Chapter 22 p3
The first to come in were a young man and woman. The two of them were not as well-prepared as Ji Yang and Xixi. They jumped in and rolled on the ground. This fall happened to shatter the ice that had just formed on their bodies.
After feeling light, the two of them immediately got up. They only glanced at Ji Yang and Xixi, the human and the dog, and then ran to the window and shouted, “Hurry, hurry! Come this way!”
It seemed there was more than one person.
Ji Yang didn’t want to stay here. With her dog, she would definitely be targeted by some people. Dog meat was also a favorite of many people before. She had just run into the freezing rain, and she was not in a good mood. She didn’t want to bother, so she simply went upstairs.
She would take advantage of the fact that there was no one else and take out her snowmobile. She didn’t know how long this strange freezing rain would last, but when she left, it would be more convenient with this.
This place was not far from Jiafu Community. If things went smoothly, it would only take about ten minutes to drive the snowmobile. As long as she stopped for a while in the middle, she could go back directly.
With bad luck, Ji Yang didn’t plan to continue to the exchange point.
It was a pity. In her previous life, she didn’t have a phone, didn’t have the time to carry a calendar with her, and didn’t have time to write a diary. So, she could only remember the approximate time of almost everything.
In addition, due to the possible impact of her rebirth, the weather had become more and more unpredictable.
She had also experienced this freezing rain. She had also been very unlucky to have run into it while out searching for supplies, and she had also been very lucky to have found a place to hide in time. In the end, she had survived on the little bit of food she had just found.
But she didn’t know the specific time of the freezing rain.
She didn’t expect to have such a fate with freezing rain in both lives.
The freezing rain in her previous life had lasted for about three days. Why did she say about? To save food, and because there was no one else around, she had eaten and slept, and slept and eaten, using a small amount of food to get through those three days, so she had been in a daze.
So, in this life, it would probably be at least three days.
But Ji Yang remembered that the freezing rain would stop for a while in the middle. It was completely fine to go back at that time. She just didn’t know… if the snowmobile could run on the ice.
With this question in mind, Ji Yang also took Xixi to the seventh floor of the building. It happened to be a plush toy company. The building had been cleaned, and all kinds of good-looking dolls were thrown everywhere, but there was not a speck of dust.
The heavy snow had brought down the dust in the air, so not much had drifted indoors.
Ji Yang found a beanbag sofa in a pile of toys and immediately lay down comfortably. She also found a teddy bear ‘doghouse’ for Xixi. Xixi cleverly lay down on it and wagged its tail in comfort.
However, after resting for a while, she stood up again.
It was inconvenient to be out. At a temperature of minus fifty or sixty degrees, you couldn’t just lie down and rest. You had to start a fire for warmth. Otherwise, after a long time, your body would become numb, and you would freeze to death without even realizing it, just like many people who had frozen to death in their sleep.
Fortunately, this was a building, and there were plenty of desks, chairs, and benches in the office area. Ji Yang took an axe and casually chopped a few, and she got a pile of wooden boards.
Then, she tore a piece of a plush toy as a tinder.
Fortunately, the floor here was tiled, so she could directly start a fire.
Otherwise, she would have to get an iron basin out.
Soon, the fire was started. Ji Yang first took out Xixi’s food bowl and put half a bowl of dog food in it. But she didn’t let it eat directly. Instead, she took out some warm meat from her space and stuffed it directly into its mouth.
The main door here was made of glass and had already been smashed. If someone came up from downstairs and saw the meat, it would not be good.
As for herself, after Xixi was half-full and had started to eat its dog food, Ji Yang took out a self-heating rice from her backpack. The conditions were limited, but she couldn’t wrong herself too much. She chose a mapo tofu one, thought for a moment, and then added a corn sausage.
*
Downstairs
The moment they were confirmed to be saved, Feng Yexing and her cousin Yan Cheng guided their teammates this way.
The crowd was already at the end of their rope. If it weren’t for Feng Yexing’s sharp eyes seeing a person and a dog disappear into the building, they wouldn’t have been able to judge that this place was accessible. So, with such a voice guiding them, the others all ran this way desperately.
