"... going out again?"
Jing Zihua's hair had just been permed, tied into a high ponytail, and a few long strands of curly hair hung down on his forehead, lining his face as clean and beautiful as jade.
She leaned against the fuel tank and said half-jokingly, "You work so hard to earn money for you?"
Chi Xiaochi smiled and replied, "Of course there is."
When the two adults were talking, Jing Yiming held the oil gun with both hands, and staggeredly stuffed the tip of the gun into the oil filling area, trying to refuel Chi Xiaochi's motorcycle.
Chi Xiaochi tilted his head to look at him like a child.
Jing Yiming raised his head and looked back at Chi Xiaochi with admiration, with the cleanest stars in his eyes.
Chi Xiaochi rested his elbow on the dashboard, patted Jing Yiming's head, and said in a long voice, "Make money—support your family."
Jing Zihua said, "Don't try too hard."
"Well, that's fine." Chi Xiaochi unscrewed the thermal kettle full of spirits and took a sip.
"What good?"
Chi Xiaochi smiled: "Nothing."
He worked so hard so that Jing Zihua and others, who had been fighting with life and on the front line of life and death in the past, could sit at the rear with peace of mind and persuade him, "Don't work so hard."
He drove the full car out of the gas station.
Their oil, at first, was provided by the gas station where they first hid.
Later, they found this small town with a natural oil field on its back.
A new gas station was built, and Jing Zihua was still the manager, both times.
Leaving the gas station, before he could call out his voice, his boss walked gracefully out of the shadows and rubbed his ankle tenderly.
Chi Xiaochi grasped the clutch: "Boss, go."
The black panther jumped onto the back seat, squatted on it, and pressed the tip of his nose against Chi Xiaochi's neck.
They drove slowly through the daytime street.
People on the street have long been accustomed to such spectacles.
Everyone knows that Ding Qiuyun's family has a leopard with a particularly tame temperament, and he won't get angry if a daring child touches it.
While waiting for Ding Qiuyun, it will even play catch games with the children on the street.
Several people also greeted Chi Xiaochi: "Team Ding, walk the cat."
Chi Xiaochi said boldly, "Yes."
The big cat behind him did not evolve intelligence like other creatures, and he didn't get angry when he heard the words. Instead, he wrapped his tail around Chi Xiaochi's thigh, and licked the back of his neck lightly, so that Chi Xiaochi almost drove the car into an S. Walking in shape: "I'm driving, I'm driving, and I'll play when I get home."
The leopard didn't bother him anymore, resting his head lightly on his back, rubbing it like a spoiled child.
Chi Xiaochi praised him well.
As everyone knows, the leopard kissed his spine lightly, from top to bottom, one by one, gentle and charming.
Chi Xiaochi took his fixed team out to find supplies again.
This time they will go to a farther city, which is the city Ding Qiuyun fled with his parents.
Before leaving, Ding's father and Ding's mother came to see him off as usual.
The old couple was very energetic, and told him not to run to the house. It is not clear what is going on there. Maybe it has become a world of creeping tigers. It is best not to approach it easily.
As they left the town, it snowed outside.
In this snowy day, driving a motorcycle is easy to slip, and Chi Xiaochi was also afraid that his boss would be tired from running, so even the boss brought the motorcycle to the back of the truck.
On the way, Sun Yan was using his truck to receive the weak radio signal, and he sang a song in a sloppy voice.
Sun Bin huddled in the passenger seat and dozed off. Yesterday, he was busy repairing the line that stopped in Dongcheng, and he didn't sleep for half the night.
Chi Xiaochi had nothing to do, holding a damaged semiconductor and dismantling the parts of a felt carpet.
Yan Lanlan came over and said, "Team Ding, there is a specialization in the art industry. I'll keep this thing for Xiao Sun to toss with."
Chi Xiaochi fiddled with the old-fashioned circuit board seriously: "I know this. Someone taught me."
The coal boss also seemed to be very interested in these parts, and gently pulled the parts with his claws, dividing the parts into piles.
Chi Xiaochi clicked his tongue, patted its paws, and it became obedient. He put his face on Chi Xiaochi's knee, guarded its master, and stared at him with his veiled eyes. It hasn't moved away either.
A daring young man was fiddling with the boss's tail, and he kindly ignored it.
The truck was galloping along the deserted road when suddenly, a phantom singing came from outside, just passing by the truck.
Listen to the tone, it's "Happy Birthday to you".
What is singing on this desolate street of the end of winter
Out of curiosity, Yan Lanlan opened the small peep window, glanced out, and took a sharp breath.
"Stop!" Yan Lanlan raised her hand and knocked on the peep window, "Grand Sun, stop the car!"
When Sun Yan stepped on the accelerator, Yan Lanlan had already opened the door of the truck under the inexplicable gazes of his teammates, and jumped off without waiting for the car to stop.
