Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong scanned the area and were most impressed by two things about the residents of Shuiwei Town:
Everyone wore a motley collection of clothes, as if they came from different places, and most had patches; they were very dirty, hands dirty, faces dirty, hair dirty, clothes dirty.
Apart from these two points, exhaustion, thinness, and being short were more common traits.
The townspeople glanced at the outsiders, and seeing that Tian Erhe was also there, they stopped paying attention and worrying, each returning to their homes, or moving out their stoves, lighting fires to cook, or carefully taking out a bowl of grain mixed with bran and pouring it into the pot, or simply eating half a cold cornbread leftover from noon with cold water… The entire Shuiwei Town gradually filled with smoke and the smell of food.
Tian Erhe noticed Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong observing the residents of the town, and asked with a smile:
"What do you think? Did you see anything?"
Long Yuehong opened his mouth, feeling that it would be impolite to directly state his impressions, so he closed his mouth again, carefully considering his words.
Shang Jianyao withdrew his gaze and said frankly:
"Unclean."
"Unclean... Heh." Tian Erhe chuckled, "Compared to you, definitely unclean."
Although Shang Jianyao, Jiang Baimian, and others had rolled around during the previous battle, and had mud and dirt on them, they had habitually wiped their faces clean when replenishing water along the way.
Without waiting for Jiang Baimian and Bai Chen to interject, Tian Erhe pointed his chin towards the middle of the square:
"Although our Shuiwei Town doesn't lack clean water sources, we still have to conserve charcoal. I read in a book that excessive deforestation will make the land infertile, so we don't let them cut down trees nearby, they have to go far away.
"Occasionally, we can get coal from smuggling caravans, which is like celebrating the New Year, you know, the 'White Knights' have a lot of coal over there.
"Heh, it's okay in the summer, we can wash directly with cold water, but when autumn comes, we can only try to endure it, it's better to be a little dirty than to get sick, and if we really can't stand it, we'll boil some water and wipe our bodies."
Speaking of this, Tian Erhe paused, and his smile became complicated:
"Besides, they are busy from morning till night every day, and when they can rest, who has the energy for that?"
Long Yuehong immediately remembered the training in the previous two months: he and Shang Jianyao were exhausted every day by Jiang Baimian's training, and when they returned home, they just wanted to lie in bed and do nothing.
But Pangu Biology has an employee cafeteria, and he and Shang Jianyao can directly take their lunch boxes, or simply not take them, and go to the cafeteria to eat ready-made food, without having to work hard themselves.
"No wonder." He said, expressing his understanding.
Shang Jianyao said nothing, and nodded silently.
Jiang Baimian looked at him with a smile:
"I thought you would ask them why they don't wash with cold water in winter, it seems to effectively promote blood circulation and improve their resistance."
"Their physiques are too poor." Shang Jianyao replied seriously.
At this time, a member of the town guard team nicknamed "Gouzi" ran over with Tian Erhe's stove, carrying a small bag of charcoal on his back.
He enthusiastically helped light the fire, and then took the initiative to join the patrol team responsible for the surrounding area, unwilling to leave.
This wasn't because he yearned to be assigned some braised beef canned food, but because Bai Chen and Jiang Baimian, who had their hair and faces cleaned up, were more attractive to young men than most of the girls in the town, especially Jiang Baimian, who was tall and had long legs, and had been undergoing genetic modification since she was an embryo. In the eyes of these young men in the town guard team, she was as beautiful as a celestial being, making them want to circle around her.
And in the Grey Earth, the relationship between men and women is not so conservative, even if they have only known each other for a few minutes, as long as they catch each other's eye, they can roll in the sheets, so those town guard team members who were patrolling and guarding around were standing tall and chests out, showing themselves off.
Jiang Baimian glanced at them and almost laughed.
She ignored them, walked to the trunk of the jeep, and took out four more military canned goods.
"Do you need a pot? Do you need a pot? And bowls and chopsticks, do you need them?" Tian Erhe asked with shining eyes.
"Sure, it's much more convenient than using lunch boxes." Jiang Baimian didn't mind at all.
"Little Gouzi! Hurry, go get my pot and bowls and chopsticks! Count how many people there are!" Tian Erhe immediately raised his voice.
The town guard team member nicknamed "Gouzi" agreed quickly, and soon brought a black iron pot with five sets of bowls and chopsticks inside.
After helping to set up the pot, he glanced at Jiang Baimian, and said weakly to Tian Erhe:
"Town Chief, can you, can you please not call me by my nickname anymore? I'm twenty years old..."
"What's wrong? I watched your dad grow up, and I still call him by his nickname!" Tian Erhe glared and said a few words, then waved his hand, "Go, go, don't affect our eating, no, chatting."
Shang Jianyao stared at the pot, and found that the bowls inside were light blue, with very delicate patterns, and the chopsticks were ivory white throughout, without any flaws.
This was much better than the bowls and chopsticks of most employees of Pangu Biology.
Tian Erhe glanced at him and chuckled:
"What? Do you think this bowl isn't big enough?"
