Chapter 22: The Story (2-in-1)
In the camp, the team slowly moved forward like a long dragon, and the cold air caused their exhaled exhaust gases to pull a white mist in the air.
But even so, nothing could stop their frozen faces from smiling like never before.
Everyone who walked in front of the cauldron felt a burst of aphasia when they got the brand new iron bowl.
This emotion culminates in front of the two big spoonfuls of food that is thick enough to know it's delicious just by smelling it.
The people in front were so happy that they didn't know what to say, but the people in the back became more and more anxious.
Soon, everyone received their share of food, but the crowd instantly fell silent, and everyone looked at the bowl of food they had never seen before.
This also includes the old man Li who gathered together and looked at the noodles in the bowl stupidly and motionless.
In the hand is a simple iron bowl, smooth and round, the surface of which is simply polished by the machine and pulls out a colorful arc of light under the reflection of the sun.
But even such a bowl, which is very inferior in the Blue Star World, is rare to see in the wasteland, which is something that can only be made by an industrialized social system.
In the bowl, the brown soup was shiny, exuding a rich spice flavor, and the yellow and green diced vegetables were scattered on top of the white noodles.
Almost everyone in the camp had never seen such food.
Old man Li was silent, looking at the familiar food in the bowl in a daze, a little dazed.
It was incredible that he could still eat such a thing today.
Grains, vegetables, spices, and this iron bowl are not what this camp should have now.
But now he really appeared in this place, and in the bowl of more than a thousand people, evenly.
What's going on?
Where did the leader get these things?
Old man Li raised his head, secretly glanced at Shen Sen, who was calmly watching them, and hurriedly lowered his head.
"Old man Li, what do you want?"
The young man with his hair shaved in a mess squeezed over, took the bowl in his hand, and said with a grin.
"I didn't think about anything."
Old man Li shook his head and replied, prevaricating at will.
But in fact, he was a little puzzled, for the first time in this camp something he couldn't figure out, but what was the use of telling this kid.
The young man who came over didn't care, but glanced at the things in Old Man Li's bowl, with a shy smile on his face.
"Is this thing not to your liking, or I'll eat it for you, I love to eat this."
He carefully picked up a diced carrot with chopsticks and slowly stuffed it into his mouth, letting out a satisfied sigh.
"It's delicious, sweet, I don't know what it is?"
"It's red...... It's good stuff anyway, so let's eat it! ”
"Don't think about my bowl, this is a good thing, I don't know if I can eat the next meal."
Old man Li's face darkened, he put his bowl aside, and said angrily.
Then, without caring about taste, he hurriedly stuffed it into his mouth.
For the first time, the taste of normal food quietly bloomed on the tongues of everyone in the camp, and whoever it was, it was as if they had been eaten stupidly.
After a few bites, he stopped, and then as if he had reacted, he quickly stuffed it into his mouth.
Satisfaction, joy, for a while, only the sound of snoring and shaving rice was heard in the camp.
After a long time, the young man standing on Old Man Li's side raised the bowl above his head and reluctantly dripped the last bit of soup into his mouth.
Then he looked at the bowl, stretched out his tongue and measured it, and decisively put his tongue into the bowl and added it, and a bowl was licked clean, as if it had been washed with water.
The old man Li on the side finally couldn't stand it anymore, and his eyelids jumped.
This kid is insulting to Sven, and he is really uncivilized.
But then his eyes dimmed, as if he remembered something, talking about civilization here is indeed a bit pedantic.
When he saw the longing gaze faintly coming from the side, Old Man Li looked at the bottom of the bowl, hesitated, and licked the bowl seriously, imitating the young man.
Because he remembered that a young man once said to him that in this world, only those who can lick can live well, and now it seems that this is indeed the case.
When everyone showed the empty bottom of the bowl, there was basically nothing left of the six cauldrons of food, and this time it was also the best and fullest they ate.
The lack of food for a long time has caused each of them to eat about the same amount.
Shen Sen also took this reason into account, and for the first time, he controlled the quantity a little, so as not to kill people because of the overeating.
After seeing that everyone had finished eating, Shen Sen once again asked everyone to line up.
After eating and drinking, everyone seemed to be in good spirits, and stood up honestly and quickly, waiting for the command of their leader.
What are you going to do this time?
But it didn't matter what they did, as long as it was the leader's order, which meant that they were allowed to fight with their bare hands with the scavengers outside the camp, they didn't panic at all.
Although there was the influence of psionic energy, it was mainly because of this meal that Shen Sen's prestige reached a new height in a short period of time.
In the impassioned and passionate state of mind of everyone, Shen Sen did not give the order to let them go to a bloody battle, but once again beckoned to someone they did not know in the camp, a bald, chubby, white-skinned man.
"Go get the pickup truck."
Commanding Wilson, a few minutes later, in the midst of everyone's stunned gaze, something like steel sped towards them, and finally stopped in the middle of the clearing.
Shen Sen walked to the pickup truck, and the back compartment of the car was filled with a tall half-cart of second-hand clothes, all of which he had bought for the people in the camp.
After all, more than 1,400 people, the clothes they wore were worse than the other, and the holes were bigger than the other, and this was the result of Shen Sen's efforts to improve after crossing over.
He had put together almost all the fabric, plastic, and everything he could find around him that could be worn on a person's body, into something that could barely be called clothes.
But now with these clothes, all that garbage can be thrown away. Very few people die each year because of the cold.
Commanding the people, he took off all the clothes on the car, and Shen Sen distributed them to more than a dozen people, including him, and then prepared to send them one by one according to the lined line.
Coincidentally, Old Man Li's team was the team that Shen Sen was in charge of.
