The Scavengers

Chapter 11: wake up

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Xiao Mo didn't know anything about what happened that night.

He slept until noon on June 19, which meant he slept for nearly three days in total.

For three days, his cell phone rang countless times until it ran out of battery.

During the three days, Xue Lihong acted like a normal person. Except for coming over every day to feel his pulse, roll his eyelids, pinch his nose and help him deal with his excrement, she didn't care about anything else. Even when Xiao Mo was covered in bloodstains, he didn't say anything about scrubbing him or changing his mat, let alone sending him to a treatment center for treatment.

Oh, for the convenience of cleaning, he took off the only pair of boxer shorts Xiao Mo was wearing.

So when Xiao Mo woke up, the first thing he felt was the dazzling light, the second thing was that his skin felt tight, and the third thing was the indescribable and extremely unpleasant mixed odor that assaulted his nostrils.

Opening his sticky eyelids, the man habitually turned over to look at the alarm clock on the bedside table. His newly opened eyes were still a little misty. The man raised his hand to rub his eyes while reaching out to grab the alarm clock. He lost his grip and the alarm clock slipped from his palm and fell to the ground.

"Boom!" The alarm clock fell to the ground and doubled several times.

After hearing the sound, the child Xue Lihong appeared at the door of the bedroom holding a bowl of fast food noodles.

"Wake up, Lao Xiao." The child said in a normal tone.

Xiao Mo turned over and put his elbows on the bed to sit up. He didn't know if he had slept for too long, but he felt like his whole body was rusty, and it was difficult and painful to move. There was also throbbing pain in my head.

sky! What is this on him? besides…

"What... smells so bad?" His throat was extremely thirsty after not using it for a long time, and his words could not be continued into sentences. Xiao Mo licked his lips, his saliva became sticky, and he felt a thick layer of tongue coating on his tongue. . He raised his hand and picked at the red and black stain on his other arm without removing it.

"Oh, you should be thankful that there is a cowhide mat underneath you. It will be easier to dispose of your excrement. Otherwise, the place you sleep in now will be more smelly and dirty." Xue Lihong tapped the foam noodle bowl with convenient chopsticks, "Hungry Not hungry? Would you like a bowl?"

Xiao Mo, "..."

He drank two cups of cold water brought by Xue Lihong, ate another piece of dark chocolate, and then spent half an hour scrubbing himself clean. After washing himself, Xiao Mo felt that his originally heavy body seemed to have become much more flexible. The harsh feeling when I first woke up has also disappeared a lot, but there still seems to be a little soreness deep in the bones, but it is not at the same level as the previous pain and can be completely ignored.

It would be nice if my head doesn't hurt either. Xiao Mo sighed, rubbed his temples, drank another cup of cold drink and ate a piece of chocolate. Strangely, after sleeping for nearly three days, he didn't feel hungry even after waking up for a long time, but he was just a little thirsty.

The phone was already plugged in, and I wanted to reply immediately, but then I thought it was already three days late, and it wouldn't matter if I were delayed a little longer, so I went to take a shower first, but I couldn't help it, the smell on my body was really bad.

After taking a shower, Xiao Mo immediately took the dirty cowhide mat to the balcony to wash and dry it. If the mattress wasn't too thick and heavy to move, he would have liked to take the mattress out, wash it, scrub it, and expose it to the sun.

Fortunately, the mattress he laid was a cowhide mat, so all kinds of stains and excrement did not shine through the thick cowhide and onto the mattress.

Despite this, Xiao Mo still felt a little uncomfortable looking at the mattress. He touched it casually and thought that he might as well get a new one, although it was a bit wasteful.

"What are those red and black stains on my body?" Xiao Mo couldn't think of an answer, so he had to ask the child.

Xue Lihong replied: "Blood stains. The skin all over your body was broken when the disease occurred, but it seems to have grown back now."

Xiao Mo winced, picked up the pillowcase he had just removed and the thin blanket he had been covering for three days and walked to the terrace. Regarding the regrown skin on his body, he actually had doubts when he was taking a shower. The feeling of old skin and new skin was still different.

Xue Lihong, carrying his small backpack, never left Xiao Mo's side, always circling around him.

The two walked out of the bedroom together, and no one noticed that the color of the mattress that Xiao Mo had just touched seemed to be brighter than before.

Xiao Mo asked the child why he had been following him. Xue Lihong didn't say anything, just stared at him, and then asked for a long time: "Aren't you hungry? Do you feel weak in your limbs and panicked?"

"Fortunately, I don't have hypoglycemia."

"You slept for three days."

"I know." While charging his phone, he turned it on and checked the time.

"I thought you were going to die."

"... Children's words are unbridled, and the strong wind will blow them away." Xiao Mo muttered with a black line on his face, gently pushed the child away, and stuffed the pillowcase, bath towel and thin blanket into the washing machine.

"I washed your underwear for you." Xue Lihong asked for credit.

"… Thanks."

"I don't want to eat instant noodles anymore. Can you cook for me today?"

"Okay." After finishing personal hygiene and cleaning up the room, Xiao Mo felt that his body was becoming more and more relaxed and flexible.

