There was no other choice but Qiao Qingqing had to lead her over to see.
"I was making a fire when I heard my eldest brother screaming. When I pulled him, I saw a body there. It was not there just now. It must have just floated up. Mom, be prepared. It is a giant temple."
She withdrew her hands from Qiao Songzhi's eyes, blinked, and looked over cautiously. In just a moment, her pupils dilated and her breathing stopped.
What kind of scene was that? At this moment, Qiao Songzhi couldn't come up with any adjectives to describe it. He just felt horrified and a nausea surged in his throat.
Qiao Songzhi supported Qiao Qingqing and bent over to retch.
"Mom, smell this!" Qiao Qingqing was prepared and took out the cooling oil and applied it to her philtrum.
"Mom?" Qiao Qingqing called her worriedly as her mother grabbed her very tightly.
Qiao Songzhi took a while to straighten up. She even looked at him twice more, tears streaming down her face.
"Mom?!" Qiao Qingqing was surprised. Why was she crying?
Qiao Songzhi held her hand tightly, looking at her daughter's eyes full of love. When she met her mother's eyes, Qiao Qingqing's heart felt like being stabbed by a needle, and it hurt. She understood her mother's feelings, and she smiled: "Mom, it's okay, I have you in this life."
Touching Qiao Qingqing's face, Qiao Songzhi wiped away her tears: "I'm going to see Feifei, you continue to do your thing."
"I'll go downstairs and check. Sheng An has been gone for quite a while."
When she opened the door, a musty smell hit her in the face. It was worse at the stairs, and the smell grew stronger as she went down. Qiao Qingqing thought that the residents on the seventh floor must be more affected.
When she reached the seventh floor, Qiao Qingqing saw many people blocking the windows in the corridor, some standing or squatting. Some were looking out the window, some were looking at the stairs. No one was talking and the atmosphere was very bad.
"Qingqing." Shao Shengan just turned around, and when he saw Qiao Qingqing, his frown relaxed, "Why did you come down?"
"Come down to find you." Qiao Qingqing said.
"I'm just about to go up, let's go together."
“Qingqing.” Grandma Wang came out, her eyes red and swollen, and she said in a hoarse voice, “Jia Le and the others went out to work, and none of them came back.”
"It's only the second day and the road is difficult to travel on. They have to walk slowly if they want to go home." Qiao Qingqing comforted them.
"I can't explain to Jiale's parents. They passed away early, and they only have two children, Jiale and Jiaxin. I can't explain..."
Qiao Qingqing could vaguely hear Wang Jiaxin crying.
Uncle Wang sighed, "God won't let this thief have an easy life."
"I couldn't sleep all night. Do you think they can come back?" Chen Binggang's wife looked dazed and looked at Qiao Qingqing, "Qingqing, can your family help find them?"
"Xiao Qiao, you were raised by my uncle and aunt. Now that my uncle is gone, can you bear to watch my aunt die?" Uncle Wang immediately made a request. "There are only old and young people left in our family. Your family is all at home, young and strong, can you help find someone?"
Grandma Wang didn't say anything, she just stood against the door and looked over expectantly.
"Yes, Qingqing, I have no choice. Your husband doesn't agree. You are a beautiful and kind person. Do you have the heart to refuse?"
Both the Chen and Wang families spoke, and all their eyes turned to Qiao Qingqing.
Shao Shengan held Qiao Qingqing's hand tightly, feeling dissatisfied, as he had already refused just now!
Seeing her husband's behavior, Qiao Qingqing guessed 100% in her heart that Sheng An had been asked just now. It seemed that it had been too long since she last got angry and swung the kitchen knife. The neighbors thought that Qiao Qingqing was soft-hearted and thin-skinned, and was easier to persuade than her husband.
"I refuse." Qiao Qingqing shook her head. "The water outside is too dirty. There must be a lot of bacteria and viruses in it. My family and I can't go out to look for someone. I can understand your feelings. I am willing to lend you my speedboat and kayak. Together with the kayak distributed by the supply ship before, it is enough for you to go out and look for someone. Sheng An, I remember that the kayak is kept by the Zheng family upstairs, right?"
Shao Shengan nodded: "Yes, I saw Zheng Tiehui carrying the kayak into the house."
Qiao Qingqing looked at Grandma Wang and the others and said, "If you need it, I'll go home and get it."
They stopped talking, their eyes hesitant.
"This... I can't get a kayak." Uncle Wang hit his leg.
"Qingqing, your husband and father-in-law are young and strong. Please help us. We don't have a man in charge in our family--" said Chen Binggang's wife.
"Please lend me your speedboat. I want to go out and look for it!" Wang Jiaxin walked out quickly, his eyes burning with fire.
"Jiaxin!"
"It's settled. I'll bring down the kayaks and speedboats in a while." Shao Shengan pulled Qiao Qingqing upstairs.
When they reached the eighth floor, Qiao Qingqing saw that the door of 802 was open. Mrs. Zheng opened her mouth, but in the end said nothing.
