A patch of red mixed with bits of white mist wandered among the mountains on the horizon.
Under the mountains, houses and buildings are lined up one after another, row upon row, well-proportioned, forming a city.
There is no human habitation in this city.
Bright wine flags were raised with bamboo poles in front of the tavern on the corner of the street. The door of the grain store opposite the wooden building was open, but the store was empty.
On the contrary, the street outside the grain store was paved with a layer of rice grain.
Several sacks containing half-full bags of grain were lying in the middle of the road.
Both the thin layer of rice and the linen bag containing half the bag of grain were covered with mud and footprints.
Someone was lying on his back in the street,
The man opened his eyes and had lost his breath forever.
On the quiet street, on the top floor of the wooden building opposite the grain store, a small head stretched out from the window supported by wooden sticks. He quietly looked at the rice grains and grain bags scattered in front of the grain store.
After a while, he turned away and looked at the red mist wandering between the mountains in the distance.
The little child with a small head looked back,
Looking in the opposite direction to the mountains on the horizon——
On the streets as far as the eye can see,
There were corpses lying everywhere.
Some of the corpses had no heads, and the cuts on their necks were smooth and neat, while some of them had no wounds at all from the outside.
spring is coming,
The weather is getting warmer.
Many of the corpses swelled up and became much fatter and larger than ordinary people.
A pale green unknown liquid gushes out of their eyes, ears, mouths and noses,
The stench of corpses wafted up and down the street.
Even the wind can't blow away such a strong smell.
The child turned his head and looked at the attic behind him. More than a dozen old, weak, sick and disabled people in ragged clothes gathered on the attic on this floor. There was a woman nursing a child in her arms, an old man holding an oil lamp, and a blind old woman.
Holding a cane.
at this time,
Seeing the child turn back,
These people all focused their attention on him.
Even the blind old woman turned her head, her empty eyes facing the child who jumped down from a high stool.
"It's the same as yesterday.
The food is still there downstairs, and there is no one outside.
There is still a red mist floating on Maoshan Mountain, and I don’t know when it will dissipate.” The child reported to the dozen or so people crowded in the attic with a sweet voice.
Everyone frowned when they heard his words.
"The fog hasn't lifted yet, the fog hasn't lifted yet..."
"There is no food left..."
"The milk is going to be gone. If this continues, I won't be able to save my baby!"
"You can't live on it. Don't you look at where you are now? You definitely can't live on that baby of yours..."
People's comments are feeble.
After they talked to each other for a few words, the woman who was nursing the child started to cry softly while hugging the child.
Her cries awakened the child in her arms,
The child also cried feebly.
Among the crowd, the tallest old man looked around at the miserable state of the people around him, sighed, and waved to the child at the window: "Come here, Hu'er."
The child ran towards him obediently and was held in his arms.
He looked at the slightly shiny floor in the darkness in front of him, and continued to speak: "It's definitely not possible to continue hiding here. The adults and children don't have anything to eat. We won't be able to survive like this for a few days. By the time we don't run downstairs,
If you have no energy to eat, you can only eat each other's flesh——
In the end, they all have to die.
So, we have to go down.
We have to go down and fight for a way to survive."
"Yes, we have to go down and fight for a way to survive.
You will die if you shrink here - if you fall asleep every day, you may not wake up the next day. We are such a big caravan, and now only a dozen of us are old, weak, sick and disabled...
My son died while dreaming." The slightly fatter old woman said, wiping her eyes.
Several people nodded in agreement.
The younger woman huddled next to the blind old woman and said tremblingly: "I, I don't dare to go down, San'er is down there..."
"He is already a corpse, what are you afraid of?" The old woman glared at the young woman fiercely.
The young woman pursed her lips and said nothing.
in this way,
After discussions between more than a dozen people, they finally decided to leave the attic where they had stayed for nearly half a month, leave this place, and go outside to find a way to survive.
The tall old man carried a bag and left his grandson to the old woman to take care of.
He walks in the front,
The first one went down the stairs.
Arriving at the second floor,
Several corpses were piled at the stairwell of the second floor, and a strong corpse smell emanated from the corpses.
These corpses are just like those that children see outside,
Some corpses have no heads, and the neck incisions are smooth and neat;
Some are intact, with no wounds visible on the surface.
"I'm sorry..."
The old man murmured in his mouth, picked up the shovel in his hand, and lifted up several corpses stacked at the top of the stairs. A layer of dark red, putrid corpse water flowed out on the wooden floor.
He took a shovel and stepped on the floor where corpses were flowing, leaving a series of footprints on the floor.
Behind him, more than a dozen old, weak, women and children followed.
On the floor of the spacious second floor, there were seven or eight corpses piled up. They were all familiar faces. The more than ten living people present could name each corpse. When they saw these corpses, some people couldn't help crying.
The young woman looked at the young man sitting in the corner, seemingly asleep, her eyes were red, and she wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.
The entire wooden building had an extremely strong smell of corpses.
She smelled the smell, feeling a little sad in her heart, but more of it was fear.
Therefore, her eyes only paused briefly on the corpse of the young man sitting in the corner. When she saw the corpse's black face and the dark green liquid dripping from the corner of its mouth, her sadness completely turned into fear. The young woman hurriedly followed the team,
He walked away from here.
