Chapter 196 - 188: Rumors Abound
July 15th.
One and a half months after the torrential rain.
It has been a month and a half without rain.
Bare trees, fallen leaves, and the dry rot of decay. Ruin was everywhere.
The flow of people moving from north to south was increasing. At night, among these streams of refugees, occasional cries of agony, piercing wails, could be heard.
But no one cared, not even paid any attention to it all.
The fact that they gathered together was for greater safety. Although competition for food was fiercer, dealing with zombies was easier at night.
And staying put simply spelled starvation.
By following the larger group, there might still be food to be found, and at least the possibility to keep living.
They continued southward, drawing ever closer to Xin City.
Along the national highway, they scoured the houses on either side, seeking food like a swarm of locusts, sharing whatever scarce provisions they found.
If Li Yu and his group were here, among these people, there were some they had seen before.
This group of refugees followed the national highway south, with some growing thinner as they trudged on, eventually collapsing on the road.
Others, unable to keep up with the stream of people, stationed themselves in place, only to still face death within a few days!
The horror of post-apocalyptic refugees, the famine of the apocalypse, was terrifying.
Among these people, there was a brother and sister pair.
At the outbreak of the apocalypse, they were in Xin City; that was their home.
Li Yu had encountered them before (Reminder: Chapter 42).
Back then, Brother Sheng who had detained Song Min and others, after discovering the location of the base, later used human blood to lure zombies and siege the city, planning to kill this brother and sister and place them beneath the walls to attract more zombies.
But they were rescued by Li Yu and others on the national highway outside the base. They were even given some food.
After being saved by Li Yu and the others, the siblings fled northward.
All they wanted was to escape this place as quickly as possible.
Before leaving, they had expressed their deep gratitude to Li Yu and his group.
No words could express the debt of a life saved.
Except... to repay kindness with hostility.
...
The further south they went, the more familiar they became with the road.
They had traveled this way before.
Not more than ten kilometers ahead was the place where they had been rescued by Li Yu and his party.
They remembered: after being rescued by Li Yu and his group, they had been given some food.
They thought that if they could save them back then, maybe they could help them now.
So the siblings discussed it and planned to find that base, to find Li Yu and his people. To have them save their lives again.
They followed the refugee caravan, having seen many dirty deeds occur among the refugees.
They encountered various troubles but solved them one by one, managing to survive up to this point.
It was a matter of luck.
They had also "elevated."
Staying alive was most important; nothing else mattered now.
One night, each refugee found a place to rest, not too far from each other but still at a distance.
The brother looked around and began to discuss:
"Sis, do you remember this road? It seems we're not far from that place now," said the now somewhat mature brother.
"Shush! Keep it down," his sister glanced around.
"Have to be careful about every little thing, why are you even bringing this up?" The sister took a few steps away.
There were some people nearby, not too far from them, thankfully not looking their way; it seemed like their earlier conversation had not been overheard.
"Brother, I've also been thinking these past days, those people who gave us food, maybe they aren't short on it. It's possible," the brother lowered his voice.
Under the dim moonlight, a distorted smile appeared on the sister's beautiful face: "Let's not follow the main group then, let's stay near there. Search. See if we can find them. And then, see if we can join them."
The brother nodded in agreement but hesitated in saying, "But, will they take us in? After what we did back there..."
He seemed to recall some vile act, yet there was neither regret nor fear on his face, just concern, concern that Li Yu and the others might find out.
The sister's face twitched as she responded, "As long as you don't tell, I don't tell, who else would know? Only the two of us survived back then."
"If that baby hadn't cried, we wouldn't have had to..." The brother recalled the scene with some indignation.
"It's all in the past, act as if it never happened. Those people's deaths have nothing to do with us. Killing that baby was for survival..." The sister's face twisted with madness, displaying a perverse sort of beauty that was chilling, yet strangely alluring.
"So do we sneak away when the time comes?" the brother whispered, barely audible.
"Yeah. It seems like, at our current pace, we should get there the day after tomorrow," the sister said.
"Okay," the brother nodded.
Having finished their talk, they returned to where they had been resting before.
However, just behind a large rock they had passed, two people had overheard, albeit not clearly.
But it didn't matter; skulking about at a time like this meant either food or something to do with food.
Following them would surely have its benefits.
This was the law of survival.
There is no such thing as a secret that doesn't eventually come out; sometimes, if one person knows something, it's as if the whole world knows it.
Before they could set off the next day, just as the siblings rose and left their tent, they found many people around them, seemingly looking their way, casually but deliberately.
Many people kept silent.
But some others, out of impatience, wanted to rush forward and inquire but were restrained by others around them.
They worried that once the question was asked, what if the siblings refused to answer?
But there were always people who couldn't bear the silence, their attempts to stop them unsuccessful, and finally someone stepped forward to ask: "Hey, do you know where there's a food storage warehouse?"
"???" The siblings were full of question marks.
Where did that even come from?
The siblings were baffled; they knew where there was food, but how could they not know about this?
Rumors often grow from one person's words to another's, and soon they can turn into something completely different.
"We don't know. Why would you think that? If we knew where food was, we'd have gone there already. Why would we wait until now?" the sister claimed.
The brother also spoke in annoyed disbelief: "How could that be possible!"
The person laughed, clearly not believing them, and said: "It's all over the place, everyone knows. What, you want to take it all for yourselves?"
The siblings exchanged a glance, understanding each other's thoughts: Had their conversation from last night been overheard?
But what was this all about?
Why was it a food warehouse?
"How could it be, that's absolutely impossible," the sister vehemently denied.