Chapter 55
Some people live in sheds, some live in small mud houses scattered in the fields, and some just live under trees.
No matter where they were, they were all in poor spirits, with skin diseases visible all over their bodies, and they looked like they were dying.
Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao, who was towing a box truck, looked at each other. It seemed that the D City base no longer allowed more ordinary people to enter.
There were cars and trucks speeding by on the road nearby, and every time a car passed by, it would stir up a large cloud of dust. The survivors on the roadside just closed their eyes, not even having the strength to cover their noses, and just lay there.
It's not that I haven't seen any survivors, but the ones I've seen before were either those who were still surviving in buildings with some mental strength, or those who were forced into a desperate situation by the flood and frantically seeking help. No one was lying on the roadside like them, as if quietly waiting to die.
——Because the people waiting to die in the city and in the flood have already died or turned into zombies.
Only now, outside the base, you can see people bustling everywhere, because the zombies within a radius of ten kilometers have been cleared, so there is no zombie threat.
However, because there was no food, the base would not accept them and was unable to provide them with a place to stay, so they could only wait to die here.
Those who had the strength to leave had left. The remaining people must have come to the base with their last breath, running out of ammunition, food and physical strength, and there was really nothing they could do.
Fu Erdie's excitement and anticipation for seeing her grandmother slowly cooled down.
The two walked for five kilometers, getting themselves covered in dust and dirt, and seemed to be more down-to-earth. However, the refugees could tell at a glance that the two were supernatural beings.
At least one of them is a person with special abilities, otherwise he wouldn't be able to travel such a long distance and still be so strong and energetic.
The box truck they were pulling looked quite heavy, so it must be carrying a lot of food.
The survivors stared at Fu Erdie, and Fu Erdie also looked at them, guessing that someone would come to steal the food.
However, to her surprise, the two men walked closer and closer until they were among the crowd, but no one came to snatch it.
An old man seemed to see Fu Erdie's confusion, sneered and said nothing.
An old woman nearby glanced at the two of them and said, "Superpowers are so amazing, who dares to rob you."
Fu Erdie listened to the sarcastic words and passed by quietly without saying anything.
Are they hungry? Of course they are.
But these people have been working hard for half a year and have long known the difference between ordinary people and people with special abilities. It is absolutely impossible for them to come out and get into trouble now.
However, there are still a small number of people who are waiting to die, but not completely.
They still had some strength left to struggle, and they exchanged glances with each other, thinking that if they rushed forward they would be able to hold the two men back and snatch some supplies.
So when the two of them walked about a kilometer in the crowd, a lot of pale and thin people suddenly surrounded them from all directions.
A child plopped down on his knees right in front of the road where Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao were going to pass, begging Fu Erdie to give him some food to save his life. While he was trying to attract Fu Erdie's attention, the survivors around him rushed forward, vowing to suppress him with the human wave tactic.
The sharp metal blade flew into the air and appeared above the heads of the survivors in the front row, forcing back the refugees in the front row while intimidating the refugees in the back row.
Then the people in the front row stopped, but the people in the back row didn't want to care about the people in the front row. They wanted the people in the front row to use their bodies to fill the gap so that they could squeeze in.
Sang Wenhao's eyes turned cold and he quickly changed his mind. He turned the blade into the back of the knife and slapped the group of people who were pushing people in the middle away, and even the people in the back row all fell to the ground.
The people in the front row were on the brink of death. If Sang Wenhao had not retracted his force in time, their heads would have been hit directly.
At this point, they no longer had any time to think about anything bad and all fled in panic.
The refugees watching the show nearby felt a little sorry for what was happening, but couldn't help but laugh at these people for overestimating their abilities. They still wanted to fight the superpowers, so why didn't they die? If they died, they could still shed a tear and eat the dead.
Under the gaze of the crowds of people, Fu Erdie walked towards the gate of the base step by step.
Jealousy, hatred, despair, madness, pleading, all kinds of looks passed over them and finally turned into silence.
Fu Erdie was in a heavy mood. The distance of a few kilometers made him feel tired as if he had traveled thousands of miles.
Finally they arrived at the city gate and applied for admission.
As expected, the guards said that only those with special abilities and their teammates and their families were allowed to enter, and if there were ordinary people among the group, the people with special abilities would be responsible for the accommodation of these ordinary people, either living together in a small single room allocated to them by the base, or paying them regularly and renting another house or a large dormitory.
Sang Wenhao expressed his understanding and went to take the ability test first.
A third-level mutant.
The guard's face instantly looked much better. He went to check Fu Erdie again and found that she was an ordinary person, so he asked her to go to the ladies' room to take off her clothes and check if there were any signs of bites on her body.
People with special abilities are resistant to zombie mutations and will not turn into zombies even if they are bitten. Only ordinary people may turn into zombies if they are injured by zombies.
