Chapter 11 Chapter Eleven

April 1.Sunday.Night, 22:50. "Out...outside...outside world...outside world...has been...destroyed..." Tao Ye held two flashlights and walked through the dark ground floor atrium, trying to avoid stepping on the corpse, when he heard a man's weak voice from the corner.The light illuminated the backs of two young men, a man and a woman, supporting a man in a blood-stained white shirt with a company tag on his chest. Half an hour has passed since the earthquake. Five minutes ago, Tao Ye, a tally clerk at Calfort Supermarket, and Professor Wu Hanlei, the author of "Dark Day - The End of the World is Coming", finally evacuated from the second basement floor.As soon as they reached the bottom floor, the door of the shopping mall collapsed. Fortunately, the two retreated to the corner in time, otherwise they would either be killed or injured.

Tao Ye's backpack was full of flashlights and mineral water, and on one shoulder was a first-aid kit dug out from the store manager's office.The young man and woman turned their heads, instinctively blocking the glare of the flashlight.It was only when they put their hands down that Tao Ye was amazed at the beauty of these two people—the girl in sportswear, who seemed to be a high school student with a pair of overly mature eyes, with imperceptible hostility in her eyes.The boy's long, shattered black hair hides jet-black eyes, with a tall nose and fair cheeks, he looks no older than twenty years old.

"Is anyone injured?" Tao Ye boldly squatted down, approaching the man in the corner. "Are you a doctor?" The young man who was so handsome that Tao Ye couldn't help but look at him asked in a deep voice. "No, but I have a first aid kit." Tao Ye took out bandages and alcohol. Although he has no professional training, he has learned a lot of first aid methods from watching American TV series "Lost" and "Prison Break" over the years.The pair of boys and girls helped him with his work, cleaning and disinfecting the injured man's wound, and carefully wrapping the bandage.

The white-collar man thanked him repeatedly: "My name is Xu Pengfei...I work in the American company on the 12th floor...Please tell me...your names..." "My name is Tao Ye, and I work in Calfort Supermarket." The honest Tao Ye reported his family name.The young man and woman remained silent, glanced at each other, turned and left. Xu Pengfei grabbed his hand and said, "I will repay you!" Tao Ye left him a bottle of mineral water: "Don't move around, I'll go and see the other injured people, if you need something, call me loudly." He walked into the place with the heaviest casualties and looked around. Most of the corpses on the ground were bloody and bloody, and some were dying. His poor first aid knowledge alone would definitely not be able to save them.

Tao Ye squatted in front of a dying woman.She was about thirty years old, her clothes were soaked in blood, her profession and identity could not be seen, only her left hand was still somewhat conscious.He held that hand tightly and felt that she was getting colder.His other hand held the flashlight to illuminate her eyes, as if to give her the last light and warmth of life.She blinked gratefully, and there seemed to be two drops of cloudy liquid slipping out of the corners of her eyes.She exhausted all her strength to extrude a voice that could not vibrate her vocal cords—"I... just... came in... to hide from the rain..."

After saying these extremely sad words, her eyeballs stopped moving and gradually became dim.Tao Ye wanted to pull out his hand, but found that she had tightly grasped it, and he couldn't pull it out no matter what. Could it be that this woman has never really loved a man, so she regards the last man she touched in her life as the only one she has ever loved, and will not let her go until the end of her life? Cold sweat dripped onto the face of the woman who had just died, and Tao Ye tugged at his hand in a panic, but he still couldn't break free from the dead man's grasp.He snapped off the dead man's fingers with all his strength, and it was so hard that it felt like the ring lock of a bicycle.But he didn't dare to use more strength, fearing that he would break the dead man's fingers.

Suddenly, a hand patted his shoulder. In the middle of dozens of corpses, one hand is still firmly grasped by the dead man. If someone pats you on the shoulder from behind, you can imagine the feeling... The defenseless Tao Ye screamed and fell tremblingly on top of another dead man. Within a second, he regained his courage and jerked his flashlight up, trying to illuminate the face of some zombie.But in the center of the flashlight's halo is a beautiful and vivid face. He remembered this face. He had seen this face twice on the second basement floor of the supermarket before and after the earthquake.Though every minute now seemed like a day, the face was so fresh in his memory that he was sure he would never forget it again.

