One day in midsummer in the second year of the Cataclysm Calendar, the fiery red sun rose early in the morning.
The blazing sunshine illuminated the earth for the first time, and then quickly disappeared into the clouds.
The breeze blows, and a few floating clouds in the sky are lingering, moving with the wind, and they are charming.
The sun shines through the gaps between the clouds to the ground.
A few rays of light struggled through the gray-black mist and were projected on the flagpole of People's Square in Shashi District 3.
The light illuminated a flagpole in the center of the square and a broken roll of flags on the flagpole.
Under the flag stand were several car wrecks covered in dust.
Looking further away, the square is full of garbage and paper scraps.
Lush grass, broken shop windows, knocked-down street lamps, and several bicycles buried in unknown vines...
The city that was once bustling with people is now in ruins.
As the morning approaches, the daylight gradually intensifies.
At ten o'clock in the morning, a teenager wearing children's shoes hurried across the street.
He bent over and ran, clutching the schoolbag strap on his shoulders with both hands, carefully avoiding the black corpses and corpse beasts hiding in the shadows.
The rubber soles would crunch on glass shards from time to time, and a terrifying roar would come from the corner.
The wind rustled through the branches, and the boy's footsteps gradually moved away.
Ten minutes later, in an old alley away from the uninhabited city, the young man took off his hood, revealing a delicate face.
There was a pair of light brown eyes on that face, the pupils were bright and clear, and there was a hint of fear in the eyes.
After making sure that he had gotten rid of those black corpses, the young man loosened the strap of his sweat-soaked schoolbag and leaned against the wall to breathe heavily, as if he had run out of breath just now.
Rice Ball Exploration
The boy escaped from the occupied Shashi orphanage a week ago.
Relying on luck and a little cleverness, he hid all the way and finally escaped from the main city today.
Keep a safe distance from the advancing corpses.
At least in a few days, he could feel a little more stable.
At this time, he felt like there was a fire in his throat, so he quickly took out the water bottle from his backpack and drank it.
Just when I was about to eat something and rest for a while, a "figure" suddenly flashed at the entrance of the alley.
The boy was startled and his backpack fell to the ground with a clatter.
When I turned around, I realized that the figure was just a little girl.
A little girl wearing single clothes, with a gray face and tangled hair.
A little girl with her knees slightly bent, arms forward, holding a knife tightly in both hands and biting her teeth at him.
It's not just the black corpse chasing him, that's what the young man thought at the time.
"This is my place." He heard someone say from the other side.
After calming down, he discovered that there was a messy roll of blankets at his feet, piled darkly in the alley. If he didn't look carefully, he would have thought it was a pile of garbage.
Looking up, the other person was staring at him closely with two amber eyes.
His eyes tilted slightly downward, not meeting his own gaze.
But what’s further down?
Except for his equally dirty coat and dirty hands...
By the way, there is also the steamed bun in my hand.
Freshly taken out of the backpack, the snow-white buns contrast sharply with the dirty hands.
Suddenly there was a "Gulu" sound.
The sound came from the opposite side, from the emptiness and barrenness under the gray and yellow T-shirt.
Like a string of unpleasant wind chimes, it resounded clearly in their cochlea.
The next moment the guy opposite had a look on his face.
A little blushing, but mostly angry.
"Food. Hand over the food."
The young man noticed that her hands were shaking a little, and the voice coming from under the gray hair covering her ears was also trembling.
"Give me that, I...I can lend you this place."
Here... does this refer to this alley and this gray, black, moldy blanket?
The young man swallowed and tentatively handed over the thing in his hand.
"I'm not too hungry yet, I can let you eat this steamed bun."
When he said this, he looked at the knife opposite him. He had just escaped from the group of corpses and didn't want to cause trouble.
"Throw...throw it over." The other party said through gritted teeth.
The young man shook his head: "Throw it on the ground and it will get dirty."
This answer seemed to shake her a little.
"Then...then don't move."
She said, walking over cautiously, and finally stopped one meter away.
A slender arm suddenly stretched out and grabbed the bun.
The boy was not given a chance to regret.
In fact, the young man had no intention of going back on his words.
He just stared with wide eyes.
Looking at the other person holding a steamed bun in one hand and stuffing it into his mouth, and still holding the "knife" tightly in one hand, he looked like a starving ghost reincarnated.
Only then did the young man see clearly that the so-called sharp knife was just a glass strip wrapped with cotton cloth.
The transparent blue glass had sharp edges and a slender tip, but it was clean without any blood.
After running around all night, the boy had not eaten anything.
At this time, he looked at the other party's devouring appearance and couldn't help but swallow again.
The saliva entering his stomach immediately caused a reaction, and a louder "gurgling" sound came from the boy's body.
The sound was so loud that it could be heard throughout the alley.
He noticed that the action on the other side suddenly stopped. The guy holding half a steamed bun looked a little embarrassed and hesitant.
