After searching for a whole day and observing through the telescope, there was no sign of land, so Qiao Qingqing and her friends decided to stop and set up camp to rest.
At noon the next day, Zeng Guangyu, who was on guard, shouted loudly: "Sharks! I saw sharks! One, two! No, three!"
Qiao Qingqing and the others took action immediately, readying their bows and crossbows and shooting arrows.
She, Shao Shengan, and Liu Zhaoyun all hit the target with their three arrows, but they hit the same one, leaving the other one unattended. Qiao Qingqing immediately shot the next arrow, using the position of the shark's fin to locate the shark's head, and successfully hit it with another arrow.
Qiao Songzhi, Shao's father and Shao Shengfei finally stood firm, placed their arrows, aimed, and shot their crossbow arrows one after another.
Song Sanhe and his men held their knives, ready for battle.
Liu Zhen's forehead was covered with sweat as he watched the three sharks begin to retreat, leaving only red blood on the water surface. He couldn't help but feel surprised.
"You guys are so good! If I had known, I would have learned to use a bow and crossbow!" Guns are useful, but now there is no place to refill the ammunition, and the guns are just empty shells. If Qiao Qingqing and the others were not good at using bows and crossbows, they would have to fight sharks directly with knives, which is very thrilling just to think about.
Qiao Qingqing watched the shark disappear from sight: "Be careful, they might come back."
Sure enough, the three sharks circled around and came back, but were forced back again by the rain of arrows, and never got within five meters of their small fleet. Zeng Guangyu jumped into the water and bravely observed the situation from underwater. She was sure that the sharks were gone: "One seemed to be seriously injured and sank!" It was not a serious injury, but it was covered with thorns like a hedgehog. Her eyesight was very good, and she couldn't even count how many arrows were on the shark.
"Qingqing and I will go retrieve the crossbow arrows, you guys retreat first." Shao Shengan said.
Under their insistence, Song Sanhe and his team retreated first, leaving only one kayak behind.
The two men chased after it and made sure that the shark was dead. They grabbed the crossbow and arrow, stepped on the shark, and finally pulled the crossbow and arrow out. Finally, they stuffed the entire shark into the space.
"Huh!" After coming out of the water, Shao Shengan took a deep breath and started coughing due to choking.
"Are you okay?" Qiao Qingqing patted his back. "I told you to put on the respirator but you refused."
"There aren't many oxygen cylinders left. Keep them for future emergencies. Ahem, after those forty-nine hours, I can hold my breath in the water longer now." Shao Shengan said with a smile.
Qiao Qingqing clapped her hands a little harder and gave a final tap: "Let's go!"
After meeting up with the main force, they did not stay, fearing that the shark's blood would attract the next wave of predators, and they rowed several miles away before stopping.
"There are so many water plants here. Let me see if there is anything useful." Shao Shengan memorized the atlas Qiao Qingqing gave him and paddled the kayak to pull weeds everywhere. The ducklings were released and happily foraged for food in the water plants floating on the water. The chicks were a little confused without Dabao's leadership, so Shao Shengfei led them personally: "Eat, eat, you can eat this grass, eat it quickly."
Song Sanhe and his men also dispersed, some went to nearby waters to look for supplies, some went to catch fish, and some came to look for usable grass. Shao's father went to a farther place to fetch water, Shao's mother filtered the water, and Qiao Qingqing and Qiao Songzhi killed fish and prepared food.
Mother Shao was complaining to Father Shao: "I told you not to go in. The sea water is salty and astringent. Do you think it's comfortable to soak in the water? Look at your skin! Doesn't it hurt? And you got all your clothes wet. When they dry, they will be hard and clumpy. Can you still wear them? Just do it. It's better if your clothes get damaged. Don't wear clothes with your bare chest in the future! Let others laugh at you like a gangster!"
Father Shao smiled awkwardly: "I have taken off my clothes, put them on right away."
"Don't wear anything. Just be naked! You really have no patience at all. Can't you wait for Sheng An Feifei and the others to come back before you kayak to get water? There's no rush to wait!"
"I just wanted to find something to do. I'm such a good swimmer—"
"You just can't stand it!"
Qiao Qingqing was scraping the scales and couldn't help laughing as she listened to the conversation between Shao's mother and Zeng Guangyu.
The life with fireworks can relieve people's spirit from the tightrope-walking state. Qiao Qingqing decided to make a more delicious seafood porridge, adding fish slices, shrimps and crabs, and fresh seaweed.
Shao Shengan and Shao Shengfei came back soon in a kayak. They picked a lot of useful water plants and seaweeds. The ducklings were full of food. What made Qiao Qingqing amused was that the chicks also swam back.
Shao Shengfei excitedly announced: "The chicken has also learned to swim!"
A lot of chicks died, most of them drowned. It didn’t seem strange that the chicks that survived learned to swim.
"Here, I picked and washed them." Shao Shengan handed the seaweed to Qiao Qingqing and asked her, "Is there enough rice?"
"That's enough. We need to finish the soaked rice quickly or it will go bad. Share some with Song Sanhe and the others, as well as Zhaoyun."
"OK."
It was a pleasant surprise to eat porridge, as they had not eaten rice for a long time. Everyone enjoyed the seafood porridge, which had more fish than porridge, and the atmosphere seemed to become more cheerful.
