A highly noisy one, a hypnotic murmur. The visible threat, zombies. A feast for the plants.
A profound silence, a heart-pounding quiet. Concealing a great crisis, water shortage, a disaster for the plants!
There used to be a saying among country farmers: No rain for five days, a minor drought; no rain for ten days, a severe drought; no rain for a month, the earth smokes.
It means: During the dog days of summer, if there's no rain for five days, the land begins to dry up; if no rain for ten days, the drought becomes severe; if no rain for a month, it means a drought disaster is imminent.
In this silent, hot, and dry weather, there are still people walking outside.
Though hot, the threat of zombies has diminished significantly. Seizing this season, many people begin to search for basic supplies.
The hot weather continued for another 5 days.
It has been 15 days without rain, not just without rain, but 15 days of scorching sun, without a cloudy day.
In the county not far from them.
A small group, this group had previously been exploited by the Salvation Army. The leader used to work in catering in the county.
Together with family and friends, the group barely numbered 12 people. Initially, they had over thirty people, but after encountering the Salvation Army, a few were killed and they had to submit.
Then later, they encountered torrential rain, some starved to death, and others were bitten to death by zombies.
From over thirty people, they quickly decreased to less than one third of that number.
They survived the torrential rain, endured the Zombie Tide, and even after the heavy rain, they were anxious and fearful, worrying that the Salvation Army would come again to rob them of protection money.
What they didn't expect was, after the rain ended, the Salvation Army didn't come, the weather outside was hot, and there were few zombies. This made them happy for a good while.
But, before their happiness lasted long, the ongoing hot weather hit them hard!
The hot weather caused many previously undiscovered foods in the city to rot and breed worms.
The hot weather forced them to walk outside under the scorching sun, facing the danger of heatstroke.
Today, one person suffered from heatstroke.
It was the daughter of the leader, whose name is Tan Guohua. Originally in this apocalyptic world, he deeply understood that human nature was the most terrifying thing.
He was also considered mature and experienced, having been in the hotel restaurant business for half his life, seen all kinds of people, and his methods were very ruthless.
Right when the apocalypse burst forth, he led a few colleagues from the restaurant directly home to gather his family.
Then they barely survived for a while.
To be able to survive in this apocalypse until now, none are simple individuals.
But, amidst such natural and man-made disasters, even he could hardly bear it.
Today, they still went out to search for supplies. The place they were staying was discovered by zombies last night, so they had to find a new place to live today.
During the daytime, his daughter Xiao Yu suffered heatstroke under the scorching sun.
They searched many places, but found no water.
At last, they ran 3 kilometers to the other side of the city, and by the riverside of the opposite district, they finally found some water.
But the water they found was very murky.
The weather was so hot that even this river was nearly dry.
The water level has already dropped to its lowest point, and although there were times in the past when it didn't rain for over a dozen days, the temperature never reached above 40 degrees Celsius every day during the day.
In the past, during hot weather, it barely reached 38 degrees, and that was only for a few days. Sometimes, upstream, they would open the sluice gates to ensure that the river would not run dry.
But now, this river is already beginning to dry up.
Barely managing to get some water from the turbid river, they took the opportunity to collect more water, because they didn't know whether the river would completely dry up the next time.
"Little Fish, Little Fish. Open your mouth." Tan Guohua pried open his daughter's dry, cracked lips with his hands.
Little Fish was unconscious, but her forehead was still feverish, covered in sweat.
A woman beside him said, "Guohua, don't hold onto her, put her down. Ah, what a hardship for the child."
Tan Guohua's wife had survived the outbreak of the apocalypse, but not that encounter with the Salvation Army.
Because of his daughter, he gritted his teeth and endured, he had to live for his daughter.
If it wasn't for his daughter, he would have fought desperately with the Salvation Army long ago.
But now, his daughter also fell unconscious due to heatstroke.
They had searched many city pharmacies, but it had already been nearly a year since the apocalypse broke out, and supplies like medicine had long been looted.
Now they didn't even have a bottle of herbal essence tonic water.
Tan Guohua, looking at his daughter's pale face, the man who had never shed tears, now let large drops fall.
For his family, he could do anything. When the Salvation Army arrived, he had informed them of everything he knew about Li Yu.
Because he had never directly encountered Li Yu, he knew very little, he didn't even know where they lived, so when the Salvation Army asked, he could only share what he knew.
But even so, the Salvation Army still killed his wife, and it wasn't until after they killed five people that the Salvation Army finally believed him.
His wife was dead, and now his daughter was in an unknown condition due to heatstroke.
Their team of 12 people had packed their water and were in a hurry to move to a new place, to find a new refuge.
Their food supplies could only last two more days.
Actually, they had already reduced their daily food intake to half a week ago.
A man following Tan Guohua, who also had some family members with him, and was also a middle-aged man, saw Tan Guohua grieving while holding his daughter.
Although he understood, he couldn't help but speak, "Guohua, we need to quickly find a new place to live. And our food is not enough either."
"None of my fucking business! Damn it! Don't disturb me!" Tan Guohua suddenly burst into anger, like a furious lion, this time, his daughter's heatstroke was making it impossible for him to hold on.
The middle-aged man, hearing this, also felt anger rising. His own relatives had died in the last Zombie Tide, but he hadn't said anything.
Seeing that it was getting darker, the other few people also wanted to say something, but seeing Tan Guohua obviously out of sorts.
So they went over and started discussing with the middle-aged man about where to move next.
"Brother Sun, Guohua is not really in a good state right now. We really need to find a place fast," said the young man with concern all over his face.
"Yeah, Brother Sun, we need to make a decision quickly about where to go, we need to leave soon, otherwise staying here, zombies still come out at night. It's dangerous."
Brother Sun looked troubled and worriedly glanced at Guohua, then nodded and said, "Then let's go to the wholesale city across the river, maybe there's still some stuff there."
He then looked around at these people, each one thin and pallid, their hair like straws. There was no vigor in them, and Guohua was holding his dying Little Fish.
Brother Sun sighed, "Living, truly is hard."