This is apocalyptic

Chapter 71: Chenjiabao
The early spring mornings are cold.

Before dawn, Bai Xiao had already sat up. The straw could not completely block out the coldness from the ground.

He moved his body and adjusted his condition.

Pushing the bicycle in the pre-dawn darkness, after about half an hour, the sky gradually brightened.

When Bai Xiao checked the wound caused by the bat bite again, there was nothing abnormal.

The zombie is stronger after all; he is no longer a normal human.

In fact, when Bai Xiao was in Lin Duoduo's courtyard, he still had an experiment he wanted to do, but it was somewhat dangerous. After thinking about it, he finally gave up the idea - the experiment was that if there were penetrating wounds or other serious wounds on the body, he didn't know whether the zombie virus could save him.

After dawn, Bai Xiao stopped pushing the cart and rode on it.

The sky was gloomy and there was no sign of the sun. Occasionally he encountered a broken road and had to get off to carry the car. This continued until almost noon when raindrops finally started to fall from the sky.

It's raining.

Bai Xiao stopped the car, took out the raincoat that Lin Duoduo had prepared for him from his backpack and put it on. This was made by her herself using waterproof cloth, which was relatively thick and tight.

Wearing a helmet and a raincoat, I was driving on a deserted road, and the sky and the earth seemed vast and boundless.

In the afternoon, the rain got heavier and he had to find a place to take shelter. He turned into a building in the distance. He took out the map and saw that this place was called Machang Township. If he continued forward, he would enter the area of ​​Chenjiabao.

Chenjiabao is not a small place, but a place name before the disaster. It used to be a town with many villages around it.

The rain was getting heavier, with occasional rumbling thunder.

Bai Xiao looked into the distance. He had now seen more than one form of infection.

The lowest level was the deer that Lin Duoduo and I saw when we went into the mountains. It died in pain after being infected and was unable to survive.

As the infected group expands, there will always be survivors, just like the dog chasing him on the road, who survived the infection and, like zombies, have no consciousness, only instinct and madness.

And that swarm of bats last night, manic and aggressive.

Going a step further, there is the big cat that you encounter when you go into the city to scavenge. It will pick out lone people and attack them from behind. It is full of the aura of a predator and has the ability to reproduce.

What will the world look like in the end?
Bai Xiao inexplicably thought of the joke that Yu Ming mentioned - Noah's Ark.

The survivors should board Noah's Ark and wait for a great cleansing, but the reality is there is no ship to carry them.

A flash of thunder passed by.

The face of the zombie hiding from the rain was illuminated. He was staring at the rain in a trance. In the distance, a staggering old zombie fell in the rain, covered in mud.

Seeing that the rain showed no sign of stopping, Bai Xiao dragged the bicycle inside and put it away, entered the mud house behind him, took off his helmet, and took off his shoes to hang out to dry.

The harpoon was at hand.

Aunt Qian has a gun, Yu Ming doesn't have a gun, but he has a harpoon.

There must be a reason why those who survive a disaster all have some kind of sharp weapon on them.

After sitting for a while, he took out a pen and a notebook from his backpack and thought for a while. "On the overpass of Linmao Expressway, I met an uncle named Brother Yu. He had no hope for the future and did not want to gather. From him, I learned that 'Chenjiabao' was a group of people who lived together and wanted to watch the fireworks. This was a little different from what I expected when I set out. I thought that people like Lin Huayou (smudged)...like the people I knew, who were trying to survive and looking for rescue were the majority - but the fact seems not to be the case. Not everyone wants to survive. They were people before the disaster, and they were separated from the young people. They seemed to have accepted the reality of the end of the world, and the word 'hope' had nothing to do with them.

"Infected bats have appeared and are very aggressive. It may be fatal to humans. The situation is getting more and more serious."

Bai Xiao put away his pen. Before he set out, he thought he would meet survivors like Lin Huayou on the road and try hard to live with hope. But now it seems that this is not the case.

After the spring rain, the temperature will rise day by day. This should be the last chill of winter.

The next day the rain was much lighter, just a drizzle. Bai Xiao looked up at the sky, put on his raincoat, and continued on his way.

When we entered the territory of Chenjiabao, there was nothing different at first.

Keep going forward, there are almost no wandering zombies, the fields are deserted, some farmlands are blocked by barbed wire, and there are signs on the side of the road with the words "Beware of traps" as a reminder.

This was the first time that Bai Xiao felt the breath of civilization. Unlike the deserted village where zombies roamed around Lin Duoduo, when humans gathered together, they would always make many changes to the environment. There would be people and traces of activities.

The only weird thing is that these are what Yu Ming called "a bunch of idiots". It feels very strange that people who are trying hard to live are just living alone - while a group of people waiting for doomsday gather together and have a breath of civilization.

There are green buds in the farmland, emerging thrivingly, welcoming the first spring rain after the cold winter.

Bai Xiao walked slowly along the road, observing everything vigilantly and carefully.

I don’t know if it was because of the rain, but I didn’t see any people on the road and the wandering zombies had been cleared out.

In the distance, those deserted villages have completely turned into ruins - broken walls stand on the land, and only the appearance of buildings that once existed there can be seen, but there are no complete houses.

Only the foundations and low wall roots are left on the ruins. At first glance, it looks as if someone once drove a bulldozer to flatten the buildings on this land, returning it to its original appearance.

All the tall and short houses in the countryside have disappeared, like flattened graves.

And those materials were piled up to form a building further away.

Chenjiabao now not only refers to the place name before the disaster, but also the buildings that gather the vitality of this land.

Bai Xiao saw Chenjiabao, where there were walls, buildings, fences, and barbed wire...

Those are the settlements of surviving humans scattered across this land.

This is how they live.

The razed village will no longer harbor zombies, nor will it have any corners for animals to hide. It will no longer be a place to shelter from the wind and rain. Everything can be seen from the ruins, and the materials taken down have been used to reinforce the settlement.

Bai Xiao felt the breath of civilization and watched from afar on the distant highway.

This should have been an exciting moment. Almost a year after coming to this world, he finally saw the real settlement of survivors right before his eyes.

But he is no longer the zombie king in Lin Duoduo's courtyard who was afraid of all the old zombies. He once had illusions about the settlement, but Yu Ming's words revealed the cold reality.

The word "hope" is a matter for young people, and so is living.

The people who survived the disaster were different from the young people.

(End of this chapter)