"Mom, I'll go find him. He's my dad and I should be the one to find him," said Zheng Liangying.
"You are stupid. How can you find one as a girl?"
"What should we do? My brother is like this now, and I'm the only one left." Zheng Liangying said with determination, "We don't rely on others, and you can't bring yourself to ask for help."
Mrs. Zheng bit her lower lip. "We don't have a good relationship with our neighbors, but they have a good relationship with the one downstairs. But they didn't agree to help either. I'm afraid I'll be laughed at if I ask for help."
Zheng Liangying sighed, "Then let me go. Where did you store the speedboat? Find it and inflate it. It's already daybreak, so it's safer to go out."
After returning home, Qiao Qingqing took out the kayak and speedboat.
"I already refused once, I didn't expect you to come down."
"I can see that. I can understand their feelings. They care about their loved ones. Aren't we the same?"
"I said I would lend it to them, but they refused. In fact, they are also afraid to go out." Shao Shengan looked unhappy.
"After all, they are neighbors, and I'll help as much as I can." If she didn't help at all, it would be hard to predict people's hearts. She knew best that people in despair would vent their anger on others, and she didn't know what kind of revenge the hatred would lead to. There was no need to bring such trouble to the family.
"I was a little angry just now. Why did I chase you to beg you? It's because I saw that you are thin-skinned and soft-hearted." Shao Shengan touched her face.
Hearing her husband say this, Qiao Qingqing couldn't help but laugh: "I'm not shy at all. They just forgot about my heroic act of chopping the door with a kitchen knife. Okay, don't be angry, just send the things down."
In this building, she remembered that in her previous life, Wang Jiale and his cousins finally came back, Wang Jiaxin's husband disappeared, and one of Wang Jiale's cousins died of an epidemic.
Chen Binggang and his son also came back alive, but his son had always been weak and was the first to fall ill. He was the first person to die of illness in the building.
Zheng Tiehui from 802 came back last. He went home by kayak.
Shao Shengan came back soon.
"Wang Jiaxin and her cousin are out, and no one in the Chen family should be out. I put the remaining kayaks in the aisle."
Chen Binggang took his son out to work, and there were only his wife and daughter-in-law at home with their grandchildren. It was unrealistic to go out and look for a partner. Qiao Qingqing said nothing: "Then you go and play with your eldest brother. I think he still hasn't recovered."
Shao Shengan already knew that Shao Shengfei was frightened, so he agreed: "Yesterday's clothes haven't been washed yet, I'll take my brother to continue washing them. We'll wash them in the bathroom and not upstairs."
While Qiao Qingqing continued to roast leeches, she suddenly heard a loud bang outside, splashing water and leaving water stains on the glass wall.
"What happened?" Shao's father was shocked.
"Let me see - it was the giant that exploded." Qiao Qingqing whispered.
"Ouch!" Shao's father was speechless. He didn't even dare to look over and asked Qiao Qingqing not to look anymore.
By noon, the sun became even hotter, as if it wanted to make up for all the sunlight that had been absent for more than two years.
After dinner, everyone was sweating profusely.
"It's too hot, even the wind is hot. It's hot and smelly." Qiao Songzhi fanned herself. She felt her butt was hot even when she was sitting on the chair. She couldn't help but stand up and asked Qiao Qingqing, "What's the temperature now?"
"Thirty-eight degrees Celsius." Qiao Qingqing hung the thermometer back and decided to turn on the air conditioner.
"Let's reinstall the solar generator first, and the air conditioner."
After the temperature dropped sharply, Qiao Qingqing asked Shao Shengan to take down the air conditioner, and she also put the air conditioner outdoor unit into the space late at night.
"Then I'll install it." Shao Shengan took the responsibility without hesitation. In order to save electricity, he decided to turn on the air conditioner in the master bedroom first, and everyone went into the master bedroom to escape the heat. The air conditioner was installed perfectly, and the air conditioner outdoor unit was placed on the terrace. Before the end of the world, Qiao Qingqing had asked the master to keep all the pipes ready for the home decoration.
The generator hummed to life, and the family looked at the air conditioner expectantly.
The air conditioner was connected to the power with a beep. Qiao Qingqing pressed the remote control and the air conditioner started to operate normally.
"A cool breeze is coming!" Shao's mother said happily.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, the temperature reached 40 degrees Celsius, and Qiao Qingqing's family huddled in the master bedroom to avoid the heat. Qiao Qingqing put away the bed and spread bamboo mats on the floor so that everyone could sit or lie down. The air conditioner was set to 18 degrees Celsius, which was just enough to feel cool. Shao Shengfei was hot, so his mother fanned him.
Although the family conditions were good, everyone was in a heavy mood facing the abnormal climate environment. Except for Shao Shengfei, no one could sleep at all.
For Qiao Qingqing, such a life was already considered happy, and she had no regrets. When she couldn't sleep, she continued to study and review her lessons in front of the wooden man.
"I seem to have twisted my hand." Shao Shengan said in a low voice.
