This is apocalyptic

Chapter 56: People

Lin Duoduo has heard people say that people are constantly developing and life will get better and better, but she can't remember whether it was her grandfather who said this in his spare time or her father who mentioned it.

But after she started living on her own, she discovered the opposite was true: people's lives would only get worse and worse. She used to have soybeans and lotus roots, but many things disappeared as she grew up, and could not be found in the fields.

There used to be a pond on the other side of the mountain. There were not only lotus roots but also lotus seeds in it that people could eat. Later, it dried up and we never ate them again.

After a famine, it was gone.

She tends to believe that people slowly decline, just like those zombies, and eventually return to dust.

Seeing that Bai Xiao was resting, she handed him the water soaked with locust flowers, and Bai Xiao took it and drank it all.

As the saying goes, every autumn rain brings a chill. Even if it doesn't rain, the temperature is getting cooler day by day.

The persimmon trees in the village were full of fruit hanging on the trees. Bai Xiao suddenly found that he could also grasp the approximate time.

The sun no longer made people dizzy, and the leaves on the other side of the mountain gradually turned yellow.

Lin Duoduo thought that the zombies would leave after her injuries healed. She had seen him drawing a map in the yard before. Unexpectedly, when her legs were healed, Bai Xiao did not suggest looking for a shelter.

As usual, he carried a hoe and the fish basket she had woven, and caught some loaches, eels, and occasionally a fish in the river.

The number of white bones in and around the village gradually decreased. When Bai Xiao saw them, he would dig a hole and bury them. At least it didn't look so desolate anymore. The grass in the fields turned yellow and golden. When he went out to catch rabbits and dig wild vegetables, he wouldn't step on bones so easily.

When the river level slowed down, he dug some more silt, dried it, then carried it back and dumped it in the small vegetable garden near the east wall of his yard. After wilting for a few days, the wild pepper he dug from the mountain slowly came back to life.

"I told you I could do it." Bai Xiao raised his chin and pointed at the wild pepper to show off to her.

Lin Duoduo discovered that he really liked spicy food. He brought back so many peppers last time, and it was not enough to chop them into sauce. Whenever he caught loaches or something, he would also throw some peppers on them and eat them.

Bai Xiao's range of activities was expanding. Not satisfied with the fields outside the village, he wore a helmet and walked in the desolate grass in the fields. The farthest he saw was another village in the distance. He observed it for a long time and did not go back after noon.

There was no smoke coming from the village, so probably there was no one there, but I couldn't be completely sure.

He went back with the basket carrying the snakes and frogs he caught in the fields.

In the following days, I went to the vicinity of the village several times, but there was still no movement. It was even more silent than the village where Lin Duoduo lived.

Bai Xiao moved closer and saw a figure over there. He paused, then realized it was a zombie. It was easy to recognize from its staggering movements and aimless walking path.

When he returned that day, he was covered in dust again, with straw hanging on his collar. Lin Duoduo suspected that the zombies did not catch fish, but ran to the fields to catch rabbits. "Where did you go?" she couldn't help asking.

"There's a village over there, too. It's quite far away." Bai Xiao pointed to the east. "Is there anyone there?"

Lin Duoduo followed the direction he pointed and knew where he was talking about. "I don't know. A few zombies wandered from that direction before. One of them was relatively new and was trapped in a trap. Otherwise, it would be quite dangerous if it suddenly appeared."

As she spoke, she added, "Which village did you go to?"

"I looked from a distance and saw only zombies, no people."

Bai Xiao didn't know if it was the same as Lin Duoduo, with two zombies left in the village, so it wasn't so deserted and there was some movement. He also observed the area nearby, but there were no signs of human activity.

Here, when Lin Duoduo was not cooking, she could not tell from a distance that there were people in the village, but as long as she got closer, she could still find traces of human activities in the fields, which could not be concealed.

Having not experienced the period of the disaster, even when seeing Lin Duoduo's life now, Bai Xiao finds it hard to imagine the environment and hardships twenty years ago.

How come so many people from the city once fled to the countryside, and now it has become like this, with so many people dead?

"Could it be that the rescue team came but didn't know there were people here, so they missed you?" He suddenly had a very tragic guess.

"It's possible, but it's very small." Lin Duoduo said, "If there is rescue, they will leave a letter for the scavengers. The best way is in the city."

Bai Xiao plans to go to that village next time. He doesn't know if it's because he's addicted to scavenging in the city or he wants to explore the unknown, but he always wants to know if there are people there and whether they live like Lin Duoduo and the others.

The danger level of zombies has only decreased in recent years, and now is the right time to find a shelter.

the next day.

Bai Xiao put on his helmet again, covered his eyes, and approached the village while looking for some crops left over by previous people in the fields that had now become weeds.

The last zombie seen was already wandering in the fields. It was a female zombie who seemed to have been infected in the winter. Bai Xiao could tell that it was infected and turned into a zombie in the winter because it was wearing a down jacket that had almost lost all its fur and was dirty and torn.

Bai Xiao ignored it, and it didn't recognize the Zombie King. It just heard the noise, turned around, and wandered slowly, and was led back to the village by Bai Xiao.

The village was in a dilapidated state, even worse than where Lin Duoduo lived. There were even mummies on the street that had not yet turned into bones. They looked like rotten zombies that had fallen to the ground, with only a layer of skin left on their bones, and they would never wander around again.

The difference between an occupied house and an unoccupied house can be seen at a glance. Bai Xiao walked around the village and finally confirmed that this was a village that had been silent for a long time.

There is nothing in the ruins except zombies.

Some of the houses were covered with withered vines, but there were noises coming from inside. Bai Xiao opened the door and saw that it was an old zombie trapped in the yard. He was wearing a tattered suit, and he looked out of place in the poor and dilapidated village.

It should be in an office building in the city, not in this courtyard.

Bai Xiao knew that there must be some twists and turns, but he didn't know whether it had escaped here from the city, or had changed into its best clothes when it was about to die here, and then welcomed death.

The zombies didn't recognize him as the zombie king and didn't bite him.

He entered the house and looked around the dusty room. He walked around and looked around like he was a scavenger in the city. He didn't find anything useful, but instead found a pile of junior high school textbooks in the cabinet, and some award certificates that had faded so long that they would fall apart if pinched.

The traces left by the people who once lived here have long since become history.

Bai Xiao closed the cabinet and walked out. Because of the noise he made, three or two zombies wandered over and staggered around aimlessly. As he left, a few zombies also staggered after him.

It really looks like a zombie king, walking with his people in this deserted house.

(End of this chapter)