March 15th was Friday. After the last class in the evening, the senior one and senior two students of Mobei Senior High School had their weekend vacation.
However, Li Yuhao did not go home. He told his parents that he and several other classmates went to Wang Jiawei's house to have a party, and they would spend the night there tonight.
Wang Jiawei's family is wealthy, and he lives in a villa, and his parents who are doing business are often not at home. Today is a day when they are not at home. They had such gatherings many times before, so Li Yuhao's parents didn't ask much, neither did the parents of Sun Haoran, Huang Yiyang, He Ziyi, Tang Yi, and Zheng Meihan.
They're not lying, that's exactly what they are.
"There is news on the Internet that Ma'erwan District is evacuating the entire district!"
"why?"
"It seems to predict that there will be a huge sandstorm over there."
"Do you want to evacuate from the sandstorm?"
At this time, in Wang Jiawei's house, in the dining room of one of the villas in this high-end villa complex, four men, three women and seven high school students are sitting at a bright marble dining table, with the crystal chandelier above them shining on their young faces, all of them are a little nervous .
A few girls were swiping with their mobile phones, but Ma'erwan District is in the north of the city, which is a long way from here, and the evacuation did not affect the people in the urban area.
"Stop talking." Li Yuhao called everyone to stop, "Let's start, don't eat if you are afraid."
But the seven of them silently lifted the seven stainless steel lids on the table, and inside were seven ceramic plates, each with a mass of brownish-yellow mud.
Throat gurgles sounded one after another, and these young people looked at the mud on the plate as if they were looking at some delicious seafood feast. But that's just the most common mud, just dug from the back garden of this villa. They all put down their phones, silent, struggling...
"Isn't it normal for us to be like this?" Zheng Meihan said.
"I didn't check it, pica." Huang Yiyang muttered.
"If my parents found out, they might have to send me to Professor Yang for electric shock therapy." Wang Jiawei murmured.
"Pica... Actually, it's not a particularly strange thing..." Tang Yi muttered.
Li Yuhao didn't speak. The current situation all stemmed from the day of Arbor Day, that is, three days ago, he quietly took away a lump of mud from the wasteland.
That night in the school dormitory, Li Yuhao tossed and turned unable to sleep, and finally couldn't help the desire in his heart that made him extremely tormented, and gnawed on the lump of mud.
He checked it on the Internet himself, and it is called pica, which includes eating mud, paper, cinders, hair... and other strange things. The etiology of pica may be metabolic dysfunction, abnormal taste, psychological factors, etc., but the real etiology and treatment methods have not yet been clarified.
Li Yuhao didn't know why he had such an impulse all of a sudden. It seemed that he first had such a thought when he saw those flamingo eggs.
After eating that mouthful of mud, Li Yuhao not only relieved the almost painful torment, but also gained a great satisfaction.
He has never felt like this with food, whether it is home-cooked, expensive ingredients, cooked by a chef or by his mother, nothing at all.
At that time, Li Yuhao vaguely knew that he couldn't do without eating mud.
Also that night, Wang Jiawei, his roommate, saw him eating mud. Just as Li Yuhao was embarrassed, Wang Jiawei said he wanted to eat some, because he also had the desire to suffer like that. Sun Haoran and Huang Yiyang are their friends; He Ziyi is Wang Jiawei's girlfriend, and Tang Yi and Zheng Meihan are He Ziyi's best friends.
Finally, in the past few days, the seven people ate the mud, and they all went to the wasteland to participate in activities on Arbor Day.
Apparently, there was a relationship, changing their appetite needs that day.
These teenagers feel strange, anxious and frightened, afraid of something happening, afraid of being known, but they also want to ask their parents or teachers for help, or if they want to call the Tianji Bureau to ask... It's just that there is something like that in their minds. A thought, a voice like that, a resistance.
Don't tell others, it's not the time, you can't tell others.