Everyone in front of him took the clothes in Shen Sen's hand tremblingly, bowed and saluted, and their faces were full of excitement.
It was not only the joy of getting a new dress, but also the privilege of meeting their leader face to face and getting the clothes he had personally given them, and that alone made them want to chant hooray.
Finally it was Old Man Li's turn, when he took the clothes from Shen Sen's hand, he picked up the clothes, but instead of thanking them, he quickly flashed to the side, but was silent and didn't say a word.
Even Shen Sen was almost confused by the stunned old man in front of him, so that he didn't let him go away, but kept waiting for him.
For a long time, the old man's face flashed with remorse, regret, and relief, and finally, as if he had decided something, he raised his head, looked at Shen Sen with indifferent eyes that no one in this camp had ever had, and said decisively.
"Chief, I have something very important to talk to you about."
Shen Sen took a deep look at the old man in front of him, who was already gray with sideburns, and suddenly smiled heartily.
"Absolutely!"
……
In the office, the atmosphere was a little delicate, Shen Sen sat in his seat without saying a word, and Old Man Li stood at the table, although the whole person was old, he had a kind of calmness that looked down on everything.
The two of them stared at each other, and finally Old Man Li couldn't hold it anymore.
"When you're older, it's not as good as before, and if it's a little longer, people won't be able to."
The old man let out a long sigh and said leisurely, but there was a slight resentment in his eyes.
"People are not old-hearted, after all, I am sitting, old man, you are standing, it is normal to be tired."
"Someone, bring a chair to the old gentleman."
Shen Sen said meaningfully.
A few seconds later, the guards waiting outside the door brought in a brand new plastic chair.
This was specially bought by Shen Sen, and if there was no better chair, he, the leader of the camp of more than 1,000 people, would have to think about how to teach himself carpentry.
However, when Old Man Li saw this plastic chair, he was stunned, and finally sat down thoughtfully.
"The old gentleman just said that there is a major thing to tell me, I don't know what it is."
Shen Sen's tone was humble and earnest, like a student who was humbly studying.
It was just now, and now it was now, although he now had the power to decide the life of this old man, but he didn't want to bully others.
This old man is not simple, although he is an old man with gray hair, he has a strong will that ordinary people do not have, so that his spiritual energy cannot be effectively used.
Whether it is the Tower of Will or the Psychic Broadcast, these two abilities that are useful to ordinary people have been folded in half and in half on this old man's body, and only a little effect remains.
The old man was polite, but he couldn't change this person's will, and even in the sense of psionic energy, he could see the old man's torch-like spiritual will.
Although there are also reasons why his current spiritual energy is not strong enough, how can such a will be a nameless person.
"Leader Shen Sen, since I have come here, I will not hide it, I will say everything I should say."
"Before that, please let the little old man make a brief self-briefing."
"My current identity is not necessary, just an old man who is about to enter the grave, thanks to the protection of the leader, and survives in the camp."
"But the previous identity, maybe a little bit of a head, must also make the leader a little interested."
"I'm nine out of 100 years old, and seventy-six years ago, I was an engineer on what people called the New Republic at the time, working on the development of the STC production system......"
The old man was very frank and unusually relaxed, not at all like he was talking about a big thing.
Just like a family affair, something that was enough to surprise Shen Sen slowly surfaced in the old man's narration.
Not to mention anything else, just when he heard that the old man had lived to be 109 years old, which seemed to be impossible to exist in the wasteland world, Shen Sen knew that the old man probably knew more than he imagined.
The combined time of his two lives is not even half the length of his family, which is simply a living history book in this world.
The history of the world is similar in that the laws of the universe are always immutable, which creates an otherwise negligible probability that will eventually occur.
In the old man's story, Shen Sen was fortunate to appreciate some of the truths in this world.
The New Republic is not a planet similar to the Earth as Shen Sen imagined.
And in this world, the old man and his companions play the role of "invaders".
About seventy-six years ago, when the old man was only thirty-three years old, thanks to the development of biotechnology, this age could only be regarded as a junior in their group.
At that time, he had just been awakened from his dormancy chamber and saw what the planet looked like in the universe.
Blue and brown intertwined, with some green dotted with them, and countless small cyclones propelled the cloud bands to spin rapidly, creating a magnificent sight.
And just like that, they landed on the planet with the spaceship.
This was originally a nearly barren world, and the old man's memories of this world were only the harsh environment, the changeable climate, and the extremely dangerous beasts in the ocean, but it was rich in mineral resources.
Therefore, with their advanced STC production technology, in just a few years, they have established countless factories of all kinds to manufacture products, and tens of thousands of early childhood gene cultivation centers are used to breed offspring and train soldiers.
In less than forty years, their footsteps have spread all over the world, building a prosperous and powerful civilization.
But suddenly one day, the "Wind God and Rain God" climate control system they built on the outer edge of the planet to regulate the climate both failed.
And the cities they have built over the decades are like piles of sand, most of which have turned into grains of sand in an instant.
It's all so fast, so fast that they can't even react, so fast that they don't even know what's going on, everything for decades is going to be wiped out in an instant.
Except for a small number of people who were as lucky as him who were rushed to dormant warehouses tens of thousands of meters underground.
Most of the others died violently, and only a few could survive in a world that I didn't know what had become at that time.
And he, after decades of hibernation in the dormant chamber, walked out of the dormant chamber and wandered the wilderness and ruins with remorse and searching for answers to the source of the disaster.
In the end, I wandered all the way to Camp 1123, where I stayed for the longest time, about two years.
Speaking of which, the story has been roughly finished, even though there are many doubts and problems, Shen Sen still feels the reverberation and thrilling in it.
And the old man, unconsciously, had red eyes......