CHAPTER 333: CHAPTER 3: SHELTER

The thin figure timidly walked over from the opposite side of the street, wearing dirty, wrinkled clothes that clearly hadn’t been washed in a long time.

Jennifer greeted as gently as possible, asking the little girl to lift her clothes and spin around, which completed the inspection.

She then had the little girl sit in the shade by the roadside, opened a can of fruit, and fed her spoonful by spoonful.

The little girl was obedient; with each mouthful, she would smile, her voice crisp, extraordinarily pleasant and satisfied.

"What’s your name?"

"Gina."

"Gina, where are your parents?"

"They told me to wait by the roadside, and then... they disappeared."

"By the roadside in town?" Zhou Qingfeng asked with a frown.

The little girl shook her head, trying hard to recall: "Not here, it’s by the roadside far, far away."

This child didn’t seem too sad, her eyes filled with innocence. Only when she mentioned her parents did she slightly pout, as if about to cry but holding back, continuing to open her little mouth, anticipating the next spoonful of fruit.

Jennifer looked at the little girl’s frail form, afraid to feed too much at once, and stopped after half a can, gently coaxing her to eat more later.

The little girl nodded sensibly, then tilted her head and asked, "Sister, can I give the remaining half can to my friends? They must want some too."

Jennifer’s heart softened, and she smiled, agreeing. She then said to Zhou Qingfeng seriously, "There’s been a food shortage in town for half a year; usually, the elderly and children starve to death first."

Kongges crossed his arms and coolly said, "If we foolishly came out of the shelter half a year ago, do you believe those starving residents in town could eat us clean to the bones?

I’ve been a police officer for over ten years and know too well how selfish and crazy ordinary people can become in desperate situations. Take this little girl, for example; how can you be sure she wasn’t abandoned by her parents?"

Jennifer was rendered speechless by Kongges’s words and could only sigh helplessly.

Before the apocalypse, she was a carefree princess adored by all, but now she was struggling to survive like anyone else.

She was just fortunate to have met Zhou Qingfeng at the start of the doomsday, which allowed her to survive until now.

Otherwise, once riots broke out in the big city, beautiful women with no self-defense ability like her were often the first targets of harm.

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According to Xiao Jinlang’s plan, the exploration team needed to avoid any direct confrontation with opponents and not easily venture into towns with unknown conditions.

After all, there were only a dozen or so people, and it was better to be cowardly and submissive than to act tough.

Zhou Qingfeng and the others were quite obedient; upon hearing gunfire from the other side, they immediately surrounded the five modified pickups into a semi-circle, with everyone hiding within on guard.

The little girl, after coming over, was so preoccupied with eating that it wasn’t until she was half full that she remembered she had come to make contact.

She hopped back on her little legs and shortly led a mother, a son, and three half-grown children over, all skin and bones.

Their eyes were empty yet longing, their steps shaky, and as they approached the pickup, they eagerly reached out with hoarse voices for food.

There was no shortage of food on the electric pickups.

The shelter could grow potatoes, which, although not heavily fertilized or treated with pesticides, had a yield of four to five hundred kilograms per acre.

Each pickup’s trunk was stocked with barrels of homemade potato cans, made by peeling fresh potatoes, adding citric acid, boiling, and sealing.

Potatoes were the second most hated food in the shelter; the exploration team brought these for the sake of consuming the stock because the potato growth was good this year, and if not eaten soon, they’d have to be thrown away.

The scavengers were like reincarnated starving ghosts, their eyes green and seemingly irrational. They surrounded a barrel of potato cans, dipping their blackened fingers into the barrel and shoveling the contents into their mouths, water and all.

Roger, acting as a military doctor, had to shout loudly to stop them, warning them to eat slowly and not swallow too big bites, lest they choke themselves.

But this warning was useless; someone soon choked, their eyes staring blankly because they swallowed too quickly.

Roger could only call for a few team members to hold the ’starving ghosts’ from behind, squeezing their chests to make them expel the food stuck in their throats.

After several attempts, they finally calmed down, realizing they had to eat slowly.

Chen Rui glanced over the half-grown children and then looked at the mother and child, shaking his head, "No, either too young or too old, the quality is too poor. When will I get my own big European maid?"

However, Marco sighed beside him, "How on earth did they let themselves end up like this? Just planting some crops should have kept them from starving!"

"Farming?" Kongges sneered beside him, "It’s not easy to farm, and besides, these people probably never thought about farming."

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After eating their fill, the ’starving ghosts’ began to relax. Especially the underage children, whose heads nodded until they simply fell asleep by the roadside.

The exploration team could only inquire of the only adult they sheltered, confirming their name, age, origin, and family situation, particularly gathering information on the conditions of other towns.

This also unveiled a small mystery—why didn’t they farm?

"Before the disaster broke out, I followed the government’s warning and stockpiled enough fresh vegetables for half a month and staple and side dishes for two months.

But it proved that this reserve was far from enough.

When the food was nearly exhausted, I had to consider what to eat tomorrow, not the harvest in half a year. So I drove out of the city, heading to the countryside.