Chen Xiaowu tapped the surface of the river a few times with the ice hammer in his hand, and the surface of the river had formed a thick layer of ice, which looked more than 20 centimeters thick. The sharp ice pimples on the ice and does not file through the ice.

He tried to step on the ice with his feet again, and found that there was no sound of ice cracking under his feet, but for the sake of safety, Chen Xiaowu only walked at the junction of the ice and the shore, and stopped walking towards the heart of the river.

The water flow on the Songjiang River is turbulent, even if it is a cold winter, when the river freezes for a few feet, there is still a clear ditch in the center of the river, there is a thin layer of snow floating on the clear ditch, and there is still a turbulent river flowing under the thin snow.

At that time, Bai Ying and Jiang Xiujing were going down the river by boat, but not all of the riverside was a dirt road suitable for walking, but more meadows and woods.

After seeing the big rats, Chen Xiaowu instinctively began to avoid walking into the kind of area where his vision was blocked.

After walking for a few hours, the sky gradually darkened, Chen Xiaowu's tent had been left on the camp by the upstream river, and later when he went back to retrieve the camping equipment, he did not have time to take away the tent, according to Chen Xiaowu's pace, these few hours, he only walked out of the distance of less than ten kilometers.

Luckily, before it got completely dark, Chen Xiaowu found a railroad bridge pier where he could camp.

The railway bridge may have been abandoned for a long time, it looks very old, and even the piers are covered with dry artemisia grass, Chen Xiaowu found the nearest bridge pier on the shore, cut a large bundle of reed grass and spread it on the ground, and began to look around for firewood that could be used to burn the fire.

The cold wind on the river was more biting than that on land, and after looking for a while, Chen Xiaowu found a few pieces of sunken wood stranded on the shore.

After being blown by the autumn wind for a few months, the sunken wood is very dry, and when firewood and grass were in short supply a few years ago, the villagers of the riverside village not only picked up branches and cut artemisia grass everywhere, but also liked to use this sunken wood to drag home to burn the fire.

The raging bonfire burst into flames more than a meter high, and the scorching flame light baked on Chen Xiaowu's face, bringing bursts of warmth, although the place where he camped was a relatively sheltered bridge pier, but except for the side facing the fire, the cold air wrapped most of his body.

He had to sit with his back to the flame every few minutes, baked a little warmer by the cold wind blowing through his back.

The winter nights are not so dark, on the contrary, the bright moonlight reflects on the ice and snow, illuminating the whole land as if it were day.

The starlight in the sky is not covered by such a bright moonlight, a wide Milky Way spans the entire starry sky, and the vast sea of stars makes people involuntarily indulge in it after watching it for a long time.

Because it is the cold winter season, there is no insects and birds around, only the sound of the whistling river wind blowing through the bridge and the crackling sound of the raging flames.

Chen Xiaowu used the small pot brought out of the duty room to cook some corn porridge for himself, although his stomach was full at this time, the cold made him not sleepy.

He began to think about his past in the orphanage in order to distract himself from the long winter nights in exhaustion and cold.

When did you go to an orphanage?

Is it seven or eight? He couldn't remember anymore, except that after he had been in the hospital for a few months, several police uncles had handed him over to Dean Li.

At that time, the orphanage was still a small courtyard built in the suburbs, and in addition to Dean Li, there were seven or eight children of all sizes in the courtyard.

He remembered that Shao Kaiwen, who had a big snot hanging on his lips and pumping upwards from time to time, followed Dean Li and looked curiously at himself who was also thin at the beginning of his serious illness. Li Lili, who is two years younger than herself, cries in a ponytail and chases after Zhu Wen, who snatched her doll. The older Sun Zhihai took out a large tin bucket from the kitchen, swayed out of the house, and looked at Chen Xiaowu and several policemen at the door curiously when he saw him.

The yard was stinky, with the smell of pig manure everywhere, and the red brick floor of the yard was densely covered with dried and fresh chicken droppings.

Chen Xiaowu remembered that Dean Li kindly stroked his head, and then let him and the two policemen into the house, Chen Xiaowu had to watch his feet carefully to prevent himself from accidentally stepping on the bubble of fresh.

In fact, Chen Xiaowu can clearly remember the scene when he came to the orphanage on the first day, because it was also the first time he saw Sister Shiyin.

