Only the two of them succeeded on this boat. They must work together.
The two left, but the discussions in the crowd did not stop.
"Two more people means two more mouths to feed..."
"I'll go take a look. I'm afraid I'll be assigned to my side. The beds there are already crowded enough!"
Qiao Songzhi retracted his gaze and exchanged a glance with Shao's mother. The two continued to use the telescope to look in the direction of their camp until the ground collapsed and they came to a small slope.
The two of them began to breathe heavier. They saw with their own eyes the ground breaking apart and collapsing like tofu, and the wooden boat falling down. In their wide-eyed eyes, the boat plunged into the influx of water, its weight creating large splashes of water, and then the light fell off, and darkness invaded.
“Sister Zhi!” Shao’s mother yelled, tears falling, “I can’t see anymore. What should I do if I can’t see anymore, Sister Zhi…”
Qiao Songzhi remained calm: "It must be that the light accidentally fell. It's okay."
Sure enough, the view soon brightened up again. Qiao Songzhi and Shao's mother looked greedily in that direction, watching Qiao Qingqing and the others quickly stabilize the wooden boat and use the oars to push away the debris that had hit them. Qiao Songzhi saw her daughter looking in her direction, and her sight seemed to pass through the dark sky for thousands of meters and land accurately on her, and then her daughter smiled comfortingly.
The daughter waved her hand, and then the wooden boat began to move. After an unknown amount of time, the wooden boat disappeared from sight. Qiao Songzhi put down the telescope and raised his hand to wipe his eyes.
A thousand meters away, Qiao Qingqing and the other group were all soaked by the sea water.
The feeling of falling brought by the collapse of the land beneath her was very obvious. Qiao Qingqing was already prepared and grabbed the edge of the boat with both hands to stabilize her body. However, when she lost the support of the ground, the sea water rushed in, and the wooden boat crashed into the tide, she still felt her body suddenly lose weight, her body flew into the air, and her heart almost jumped out of her throat.
Water splashed everywhere and the wooden boat shook a few times before it stabilized.
The lantern accidentally rolled off when the wooden boat fell into the water. Shao Shengan shouted "Don't panic", then bent down and groped for the lantern, then hung it on the bow again.
Father Shao raised his hand to wipe the hands on his face, and saw out of the corner of his eye that a piece of wood was coming towards him. He quickly picked up the oar and pushed it away. The wood slid past, and the wooden boat was also turned a little bit by the force.
"Oh, it's so scary. The water rushed in like a flood." Shao's father was still frightened. Shao Shengfei held the bamboo basket tightly, and his whole body jumped up and sat back down. His butt was hurt and he said aggrievedly: "My butt hurts so much."
Shao Shengan smiled helplessly: "Brother, you don't have to hold the bamboo basket. I have tied it tightly and it won't fall off."
Dabao's feet held the lid of the bamboo basket tightly, incredibly steadily. He cooed twice and lay down again.
Qiao Qingqing also grabbed the oars: "Let's row first."
The wooden boat moved forward slowly and steadily, chasing the last piece of land on the lost continent. At this moment, Qiao Qingqing still had a little extravagant hope in her heart: maybe there will be a piece of land that is intact in the end?
Behind them, the Tangzhou fleet was also moving slowly. They would also follow the last continent until they lost everything.
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