The young man walked over and immediately raised his "knife" on guard.
"You took my place."
A confusing explanation.
After saying that, he started coughing heartbreakingly, as if he was choking.
The young man took the opportunity to walk over, and the person on the other side stared at him hurriedly.
He hurriedly stuffed the last half of the steamed bun into his mouth like a desperate man. If he couldn't stuff it in with one hand, he threw away the glass knife and used both hands to stuff his little face until it was as bulging as a hamster.
In the end, I even forgot about escaping.
The young man walked closer and suddenly raised his palm. The other person closed his eyes as if resigned to his fate, and his body was shaking violently.
But who would have thought that that hand would be placed lightly on the other person's head.
The seventeen-year-old boy happened to be a head taller than the other person. He stroked the other person's messy gray hair with his equally small palms, and the boy showed a pity-like smile.
"I gave the steamed buns to you, I won't take them away."
He continued: "From today on, you can follow me."
After that they knew each other's names.
The boy's name is Lang Hua, he is seventeen years old, and he is an unadopted child from the Shashi orphanage.
The little guy calls himself Xiaoying, and he has just turned ten this year. Although he looks delicate and small, he is actually a little boy.
…
At this point, the story of the encounter between young Lang Hua and the little boy should come to an end.
Recalling the reason why he shared the food with Xiaoying, Lang Hua himself couldn't explain clearly.
He only remembered the only scene that flashed through his mind when he saw this little guy,
It was a ferocious squirrel I met in the woods of the orphanage during my childhood.
Just like then, he took out the only rations he had.
Without hesitation, like a strange coincidence...
Speaking of which, Lang Hua only met Xiaoying twice in his previous life, and the first time was on this road escaping from the city.
At that time, the orphanage fell under siege by a group of corpses, and he escaped in a hurry, taking very few things with him.
The backpack contained only a few bottles of water, a few steamed buns, a can of canned food, and a pair of knives and forks that had been taken from the kitchen when escaping.
A pair of ordinary knives and forks engraved with plum blossoms.
Among them was the knife that Lang Hua used to deal with the black corpse before he met Yang Zhenghua but accidentally broke it in half, almost killing himself.
As for the fork, Lang Hua remembered that he gave it to Xiaoying.
At noon that day, the two of them sat in the shadow where the sun could not reach them.
In front of a tin trash can in the alley, I used this pair of knives and forks to eat the only can of fruit in my backpack.
There were several golden pieces of peach flesh soaked in juice in the can. The sweet canned water was a taste that Lang Hua would never forget.
They traveled together for several days, and finally got separated during a nighttime run.
Under the moonlit night, the black mist rioted, and countless black corpses and corpse beasts walked out of the streets and ran wild, attacking the living people they saw along the way.
After they were separated, Lang Hua thought he would never see Xiaoying again in his life.
Unexpectedly, they would meet again two years later during a company battle to annihilate the Black Blood Altar Thatched Cottage stronghold.
It's just that at that time, Lang Hua was already a vanguard soldier of the 215th Regiment in the Southern Qi Garrison Area, but the opponent suddenly appeared after the Black Blood Altar cult members died, and the demon suddenly appeared and killed all Lang Hua's comrades...
Because he remembered Lang Hua's appearance, the latter was saved from death.
After the one-sided massacre, only two of them were left alive on the entire battlefield.
At that time, Lang Hua was probably so frightened that his legs were paralyzed and he sat in a pool of blood.
But the murderer, whose hands were stained with blood, knelt down and called him "big brother" enthusiastically.
The other party was chattering about how much she missed him, as if she was transforming into a girl next door, a cute child whose hands were not stained with blood.
Seeing that Lang Hua didn't respond for a long time, the other party took out a tightly wrapped cloth bag from his arms, opened the cloth, took out a shiny iron fork, and handed it to him like a treasure.
Lang Hua recognized the pattern on it and waved it away.
The other party didn't understand, so he ran to the mud and picked it up, carefully wiped the iron fork clean, and handed it over again.
He was confused and seemed to not understand Lang Hua's anger.
At this time, Xiaoying said the second sentence since we met: "I have been looking for you for a long time, this... is yours, give it to you..."
"Why did you give me this? Why didn't you kill me? Why didn't you kill me too!"
Lang Hua grabbed the iron fork with his hands, bent it hard and threw it away.
Looking at the blood stained on his hands, he saw his comrades lying in a pool of blood around him.
At this moment, he suddenly covered his face with his hands and burst into tears.
"You...what have you done..."
Then reinforcements from Nan Qi came, and Xiaoying also walked away because he was looking for the discarded iron fork.
As the only survivor in that battle, Lang Hua was brought back to the garrison area and awarded first-class military honors.
In the years that followed, Lang Hua led troops to attack the Black Blood Altar stronghold many times, and also led troops to participate in the first major counterattack.
But until Lang Hua was reborn, they never saw each other again.