In less than a minute, the group approached.
Feng Yexing’s joyful expression, which had lasted for only two seconds, suddenly became suspicious. “Where’s Xiao Ya?! Why is she gone?”
“Where’s Uncle Zhang?!”
“Say something!”
However, no one paid them any attention. They all ran for their lives. It wasn’t until they finally jumped in that they felt they had survived a disaster. They didn’t even bother to remove the heavy ‘ice armor’ on their bodies and tried to calm their hearts that were about to jump out of their throats.
It was too scary!
Who would have known that they would suddenly run into such a strange freezing rain?
It wasn’t until someone was the first to notice that something was wrong that a somewhat timid boy said in a low voice, “Xiao Ya… seemed to have fallen and didn’t get up…”
“Wuwuwu…” A burst of crying suddenly appeared.
The crowd looked over and saw Fang Lan crying her heart out. “I’m sorry, it’s all my fault. I accidentally fell just now and caused Xiao Ya to fall with me. Uncle Zhang, in order to save me and Xiao Ya, was left behind. Now he’s probably already… wuwuwu, I’m sorry… it’s all my fault…”
As soon as she cried, three people in the team became anxious and quickly comforted her, “It’s not your fault, it’s just their bad luck!”
“Don’t cry. It’s too common for people to die in this world, not to mention this strange weather. If it weren’t for our good luck, we would have all died together…”
“Xiao Fang, you don’t have to put the blame for their deaths on yourself. Sigh…”
Feng Yexing watched all of this quietly, feeling exceptionally powerless, especially when this girl, after being comforted by a group of people, was still not satisfied and looked at her and her cousin Yan Cheng with teary eyes. “You… you’re not saying anything. Are you blaming me?”
Feng Yexing turned her face away and didn’t say anything.
She wasn’t blaming her. She just… had a feeling she couldn’t put into words.
They were survivors from the same community. In order to survive, a group of people had desperately collected supplies. But because they were often alone, they were often robbed. Later, Yan Cheng came forward and gathered more than twenty people from a building to go out together.
Finally, they could return safely.
But they risked their lives to find supplies, while some people in the building were lazy and afraid of death and didn’t go out, specifically targeting and robbing others. There was also a troublemaker in the team who frequently caused trouble. After all the fuss, the twenty-plus people were now down to eleven.
But today, they had run into this freezing rain, and they had watched as three people who couldn’t react in time were covered by the freezing rain and frozen in place, unable to move.
The remaining people quickly looked for shelter until Feng Yexing and Yan Cheng found the entrance to the building.
At the critical moment, they were the first to come in. Who would have thought that in just one or two minutes, the team had lost two more people!
Only six people were left.
And the deaths of these last two people might be related to the troublemaker. Given her various previous antics, Feng Yexing really couldn’t believe she was innocent, but she had no evidence to prove anything.
She just felt a chill in her heart.
A long time ago, Fang Lan had been targeting Xiao Ya, who was beautiful, both openly and secretly. Xiao Ya was not good with words and couldn’t defend herself. If it weren’t for the fact that her family was really struggling, she wouldn’t have been willing to continue in the team.
Uncle Zhang was Xiao Ya’s stepfather, but there was no difference between them and a real father and daughter. Fang Lan had previously shown goodwill to Uncle Zhang. After he rejected her, she would occasionally make sarcastic remarks about their father-daughter relationship. The two sides had a deep grudge.
Feng Yexing didn’t believe that Uncle Zhang was trying to save Fang Lan. But since Fang Lan said so, it was probably because someone had seen her entangled with Uncle Zhang and Xiao Ya at the critical moment, so she had to explain it this way.
And she, because of this, couldn’t help but speculate about the scene at that time. Perhaps Xiao Ya and Uncle Zhang were killed by her.
Looking at the other three people surrounding Fang Lan and asking about her well-being, Feng Yexing took a deep breath and silently went upstairs.
