His toes finally stepped on the ground. The ground was very flat and clean, and he could feel the coolness of the ground. Zhang Xiaoqiang looked at the ground under his feet quietly, without sadness or joy. His mood at this time was extremely complicated. He had always told himself that he could stand up, but in fact, he knew in his heart that no matter how much he said, he was just saying it. Every day, the last thing he did before going to bed was to bend his legs, and the first thing he did when he woke up was to bend his legs.
Time passed day by day. Sometimes, he even doubted whether he could really stand up.
When he finally stood up on his own, he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. He didn't have to worry about sitting in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. If he could stand up, he could walk. If he could walk, he could jump and run. He would eventually stand in front of others, waving his gun and shouting.
Zhang Xiaoqiang sat in a wheelchair and slowly drank porridge. Yang Ke-er and Meow sat aside and ate. Some time ago, Yang Ke-er, Meow, and Shanghai Qiaoyun went out with the search team to look for food supplies every day. When Zhang Xiaoqiang was attacked, they regretted it. They unanimously decided that they would never leave Zhang Xiaoqiang's side again, in case he sneaked out and came back to scare them.
No one knew that Zhang Xiaoqiang could already stand up on his own. Zhang Xiaoqiang didn't tell anyone. He wanted to wait until he fully recovered before telling others. Although he didn't know how long it would take, he believed that he would definitely recover and return to the base in a normal state.
Zhang Xiaoqiang finished the last mouthful of porridge in the bowl. Just as he put the bowl on the table, he glanced at Shanghai Qiaoyun. Shanghai Qiaoyun was also looking at him. Seeing Zhang Xiaoqiang looking at her, Shanghai Qiaoyun's bewitching gem-like pupils emitted a brilliant brilliance, and her bright red lips unconsciously stretched out to caress her lips.
Zhang Xiaoqiang suddenly shivered and hurriedly looked down to see if there were any rice grains left at the bottom of the bowl. Who was he most afraid to see now?
Shangguan Qiaoyun was definitely at the top of the list. This little demon was really too terrifying. A few days ago, both sides broke through the last window paper. Shangguan Qiaoyun came to find him every night. Zhang Xiaoqiang couldn't say no for the sake of a man's dignity. The result could be imagined. At this time, he really knew the advantage of Yuan Yi. Only when he looked for her, she wouldn't take the initiative, just because she was shy.
"I'm done eating. I'll go out and check on Zhang Huai'an's progress. En, you guys enjoy your meal …"
After Zhang Xiaoqiang finished speaking, he pushed the wheelchair out of the door as if he was escaping. The other women were somewhat inexplicable. Only Shangguan Qiaoyun, with a trace of a smirk on the corner of her mouth, slowly drank the porridge.
"I'm going to squeeze you dry and see if you still know how to hook up with others …"
This was Shangguan Qiaoyun's true thoughts. There wasn't a woman who wouldn't be jealous.
Zhang Xiaoqiang pushed the wheelchair to the busy construction site. Sections of green brick walls were gradually being built. The camp's strategy of exchanging coal for labor was very successful. The gathering place's lack of fuel had almost reached the extreme. The bigger forces had modified the solar water heater to boil water and cook food. The other smaller forces and civilians could only think of their own ways. As for the poor, they didn't even have food.
Zhang Xiaoqiang was indifferent to whether the forces in the gathering place were doing well or not. It was still summer right now. When winter came, without the tools and fuel to keep warm, who knew how many people would die in the gathering place. The number of deaths had nothing to do with Zhang Xiaoqiang. He only wanted to find a boat and recruit crew members, that was all.
Zhang Huai'an was wearing a gray work uniform and ran up and down the construction site with Huang Tingwei. He didn't put on any pretentious act like he did in front of the other leaders. In the end, he was still the most suitable for practical work. Receiving guests and talking like an official wasn't his forte. In front of the other leaders, he only knew how to act like a hoodlum.
The wall was a must. It was the camp's last line of defense. Regardless of whether it was to defend against the big fish or other forces, Shen Xue's defense system wasn't just a wall. Outside the wall, other than countless hidden trenches and traps, there were also many strange roadblocks.
The purpose of the roadblocks was to provide cover for a single person. The triangular slope could split apart objects that were rushing at high speed.
