TELD Chapter 29: Huang Tai Town

A line of eight people sat on the side of the road to rest, Zhao Shaogan knocked on the door of a family. The hostess of the family is also a doctor and works with his father in Huangtai Township Health Center.

The door knocked for a long time before someone answered.

The woman who opened the door was startled when she saw Zhao Shaogan. "Xiao Zhao? What do you want from me?" However, even if she knew someone, she only opened the door a little.

Zhao Shaogan understood her guard and asked, "Sister Hong, I just want to ask you about the situation in your village. Is there anything strange besides the crazy vegetation?"

Hearing this, Sister Hong said, "Are mosquitoes especially numerous? By the way, someone from our village came back from the provincial capital last evening and learned from him that the situation outside is not good. If you want to know the details, please go to his house and ask."

Said, and pointed to the hypotenuse a two-story building.

Unlike Chashanling, which is a village with mixed surnames, most of the people in this village are surnamed Xie. Hongjie's name is Xie Hong. The man she just pointed to is Xie Wen. He came back in the evening with his brother Xie Shu, who had been living in the provincial capital for many years.

Xie Shu saw that Zhao Shaogan and others came to ask about the situation outside, and gave a general description of what he saw: "At first, the situation was better. Every day, the government sent a water truck to a specific place to deliver water, and they could receive relief food once every three days. But the water was enough to quench one's thirst. Even the water for washing one's face was not enough, and the food was barely enough for one to eat. As time goes on, more and more people will lose their composure. Attacks, smashing, looting and robberies occur at any time and place. After the earthquake, the situation became even more chaotic. Some street gangs began to organize themselves to collect protection fees from various communities. In order to compete for territory and fight in the streets, the deadly posture was simply too frightening for the police to control. Later, we really couldn't stand it and decided to go back to our hometown. The day before we left, one of our downstairs residents was broken into the door in the middle of the night, and the whole family was killed and all the food in the house was looted."

Xie Shugang's mood was quite calm at first. When it came to the back of his eyes, his wife and two daughters looked gaunt and could not help crying. Everyone else was silent. In a few words, although they can imagine it, the spectators can't feel the despair and panic of those who were in trouble at that time.

"The night before yesterday, we just arrived at the county seat. Because it was late, all the shops and hotels were closed. My wife and children and I found a smashed shop for the night." Speaking of which, Xie Shu's face showed a look of fear. "Before I went to sleep, I carefully looked at the shops nearby, so I remember clearly that there was a pot of morning glory and many flowers on the street opposite the shop where I lived. It was quite nice. Because of the continuous travel, our family was very tired, and we had already arrived in the county seat of our hometown, so we felt a little relaxed. We did not dare to sleep too much as usual, but we all slept very soundly that night until we were awakened by a loud cry in the morning."

As Xie Shu said a word, the crowd gradually widened their eyes.

Xie Shu jumped up from the ground in shock and woke up his wife and children. He carefully looked out and saw the scene that made his legs soft on the spot. I don't know when the opposite morning glory has turned into a big canopy, the flower has become a big basin, the color of the flower has also changed from the original single purple to gorgeous and complex, vines occupy half of the street, and just within the distance that Xie Shu can see, a man's body is tightly wrapped by vines, one of the funnel-shaped morning glory petals tightly wraps the man's head, the man struggled for a while, then did not move, then the petals left the man's body, then took away, and his head. Petals actually wrenched the man's head off! And his body, like a conveyor belt, was carried back to the roots of the whole cluster of flowers, and was soon hidden layer by layer. The flower with its head in it is even more bloody and weird because it is stained with blood.

Xie Shu was extremely frightened by this horrible sight, but when he thought of his wife and children behind him, he strangely calmed down again, turned around and told them not to make any noise. Several people quietly went out of the shop door carrying their carry-on packages. But the morning glory was like a monster. Xie Shu had just left the shop and almost all the petals turned to them like eyes.

Xie Shu knew that morning glory had found her and her whereabouts had been exposed. Even with a loud roar, she dragged her two daughters forward desperately. When they moved, the morning glory vine swam towards them like a snake. Fortunately, the morning glory occupies the other half of the street and is still some distance away from them. Just as he was running out of the range of morning glory, his wife suddenly let out a cry. Xie Shu looked back. It turned out that the backpack on his wife's back was grabbed by the nearest morning glory and she was dragged back by the morning glory.