Xiao Mo turned his head and looked outside. He was also looking when the cowhide mat was drying, but he didn't take it to heart. After the physical activity started, my head seemed to become clearer. When I looked at the scene outside, I found something very wrong.

From the terrace of his house, you can see Ninggu Garden and one of the larger squares in Xinxinjiayuan.

I saw several large tents appearing in the open space of Ninggu Garden and the square, and large medical vehicles were parked next to them.

Doctors and nurses are wearing isolation gowns that can only be seen in movies and are serving nearby patients.

Xiao Mo also saw the same policeman wearing isolation uniforms.

There were very few people standing in line outside to see the doctor, only three or two kittens.

There were almost no pedestrians in the squares, parks, or roads, and no vehicles passed by on Ninggu Avenue. The occasional one passed by, and it was a special vehicle with a "cross" mark that drove out from Xinxinjiayuan.

"Severe patients were sent to an empty building in Xinxinjiayuan." Xue Lihong also lay on the window sill and looked into the distance.

"oh?"

"Did you see the van that just drove out of Xin Sing Garden? I heard that it was transporting people who died of illness to the city for autopsy."

"Who told you this?" Xiao Mo frowned.

"Everyone is talking about it. Haven't you noticed that there are many fewer residents in Shannan Jiayuan?"

Xiao Mo turned around and walked to the kitchen. From the kitchen window, he could see the building opposite.

During the day, it was completely dark when he looked through the windows. After watching for a while, he was not sure whether the residents inside were really absent, but he didn't know if it was a psychological effect, but he felt that Shannan Garden seemed to be much quieter than usual.

"If you are really fine, you can go to the supermarket to collect daily necessities." Xue Lihong followed him and said.

"Get it?" Xiao Mo turned around.

"Yes. I heard that it is a government welfare. Because the quarantine has made life inconvenient for everyone, the government is now responsible for distributing daily necessities to all people in the quarantine area. I heard that each person can receive twenty kilograms of rice, one liter of oil, and five kilograms of oil. Pork, one chicken, one duck, five pounds of eggs, three pounds each of various vegetables and condiments, etc.

You can collect it all at once or separately. The first two days were very lively. Anyone who didn't fall down came out to get their things, and many people fought to get their things. "Xue Lihong said solemnly.

It's really hard for Xiao Mo to treat children as children. Who can tell the other person to speak more clearly than him

"There are a lot of things, almost enough for an adult to live for a month. Does the government plan to quarantine this place for a month?" Xiao Mo was frightened by his guess.

"A month?" The child smiled strangely, like sarcasm, but also like some kind of pity, "Don't worry, it will definitely not be a month. With the speed of infection and the inseparable route of transmission, it will be less than a month." Zhongshan City is about the same.”

"... I need to think about it, and I have to call home first." Xiao Mo pressed his left index finger against the center of his eyebrow that suddenly started to throb again, turned around and left the kitchen. While he felt extremely confused about the current situation and his own physical condition, he also felt powerless.

What's going on here

Why was he in excruciating pain three nights ago, but now he could just take a long nap and be fine? And it’s too good…

At the same time, a building in Xinxinjiayuan was vaguely visible across the terrace.

A pathologist specially transferred from the medical school and several assistants walked out of the temporarily sealed room.

As soon as they saw the experts appear, several doctors wearing isolation suits waiting at the door immediately gathered around him.

"Mr. He, how's it going? Is there any result?"

Mr. He shook his head, and he, who was also wearing an isolation suit, whispered in his mask: "The six corpses all had different pathological manifestations and different causes of death. The same new bacteria were not found, except that they were all found to be heavy metal poisoning."

"How could this happen? Can't an autopsy reveal the cause of death?"

It seemed that the rumors Xue Lihong heard were wrong. In the quarantine area, people were already performing autopsies on the dead, not just those transported to the city.

Mr. He continued to shake his head, "It's not that we can't find the cause of death, but that we can't find the same bacteria that causes the disease."

Having said this, Mr. He suddenly raised his head as if he thought of something, "By the way, I heard that some of the patients sent to the municipal hospital at the beginning seemed to have regained consciousness?"

Xiao Mo turned on the TV, tuned to the local news station, saw that his mobile phone was charged, and immediately called home.

In the past three days, everyone in the family, from his father to his nephew, made dozens of phone calls to him, especially his sister-in-law and brother, as well as many friends and business associates.

In addition to incoming calls, various text messages also fill up the memory card. They all asked him, "What's going on now? Are you okay? Why didn't you call me back? You can't get into the quarantine area. More and more people are getting sick. People all over the country are concerned about the flu in this city."

There are also many messages from disease centers and governments in the text messages. These messages tell people how to disinfect, how to protect themselves, how to treat patients when they are found, how to contact treatment centers, how to self-first aid, mutual rescue and other related knowledge.

It can be seen from these text messages that the city is now taking this matter seriously. I just don’t know how widespread the infection is

After checking the time, Xiao Mo pressed the shortcut key for his brother-in-law's hotel phone number. They should still be in the hotel at this time.

The phone rang twice before someone picked it up, as if someone had been waiting by the phone.