Qiao Qingqing immediately became concerned: "Did you hurt yourself when you were using the air conditioner just now? Give me your hand, I'll massage it for you." She checked it, took out medicated wine and rubbed his wrist. During the process, Shao Shengan kept looking at her with a smile.
She raised her eyes and couldn't help laughing, and asked in a low voice: "Are you feeling better?"
"A lot, my wife is amazing."
"Ah!" Shao Shengfei suddenly shouted in his sleep and opened his eyes.
"What a sin! He's so scared." Shao's mother felt very distressed.
"Qingqing, do you think there is any solution?" Father Shao looked at Qiao Qingqing expectantly.
"Let me see." Qiao Qingqing felt Shao Shengfei's pulse and found that he was frightened. "You need to take medicine. Can you take capsules, brother?"
"Yes! Yes! He's very good at taking medicine!" Shao's mother said hurriedly.
So Qiao Qingqing gave Shao Shengfei some medicine. As expected, he was very obedient. He closed his eyes and fell asleep soon after taking the medicine.
In the evening, Qiao Qingqing asked Shao's mother to wake him up so that he would not sleep too much.
"The solar generator is on, and there's no shortage of electricity at home, so let Big Brother watch cartoons."
Shao's mother felt sorry for the electricity and even more sorry for her son, so she didn't say no this time. Qiao Qingqing found a cartoon that Shao Shengfei liked and he was very happy watching it.
"There's some movement outside, a speedboat is coming, it should be the Wang family." Shao Shengan said.
The sun was setting, leaving a large orange-red sunset glow in the west. A speedboat was approaching from the west, not very fast. Qiao Qingqing looked through the telescope and said, "It's them, Wang Jiaxin's sister, and Wang Jiale." She didn't see Wang Jiaxin's husband, Wang Jiale's cousin and his brother-in-law. It seemed that they were not found.
The speedboat approached the shore, and Wang Jiale shouted loudly. The Wang family members came out excitedly to greet them, lowering rope ladders for them to climb up.
"Move the speedboat up here too, to prevent it from being stolen in the middle of the night."
There was a lot of noise downstairs, but then the door was closed and no sound could be heard.
The next day, Wang Jiale came upstairs to thank him: "Lend me another day, I'm going to go out and look for my brother and brother-in-law."
As a result, at noon, Wang Jiale's brother-in-law came back by himself. He swam back holding a bucket. He vomited as soon as he got ashore and passed out. The Wang family was in a panic and wanted to move him in. Qiao Qingqing heard the noise and immediately stopped them: "Take off his clothes first and give him a shower! He may have dirt from the water on him!"
The Wang family was startled. Grandma Wang said hurriedly: "Listen to Qingqing--"
"But there is no water to take a shower at home." Wang Jiaxin frowned.
In the past two years, has anyone in my family ever taken a bath? It’s a luxury to have some water to wipe our faces every ten days or half a month.
"The main thing is to throw away the dirty clothes. If there is no water, use a clean towel to wipe his body. If he drank unclean water, induce vomiting and use a spoon to press the root of his tongue..."
The Wang family quickly did as they were told. When Qiao Qingqing saw them starting to take off his clothes, she turned around and went home.
"We have done what we should do. Don't open the door recently." Qiao Qingqing said to her family.
In the next two days, Wang Jiale went out early and came back late, and finally found other relatives and brought them back. Fortunately, his cousin and cousin-in-law were taking shelter in the building, and there were no other problems except that they almost fainted from hunger.
"Jiaxin's husband is dying," Wang Jiale said sadly to Qiao Qingqing and the others while they were still on the speedboat. "The water is too dirty and poisonous. He ate a lot of dirty water on his way back from swimming. He vomited when he got home and couldn't eat anything. He vomited blood this morning."
"Where is the hospital?" Qiao Songzhi asked.
"I just went to the hospital. The hospital was full of people. There was no place to stay. It was extremely chaotic. People were fighting. Everywhere was a mess. Many people had fever and vomited. The ground was dirty and the air was smelly... I tried my best to ask around, but they said there was no medicine in the hospital. There really was no medicine at all. It was a mess, a complete mess outside. You can't imagine how terrible it was that day. The temperature suddenly rose, and the ice under my feet suddenly broke. It was such thick ice! Everything was gone. All the shelters and greenhouses built on the ice collapsed into the ice fault. Some people fell down and disappeared in the blink of an eye. I ran like crazy, ran like crazy, and I felt my lungs were burning! When I went upstairs, I fell down and couldn't move. Later I got up and looked. It was hell, absolutely hell--"
There was still fear in Wang Jiale's eyes when he recalled the incident.
"We hid in the building, with no food, no water, nothing. It was difficult for everyone these days. The indigenous people were unwilling and unable to help us. I saw with my own eyes that the supply ship sank, and many people disappeared in the ice..."
He didn't dare tell these to his family, so he could only tell Qiao Qingqing and the others. After that, he felt much more relaxed and went downstairs with red eyes.
"Oh!" Qiao Songzhi sighed and turned his head to wipe his eyes.
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