Xie Shu pushed the two daughters forward, gave a loud roar and ran quickly. He turned and grabbed his wife's feet, told her to lift the master, and then dragged the man to his side. Although his wife was flustered, she was not completely out of her mind. When she heard this, she lifted her hands together with Xie Shu's effort to drag her back, and suddenly broke away from the shackles of her backpack.

The two men did not dare to look back. They pulled their two daughters who stood there crying and could not bear to leave, and continued running until they had run a long distance before they dared to stop. After they stopped, they found that the whole county had changed greatly. The roads had become potholes, many places were overgrown with weeds, and there were towering trees everywhere. Some floors were tottering on top of the trees. Huge monkeys running out of nowhere wandered back and forth among the trees, punching them with sharp fangs.

Xie Shu's family, who had just escaped from death, immediately went to their village in panic. However, Xie Shu, who comes back only on major festivals every year, is not familiar with the county town which changes every year. They have lost their way in the county town for half a day and have seen many animals and plants which have changed their appearance or have not seen them at all. In a short period of half a day, they have seen cats as big as German shepherd fighting plants, spiders as big as millstones, spiders as big as cobwebs, and pythons as big as buckets biting a huge wild dog as it was eating . . . The last family finally found the right way out before their emotions were about to collapse, and moved on cautiously, finally returning to their village before dark.

For Xie Shu's family, the days before in the provincial capital felt like a miserable day every day, but these were not as short as half a day in the county seat. The fear of being hunted as food at any time is gone, and it still feels the same.

When Xie Shu heard that they were going to Huangtai Town, he urged them: "Now, no matter where they go, remember to carry with them self-defense weapons. Now any small plant or animal that is small and insignificant may become a hunter. He also heard my eldest brother say that there are many similar gangsters around our county town. They cannot be restrained by morality, and the legal control is ineffective. It will only make them do more harm to others. People's hearts are terrible. All these should be paid attention to."

Although the environment changed suddenly, the people in the village did not expect the situation outside to be so severe.

Yan Fei asked, "Where are the people in the county?"

Xie Shu's face could not help but feel tired and said, "Probably hiding. After all, people in the city now have no other food source except government relief. It was chaotic before, and coupled with changes in animals and plants, they still don't know what will happen in the future. Yesterday we spent most of our time in the county seat and only saw a few residents who came out to look for food."

Before, after the power failure, there was a rush of panic buying in the county town. Almost every household had something to store in the house. For a while, there was no shortage of food. However, as time went on, food would be eaten up one day and staying in the house would definitely not work. In addition to putting the hope of survival on the country, more people have to rely on self-help.

By this time, many people in the room were thinking, although before this, they had been living very hard as wage earners earning money from coolies, now the real difficulties are coming, instead, they are the kind of people who are easier to survive, after all, they have fields as security.

Hearing that the city was so dangerous, someone hesitated on the spot and said, "why don't we go back and not go."

Yan Fei glanced at the man and said: "after listening to uncle Xie's remarks, it is conceivable that many changed animals and plants have already begun to set up their territory in the city. to a large extent, they will be in opposition to human beings in the future. Plants are growing and changing. In case the land is zoned to our village one day, will you move to avoid it?"

Yan Fei said this harshly, but there was no way. In a village, the severe situation in the future must not allow anyone to flinch. A large number of people have great strength. As a village person, he must be twisted into a rope. At first, he was afraid of this and that. He didn't get any exercise. He just wanted to shrink back. When the plants had enough time to grow, he wanted to face them again. It would be late.

Life is like this. If you don't advance, you will retreat.

The man was flushed with Yan Fei's remarks, but his personality was positive, otherwise he wouldn't have thought of coming out together to check the situation outside, so although he felt embarrassed, he didn't take it to heart. He also felt that Yan Fei was really right and only wryly grabbed his head twice.

Soon, a line of people with Xie Shu a leave, before the road consumption of physical strength also came back, will continue to go to Huang Tai town.

The crowd soon came to a fork leading to the town. The left side led to Jinhe Town, the right to Huangtai Town, and the road ahead led to another village. Usually this fork is flanked by small supermarkets, many vegetable stalls and meat stalls, mixed with several teahouses and two small clinics. No matter when I passed here before, this intersection was very busy. But now there is not a figure on the road, very quiet.

No one cleaned up the grass on the road, but traces of someone passing by were barely a road. The path was winding, and the place around it was either blocked by roots or the car that had rotted on the road. Some cars were pried over by sudden roots, or were treated as parasites and covered with vines.