Chapter 7: Wild Grass
“Wait for your parents?” Tao was puzzled.
“Yeah, my parents weren’t ho when I went back, so I left them several notes in the house telling them to look for at school. If I leave now, I’m afraid they’ll never find .”
“How long are you going to wait?” Glasses continued on questioning.
“At least until sunset.” Chang replied.
“Then we’ll wait here with you,” Pangzi said. “We aren’t in a hurry anyways.”
Pangzi’s mother pulled him aside imdiately after Pangzi said so. Chang knew that Pangzi’s mother would complain. She was that kind of woman who would haggle over everything, but was usually not assertive—she usually agreed with the majority. However, she wholeheartedly cared about her son, otherwise she wouldn’t have shown up in school right after the red fog erged.
She didn’t want to her son and herself to be left behind with the majority of people, so she drew him aside and tried to rush Pangzi to leave with her.
Chang glanced at them, then turned his head away.
“I don’t mind if you guys to go first; I’m just going to wait for my parents here, so if they co, we’ll go and look for you.” Chang seed to be carefree, but everyone knew that without radio communications in this world, separation ant that they might never et again.
After listening to Chang, Pangzi and Glasess both showed unwillingness on their faces. Then, they got pulled over by their parents. One of their parents cracked a brief smile, “We shall go first then, good luck.”
Without delay, they then left with their children. Their figures quickly beca blurred in the fog as they walked away. However, Tao didn’t leave with them.
“I’ll stay with you.” Tao sat on a desk around Chang, “I don’t get to see my parents anyways, so there’s no room in that little group for to fit in. I’d rather stay with you.”
“Huh?” Chang was surprised that Tao decided to stay with him.
Tao was the most unsociable one in the dorm; he spent eighty percent of his ti studying, so he rarely communicated with others. In addition, he liked to show off his mastery of different subjects, so no one really liked to talk to him. Therefore, Chang didn’t expect Tao to choose to stay with him.
“Tao, are you coming with us?” Pangzi’s voice ca from the fog.
“I’m staying with Chang; if his parents don’t show up before sunset, we’ll leave together.” Tao waved to the four dim shadows. The shadowy figures soon disappeared completely after soone responded to Tao.
“Actually, you don’t need to stay with , I don’t mind waiting alone.”
“I know you’re just saying that because we don’t know each other that well.”
“Even we knew each other well, it still wouldn’t be worthwhile to stay.”
“I just don’t want to stay with those two families,” said Tao as he reached to Chang with his hands open. “You got any cigarettes?”
“No, I told you I don’t smoke.” Chang shrugged, “Do you even know how to smoke?”
“I just want to try; the atmosphere here is too depressing. I’ve never smoked before because I didn’t want to spend money on cigarettes, but now the world is f**ked up, so who cares about money?”
“That’s true.” Chang smiled and took out several candies from his backpack, “I don’t have cigarette, but do you want any candy?”
“Haha, candies are high-calorie foods and one of the scarcest resources during an apocalypse. Are you sure you want to waste it on ?” Tao unwrapped the candy paper and popped it into his mouth, then slurred, “Do you want to know why I don’t want to go with those two families?”
“Why?” Chang was also curious.
“I lied. I’m an orphan, and they are two families, so there’s no way I can fit in...”
“Orphan?” After listening to Tao, Chang’s heart shrunk and he unconsciously reached into his pocket and touched his father’s finger. Chang had only pinched them gently, but the tissue of these fingers had lost it elasticity, causing the shape of the finger to beco deford.
“Orphan...” Tao looked at blood-red sky feebly, and then their conversation ended in complete silence.
They waited for a while until they were bored. Chang went out of the classroom to look for his parents, then ca back soon after and continued waiting. Ti flew by, and after going back and forth a few tis, the surroundings slowly darkened bit by bit. However, Chang’s parents still hadn’t co.
“We can’t wait any longer, the world is changing too quickly.” Tao and Chang stood at the school gate, gazing at the wild grass that was shrouding the world.
“The height of the grass has reached our waist; if we keep waiting, we probably won’t be able to see the path by tomorrow.” Tao frowned, ”It’s beco more and more dangerous now. This place reminds of the Amazon Rainforest. You know the law of the jungle; the night is ten tis more dangerous than the dayti.”
“I know... we can’t wait any more.” Chang toughly nodded. Though he desperately hoped that his parents could co, his mind told him that he had to leave and there was no point of risking his own life on waiting.
At this point, most of the crowd had departed. They had probably found so safe shelters, since no one would want to spend a night in school.
“Co on, bro.” Tao patted Chang’s shoulder after he saw his sorrowful face.
“Let’s go.” Chang nodded, then he took the first step out of the school before Tao did.
They both had strange feelings when they wandered on the street. Within less than a day, the humanistic atmosphere of the city had almost completely vanished. Wild grass was everywhere, and all sorts of plants had poked through the pavent and continued to grow vigorously. For the first ti ever, the hard cent pavent gave into the vitality of these plants. The pavent was shattered and occupied by clusters of different plants.
The street was even quieter. The onlookers on the street were gone; no one was foolish enough to wander around in this miserable red fog. After the initial panic, it seed like they all had plans for themselves. So stayed indoors, so sought help, while only a few wandered around idly.
Chang’s and Tao’s goal was to look for a convenience store.
Like many other cities, there were plenty of convenience stores and small supermarkets on both sides of the street in Kaifeng. Every few hundred ters, there would be one. Because it had only been hours since the sudden spread of the fog, the majority of people were still alive. Being a store owner was a unique advantage towards survival, hence most of the store owners had locked up their store before anyone else wanted to occupy them.
Unsurprisingly, Chang and Tao weren’t able to get into any convenience store they found. But when they walked past a supermarket, they heard a brawl inside.
“Soone inside is fighting.” The red fog had lingered for a few hours and its perability was strong. Whether it be indoors or outdoors, visibility was limited within three ters. The two stood in front of the supermarket, watching the world in the red fog and listening to the curses and fighting in the supermarket. Each of them had different thoughts.
“There’s quite a lot of food in this supermarket.” Tao knew this supermarket chain; it was pretty big and had a lot of variety of foods, sufficient for hundreds of people for a long period of ti.
“However, it’s too risky to enter. There must be at least a hundred people fighting for food in there.” Chang frowned.
“Yeah, it seems so.” Tao also frowned, “Let’s go, we can’t outcompete them, and it’ll be dangerous even sneaking in there.”
“Yea, let’s find another one.”
Once again, their figures faded into the red fog. They were shooed out of so stores and finally found one that wasn’t locked. The two were delighted and were about to enter the store, but a person ca out before they took the first step.
“Who are you?” A person blocked the entrance, yelling and clenching an iron bar.
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