Standing behind the cover, one could easily shoot outside. But standing outside the cover, no matter how tall one was, one wouldn't be able to reach the shooting angle. The enemy would have to lie on the slope, and the muzzle could only aim at the sky.
There was also a magnificent structure in the camp. It was a watchtower that was 12 meters tall. Standing on the watchtower, not only could one easily observe the situation around the lake, but the entire gathering place could also be seen. The other forces also had some complaints about this, but they were all dealt with by Zhang Huai'an's hoodlum methods. Reason?
What reason could Zhang Huai'an give?
"Hubby, it's so boring. Aren't you bored?"
Yang Ke-er pulled the dejected Meow to Zhang Xiaoqiang's back and complained. A few days ago, they could still go out and have some fun, but now, they could only obediently stay in the camp to accompany Zhang Xiaoqiang. The camp was only so big, and they couldn't go to the lake. The two of them were so bored that they couldn't bear it.
Hearing Yang Ke-er's complaints, Zhang Xiaoqiang's eyes became a little moist. It turned out that he wasn't the only one who was bored.
Zhang Xiaoqiang finally embarked on a journey to relieve his boredom again. This time, he was in a group. The members included Yang Ke-er, who was holding a sword and a shield, Meow, who was looking around with his little head stretched out, and two members with concealed pistols. One of them was pushing a wheelchair. Zhang Xiaoqiang didn't want to attract too much attention. It was fine if he had cold weapons, but if he carried automatic weapons and swaggered around, it was hard to guarantee that others wouldn't think of him.
The destination of the sightseeing group was the shantytown that Zhang Xiaoqiang had never been to before. The mother and son he saved last time were originally poor people in the shantytown. They were at the end of their rope and didn't want to die in the filthy shantytown, so they found a slightly cleaner place to welcome their final resting place. However, they were seen by Zhang Xiaoqiang, which led to a lot of trouble.
The shantytown occupied one-third of the entire area of the gathering place. A small part of it was inhabited by civilians who were rescued by other forces. Most of them were poor people who were left to fend for themselves. Ugliness was like germs that grew in the rotten soil, everywhere. Someone once made a calculation. The population loss of the entire gathering place was about 50 people every day. Among them, 8-10 people committed suicide, 10-12 people went missing, 10 people were killed, 25 people were eaten by big fish, and 5 people starved to death.
And of these casualties, 99% were from the shantytown. Interestingly, the suicides and those who were killed were all men. It seemed that women had a stronger endurance than men. The majority of the missing were women, those who starved to death, and those who were eaten by big fish. There were both men and women. All in all, women's loss was less than men's.
In addition, children were not counted as people. As for how many died, there was no fixed number. Just like that, the gathering place maintained a strange ratio between men and women.
The five of them wandered around the shantytown. There were many people here, but it wasn't noisy. The poor people with hungry faces were demonstrating Chaplin's silent movies. Here, the prosperity and chaos before the apocalypse could not be seen. There were only three kinds of expressions on the faces of the people here.
The first was the most common. Numbness, despair, and desolation. There was no other expression in their eyes, only emptiness, like the walking dead. They all knew what their final fate was. When they could no longer endure it, they would silently fall into the dirty water. Someone would tie a rope around their ankles and drag them away. They would become a floating corpse in the river outside the gathering place.
The second kind looked at them with a kind of longing in their eyes. They were all beautiful women. Due to various reasons, they did not enter the ranks of the sheltered and could only become a part of the poor. After all, there were 70,000 young women. The competition was too fierce. They had to sell their bodies to get a little bit of food to survive.
The third kind of eyes were flickering. They were secretly sizing them up. These people hid themselves in the darkest corner. They were all poisonous snakes. They were sizing up the prey in front of them. As long as Zhang Xiaoqiang and the others revealed a slight flaw, they would fiercely pounce on them. They would bite open the prey's throat and drink the prey's blood dry.
The knife in Yang Ke 'er's hand, the pistols on the team members' waists, and the rifle muzzles behind the wheelchair let these poisonous snakes know that the people in front of them were not prey, but a ferocious beast that was even more ferocious than them. They retracted the ferocious glint in their eyes and hid themselves even deeper, waiting for the next fat sheep to appear.