She was not a big shot. She didn’t have the ability to force a confession and confirm her suspicions, nor did she have the ability to avenge Xiao Ya and Uncle Zhang. All she could do was to stay away from this group of people. If she teamed up with them again, she was afraid she wouldn’t even know how she died.
Seeing Feng Yexing turn and leave, Fang Lan’s eyes darkened, and she immediately looked at Yan Cheng with a wronged expression.
Yan Cheng’s cool face became even tighter, and he said in a low voice, “I’ll go upstairs to find a place to rest first. You guys do as you please.”
He quickly followed his sister.
Sigh, he had been the one to suggest that there was strength in numbers, but he hadn’t expected that with more people, there would also be more schemes. If he had known that so many people would die, even if it was a little more dangerous, he would have preferred to go out alone with his sister.
And before, between him and his sister, it had always been his sister who led, and he was in charge of execution.
Fang Lan stomped her foot in anger. She happened to stomp on a piece of ice and almost slipped.
A man next to her supported her.
She shivered from the cold and quickly said, “Forget it, let’s go up first. We’ve all survived a disaster. We can’t die here.”
“That’s right!” the remaining three immediately responded.
Fang Lan was the first to follow Yan Cheng. Yan Cheng, on the other hand, tried to jog to catch up with Feng Yexing. As the group was walking, they suddenly sniffed the air. “Why is there the smell of food?”
“Is someone living here?” someone asked in surprise.
Fang Lan’s eyes lit up. At this time, to be able to eat food, that was definitely a ‘rich person’. Her somewhat tired footsteps immediately quickened. “Let’s go and see. After all, we’ve come to someone else’s territory. We should at least say hello, right?”
“Right!” the three yes-men immediately said.
Feng Yexing, who was walking in the front, was actually the first to smell it, but she didn’t react because she knew that there was a person and a dog before her. To be able to come out alone and raise a dog so big, that was definitely a formidable person. It was normal to have a self-heating pot.
She didn’t expect Fang Lan to want to go up. She quickly said, “There was someone who came in before us. She was the one who broke the window. This place is not occupied by her. We don’t need to go and say hello. Let’s not disturb her at this time.”
Fang Lan’s eyes flickered, and she frowned. “A single person? Isn’t that very dangerous? Why don’t we ask her to join us? It’s so cold. We should have someone to look after each other. Otherwise, if the firewood goes out in the middle of the night, we might freeze to death.”
Feng Yexing was speechless. There was some truth to that. They had encountered a blizzard before when they were in a team. They had spent the night outside. One person had gone to the toilet and accidentally fallen into the snow and didn’t get up. It was only later that someone noticed something was wrong and went to look for him, only to find that he had frozen stiff in the snow and was buried in just a short while.
Since then, even when they went to the toilet, they had gone in groups.
That girl had saved them, so Feng Yexing acquiesced to this action and also followed.
The fragrance was strongest on the seventh floor.
Without needing anyone to guide them, Fang Lan was the first to run over. She couldn’t see anything through the broken glass door. When she walked in, she saw a fire in the corner. Beside the fire, a person and a dog were eating.
The dog was eating dog food, which was fine.
But the person was eating self-heating rice, mapo tofu flavor.
After half a year of the disaster, mapo tofu, a common home-cooked dish, had become an unattainable dream. Even this version, which was even worse than pre-made dishes, still made the six of them swallow their saliva.
It… it really smelled so good!
*
Fang Lan had something on her mind and was the first to come to her senses. She didn’t expect the first person Feng Yexing had mentioned to be a girl. This… was even better. She smiled gently. “Hi, little sister, hello. I’m Fang Lan. Thank you for breaking the window just now. We were saved because of you. I wanted to come and thank you.”
Ji Yang had naturally noticed someone coming over at the first moment, but she had thought that they were probably also looking for a place to rest. She didn’t expect them to come straight for her.
Xixi also stopped eating its dog food and sat on the side, staring at them with a tiger-like gaze.
Ji Yang looked up and swept her gaze over the few of them, finally landing on the woman who was speaking. She opened her mouth and said, “So how do you want to thank me? With supplies?”
Fang Lan: ???