At the same time, another urban area in the northwest of Chong County.
There is a single-story underground garage in Heyang Community on the outskirts of the city, which is an underground gathering point for some nearby survivors.
Ten days ago, a taciturn and plain-looking young man came to the gathering point. According to him, his name was Li Dong and he had escaped from Shashi.
People here took him in.
To be precise, these people trapped in the garage by the black corpses have already become numb due to hunger and fear. Except for their hot breath, they are no different from the walking zombies. People in this state simply don't care if there is an extra person sleeping in a parking space far away at night.
As for Li Dong's arrival, the managers here also welcome it. Because there are rules for entering. If you want to enter this shelter and get free protection and a shelter from the wind and rain, you have to hand over half of your food rations.
This young man seemed very honest, because he did not resist at all after being searched, and even said nothing when a fruit knife was taken away.
People quickly concluded that this was a weak man who could be bullied.
But no one came to bully him next. It's not that everyone is kind-hearted, but it's because most people are so hungry that they have lost the strength to fight.
The people here are always counting the remaining rations and deducting them day after day until they drag themselves into chronic hunger.
Among these frugal people, Li Dong is just the most inconspicuous one.
On the evening of his third day at the shelter, Li Dong found a kitten near the vent in the underground driveway. This little orange guy seemed to have fallen from a wind shaft that reached the ground. It was dirty and covered with spider webs. When it was found, it was rummaging around the trash can for anything to eat.
But there was nothing to eat in the garbage that had been turned over countless times. Any vegetable melon rinds or husks that have survived have long been stuffed into people's stomachs. It was too late, and unless it could eat those plastic papers as cat feed, it would be destined to starve.
And obviously it knows that plastic paper is not edible. Although it is less than one year old, it has been wandering for a long time.
In fact, Li Dong was not the only one to discover this little creature. Compared to Li Dong, who was still observing from a distance, a young couple was closer to the cat. The hungry cat and the girl who couldn't sleep discovered each other at the same time.
"Hey, brother Liang, look. It's a cat. It's so small."
"Meow... meow~"
Then more and more people looked up and looked over, and Cat realized that there were many people here. It appeared cautiously in front of the crowd, as if it didn't expect to meet so many people here.
For a moment, it was a little happy. It meowed and ran to rub the girl's trousers with its tail high.
Lifting and swaying slightly, a pair of golden eyes looked at the other party longingly.
Wherever there are people, there may be food. The cat thinks so.
Because in its memory, when it was wandering on the roadside a long time ago, as long as it treated the young girls passing by like this, as long as it lay down docilely and rolled around, exposing its warm body covered with snow-white hair. Belly, you can get a lot of food immediately.
There are steaming steaks, thick bubbling milk, and cream cakes exuding the fragrance of honey... It has been hungry for a long time and does not dare to think about those delicious delicacies in its imagination. It just hopes to have a piece of it. Just cold steamed buns.
It screamed hard for this, trying hard to look docile and cute, without noticing that its voice had become hoarse.
Looking back, it seems that it was a long time ago that I drank water. A group of extremely ferocious "sick dogs" always lingered around the pool where it often drank. Once it was almost bitten, and then left far away.
The girl's response seemed to come very slowly. The cat's meow became more and more urgent in her impatience, and the echo in the empty garage could not help but be a bit sad. Finally, the girl's boyfriend was also alerted. He rubbed his half-asleep eyes and looked around for the source of the cry. He was almost startled when he found a "moving" creature under his feet.
"Fuck, what is this!"
"Brother Liang, it's a cat. Look at how well-behaved this kitten is."
"It turns out to be a wild cat." The boyfriend gasped in shock.
"Meow meow~"
The life without seeing the sun made this young man's spirit very depressed. He looked at the cat that appeared from nowhere and weakly tried to pull the girl away.
The cat's appearance made him frown: "How can a stray cat be so dirty? Go away. Don't be infected with any mutated germs."
He warned his girlfriend: "The germs in the last days are very serious."
The girl had no choice but to bounce her legs in embarrassment and said softly: "Let's go, let's go, we don't even have enough to eat for ourselves."
"The Ronin Begins with Douluo"
The cat was chased away and looked depressed.
The stray cat doesn't know it's dirty, it's just hungry. It doesn't know that the world has changed a long time ago, and it doesn't know that after it left, someone around the young couple said sadly that they shouldn't let it go.
"What a pity. No matter how small a mosquito is, it's still meat. Have you ever eaten cat meat? It just tastes like mutton skewers."
Just at this time, the cat walked to the corner where Li Dong was.
Maybe his sense of presence was too low, or maybe the cat was so hungry that it lost its vigilance. In short, it wasn't until Li Dong stood up that the cat was startled.
It remembered the experience of being driven away just now, so it hurriedly arched its body, its hair exploded, and screamed.
"Meow-"
The long-sounding meow of a cat is more like a fierce and threatening person.
Threatening, as if to say: "Go away, stay away from me! Be careful if I scratch you."
Li Dong quickly turned around and walked away. The cat breathed a sigh of relief, a little panicked, and a little disappointed. It may be thinking of the experience of being bullied by those "sick dogs" not long ago. It can only try its best to tell others that it is very vicious, so that it will not be bullied.
But it didn't expect that Li Dong would come back again. It didn't expect that Li Dong would magically take out a handful of biscuits from the extremely deflated backpack in his hand.
Li Dong found an iron box as a temporary food bowl for the cat, and then put half of his rations in. Biscuits as big as his finger were piled in half of the iron box. The cat was circling around his trousers, staring up at him with its big eyes. I didn't eat for a while.
Is this really for me?
Its ears moved unconsciously, its long beard trembled slightly, and its eyes looked around Li Dong's face and body.
After the initial nervousness and fear passed, it could inexplicably feel a warmth in this person.
This feeling has saved his life many times.
That was not the way it felt about those wild cats and dogs covered in blood during the chaos of that night a few months ago. At that time, there was a needle-pricking feeling all over his body, but at this moment, Li Dong only felt gentle and warm, like the warm sun at noon in autumn...
The tip of its nose is filled with the aroma of food, and the scent of wheat tickles the cat's nose, filling the cat's little belly little by little with a clicking sound.
It ate so quickly that its beard and mouth were covered with the crumbs of those biscuits.
"Eat," Li Dong said, "When I was a kid, I was as hungry as you."
The cat meowed at Li Dong's fingers, stood up slightly, and touched Li Dong's fingertips with its mouth, looking very docile. Li Dong squatted down, stretched out his hand to smooth its fur patiently, and picked off the garbage and spider webs on its body.
While the cat was devouring the food, the people in the shelter looked at Li Dong's actions with cold eyes, watching helplessly as he gave his rations to an unrelated animal. Their cold eyes seemed to have characterized Li Dong's behavior as hopeless stupidity, and they determined that Li Dong would kill himself sooner or later one day in the future.
Kindness, for survivors at this moment, is a luxury and distant thing.
As the night progressed, everyone and everything rested one after another.
Some people silently paid attention to Li Dong, who had not eaten much for several days, wondering where he got the food from, and finally stared at the extremely deflated backpack and refused to give up.
Some people pretended to close their eyes and rest, secretly casting evil and hungry eyes on the little orange cat, with eyes like an owl catching mice on a cold night.
There was no words in the shelter all night. The cold wind blew through at midnight, and snowflakes started to fall in the outside world at the right time...