There was some fresh snow on the ground, and it creaked when you stepped on it.
She ran to the source of the sound that was still moving forward.
And the source of the sound that was walking in the opposite direction to them also heard the footsteps behind him and turned his head.
… is a little guide dog looking for Xu Jingyuan.
Compared to two years ago, it is a big change now.
The little guide dog's front paws were broken, and the snowball body was covered in a gray, inexhaustible shade that looked like a dirty mop.
It seems to have been bitten by a wild animal as food, and its tail was torn to a small part, which was bare, very like a rabbit's tail, and looked quite funny.
It limped, and the melody "Happy Birthday to You" was playing from a speaker in its belly.
Only its eyes are still as clear as ever.
The little guide dog still remembered Yan Lanlan, and nodded with a gentleman attitude: "It's you, the lady at the gas station."
Yan Lanlan ran out of breath, but when she came to the little guide dog, she didn't know what to say for a while, and her mouth was full of heat like a cloud.
Looking at it like this, I also know that it has not found its little owner.
Yan Lanlan pondered her words for a while, before showing a bright smile: "The song is very nice."
The little guide dog said gently: "Today is the tenth birthday of Miss."
Yan Lanlan said "ah": "Are you celebrating her birthday?"
The little guide dog said: "It's not just. I think that people who celebrate their birthday today will look at me from the room and the car when they hear the happy birthday song. In this way, I may be able to find the lady."
Yan Lanlan's heart moved.
She noticed that in order to maintain balance, the little guide dog stepped on the injured front paw on a small raised snowdrift.
"Your paw hurt," she said.
The little guide dog raised its front paws and said honestly, "It won't hurt."
"Come with us." Yan Lanlan invited it, "We can fix you. There are many AIs like you who are friendly to the old humans."
The little guide dog asked hopefully, "Is there a lady named Xu Jingyuan?"
Yan Lanlan was silent.
Facing these eyes, she couldn't lie.
The little guide dog also understood what the silence meant, and shook his head gently.
"That's where I came from." The little guide dog turned around and looked persistently at the end of the vast road ahead, "I'm going ahead, maybe I'll pass by you, and then we may meet again. Goodbye, gas station lady."
Seeing that the little guide dog was about to turn around and leave again, Yan Lanlan sighed.
The little guide dog turned his head.
Even though she knew that what she was going to say next might hurt this loyal little guide dog, Yan Lanlan was cruel and said, "She left you and hasn't gone back to look for you for so many years. She may not remember you anymore. already."
The little guide dog stood in the cold wind, the gray fur was torn into clumps by the wind that was wrapped in snow grains.
Its big black and white eyes stared at Yan Lanlan for a while, then grinned, as if smiling sweetly.
It said: "She might have forgotten me, she might have forgotten me, she might have a new guide dog. . . . But I have to confirm with my own eyes that she is ok without me. That way I'm relieved. Thank you for your concern. , Miss gas station."
After saying that, it bowed gracefully to Yan Lanlan, turned and stepped into the blowing cold wind.
Yan Lanlan stood there blankly.
The little guide dog, like two years ago, came in the snow and then passed away, as if it were an illusion that only appeared in the snow.
But the music that was drifting away continued to echo in Yan Lanlan's mind.
At the sound of Sun Yan's horn, Yan Lanlan just came back to her senses, ran back under the truck a few steps, and jumped onto the truck on the pedals.
When she opened the curtain, she looked back again.
The plum-shaped paw prints of the little guide dog were buried by the newly fallen snow.
She pursed her lips and got into the carriage, bringing in a burst of snow.
When she was seated, Ding Qiuyun asked her, "Acquaintance?"
Yan Lanlan brushed the snow dust on her overalls: "We met by chance... um, acquaintance."
In the apocalypse, such pure and sincere feelings actually came from a machine equipped with emotional AI.
The AI taught it how to show affection, how to be loyal, but probably never taught it what to do when its master disappeared.
Everything it does now is what it wants to do.
Yan Lanlan told the story of the guide dog to the team members in the carriage.
Everyone was silent for a long time.
After speaking, Yan Lanlan suddenly realized that she had met the little guide dog twice, but never asked its name.
It was unrealistic to turn around now, so she froze on the wall of the rumbling and vibrating carriage.
After Chi Xiaochi finished repairing the semiconductor, he rested on the soft belly of the coal boss and played with it in his hand.
He thought about the story Yan Lanlan told, and how he should behave when he met Gu Xinzhi in a while, and the jiggling of the truck was too regular. After a while, he curled up on the leopard's belly and fell asleep soundly.
Seeing that Chi Xiaochi was sleeping soundly, the leopard consciously surrounded himself into a fortress, circled its owner properly, and wrapped its tail lightly around Chi Xiaochi's waist.