"He thinks it's too good and too exquisite." Jiang Baimian rushed to answer the question for Shang Jianyao, seemingly afraid that he would say something impolite.
Shang Jianyao didn't mind, and nodded to indicate that this was what he thought.
The next second, he looked at Jiang Baimian, closed his mouth tightly, and mumbled for a while.
Amidst the crowd's surprise and bewilderment, he began to ask Jiang Baimian:
"Guess what I wanted to say just now?"
"...How can I guess that?" Jiang Baimian's expression was a little dull, barely maintaining a smile.
"Didn't you guess very accurately just now?" Shang Jianyao was quite regretful.
Jiang Baimian took a breath and slowly exhaled:
"If it wasn't you, I would definitely think you were angry about what happened just now."
When she spoke, she was not staring at Shang Jianyao's eyes, but at the top of his head, as if she wanted to hit him.
Tian Erhe looked at their interaction with a rather strange expression, and finally smiled:
"The atmosphere inside you, seems, seems very, relaxed, lively."
"It's mainly because his brain occasionally has a twitch, uh, that's it." Jiang Baimian emphasized solemnly, and Bai Chen nodded in agreement.
Shang Jianyao immediately responded:
"How do you know I'm not deliberately enlivening the atmosphere?"
"...Trying to maintain it." Jiang Baimian ground her teeth.
Tian Erhe laughed twice, picked up a set of bowls and chopsticks and said:
"These were all brought back from the ruins of the Old World cities, there are too many similar things there, and they are not of much value in themselves.
"The relic hunters travel long distances, who would be willing to carry a backpack or a carload of bowls and chopsticks back?"
Jiang Baimian listened attentively, and said with emotion:
"Indeed, there are still many things buried in the ruins of the Old World cities. Um... Just because it's not useful now doesn't mean it has no value."
As she spoke, Jiang Baimian poured the five cans into the pot.
"Town Chief, before the canned food is heated up, can you tell us about the Old World, tell us about your experiences back then?" Jiang Baimian casually threw the empty can shells to the side, and diligently handed the yellowish-black leaf cigarette to Tian Erhe.
Tian Erhe took the leaf cigarette and lit it with the charcoal fire in the stove.
After taking a satisfying puff, Tian Erhe half-closed his eyes and said:
"My biggest wish now is to smoke three times a year, this is the second time this year."
After sighing, he looked around and showed a look of remembrance:
"When the Old World was destroyed, I was just over 10 years old, still a, heh, primary school student."
"My mother was a middle school teacher in the city, and my father was an employee of a government unit. At that time, it was just the winter vacation. The weather should have been a bit colder than now, maybe more than a bit, I can't remember why. It might have been that the middle school vacation was later, and my father was busier closer to the end of the year. No one at home could take care of me, so he and my mother took advantage of the weekend and sent me to my grandfather's house, in that village not far from Shuiwei Town.
"I remember very clearly, they said that they would come to pick me up and my grandparents back to the city for the New Year in eight days.
"Heh, I was wild back then, running around the village, but I would still miss home every night, and I would look at the calendar and count how many days were left before my father and mother would come to pick me up.
"On the morning of the second-to-last day, a few friends and I wanted to go fishing by the river, but we were stopped by adults and could only play near a very shallow stream. Then, we heard an explosion and felt the whole ground shaking.
"I was so scared, I just wanted to go back to my grandfather's house and never go out again.
"The explosions came one after another, becoming more and more violent, cough, cough, I even felt like it was accompanied by a very high magnitude earthquake."
As Shang Jianyao, Long Yuehong, Jiang Baimian and others listened attentively, Tian Erhe reached out to warm himself by the fire and continued to recall:
"For a while, I don't know why I passed out. Maybe I was hit by the shockwave of the explosion, but anyway, I woke up without any injuries.
"After waking up, I continued to run back and saw that my grandfather's house had collapsed... They didn't have time to run out...
"At that time, my grandfather and grandmother were much younger than I am now, raising chickens, growing vegetables, doing everything.
"Cough, let's not talk about this. At that time, there were still many people alive in the village. I followed those uncles, aunts, grandpas, and grandmas all the way to the town. There were still many intact houses in the town, but we didn't choose them, we chose here because there was open space where we could temporarily live in tents without worrying about the houses collapsing.
"At that time, the communication was also cut off, there was no signal, everyone waited here, waiting for rescue, waiting for help, but unfortunately, we never waited..."
Tian Erhe's voice gradually lowered, as if he still remembered the panic and despair of the time.
"A few uncles and aunts didn't want to wait any longer. They collected some food from supermarkets and some people's homes and tried to leave Shuiwei Town to go to the city. I, I also followed them, hoping to return to my father and mother's side. Don't laugh, this is a very instinctive choice for a child.
"We drove for a while, climbed over the broken road, and walked for a long time before finally reaching the city.
"Here, here, it was even more terrifying..."
Tian Erhe's eyes gradually lost focus.
He seemed to have fallen into a nightmare from which he could never escape.
ps: Seeking recommendation tickets~ By the way, update in advance at midnight to ask for recommendation tickets for next week~