It has come to the present in a flash, and the seven people have not told anyone except each other.
After a few days, apart from this need for strange food, there was nothing wrong with their bodies and spirits.
But the lump of mud that Li Yuhao brought back from the wasteland had been eaten up, and there was not even a bit left, and they even ate the newspaper used to wrap the mud. They feel like they are addicted to drugs, and when the time comes and they don't eat mud, they will feel even worse.
"I'll eat first." Li Yuhao couldn't bear it any longer. He still wanted to fiddle with it just now, but now he just grabbed the yellow mud on the plate and stuffed it into his mouth.
However, he took a bite, but his brows were wrinkled, and he almost spat it out, startled, anxious and panicked, "It's not this smell, something's wrong, something's wrong..."
"What?" Realizing something, Wang Jiawei hurriedly grabbed his share of mud and took a bite, but he also reacted in the same way, his face turned red.
"No way!" He Ziyi, Sun Haoran and the others were in a hurry, but after the five people tasted the mud on the plate, they were all in a panic, "It's over, we're over. What should we do? What should we do today! Li Yuhao, do you still have a meal?" That kind of mud?"
This ordinary mud can't do it, it doesn't taste right at all.
"You guys have eaten them all up..." Li Yuhao murmured anxiously, but his eyes turned bright, "Let's go to the wasteland on Arbor Day, it's okay! There's a lot of mud there, and it's just a wasteland without fences. No one cares, let's go there!"
Everyone agreed in surprise, as if they had grasped a life-saving straw.
They really couldn't take it anymore, not how hungry their stomachs were.
It was the nightmare-like hunger and thirst that made them a little manic, no, you must eat that kind of mud, or you will die, you will definitely die...
The seven young men and women got up and walked immediately. There were many cars in the garage of Wang Jiawei's house, and one of them was a silver MPV that could seat seven people. None of them have a driver's license, and they haven't yet reached the age to take the exam, but Wang Jiawei can drive, and he has learned it privately.
At that moment, they all got into the mpv and set off immediately, hoping that they would not be stopped by the traffic police.
However, Mobei City is a sparsely populated place after all. They also checked the remote path they navigated. Therefore, there were no obstacles on the way to the remote wasteland located in the north of the city. When they arrived at the wasteland, The night grew darker.
There are no dwellings, no guards, the place is too deserted, and even some insects can't be heard.
So as soon as the car stopped on the side of the road, Li Yuhao, Wang Jiawei and others opened the door and rushed out of the car, rushing to the wasteland where some small saplings were planted.
"This way, this way!" Li Yuhao knew the way and ran to the place where the eggs were dug up that day. He took the mud there.
"Didn't Captain Luo of the Forestry Bureau say that he would spray pesticides to control locust eggs? Will it have any impact?"
"Don't eat if you are afraid!"
"I'm not afraid of pesticides, if I can't eat tonight, it's over..."
"Listen to me, I'm afraid that even the mud here is wrong!"
They were arguing anxiously, but suddenly they stopped their voices and footsteps, and looked suspiciously at the front ten meters away, right next to a sapling.
Through the hazy moonlight, I saw a figure there, with its back to them, kneeling on the ground, eating mud with both hands, handful after handful, making strange and fanatical swallowing sounds. Beside the figure, a small pit has been dug out, and the missing soil should have been eaten.
That figure looked familiar to them.
"That seems to be..." He Ziyi stared slightly, Li Yuhao, Tang Yi, Zheng Meihan and others were all a little dazed.
But they were also swallowing their throats, and the man's swallowing sound aroused their desire to eat mud even more.
At the same time, the figure also heard the movement here, and turned around in surprise. The usually generous and kind middle-aged face had a very complicated expression at this time. The slightly opened mouth was covered with mud, and even the cheeks, The chin and other places were also covered with mud.
Before this, this person must have eaten a meal of mud crazily.
They all recognized this person, Principal Cui, it was Principal Cui.