Under the careful care of his big cat, Chi Xiaochi slept all the way into the city.
The bustling city of the past has turned into a half empty city.
The reason why it is said to be a half seat is that there are traces of animal activities here.
After two years, animals that could not adapt to the environment died, so after seeing an ostrich running side by side with a truck for a while, they turned right at the intersection and parted ways with them, everyone was not surprised.
They scoured several empty shopping malls, and some of the food inside was not emptied, and the natural refrigeration environment extended the shelf life of the food.
They found toothbrushes and toothpaste, some winter bedding, some pots and pans, all packed and transported to the car.
Yan Lanlan also took out a box of facial masks very girlishly.
After searching, they also got a surprising number of surprises.
- There is a pile of intact boxes in the corner of the warehouse. Due to the high terrain of storage, it was not even flooded.
When it was opened, it turned out to be more than 100 bags of corn kernels, with a net weight of two tons.
In the past two years, they have been planting inactive corn, and bringing this pile of corn back can completely satisfy their cravings.
After finding food to feed their hunger, they went to several hospitals in the city.
After some searching, the team members were rather dejected.
The three pharmacies have already been looted, and there are only some fish that slip through the net in the corners. Besides, two years later, some medicines can't be taken.
Chi Xiaochi didn't give up, he went to the largest central hospital, and gave up searching for the pharmacy in the bright place, and went straight to the pharmacy.
The door to the medicine store is locked, and the lock is an old-fashioned door lock.
Everyone fluttered a few times and moved corn for a long time, but now they are all in the mood.
Sun Bin suggested: "Team Ding, let's go, otherwise, the animals in this city are running around, in case they encounter some mutant monsters..."
Before he could finish speaking, he was beaten violently from all directions, and was knocked so hard that he hid in Sun Yan's arms.
Chi Xiaochi saw that the door of the medicine store was very strong, thick and wide, and there were signs of smashing or even burning on the door.
He broke the keyhole and looked at it, confirming that the lock had never been pried open. It looked like a hard pecan. Everyone knew that the kernel inside was delicious, but they could only sigh in admiration.
He asked 061: "Teacher Liu, help me to check if there is anything wrong in it."
061 answered succinctly: "Yes."
With the words 061 as the foundation, Chi Xiaochi was relieved.
Chi Xiaochi leaned beside the keyhole and looked at it, took out a paper clip from his jacket, bent his teeth, poked it into the keyhole, first carefully removed the red rust inside, then changed his head and put the paper clip into the lock. Inside his eyes, he grinned lightly, his side ears pressed against the cold iron door, fiddling with the lock cylinder.
The team members have long been accustomed to electronic locks, but they can't do anything about this strange old-fashioned door lock, and they don't even understand what Chi Xiaochi's current actions mean.
No one reacted until the door creaked inwardly.
When they came back to their senses, all the team members were shocked: "Damn it, Team Ding, that's ok."
Chi Xiaochi put the twisted paper clip back in his pocket, and said calmly, "Someone taught me."
When a library full of medicines appeared in front of everyone, everyone went crazy.
When everyone didn't even care about the production date and loaded boxes of useful medicines into the car, Chi Xiaochi found an iron-blue corpse in the corner of the medicine store that had long been freeze-dried.
The corpse was a male, wearing the clothes of a staff member, and there was a work card on his chest, which was the caretaker of the medicine storehouse.
This kind of road to death from freezing and starvation, everyone has seen too much over the years, and it has long been no surprise.
When entering the door, Chi Xiaochi found that there was something blocked on the door lock, which was a half-broken key. After turning over his pocket, he found that there was a broken key in the pocket of the corpse that just fit, and a broken key. Zhang was a shrunken ball of paper.
Chi Xiaochi unfolded the paper ball, and it was filled with the names of various materials. A horizontal bar was drawn behind each material, followed by the corresponding medicines given.
The light blue water pen marks are exactly the same color as the ink left on the tiger's mouth on the right hand of the corpse.
Chi Xiaochi thought that after the catastrophe, this person probably wanted to use the resources nearby and hoard it, so the people who had been robbing medicine wrote a note, asking them to search for supplies for him according to the note.
However, at the juncture of life and death, the constraints of the law on people disappeared without a trace, and who would talk to him about an equivalent exchange.
In the face of the looting, the medicine guard hid in the medicine store in a panic, and locked the door with the key. Whoever wanted to use too much force, the key was folded in the keyhole, which blocked his own way of life.
For the rest of his time, he was afraid that he would stay beside this hoard of medicines, spending the last few days of his life in anxiety amid the angry shouts and slamming of the medicine snatchers.
Chi Xiaochi reached out and pressed his stomach, and found that it was terribly cold and bulging.
Looking at the empty medicine boards and medicine boxes scattered around him, he clearly swallowed a large amount of medicines nearby when he was extremely hungry, but he actually killed himself.
