The furnishings in the room are ordinary, and the furniture here is covered with thick dust because no one has cleaned it all year round.

A simple wooden table and three wooden chairs are all the furniture in the living and dining room.

On the wooden wall that separates the kitchen from the kitchen, there are many knick-knacks on small handmade wooden shelves.

Reaching out and picking up one, it was a wooden spool, but the thread had long since decayed, and it dissipated with the wind with a slight movement.

Memories of his childhood kept coming back, and Barrett carefully wiped the dust off the spool.

He had stolen it out many times to fish, yes, in the creek in front of the door.

"The two of them don't know how long it's been since they've been dead."

No one has been to this cottage for at least 100 years.

Walking out of the cabin, Barrett tried to find the tombstone behind the house, but found no trace.

"Isn't it buried here?" Whispering to himself, Barrett was a little disappointed.

Lily isn't human, so she doesn't leave any traces of her life, but where is Dina's tombstone?

Back in the cabin, Barrett pushed open the door to his bedroom.

A double wooden bed, a small children's wooden bed.

Barrett knew that he had been sent out of the black hole by Lily when he was very young, and that he should have been less than four years old when he was here.

"Didn't I ever come back here? Impossible. "After all, he still has a mission to save the humans on the ship, and he should have been back here.

But he didn't recall any fragments of memories of returning here as an adult.

Wipe the dust off the dresser with his hands, I have to say that although Dina is a relatively stupid person, he has a very delicate pair of hands.

Although this wooden dresser is not as good as the crafts made by those craftsmen, it can be seen that Dina was careful at that time.

"The cat doesn't like you, what did you do to provoke it?" Barrett was a little curious about the attitude of cats at that time.

Touching it, Barrett realized that something was wrong, and there were words engraved on the dresser.

"It's ............" Barrett carefully examined the handwriting, which had been very long ago, causing the handwriting to be a little blurry.

"Buried in ...... Seventh...... Maqiao Town? Barrett read.

The seventh should be the tree, because it appears at the beginning of the sentence, and the town of Maqiao is the destination.

"Let's try to find the seventh tree where something is buried." Since there were only trees around the hut, he wasn't worried about anything else that could be seventh.

He walked along the hut to the north, to the west, to the east, and he searched carefully for each of them, but unfortunately he could not find any so-called burials.

"So where exactly is it buried? Isn't the seventh tree counted from the direction of the hut? Barrett wondered, it couldn't be the seventh tree in Maqiao Town, could it? This answer is highly unlikely.

Stones? Barrett walked back to the fountain, and only here there were stones.

Barrett tried both clockwise and counterclockwise, but found nothing to be buried.

Sitting on the stone platform of the fountain, Barrett was a little helpless.

"Look at the handwriting should be male, that is, Diner's handwriting." Barrett pondered.

But then again, where is Maqiao Town on the hell? He didn't know either.

There was no choice but to take one step at a time, and he would try to leave the forest early tomorrow morning to find this Maqiao Town.

It should be nearby, right? It's just a town, after all.

Lying by the fountain and listening to the gurgling of the fountain, Barrett had some peculiar feelings.

It seems that I am not looking at the starry sky, but a picture scroll.

"Venus, Mercury. These planets had only been heard of in books before! Looking at the stars shining in the sky, Barrett realized that the earth did not seem to be as bad as it is described in the history books.

The pollution is serious, the dust obscures the sky, and the trees have long been cut down, so there is still a serious shortage of living space.

"More than 10 billion people............ Barrett remembered that excluding the people who emigrated to the three major colonial moons, there were still more than 10 billion people on Earth at that time.

How terrifying this number of people is, I'm afraid that people today can't imagine it.

Frost's population is very sparse due to the large number of planets, and planets like Yunchuan do not even have 200 million people.

How much did the boat take away? It is said that there are about 8 billion.

But now it's at least two hundred years after the Pioneer Project was implemented, right? According to the speed of human reproduction, I am afraid that it will almost reach the number of that year.

Thinking about it, he still felt tired and fell asleep.

At dawn, Barrett woke up.

At this time, the temperature is the lowest, about seven or eight degrees above zero.