"what happened to you?" That's right, it was her voice. Tao Ye clearly remembered her Chinese with a Japanese accent. He didn't want her to find out how embarrassed he was, and he didn't want her to see the dead man holding his hand, whispering: "I'm fine, please don't come near me, there are corpses here." "I've seen it." The Japanese woman boldly stepped over a dead body, knelt down and approached Tao Ye. "No!" Tao Ye didn't know how to reject her. And her hands had reached out to his, how warm her hands were compared to the dead man's hands that gripped his.Not only warm, but also powerful.She was helping Tao Ye break off those dead fingers.

Tao Ye closed his eyes in fear, only feeling his hands trembling, he felt the temperature of her cheek close to him, and smelled the scent from her long hair. A few seconds later, he heard a crisp bone breaking sound.Fortunately, he felt no pain. Tao Ye's hand was free again, but the dead man's hand had two fingers broken off. The Japanese woman in front of her bowed her hands solemnly to the corpse, chanting words in Japanese, which may be Buddhist prayers. It is unimaginable how she broke off two stiff dead fingers.Perhaps, she had done the same thing before? Tao Ye stood up tremblingly, the dead man's finger marks remained on his wrist.He asked in a low voice, "Where's your son?"

This beautiful mother, about twenty-eight or nineteen years old, pointed to a dark corner by the wall, where the faint light of the mobile phone screen flickered, vaguely illuminating the figure of a boy. "Go back quickly." Finally, it was Tao Ye's turn to protect her, walking through the corpses and ruins along the way.He looked around carefully, hoping to find a survivor or two. They came to the wall, and Tao Ye looked at the six or seven-year-old Japanese boy——I don't know whether it was a psychological suggestion or an illusion, the child's complexion was too pale, just like... those dead people who fell on the ground!

