Text Section 1 Hunger

(Update time: 2006-7-1221:09:00 Number of words in this chapter: 5036)

"Brother! I'm hungry! I'm so hungry!" A female voice who was obviously crying after being suppressed slowly floated out of the dark and damp crypt, and penetrated into Tianxiang's ears faintly but clearly.

Without looking back, Tianxiang knew that it was his sister. Although there must be some survivors like him in the corner of this abandoned city, as far as the narrow refuge is currently living in this narrow refuge, only him and his sister can be accommodated.

"Be good at Tianrou! Be patient, just a little while, it will be dawn. At that time, my brother will go out to find you something to eat, okay?" Tianxiang used his unclean little hand to gently stroke his sister Tianrou who was lying on his arms and sobbing softly. He couldn't help but curse the damn sun in his heart: Why can't it come out earlier? The relationship between the energy consumption in his body is always proportional to the time. Every time he stays here for one more minute, his physical energy will become weaker. Tianxiang really doesn't know whether his body can last until the moment the sun appears again.

The last time the sun appeared had already passed seventy-eight hours and six minutes. This is the number displayed on the timer on Tianxiang's wrist with a slightly red reading. According to this data, it will take at least twenty hours more than twenty hours from now on to the full appearance of the sun. Tianxiang knew very well that as long as there was sunlight, the large insects and beasts who liked to live in dark environments would have to obediently hide back into their nests. The remaining little bugs who could withstand the strong sunlight would naturally become the best targets for their own hunting.

Although, the number of this type of insect is not large.

The last time he hunted, Tianxiang didn't get much. It can even be said that there was no harvest at all. In a limited time, he ran all the nearby places where insects might appear, but only found the short limb of a pointed footworm the size of a palm. Except for the sour and smelly rotten meat in the center of the thing that barely could eat, the other surrounding cuticles were so hard that they could not even pry the steel chisel.

Despite this, Tianxiang carefully took out all the rotten meat and roasted it, swallowed his saliva and handed it to his sister, staring at Tianrou with a hungry ghost-like look as if he was enjoying a delicious meal, swallowing the small piece of rotten meat that was disgusting and pungent and smelly into his stomach without leaving any left.

As for himself, he had the idea of ​​the tip of the horny limb. Fire, something that can bring warmth to people, has also become the most useful food processor at Tianxiang's hand. After burying the embers of the fire for more than ten hours, Tianxiang finally happily discovered that the originally hard horny limbs have now shown signs of brittleness. However, for the teeth, their existence is still a little too hard.

With a steel chisel, smash it with an iron hammer, and cut it with a knife... After a series of crazy violent activities, Tianxiang saw with satisfaction: the hard limb tip of this insect, which was not very large, had completely turned into dozens of pieces. Without any extra hesitation, Tianxiang couldn't wait to grab one of the pieces with his hands and hurriedly stuffed them into his mouth. Without any chewing, he swallowed the hard object with a burnt smell and smeared it.

The meat has been eaten by my sister. If I don’t get something to eat, I’m afraid I won’t have the energy to go out to hunt until the next sunrise. In that case, both of them will die.

Therefore, although the carapace didn't taste very good, Tianxiang forced himself to swallow everything without leaving any left. Even the powder scattered on the ground was not spared. At this time, as long as you have a little more physical strength, it means you will have a little more confidence in your future survival. After all, it is extremely difficult to find some precious food on the earth, a ragged planet.

But now, Tianrou's crying and her physical condition made Tianxiang feel that he might not be able to wait until the sun appears again.

More than half an hour ago, Tianxiang had already felt an abnormality in his body. He was trembling, a trembling inexplicable situation. Tianxiang is not unfamiliar with this situation. This is a sign of rapid physical loss in extreme hunger. Of course, it is quite simple to eliminate such tremors - just eat something nutritious.

However, in this crypt where only enough for the brother and sister to live, there is no other thing to be called food except water.

"I have to go out and try my luck and get something to eat." This is the idea that has been hovering in Tianxiang's mind since half an hour ago. However, the fear of large insects and beasts was like a heavy steel ingot, pressing tightly on the desire for food.

Tianrou's faint sob sounded again, and Tianxiang felt that she was going crazy. Her sister was still young, she was only four years old. The continuous hunger of more than seventy hours was definitely not a terrible attack that a small piece of carrion could withstand. What's more, she had never eaten anything except water for almost the same period of time. It can be imagined that the piece of meat was digested at a crazy speed in Tianrou's stomach. Not to mention a child, even an adult could not keep his clear mind in the face of such cold hunger.