Qiao Qingqing didn't know whether her space had been exposed. Regarding the diving equipment, Shao Shengan said that he got it from the Tangzhou ship when he went to pick up Qiao Songzhi and the others. Song Sanhe and the others, especially Song Sanhe, didn't seem to be suspicious.
But they have been living together these days. Although Qiao Qingqing's family's life, diet and daily life are the same, at most they have a little more rice, canned food, candles, lighters, needles and thread, telescopes, eye drops and a little anti-inflammatory medicine than others... They look insignificant, but they are all useful in life.
After successive disasters, the survivors lacked these necessities of life. They looked insignificant and trivial, but they were not there when they were needed.
No, there is no way to find it.
Qiao Qingqing's family is not like the large caravan camp that has abundant supplies just by looking at the surface. They are just an ordinary survivor family. How come they seem to have everything they need?
Of course, there must be some people who are lucky and have kept their things every time they escaped, but Song Sanhe still felt that something was wrong.
However, he is a decent person, and careful observation and thinking are just habits when facing unknown things. Since the main force cannot be found, Liu Zhen is the only comrade left. He is older and more careful than Liu Zhen, so he has to take responsibility. You can only do as much as you have manpower and energy. The two of them can only take care of a few survivors. After forming an alliance with Qiao Qingqing's family, they cooperated well. Song Sanhe no longer observed Qiao Qingqing's family, and pretended not to know or care about some occasional flashes of inspiration, and never investigated them deeply.
When he and his teammates went to a farther place to relieve themselves, his teammates wondered: "How come Sister Qiao is so lucky that she could really borrow those diving equipment and so many oxygen cylinders from the Tangzhou fleet." It is a bit strange. If Qiao Qingqing and her husband were so prestigious in the Tangzhou fleet, their whole family would have been on board long ago - of course, after the fire rain, there was no difference between big ships, small ships, and homemade wooden boats in the fire rain, but before that, the Tangzhou fleet was undoubtedly very desirable.
But Song Sanhe didn't allow himself to think deeply. When his teammates raised questions, he just brushed them off. Survival was the most important thing now, and most people didn't have the energy to think too much. Once Song Sanhe interrupted them, his teammates stopped thinking about it.
Everyone has their own secrets. Song Sanhe thought that as long as it did not harm his life, he had to respect it.
He ate the porridge without thinking about anything else. Only the warm seafood porridge entered his esophagus and stomach, bringing him a simple and ordinary sense of happiness.
After eating the porridge, the happy Song Sanhe started working again. He never rested. The patch of water grass was really big, so he decided to collect more. After all, he didn't know how long he would stay in this place, and the next place might not have such lush and growing grass.
He also wanted to collect the special aquatic plants that Shao Shengan mentioned, one for himself and the other for Qiao Qingqing. They had consumed Qiao Qingqing's medicine reserves in the past two days, and he remembered this favor.
Suddenly, Qiao Qingqing heard Song Sanhe calling her not far away.
"Doctor Qiao, come and take a look! The water plants here are withering!"
She heard the panic in his tone and immediately looked at Shao Shengan.
"I'll take you there!"
Shao Shengan paddled the kayak very fast, and before he got close to the water plants, Qiao Qingqing's eyes widened in disbelief.
In her eyes, the water grass seemed to be harvested by the scythe of the god of death. Most of them withered in the blink of an eye. When the kayak arrived, there was an endless expanse of withered water grass. The withered water grass drooped in the water in a flash, turning yellow and black. Even the part that Song Sanhe had already picked withered in the wooden barrel beside him.
"It's so, so horrible. I really don't know what to say." Song Sanhe was speechless and stuttered.
Qiao Qingqing picked up a bunch of water plants and examined them. She was calm. After all, there were so many signs before, and she had prepared for the worst. She threw the water plants back and said, "Sheng An, let's go back." She asked Song Sanhe if he wanted to go back in a kayak.
Song Sanhe shook his head: "We have a lot of stuff and there's water everywhere. Don't get your kayak wet. You guys go back first." They swam back behind him.
That evening, while eating sashimi, Qiao Qingqing kept looking at the withered yellow water plants, but nothing could be seen anymore. They slowly sank into the water after losing their vitality, and now only a little withered yellow shadow remained there.
That night, they were attacked by sharks again. In the next half month, they encountered shark crisis every two or three days. Fortunately, there were not many sharks, only four at most. They were all good at archery, and the sharks could not get close to them. Even if the wooden boat was overturned and fell into the water, Qiao Qingqing would pull out the bush knife and pounce on the shark, riding on its back and stabbing it hard with the knife.
When he drew the sword, blood flowed into his mouth and nose along with the water. The fishy and salty taste made Qiao Qingqing more eager to fight.
Without hesitation, she continued to kill the shark with all her might.
"Qingqing! Qingqing!" Shao Shengan, who worked with others to deal with another shark, called her name in panic and dived into the water to look for her.
The water was turbid, and the diluted blood was everywhere.
Unable to find anyone, Shao Shengan became anxious and restless. His oxygen was about to run out and he didn't want to go ashore until a pair of hands grabbed him and pulled him up.
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