Li Shiyin is five years older than him, is Dean Li's daughter, and after she was brought into the living room by Dean Li, Sister Shiyin, who was thirteen or fourteen years old at that time, was very sensible and brought everyone a plate of watermelon from the kitchen.

Seeing that she didn't say a word, she looked around curiously and timidly, Sister Shiyin also deliberately picked out the largest watermelon and handed it to herself, sat beside her, and talked to herself with a smile.

Chen Xiaowu can't remember what he was talking about, but he only remembered that Sister Shiyin had a very good smell of soap on her body at that time. It overshadowed the watermelon in his hand, and also the smell of pig manure that had lingered on the tip of his nose since he entered the yard.

Chen Xiaowu tried to remind himself of those good memories about Sister Shiyin and life in the orphanage.

In this way, I was dazed and knew that I had slept unconsciously for a while, and then I was woken up by the cold wind, cleaned up the campfire, and then I was confused while thinking.

I don't know how long it took, but finally until dawn, Chen Xiaowu extinguished the bonfire he had taken care of all night, packed his bags and walked downstream.

On the empty and lonely ice surface, the sky and the earth were white, and the rising sun reflected dazzling light, and Chen Xiaowu, who was stabbed, had to tear off a strip of cloth from his underwear and tie it to his eyes to prevent snow blindness from being irradiated by strong reflections.

Last night's cold was driven away by the constant walking, and Chen Xiaowu was covered in sweat but didn't dare to take off any of his clothes. The only lonely person in the whole world is Chen Xiaowu himself.

He tried not to feel lonely, but the things he could remember had been thought of in the long night of the previous night, and he had to think of other ways to distract himself.

He began to miss the 9-to-5 life in the city in the past, at least his time was arranged tightly at that time, except for work and car, he had nothing to do to brush up on Tik Tok, read e-books, play Honor of Kings and eat chicken, and even when he went to the toilet to, he could brush up on two news.

At that time, he longed for this kind of lonely one's trip every day, and when he really got to the time when he was the only one left in the world, Chen Xiaowu found that he began to miss the life before the end of the world.

It seems that man is such a contradictory creature, he never knows what he wants, he is always obsessed with what he can't get, and he won't cherish what he can get.

Chen Xiaowu walked like a walking corpse for two days, and on the afternoon of the third day, Chen Xiaowu did not find a suitable camping spot after dinner.

The weather was surprisingly good these days, he looked to the east, as the sun gradually set, a bright moon rose in the night sky, the sky was dark, but the silhouette of the scene thousands of miles away could still be seen.

Chen Xiaowu took out a handful of corn kernels that had been frozen from his pocket and threw one into his mouth.

Gaba Gaba chewed, and the cool corn kernels lifted his spirits, and he simply stopped looking for camp.

On such a bright moonlit night, let's continue to walk along the riverside, Chen Xiaowu secretly planned.

In the past three days, I have walked sixty or seventy kilometers, but I still haven't seen the shadow of Bai Ying and Jiang Xiujing.

I shouldn't have been so timid in the first place, how good it would be to sit in an assault boat together, at least I didn't have to rely on my feet to move forward as tired as I am now.

But even if he had followed along, he had to disembark after a day or two of them had drifted, and he remembered that when he got up on the morning of the third day after they had gone, he saw that a thin layer of ice had formed on the whole river, and if he had calculated it this way, he should have quickly discovered the rubber boat that they had thrown down.

Just as he was thinking about it, Chen Xiaowu saw that in the darkness in the distance, there seemed to be a long shadow running across the entire river.

Chen Xiaowu slowed down his pace, on this long river that seemed to have no end, such a conspicuous black shadow was obviously not a product of nature.

If it's a man-made structure, that means there might be people here, and if there are people, then he won't become a zombie? On this cold winter night, he felt that he should still be extremely careful.

After Chen Xiaowu approached a few hundred meters forward, he stopped, and the cement berm had begun to appear on the riverside, and he had been listening carefully to the movement in the distance after walking hundreds of meters forward. But apart from the sound of the wind, there was not a single sound of footsteps or anything else in the distance.

At this time, what stopped him was the shadow of the rubber boat that he was familiar with on the bank of the river not far ahead......