On the first floor of the wooden building, there were even more corpses.
Bodies were piled all over the ground.
The shovel in the old man's hand could no longer clear a path for the people behind him.
He could only step on the backs and abdomens of the corpses and walk towards the locked door of the wooden building.
Every time the crowd steps on a corpse,
Those corpses would open their mouths slightly, and a stream of putrid liquid would come out of their mouths.
Some corpse water spurted out from the mouths of the corpses. Because they were facing the floor, the corpse water flowed on the floor. Some corpses were lying face up, so some of the sprayed liquid splashed on everyone.
It caused people to scream and cry from time to time.
The old man stood at the door, beating the two doors hard with a shovel, and many of the door panels were broken by him.
The skylight outside poured into this dim wooden building,
A stronger smell of corpses poured in from outside the door.
The inside of the wooden building seemed like purgatory, but the outside of the wooden building was not so clean either. It was an even bigger purgatory.
Bang!
The cries and urgings of the people behind him became more and more frequent, and the frequency of the old man's beating on the wooden doors increased. Finally, when he swung down the shovel for the last time, the door shafts of the two wooden doors broke——
The tattered wooden door collapsed outwards.
The old man stood at the door, looking at the light pouring in from outside the door. He hesitated for a while.
currently,
Those people behind him stopped urging,
They all hesitated.
The nightmare experience weighed on everyone's mind, so they were full of fear of the world outside the house. If they didn't have fear in their hearts, why would more than ten people huddle in the attic and refuse to go out for more than ten days?
"I'll go first."
The old man said to the people behind him.
His eyes fell on the child being held by the old woman, grinned at his grandson, and then looked at the old woman: "If I die..."
"He is my biological grandson!" the old woman said, "I have to find a way for him to live even if I die!"
The old man nodded.
He picked up the shovel and turned around,
Finally walked out of the wooden building.
Went to the street.
The people in the wooden building gathered at the door, paying close attention to the old man's every move without even daring to breathe.
Watching the old man gathering the grain scattered on the street, putting the rice grains into the torn bag he was carrying, watching the old man gathering the rice in several linen bags, and placing a full bag of grain in the grain bag.
On the trolley next to the shop——
"never mind!"
"You can walk!"
People shouted with joy,
As soon as they got out, they all squeezed out of the door, forcing the old woman who was originally guarding the door to fall to the ground.
She quickly held the child in her arms and struggled to stand up.
The old, weak, women and children who rushed out of the wooden building shouted joyfully on the street and gathered around the first old man who walked out of the door.
The old woman took the child's arm,
Also walked towards the tall old man.
Ding ding ding ding ding ding…
At this time, a bell sounded from a distance.
People with happy expressions followed the sound of bells and looked towards the street entrance not far away - a black dog with a collar around its neck and a bell hanging from it ran out from the side of the intersection.
When it turned its head, it saw more than ten people gathered on this street.
"dog?"
"Meat!"
The dozen or so people who had just walked out of the wooden building were stunned when they saw the black dog running on the street, and then the joy on their faces became even stronger.
Someone whistled at the black dog,
Trying to lure the black dog closer.
The black dog stands at the crossroads,
After looking at these dozen old, weak, women and children,
He turned around and looked behind him again.
Under the gaze of everyone, a look of deep sadness clearly appeared on its dog face, and it let out a low, old sigh: "Hey...
One drink and one peck, could it be destiny?"
When the old voice sounded, the dozen or so people who walked out of the wooden building felt that they were hallucinating.
Everyone looked at each other!
At this moment——
Under the eyes of everyone,
The black dog's head detached itself from the neck silently,
Sliding down from the smooth neck,
A stream of blood spurted from the neck cavity!
A series of golden and red talismans floated out from the corpse of the black dog that fell to the ground, and gathered into a vague human shape in mid-air. The human shape turned to look at everyone, and said: "Close your eyes!"
next moment,
The vague human shape composed of talismans was also cut into two parts.
Dissipated in the wind.
The few words he left before he was cut into two pieces seemed to carry some inexplicable power, making more than ten people on the street close their eyes involuntarily!
A spine-chilling chill passed through everyone's body.
It was as if something had washed over them and gone in another direction.
After a few breaths,
People open their eyes.
Everything seems to be business as usual right now.
At the crossroads, there was a black dog with its head and body half-length lying upside down.
among the crowd,
The young woman stood erect on the spot.
Eyes wide open.
——For some unknown reason, she opened her eyes early, and she died without knowing what she saw.
Everyone surrounding the young woman cheered and dispersed.
The child, who was being led by the old woman, raised his head and looked at the mountains at the end of the city - the red mist floating on the mountains had dissipated at some point and was rolling at the end of the street where the child was facing.
"The fog is coming."
So he said.
"The fog is coming?!"
Everyone looked horrified.
The rolling red mist slowly spreads at the end of the street,
A gust of wind blew,
Red mist covers the whole street,
It drowned everyone who had no time to escape.
In the red mist, there was a constant sound like people gnawing raw meat.
Where the red mist passes,
Shape pin bone upright.
Everyone who had just escaped from the wooden building died under the wooden building.