Endless Road of Corpse - C14
14. Pigeons
I sat in the shadow of the courtyard wall and flipped through the notebook the Taoist had left behind. It was like a labyrinth of obscure words, symbols, spells, and so on.
I turned to one of the pages. On it was written in red ink a paragraph that I could not understand. Beneath this paragraph was a small Chinese character, which was probably a translation of this foreign language.
At the end of the seventh cycle of reincarnation
mutual killing occurred
It happened shortly after the beginning of the millennium
Then the dead man will come out of the grave
I looked at the date written on the top right corner of this page and realized that it was written more than half a year ago. At that time, other than a few well-informed people, the average citizen still didn’t know anything about the Zombie crisis. I continued to flip through the pages. Behind them was a large stack of material, some newspaper briefings, and some printouts of web news, all of which had been glued to my notebook with glue, and I flipped through a few of them.
The side effects of drugs caused patients to mutate; The Beautiful Appearance of the Zombie Rabbit infected with unknown bacteria or transmitted; The Hong Kong Kwai Chung nightly bit into the “Zombie”; A Japanese man frantically entered a primary school half-naked pursuer; The United States opened a training camp for the battle of the Zombie…
Each article had exact details of the time, place, character, and event that had taken place, and the news had been lost in all sorts of giddy information in the pre-crisis era of the Big Bang, classified as anecdotal and easy to read, crammed into inconspicuous corners of newspapers and websites, and barely looked at except by the likes of the Taoist.
“Yuan, where are you reading?” Liu Guojun had a fawning smile on his face as he walked over with an exaggerated limp.
I ignored him, although I didn’t hate him as much as San Mao, but I didn’t have a nice expression on my face, if he wasn’t Dr Lee’s husband, we would have already thrown him out and fed him to the Zombie.
I closed the notebook, picked up the pistol, and dabbed some of the oil on a silk scarf. I wiped it carefully, and the famous carriage sign was immediately stained with a layer of greasy black.
“Got another gun? Great, our safety has been guaranteed once again. Brother Yuan, you truly are wise and wise … ”
This person had probably built up a strong psychological quality in the officials before the crisis and mastered an unbeatable, thick-skinned horse fart. No matter how cold the faces of others were, he was unfazed, and was even as willing as wine.
“Director Liu, are your legs better today?” I glanced sideways at him, as if to say something.
“Haha …” Liu Guojun laughed awkwardly, “No … It’s not like that. The sciatic nerves are aching. It’s cold today, but the pain’s even worse. Look at this, even walking is a problem. ”
“Yo, the wall climbing that night was so nimble!” This guy once tried to climb into our storage room through the window in the middle of the night, but he was caught red-handed by San Mao who went to the toilet. Although he insisted that he heard a sound and wanted to go in to check, we all knew that he definitely wanted to go in to steal food.
“Hehe …” “Hee hee …” Liu Guojun saw that I did not give him any face, but was not angry at all. He only scratched his head, and turned to walk back inside the house.
Just then, Little Casey walked out of the room with a plastic bucket in her hands. Her face was full of strength, and her body was leaning to the side, obviously showing that the plastic bucket in her hand was not light.
Liu Guojun immediately jumped to the side to dodge Little Casey who was staggering forward. In that moment, his steps seemed to be incomparably nimble.
“No eyes? You useless loser! ” Liu Guojun angrily retreated a bit, causing Little Casey to lose her balance and fall on her butt. Liu Guojun angrily walked in and slammed the door shut.
Little Casey struggled to get up from the ground, and the plastic bucket fell to the ground, its contents scattered all over the floor. Little Casey squatted down and used her little hands to hold onto it, then threw the things back into the bucket.
What San Mao said is right, now is no longer an era where children can be doted upon limitlessly. To adults, they are no longer little emperors or princesses, but mouths to eat, a burden and a burden. They have to quickly mature and learn some basic survival skills in order to survive in this cruel world.