It looked like it was already autumn, and Barrett felt a chill.

Standing up and moving his hands and feet, he walked to the edge of the spring and washed his face to replenish his stomach, even if he was ready.

"It's a pity that there are no containers." Barrett didn't find anything like a kettle in the cabin, so he had to drink his fill.

Identifying his direction, he walked towards the north of the hut.

This direction is slowly downhill, and the town should not be on a higher ground, it should be more likely.

After walking all the way down, after about four or five hours, the sun gradually rose.

"Potatoes here, too?" Barrett grappled a fist-sized potato, crunching into it.

Although it is not known how this wild potato appeared, at least it did not starve to death.

"Save the time playing with the beasts." Since he didn't have a single big animal along the way, he was worried about what to eat.

Although it has an earthy smell, the taste is almost the same as that of an apple, but there is no sweetness.

With food in his stomach, Barrett is also energetic.

The original walk turned into running, and he wanted to find Maqiao Town as soon as possible and explore the meaning of that sentence.

But the forest is slowly descending, but there is still no end in sight.

Another few hours passed.

Barrett even had some delusions, did he think he was going in the wrong direction?

Just when he was a little skeptical about whether he had made the right choice, he crouched down under a tree.

Fingers twisted over the soil near the roots of the tree, and Barrett noticed that the soil had been turned over.

"Has anyone been here?" Finding a hint of popularity made him a little happy.

Following the traces of the excavation, Barrett knew that they were the traces left by the people who collected the mountain treasures.

"Campfire?" It's not big, but it's a bonfire.

It's a camping spot and it looks like there should be more than one person.

I didn't leave any clues in my mind, but the hope was much greater, at least it wasn't too far from a crowded place.

"That's going down." Barrett made up his mind and ran down the hill.

Sure enough, gradually there were more and more traces, and there was even a place where the trees were chopped with machetes.

"If someone is logging, then there should be a logger's camp not far away, or a village or town." You can't go to the mountains and old forests to cut wood, the transportation cost is higher than the wood itself, no one is so stupid.

Following the trail he had stepped on, Barrett finally found the place he was looking for.

Three or four cabins were built under a cliff and fanned out.

Although there were no people in sight, there was a hut with cooking smoke, indicating that there must be someone here.

Tapping lightly on the door, Barrett asked, "Is anyone there?" ”

It took a while for the door to open a crack.

It's a seven or eight-year-old child.

"Who are you? I don't know you! "Looking at the costumes, the children are a little alert, they don't dress like this here.

Indeed, the upper body is still the tight vest, and the lower body is gray combat pants, which is very stupid in the depths of this mountain.

"Where's your family?" Barrett knew that children were very alert at this time, and he still had to keep a certain distance.

"Father goes up the mountain............" Before he finished speaking, a small hand covered the child's mouth from behind.

"Are you stupid? If he is a bad person, isn't his father in danger? "The voice is a younger girl, but she is smarter than her brother.

"Are you a bad person?" The boy came to his senses and asked.

No one would say he's a bad person, and Barrett certainly wouldn't.

"Hehe, I'm a passerby, from the mountains." Barrett decided to tell the truth.

"I'm looking for Maqiao Town, do you know where it is?" He asked.

"Maqiao Town?" The little boy looked back at his sister, but received no affirmative answer.

"Haven't heard of it. The village below is Yuan Village, and my family also lives in the village. The little boy was still relatively innocent, he said.

Sure enough, the little boy was immediately attacked by his sister.

"Why are you pinching me, I'm right!" He was somewhat aggrieved.

"You're stupid, he's a stranger, and he's coming down from the mountains!" The little girl's tone was a little hurried.

"What happened to the people on the mountain?" Barrett found it as if the two of them were a little afraid of the people on the mountain.

"There are ghosts on that mountain, who knows if you are a human or a ghost!" The little boy told why.

At this moment, a question came from behind him: "Where are you from?" Stranger. ”

The voice is rough, but very polite.

Barrett turned to see three or four burly men coming down the hillside, the one at the head looking at him.

"I'm coming from the mountains, that grassland." Barrett didn't mention the cabin, he didn't want people to know about it.

