Chapter 45.2: Temporary Stay at Qingmin (Middle) [2]

Author: He Feng Yan

Translator: HeXie

Editor: HeXie

Chapter 45.2: Temporary Stay at Qingmin (Middle) [2]

However, Hua Country’s population was seriously overcrowded in the first place. Thus, the grain reserves the country had stocked was never quite sufficient, to begin with. The government, afraid that the shopping craze would lead to an increasing amount of chaotic situations, had quickly mobilized the military to forcefully maintain the order when people went out shopping.

And later on, the government also placed a last-minute limit on the amount of goods people could buy. Alas, not only did it fail to halt this trend of stocking foods amongst the citizens, but it also served to make everything even more chaotic. Thus, even before D Virus completely broke out, almost every city was embroiled with acts of arsons, fights, and robberies.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that plenty of people had thought of ways to stock up at home during the initial chaos, no one had expected what would happen over the course of one night. No one had ever expected that when they woke up, the dead people that were infected by the D Virus would rise again.

Furthermore, it was not limited to those dead, but also those asymptomatic people. In fact, it was even more surprising in their case, since they did not show any sign that they were infected. Still, fact was fact. Those asymptomatic people had turned into terrifying zombies without a warning. One really had to wonder.

Just how many people became food for their loved ones without even realizing it?

According to common knowledge, after the D Virus’ complete outbreak, around 70% of the population turned straight into zombies. And more than 15% of the people died because they were unprepared for such sudden changes. Meanwhile, the remaining portion was left trying hard to survive in this strange new world that was hostile to them.

Before the end of the world, the census had claimed that the world’s population was around 10.2 billion people in December 2012. However, it had only been barely more than a year after the end of the world, yet the number of survivors was already barely 600 million people.

And the nation with the largest amount of survivors was still Hua Country. After all, even before the end of the world, Hua Country had been the nation with the largest population. Therefore, it came as no surprise that according to the incomplete census these days, there were still around 160 million survivors left on this blessed land.

Yet this number was quickly decreasing as the zombies continued evolving at a pace that outstripped humanity’s own pace. The decreasing amount of essential goods did not help the matter in any way either. And almost every day, there was news that a couple of dozen to a few hundred small bases were destroyed under the flood of zombies. Furthermore, from time to time, there would also be some news that a middle-sized base had been destroyed as well.

However, that was the extent of the news people could receive. No one was able to find out what happened in other countries or farther than their area. Because, thanks to one electromagnetic storm, the satellites in space had completely lost their functions and became trash.

Consequently, all forms of communications on earth were paralyzed. And even though the governments knew it should be repaired as soon as possible, there was not a country that could spare their efforts to repair the communications facilities. Even a super base like Jing Base, whose technology was very advanced, was just like Lan Cheng Base concerning communications channels - its communications channels only covered the area surrounding the base.

However, those things were far away from the group and something that they did not need to care or wonder about. And right now, what they needed to be concerned about was the situation they were in. At the moment, Gao Jingshu, Peng Zijun and their group managed to find some things that were quite good in the few units they were rooting around in.

Previously, when they came in, the only thing they were trying to do was to kill as many zombies as they could in as short a time as possible. Thus, they only followed the directions given from the zombie alert device Ji Yun has. And no one had the time nor the energy to spare to notice what was left in other people’s homes at all before.

But now, they could carefully search through each house one by one. And search they did. Throughout their rummaging, they could always find vermicelli that was still edible. Not only that, they could also find plenty of sealed dried foodstuffs like fungus, mushroom, bamboo shoots, yellow flowers, dried brinjals, dried potatoes, tofu skins, dried tofu, and so on so forth. Even if they only found these things, it was still honestly a pretty abundant harvest.

However, they also found salt and sugar. Something that was considered rare in Lan Cheng Base, was found aplenty in almost every household in this condominium. And there was one family that had kept a large number of edible foods. They had kept 40 bags of iodized salt with them and hid 6 of them under the bed in their master bedroom.

And the group almost thought that this family had run a small grocery store whilst they were still alive and humans, especially considering their findings. Because they had not only found plenty of salt in their home, they also had found much rice, oil and various seasonings stocked up.

This family, they found, stocked up two types of rice. Fragrant rice and pearl rice, and the amount they saved up was not little. It was a total of 150kg of it. Furthermore, they also saved 10 whole tubes of 10L vegetable oils and a few boxes of seasonings such as light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, chicken essence, etc.

And this family was the one that stocked up the most in the entire block of the condominium. Unfortunately, this family of six didn’t survive and had all turned into zombies. Peng Zijun only knew the exact number the family had since he was the one who had exterminated them. And the reason why he still remembered this was because when he had forcefully broken down the doors yesterday, the entire family had leapt at him with claws out and fangs shown, almost injuring him. As such, this had left a strong impression on him.