"Food! I need food!" Tianxiang endured the angina pectoris from the empty stomach. After carefully wiping away the dirt formed by the black mud and tears in the corner of Tianrou's eyes with his trembling hands, he gently explained to his sister a few things that must be paid attention to before going out for hunting. Looking at Tianrou's slightly sensible little head, he took up his pile of equipment, and slowly drilled out of the narrow entrance of the crypt with fatigue and hunger on his face.

More than one mile away from here is a small square, which is not only a public place where people held various activities in the city in the past, but also the best place for various insects to forage nowadays. Although insects demand for sweet plant rhizomes far exceeds their growth rate, it also leads to a large number of plants inevitably becoming the delicacies they talk about during the reproduction of insects. However, even the tenderest grass will once again rejuvenate its new vitality from the dark soil after being completely gnawed by insects.

There are many plants near the square. From some yellow and rotten books, Tianxiang knew that these plants were originally a means used by ancient people to beautify the city, which seemed to be called "greening".

However, these things have no meaning to Tianxiang at all. He only knew that there were plants and there were herbivorous bugs. Compared with those carnivorous bugs that were powerful and terrifyingly powerful, these guys who only make a living by grass leaves were much more cute.

The road of more than one mile is not far for a normal person, but Tianxiang, who was extremely weak, walked for nearly half an hour. Rather than walking, it is more like dragging. He had to carry two steel spears more than one meter long on his body, and a knife made of strips of iron and wrapped in strips of cloth at the bottom of the handshake. These things actually don’t have much weight, but for a person who has been in a state of malnutrition and hunger for a long time, it is undoubtedly as heavy as a mountain.

It is absolutely impossible to abandon them. Without these things, even if you face a herbivorous insect with a gentle temperament, Tianxiang would not be able to kill it, let alone tear open the thick insect skin and eat the meat inside.

Luck is a very subtle thing. It often comes to you with the coldest and most indifferent expressions when you are most unintentional, making it impossible for you to discover it. Then, when you hide in the dark, laugh at you, tease you, and just can catch a little trace of the corner of your clothes, and want to hug him in surprise, but with the sarcastic look of being tired of playing, he laughed, ruthlessly pulled away the corner of your clothes from your hands, and turned away disdainfully.

It should be said that Tianxiang was very lucky. When he was lucky that this cute and damn guy just slipped over to tease him, he had already grabbed its neck hard and trapped it firmly with an iron chain.

It was a broken waste wall on the side of the road. The exposed bricks and gravel and peeling dry cement were scattered silently around. The steel bars curved from the large bricks and stone solids extended like insects' disgusting legs, extending from all directions to the sky and the ground. A huge ruin of the building was crooked, lying quietly like an old man who could not bear the abuse of time. Only some scattered glass was mixed in dust and soil, and emitted some pitiful glimmers in the floral fire.

"There is something here, yes, it's definitely a living thing." Tianxiang, who was hungry, felt that his ability and vision were quite sharp. Just as he had just walked through the ruins a few seconds ago, his left eye was completely unexpectedly scanning a slight movement on the side of the road - a piece of broken cement, moving without any warning. Just this little bit of eye-notice immediately fell into Tianxiang's eyes.

"A lifeless object will never change its inherent location for its own reasons. If this type of thing shows signs of movement, it must be because other objects with energy force them to change their current situation." This is one of the laws that Tianxiang has always kept in mind when hunting.

"Getting insects! That's right, there must be a getting insect here!" Tianxiang, who was quietly leaning down, carefully observed everything near the ruins. From the clusters of burnt yellow solids scattered around, he could easily tell that it was the feces of herbivorous insects. And a few strange footprints that fell heavily between the dust also made him effortlessly judge that this was a getting insect. And with a pair of eyes that had been trained in the dark world for a long time, he could clearly see: under the cement piece that was buckled on the ruins, several restless black and yellow insect limbs were slowly twisting back and forth. On the top of these huge limbs, a round insect body with feet and half a human height was supported.