After all, it was the last place for his parents to live, and it was better to be less harassed.

“？” The men looked at each other and asked each other, "I haven't heard that there is a grassland in the mountains, have you heard of it?" ”

Several people shook their heads, and they put down the harness behind them.

Seven or eight meters long tree trunks slide down the hillside.

"Well, maybe it's farther away." Barrett calculated the time, it was probably a hundred and ten kilometers away, maybe they hadn't been there.

"You're here to ............," the man nodded, accepting his claim.

After all, there are many rumors in that mountain, and if it is far away, then it is possible that you have not been there.

"I'm looking for Maqiao Town, have you heard?" Barrett asked.

"The nearest town is Padua, and it's seventy miles to the north. The village where we live is nearby, about seven or eight miles away. As for Maqiao Town, sorry. The man shook his head and said, he didn't know where Maqiao Town was.

"Thank you." Barrett thanked him, and he turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" The man stopped him.

Turning around, Barrett smiled and said, "I'm going to go to your village first, after all, it's true to fill your stomach." ”

Indeed, since I don't know where Maqiao Town is, the first job is to fill my stomach.

"Do you have friends there?" The man was a little curious, otherwise how would he fill his stomach?

"I can do some work, and it should be fine to change some food." Barrett wasn't worried about going hungry, he had a lot of strength.

Patting Barrett's arm, the man laughed, "Looks like you're an honest man." You won't survive the winter. ”

Indeed, without thick clothing, I am afraid that winter is very difficult.

"Come with us, help us pull the trees to the village, and we can give you food and clothing." The man said, and only then did he begin to introduce himself: "I'm sorry, we also have a hard time, so it's a bit rude." ”

"My name is Ranagi, and I'm the foreman here." He stretched out his left hand, and it seemed that this etiquette had not been thrown away.

Several of the men around also came up to say hello, even if Barrett was familiar with them.

Pointing to his cabin, Ranaki said, "Let's go, let's go eat something hot, and we'll leave in the afternoon." ”

When I walked in, I found that my two children were peeping at the door.

"I wondered who I was talking to, it turned out to be you two little guys." Ranagi smiled: "This is my son, my daughter." ”

“？” Barrett had some doubts, and the name didn't seem to be easy to remember.

"There's no way, the educated people are almost all dead, and we rough people survived because we were stupid." Lanaji saw Barrett's doubt, and he explained.

"All dead?" Barrett's original idea was that human beings had multiplied for more than two hundred years, and no matter how they were, they had almost returned to the level of those years.

But it seems that these people are dressed in ordinary clothes, and they are nowhere near as technological as when the pioneers left.

"Yes, God didn't want to let the people who polluted the earth live, so He burned them." Ranaki was calm.

"Pollute the earth............ Indeed, only educated guys can do this kind of thing, they don't know anything about people, even if you pollute it, you can't find a way.

Industrialization seems to have failed, and Barrett simply can't see what level of culture the earth is now.

However, what can be seen is that these people are still civilized, not in a state of wilderness.

"Burned? What happened? Barrett looked down the hillside, and the lush forests stretched everywhere.

"I don't know, it's raining yellow, and a lot of people are dying, and so are the animals." Ranaji told horrible things, but there was no fear on his face.

"Word of mouth, the old people say so, but after a long time, everyone will believe it or not." Lanaji was very observant, and he saw Barrett's incomprehension.

"I see............ "It seems that it was a long time ago, Barrett thought to himself.

That catastrophe should have wiped out most of humanity, so even after more than a hundred years, humans on Earth are still very scarce.

Bringing out a bowl of homemade soup from the pot and handing it to Barrett, Ranagi said to the two children, "You two go and fetch some water." Wash your faces. ”

The child was still young, and the face was full of food, which made Barrett laugh.

"These kids are stupid, and no one is teaching them, and they're making you see jokes." Lanaji said with some embarrassment.

"It's nothing, it's something that can't be helped, I'm not laughing at them, their innocent appearance reminds me a little of when I was young." Recently, Barrett has been looking at his childhood memories, so he said with deep feelings.