Tao Ye frowned, and spoke slowly to the Japanese mother and son, "Stay here and don't move, I'll be back soon." He left two bottles of mineral water for the mother and son, then held up a flashlight to the other side of the courtyard. go.After working on the second basement floor for three years, he naturally knew the shopping mall above his head like the back of his hand. He knew that there was a shop on the ground floor that sold all kinds of small gifts, including candles for home decoration.Tao Ye quickly found it—thick red candles, slender white candles, small candle cups commonly used in high-end restaurants, and large candle holders for households... He dug out a large shopping bag from the store and filled a lot. Back to the Japanese mother and son in the corner, he set up a metal candlestick on the ground, inserted a few white candles into it, and lit it with a lighter. Candlelight, first like a few fireflies on a summer night, then like a string of shooting stars in the night sky, and finally into a few dancing flames. Looking at the candlelight that he personally lit, Tao Ye suddenly felt indescribably exhausted, and sat down beside the Japanese woman powerlessly.In order to save the limited battery, Tao Ye temporarily turned off the flashlight, and the Japanese woman beside him also turned off the mobile phone.They are surrounded by only those few candles, like the ever-burning lamps in the ancient underground palace, which will wait for the owner of the tomb for a thousand years until the tomb robbers or archaeological team come. "Thank you very much!" She bowed her head deeply, and the candlelight illuminated her slightly moist eyes. "You're welcome, my name is Tao Ye. Tao from ceramics, Ye from metallurgy." He believed that the other party could understand what he meant. The Japanese woman replied: "My name is Yoko Tamada, this is my son, and his name is Masa." "Zhengtai?" Tao Ye looked at this frighteningly white boy, and couldn't help laughing, "Sure enough, he is a gentleman." "Please take care of me." Unexpectedly, the boy's Chinese language is better than that of his mother, and he is no different from a Chinese child. He probably grew up in China.Zhengtai should be very tired too, so he fell into his mother's arms and fell asleep quietly after a while.Yoko Yutian kissed her son's pale cheek, then turned to look at Tao Ye beside her. He didn't speak for fear of waking up the sleeping child. There was a hint of gratitude on the corner of her mouth.How many warm candles for those?Or help them in the second basement supermarket?Or simply grateful that he could sit next to her here and now?Under the light of the candlelight, Yoko Yuta's cheeks seemed to be covered with a layer of bright and extremely soft paint, like a mysterious veil, making it difficult to see her real gaze. Suddenly, he trembled.The floor didn't vibrate, the walls didn't shake, and it was impossible for anyone to be moving nearby except for those corpses—it was his heart that trembled. He forced himself to close his eyes, but he could still see her face.So, he opened his eyes again, and she still had the same expression—the eyes hidden under the dim candlelight, still unable to guess. He leaned his head against the wall and relaxed.He secretly hoped that she would relax completely as well, slowly leaning her body to one side - his side, slowly resting her head on his shoulder... That's all, he wasn't the kind of kid who wanted a lot all at once. Unfortunately, he knew that he was fantasizing after all.She always maintained the original posture, holding her son carefully, and occasionally closed her eyes to rest for a while. The candle flame flickered a few times.Tao Ye turned his head to the side vigilantly, and heard the voices of several people.He believes there are still many survivors hiding in the dark.Yoko Tamada also opened her eyes.He whispered to her: "I'll go over and have a look, you watch over Zhengtai and don't move." Tao Ye turned on the flashlight, took the first-aid kit, walked along the wall to those people, and heard a middle-aged man's voice - "The end of the world!" "What?" A woman in her twenties was still shivering, wrapped in a large woolen cloak to keep out the cold.Tao Ye was sure it was taken from the branded women's clothing store on the ground floor. "What you said is true?" "That's right." The person who spoke was a middle-aged man, the author of "Dark Day - The End of the World is Coming", the well-known Professor Wu Hanlei.His face is serious and serious, and one lens of his glasses is broken, but it does not prevent him from talking like he is on TV. "What is the end of the world? It's all deceptive nonsense!" A young man in a security uniform spoke a strong local accent, holding a large flashlight, and looked anxiously at the dark world outside.Sitting next to him was a middle-aged woman, dressed like a cleaner, who looked slightly injured, frowning and not speaking. "No, we have to trust Professor Wu! The outside world has already been destroyed!" There was an injured man lying on the ground, with a bandage Tao Ye personally wrapped on his left arm. It was the white-collar worker named Xu Pengfei. The pair of handsome boys and girls went to nowhere. "I know that although everyone likes to read my books and listen to my doomsday speech, but when the end of the world is really at hand, they can't believe everything I said!" Wu Hanlei looked at them coldly for a long time, until Xu Pengfei After joining, he gave a wry smile, "It's normal! Everyone misses the lives of themselves and their families. Even if the disaster is in front of us, it's just a poor self-consolation to think that we can save ourselves from danger." "You mean we are dying?" said the girl wrapped in a woolen cloak, looking at Professor Wu with fear in her eyes. "Not necessarily—but, the outside world is indeed destroyed! We shouldn't expect someone to rescue us. What we can do now is to survive as much as possible in this underground space!" "Impossible! You say the end of the world is the end? Have you watched too much "2012"?" "As for the theory of the end of the world, you can carefully read my academic works - 10 million people in China have read my book, and if you add the mobile version and other electronic versions, then there may be more than 100 million people! " "I believe that everything written in Professor Wu's book is true. The most authoritative data will not lie. Even the most authoritative scientists in the United States have confirmed Professor Wu's calculation results!" Xu Pengfei added another sentence, presumably A loyal reader of Professor Wu Hanlei. The professor calmly explained: "My argument is not a Mayan prophecy, but based on the abnormal climate on the earth in recent years, as well as the weird geological disasters that have occurred around the world, plus the observations on the earth and the solar system over the past billions of years. The result of data analysis. I don’t believe in Nostradamus, nor any evil organization, let alone the nonsense in movies, I only believe in the only correct standard in the universe—science.” The woman in the woolen cloak refused to let go: "What you said is empty talk, why an hour ago, I was watching a horror movie in the cinema on the ninth floor, and now the whole building has really become a horror movie." The scene in the movie?"