With a slight sigh, he took the paper full of supplies and covered the medicine guard's uneasy face.
They removed half the medicine, which almost filled a heavy truck.
The team members were so happy that they couldn't see their teeth, they all thought that they might just go home before it was dark, so as to save the troubles.
But their D team insisted on going to a mall near the drug store and looking again to see if there was anything available.
Everyone is used to listening to him, and it is natural that the more supplies, the better.
So no one objected.
Yan Lanlan excitedly asked one more question: "If we find something good, we won't have a place to sit."
After unanimous discussion, everyone decided that if there was not enough space, they would throw Sun Bin down. Sun Bin was so frightened that he panicked and explained that he was thin, and he didn't take up any space at all, which made everyone lean back and forth.
Chi Xiaochi thought, not much, just go and bring the animals back.
Chi Xiaochi was sitting in the car, and the two young men opposite were smoking.
He stroked the deformed paper clip in his pocket with one hand and held the newly repaired semiconductor with the other, thinking of the teacher who taught him too many things, and a faint smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.
After thinking for a while, Chi Xiaochi suddenly opened his mouth and said to the two young people, "Is there any more cigarettes?"
The two people with cigarettes were stunned.
Yan Lanlan was also surprised: "Team Ding, when did you start smoking?"
At this moment, Sun Yan slowly stopped the car.
They got to the door of the mall.
Chi Xiaochi waved his hand, stepped over the coal boss who had been obediently lying beside him, and said with a smile, "Forget it, just say it casually."
... It's just that I suddenly remembered the self who always smoked a cigarette in the past.
With that in mind, he opened the heavy curtain.
When a loud bang sounded, no one reacted. It was the sound of gunshots.
Chi Xiaochi was rushed back two steps by the force, looked down at his right chest, his body swayed like a piece of paper, fell forward, and flipped out of the car bucket.
Before Chi Xiaochi fainted, he only heard a trembling "Xiaochi" from 061, and then his voice was drowned out by the sound of gunshots like popping beans.
Sun Yan was furious, pulled Sun Bin in the passenger seat, and wrapped his head in a down jacket: "Fuck you!! There's an ambush here!!"
But before he could take the burning gun out of the tool box, he heard an almost violent roar, which made his legs go weak instinctively.
A pure black flying blade jumped out of the car, selected a scrap car that was spitting fire, and plunged into it.
I saw flesh and blood torn apart, flying in all directions, and in an instant, the only three windows of the abandoned car were splashed blood red.
Before the screams could even be heard twice, the headless corpse of the man was thrown out and slammed into the wall on one side.
A dark shadow slipped out of the window like a ghost, and under the helpless salvo of the ambushers, it quickly sneaked to the next point of fire.
Seeing the corpse spots on the severed corpse, all the team members came up with a thought:
New humans? !
It was too late to think about why so many new humans were hidden at the entrance of this seemingly dilapidated shopping mall. Sun Yan's eyes reddened, and he shot out an outcropping new human. He took out a laser gun from under the seat, turned his head and roared: "... Lan Lan!!"
Yan Lanlan understood, took out the gun, and directly fired at the opponent.
The ambushers could never have imagined that the opponent would have overwhelming firepower far superior to them, as well as an elusive and violent beast.
Chi Xiaochi woke up with pain again, his head was a little unclear, and black star mosquitoes were flying in front of him.
He felt like he was being hugged.
The car was besieged so badly that Yan Lanlan, who risked jumping out of the car, couldn't carry him into the car, so he could only carry him halfway, and retreated into the mall.
After an unknown amount of time, the gunfire ceased.
His ears were pressed to the ground, so he could clearly hear the familiar footsteps entering the door.
He barely opened his eyes, but what he saw was not the boss he was familiar with.
- In the afterglow of the setting sun, the black panther's mouth was full of blood, blood dripped from the pale silver whiskers, and the muscles at the waistline relaxed, beating violently like a severed artery.
It didn't have time to take care of its appearance, so it rushed to Chi Xiaochi's side, and lowered its head to sniff at his chest.
Chi Xiaochi endured the severe pain and pulled open the front: "Don't be afraid... I'm not hurt."
There was a piece of clothes with iron plates on it, which was a simple bulletproof suit, and the warhead was stuck at the steel plate at the position of his heart, and it had been deformed.
Seeing the bullet that hadn't been shot, the black panther seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and knelt down beside Chi Xiaochi, with a misty blue in his eyes, which did not match the blood red of his body.
Chi Xiaochi stroked its exploding ridge hair and coaxed it in a low voice: "Boss, boss."
It lowered its head, not daring to hurt him, but only dared to bite Chi Xiaochi's hair.
When one person and one leopard were hugging each other, a surprised and frightened male voice came from behind: "Qiuyun?!"