After confirming that Fu Erdie was fine, the guard called the person in charge, and the two sides began the handover, and then the person in charge carefully introduced the situation of the base.
"Our base is different from other bases. There is no entrance fee for those who come to join us, and they can experience living in the assigned room for a week. Once they are sure they want to join, we will start to give them the tasks to go out of the city and the resource standards to be paid as a minimum every week. Whether it is food, minerals, or special parts collection work at other designated locations, it is all counted as work."
"The minimum resources to be handed in are relatively small, and basically anyone with special abilities can complete it. If you want the base to reward you with more crystal cores, you need to complete more tasks in exchange."
The person in charge arranged temporary accommodation for the two people and took them there to settle down.
The temporary residence is an abandoned dark building. There is a powerful psychic guarding the first floor, and a few psychics living temporarily upstairs.
After Sang Wenhao confirmed the room number, he lifted a box truck from the outside, entered the room directly through the window, put his things away, took the key and went out.
The person in charge took the two of them around and introduced the basic distribution conditions within the base, such as where to go to the toilet, where to eat in the collective canteen, where to receive tasks, where to hand in tasks, etc.
After much talk, Fu Erdie finally brought up the topic of the survivors in the base.
The person in charge thought Fu Erdie wanted to hide away, so he pointed to a quiet, dilapidated building and said, "They are over there. If you mind, just don't go near there at night. They are working during the day, so you can go and have a look if you want."
Fu Erdie casually said, "Are those buildings divided by area? I'm from City C, and I want to go there to see if I know anyone there."
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The person in charge took the two people to a small, dilapidated eight-story building in the middle.
You can smell the stench coming from inside as soon as you get close. Even if there is no one inside, just the clothes and quilts are already very smelly.
When Fu Erdie approached the building, she saw rows and rows of large bunk beds, with many people's clothes piled on the ground. The better ones had a locker, but the lock was not clear whether it was working or not, and it was tilted to one side.
The eight-story building is not very large, but to accommodate two to three thousand people means that each floor is crowded with three to four hundred people.
The more Fu Erdie looked, the heavier her heart felt.
There was the sound of a cart being pushed outside.
Someone came downstairs pushing a large bucket of food.
The person in charge explained: "Because ordinary people don't have enough water to wash, and their bodies get smellier and smellier after working every day, they can't go to the canteen to eat. Instead, a special person pushes the food and delivers it to the door downstairs. After they get off work, they sit at the door to get a bucket of food. After eating, they return the bucket and then go upstairs again."
Fu Erdie came to the door and looked at the bucket of food. She felt physically uncomfortable when she saw it.
The porridge inside was relatively dry, including rice, millet, lotus root slices, potato cubes, etc. I don't know where the ingredients came from, and many of them smelled moldy and spoiled. Regardless of whether they were suitable for cooking into a pot of porridge, they were all put into one pot. Those lumps of flour looked very uncomfortable.
"We don't have enough food, and the food source is unstable." The person in charge explained, "There's not enough seasoning either. We can only cook it in one pot and add a little salt. It's good enough as long as people are full. In fact, ordinary speedsters like us, who are responsible for reception or messaging, don't eat much better. You guys who can go out and fight on your own are definitely much better than us."
Fu Erdie looked at the thin and weathered figure of the person in charge, then looked at the setting sun and the large army of ordinary people gradually approaching the horizon, and his heart grew heavier.
If grandma didn’t come to the base, would she have lived a better life in the countryside?
Not only my grandmother, but also many ordinary people, would their lives be much easier if they farmed properly in the countryside?
At least when I went to Xiangde Village at the end of last month, the farmers there were ordinary people and were living well.
Although the fields were flooded when I left...
Fu Erdie took a deep breath.
Yes, it is more free outside, and you can plant your own land. If one acre of land cannot support yourself, you can plant two acres. If two acres of land is not enough, you can plant three acres.
But natural and man-made disasters are all force majeure. A rainstorm, a snowstorm, a drought, a disease, or when the crops have finally matured after going through numerous hardships, a superpower or a superpower zombie comes along, not many, just one, and everything can be destroyed.
Didn’t you hear Professor Zhao say that many independent teams of psychics were wiped out after encountering third-level or even fourth-level zombies?
No matter how smelly or bitter the base is, at least there are walls to protect you.
Once the winter sun sets, it gets dark very quickly.
In the blink of an eye, the sky had turned blue. There were only sporadic lights on the city walls. Those who were still on their way home all hurried back to their homes in the dark, wanting to have a taste of the unpalatable but still hot meal.
Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao asked the person in charge to go back, and they stood at the door of the building, searching the crowd for any traces of grandma and the other two.
Finally, when Fu Erdie saw an elderly couple and a middle-aged mother and daughter supporting each other and coming over, and their facial features vaguely resembled her grandmother and aunt, a particularly pleasant male voice came: "Cousin Butterfly!! Is that you?!"
(End of this chapter)