In fact, Little Casey learned very quickly, ever since the day we found her in school, she had never cried, nor asked anyone where her parents went to wait. She seemed to understand the world more quickly than an adult, and from the first day onwards, she started to help adults. She helped Aunt Chen clean up, lit the stove, learned how to make ropes from Uncle Feng, and so on.
“Uncle Chen Yuan!” When Casey walked past me, she called out to me in her childish voice.
“Sigh!” “Yes,” I said.
She still carried the plastic bucket with both hands and walked past me with difficulty. I looked at the contents in the bucket. It was the potatoes that I brought back that had sprouted and were cut into small pieces along the bud.
I sighed and called out to her, “Casey …” Little Casey looked back at me and waved her hand. “Come here.”
Casey put down the plastic bucket in her hand, and walked over while bouncing.
I looked around and seeing that there was no one around, I took out the chocolate I hid that day and placed it in Little Casey’s arms. “Take it, don’t let anyone see it.”
Little Casey’s eyes flickered as she looked at me and then at the chocolate. After staring blankly for a while, she said softly, “Thank you, uncle,” before putting the chocolate into her belt and putting down her clothes to cover herself. Then, she picked up the extremely heavy plastic bucket and struggled to move it forward.
He held a few short sticks in one hand and a roll of plastic film in the other hand under his armpit. After leaving the room, he squinted his eyes to take a look, then shouted to Casey who had already walked far away: “Little Casey, over there, don’t go any further.”
When Casey heard Uncle Feng’s shout, she immediately put down the plastic bucket in her hands and sat on the ground to catch her breath. Uncle Feng turned his head and saw me, then shouted: “Yuan, come and help.”
“Alright!” I quickly put the gun on my belt and walked towards Casey. It was obvious that the ground here had been turned over, and some water had been spilled. The soil was so black that it was somewhat wet.
Uncle Feng walked over and picked up a few pieces of potatoes from the plastic bucket. He crouched down and dug a hole about ten centimeters deep with his hands, then covered it with dirt. Casey and I also followed his example and planted the potatoes like Uncle Feng.
“Uncle Feng, how long will it take to collect this potato?” I asked.
“If everything goes well, it’ll take about three months.” The Uncle Feng replied.
I calculated that it was early September, which meant that the harvest would continue until early December.
“I wonder how the weather will be this year. If it was frozen earlier, I might not be able to pick it up. After all, it’s a little late to plant it now …” Uncle Feng paused, sighed, and said: “If only there were carrots, then it would be good, the potatoes are too picky, now there is no fertilizer, the soil is insufficient, and it is easy to get sick, it is not easy to serve, the carrots do not grow bugs, and it grows even faster …”
Uncle Feng talked nonstop as he moved his hands quickly. Not long later, all the potatoes in the bucket had been planted. Then he stuck the four sticks he had brought into the four corners of the potato patch and tied the plastic sheets to the sticks, as if he were building a shed for potatoes.
“Uncle Feng, what’s going on?” I asked the Uncle Feng as I tied a corner of the membrane to the wooden stick.
“Firstly, it can block the sunlight from the potatoes and reduce the moisture in the ground to evaporate. Now, it’s not easy to get water from the potatoes …” “Secondly, it’s not even autumn. Sooner or later it will be cold, and the day will be hot. Dew will come in the morning, and autumn rain will come soon. This film can be used to collect water from the sky …”
“Grandpa Feng, you really know a lot …” Little Casey said crisply.
Uncle Feng laughed in satisfaction, nodded and said: “After living for such a long time, I had thought that all these things were useless.”
By the time we finished, the sun was already setting. Every single minute, I would be worried for San Mao and the rest who were outside. Fortunately, San Mao didn’t make me worry for too long, so before the last ray of sunlight fell from the west side, the figures of the four people appeared in front of the observation window.
I opened the iron gate and walked towards them. When San Mao saw me, he smiled and raised his right hand high up towards me. “Look, what did we find?”
I looked at what he was holding in his hand and saw two pigeons still flapping their wings.