I rested for an hour at the road sign, refueled the car, had a quick midnight snack, and then continued on my journey.
There were tumbleweeds on the Tongfeng Highway. When we set off, the wind picked up and the tumbleweeds rolled with them. In the middle of the night, Ye Fu came to drive. She put on her night vision glasses and asked everyone to sit still before slowly starting the car.
Qi Yuan opened the window and looked outside, "I heard that the young leaves of this tumbleweed can be eaten."
"You are just thinking about eating." Officer Song couldn't help but tease him.
"Dad is a foodie."
Everyone laughed when they heard Xuxu's words.
"That's all I have as a hobby, but this kind of tumbleweed is not useless. The young leaves can be eaten and can also protect against wind and sand. It has a strong survival ability and does not need to be watered. It will be carried wherever the wind takes it.
Wherever the seed falls."
What Qi Yuan said makes sense. There are too many tumbleweeds on the road. Sometimes it is necessary to get out of the car to clean them up and throw them onto the desert beside the highway.
The barbed wire fences on both sides of the road are rusty, and every one kilometer you can see a road sign with the words "Drive carefully and pay attention to safety" on it.
Occasionally, you can still see outdoor public toilets, but they are no longer usable.
When the early morning light slowly rises from the horizon, a new day begins again.
"Ye Fu, let me take your place."
Qi Yuan yawned and patted Ye Fu on the shoulder. It was now half past nine in the morning. He had just woken up. His hair was like a chicken coop and there was eye droppings hanging from the corners of his eyes.
"Go wash your face and wake up first."
Qi Yuan yawned again, "Okay, the weather is good today, I think the sun will shine."
When he came back from washing his face, Ye Fu stopped the car, stood up and took off his night vision glasses.
Qi Yuan had only been driving for half an hour when he was blocked by a dozen abandoned cars that had been burned into empty shells.
"There are so many junk cars, Ye Fu, I can't get through them."
Ye Fu took out the telescope and looked at it for a long time, then asked Qi Yuan to open the car door.
"Let's go down and have a look."
Everyone got off the car and walked towards the abandoned car in front. Ye Fu found a lot of reddish-brown stones on the ground, about the size of a fist.
The abandoned cars blocked here were burnt black, with basically only their shells left. Ye Fu picked up the reddish-brown stones on the ground and looked at these abandoned cars thoughtfully.
"These cars were burned, and there were charred corpses inside. It seemed that they were all fleeing, but how could they be burned like this?"
Ye Fu lifted the stone, "Because of this, they encountered a fireball."
"This is also a type of meteorite."
"Looking at the degree of disintegration of the cars, they are estimated to be three or four years old." Ye Fu picked up a few stones, walked around the cars, and observed the bodies inside.
There were more than ten vehicles, with four or five people in each vehicle. There were many packages on the first two trucks. The truck compartments were filled with charred corpses, all charred, and completely devoid of humanity.
Ye Fu raised his head and glanced at the gray sky, then walked in front of everyone.
"Let's go, take a detour from the side."
Back in the car, Ye Fu took out a magnifying glass and began to study a few stones. In order to test whether the stones had the conditions to burn, Ye Fu heated them with a rack and ignited them. Although the stones would heat up, they would turn into ashes after burning once.
It's the same and cannot be burned a second time.
"It's the same as the fireball I encountered in Suiyun Mountain that time, but the fireball here is smaller. I just looked at it and the largest one is only about the size of a palm."
Jiang Run took a stone and put it in front of his nose and smelled it, "It smells similar to coal."
"Fireballs always land locally. As long as they run out of the landing circle, there is no danger. I see that their cars are all jammed together. It should be that the two trucks at the front were hit by the fireball and were messed up. The escape of more than a dozen cars behind them was blocked.
The road is blocked."
There were several dried eagles hanging on the wire protection fences on both sides of the road. The RV went around the desert next to it. Qi Yuan kept sighing as he looked at the dozen or so black abandoned cars.
"In the last days, what will arrive earlier than tomorrow will be various sudden natural disasters."
Ye Fu put the stones away, went into the bathroom, washed his face, and climbed to the upper bunk to get some sleep. No one knew what Northern Xinjiang had become and what was about to greet them. Before that, they had to save their lives.
Physical strength, recharge your batteries.
"Eat something before going to sleep." Jiang Run came over. He was tall, even standing on the lower bunk was higher than the top bunk.
"I want to move."
Jiang Run smiled and reached out to rub Ye Fu's short hair, "Get up, I'll feed you."
Okay, Ye Fu is still happy to eat if someone is waiting for him.
"There are still two days of travel left. Yesterday and today were too quiet. Before, we would have encountered a lot of bad things in one day. Something is wrong these two days. I'm worried it's the calm before the storm, so I'd better be careful.
"
"Ye Fu, don't be so talkative." Qi Yuan heard Ye Fu's words and quickly said "bah bah bah" three times.
"Out of the desert and entering northern Xinjiang, peace and stability are waiting for us. I have thought about it. We will set up a small farm, grow some vegetables, and raise some chickens and ducks as before."
"There must be a lot of people in Northern Xinjiang. It must be as lively and prosperous as Lancheng in the past. Xuxu can go to kindergarten. Wenwen has not fallen behind in her homework these years. She can also be sent to study. I think I will find a teacher when the time comes.
What job."
Fang Wei frowned, "But will it be troublesome to enter Northern Xinjiang? We probably need to turn in supplies. Then, we'd better change into ragged clothes and don't drive the car in. I'm worried that the car will be confiscated."
"That's right, we need to keep a low profile to survive."
"I don't know if I can meet anyone else in Northern Xinjiang. Alas, even if I do, I don't know if I can recognize them. Have I changed at all over the years?"
Qi Yuan glanced at the rearview mirror. He had grown a few wrinkles and had some white hair on his head. Signs of aging could be seen, but his eyes had not changed. There was still stupidity in his clear eyes.
"You haven't changed much, but I have wrinkles."
Qi Yuan quickly retorted, "How is it possible? You are still a beautiful girl. You have not changed at all, and you are getting more and more beautiful and younger."
Fang Wei was really amused by Qi Yuan, and the two showed off their affection unscrupulously, regardless of the life or death of others.
Ye Fu glanced at Jiang Run, who approached her and whispered, "Fufu is the prettiest."
Ye Fu snorted pretentiously, but the upturned corners of her mouth betrayed her.
From time to time, you will encounter some abandoned cars on the road, and there are also many bones lying in the open in the desert and on the highway.
There were also a lot of clothes and luggage on the barbed wire, probably blown over by the wind and hung on the hooks.
The pieces of clothing swayed gently with the breeze. Qi Yuan was right, the weather was indeed very good today. At one o'clock in the afternoon, the temperature suddenly rose by three degrees, and the gray sky slowly became cleaner.