If it were normal, Tianxiang would not hesitate to throw out the steel spear in his hand and pierce the weed worm. The meat tastes very beautiful, and compared to other insects, the edible part also accounts for more than 90%. More importantly, the surface of its body does not have a hard shell like other insects. Tianxiang still remembers that the weed worm he hunted a few months ago, just inserted it with a steel spear, and a stream of green water emitting a fishy smell suddenly flowed out of its fat belly...

Even if it was such a weak insect, Tianxiang had no extra strength to kill it at this time. Although the body of the worm is quite soft, it is also extremely large. Once it is hurt, they will immediately become quite crazy with a gentle temperament. Tianxiang once saw with his own eyes: a hunter of the same age as him, after seriously injured a worm, was bitten off his legs by the big mouth that relied on eating plants. The hunter himself had no ability to escape at all, and watched the worm that was supposed to be his prey rushing to his body angrily, and then his fragile throat was bitten off.

Tianxiang's goal for this trip was a weak insect called "aphids". This type of insect is only 20 cm long, and it feeds on grass and is equally gentle and hunts very easily. The most important thing is that Tianxiang knows: in that small square, although the number of aphids is not large, it has never disappeared. This is also one of the food sources he and his sister have been there for many days.

But today's situation is obviously different from the past. Tianxiang is not sure whether he can find an aphid successfully this time. After all, this kind of insect likes the sun and almost never comes out to move in the darkness. In contrast, the red insect that is almost as weak as it can pose a certain threat to hunters seems to be the best choice.

More importantly, this is still a worm that is giving birth.

Observation is an important means of survival that Tianxiang carefully realized from the battles of fighting the lives of insects. If he can accurately distinguish the types of insects and their living habits in a hunting process, then there will be most likely to be successful hunting. After all, understanding the opponent is sometimes more useful than the sharpest steel spear.

Undoubtedly, this worm is giving birth. Tianxiang can reach a complete conclusion from the fact that it has been hidden under the cement fragments without hiding from its arrival.

"Kill it, this is his best prey at present." This thought flashed through Tianxiang's mind. A grass worm is much bigger than an aphid, enough for him and his sister to eat for a long time. In other words, he can also have the same amount of time without having to take risks. What's more, the bugs in childbirth are generally weaker than normal times.

"Swoosh!" Wuxia thought about it, a sharp steel spear flew out of Tianxiang's hand, flashing a beautiful flight trajectory in the fluorescent light, and one end was heavily stuck on the virtual cement fragments. The front part was completely destroyed in the position where the grass insects were gnawing in the center of the ruins. After hearing the "website", Tianxiang saw that from the hole where the steel spear was inserted, a dark green smelly liquid gushed out like a fountain.

This throw almost exhausted all the strength in Tianxiang's body, and the purpose was to penetrate the steel spear through the body of the worm and nail it to the ground. He calculated that as long as this throw was successful, the mother worm in childbirth would not be able to move at all, and he only needed to recover a little, and he could easily go forward and cut off the most threatening head of the mother worm with a knife and harvest his own prey.

The flying steel spear had obviously completed its mission. Tianxiang happily saw from the gaps of the cement fragments that were dropped by the impact: a chubby grass-biting mother insect was desperately twisting its body that was nailed to the ground by the steel spear. It could not move, even raised its head and used its fragile herbivorous mouthpiece to attack the hard spear body, trying to nibble the inexplicable attacker. However, the result of the fight was that the short row of teeth fragments on the mouthpiece fell one after another, and the damage suffered by the steel spear itself.

It was just a thin layer of rust being gnawed off. The violent movement accelerated the passage of the life of the mother insect. After a few minutes, the twisting of the insect body was no longer as flexible as before. The mother insect, wrapped in green liquid and soil, completely gave up its resistance to the imprisoner, and its head with huge compound eyes was tilted weakly and weakly. Only the nerves that had not yet completely lost their function were still faithfully fulfilling their last duties, directing the insect limbs to make useless movements.

Since Tianxiang threw the steel spear with all his might, he had completely collapsed to the ground, and he had not recovered for a long time. The desperate attack had consumed almost all his physical energy in his body, causing him to stagger. With the huge inertia after throwing the steel spear, he fell to the ground and could no longer get up.

Section 2 of the text

(Update time: 2006-7-1221:13:00 Number of words in this chapter: 5015)

"If the weakest carnivorous worm appears at this time, I'm afraid he can drag me back to its nest and enjoy it slowly, right?" Tianxiang lay weakly on the wet ground and thought to himself, and he didn't dare to relax the other steel spear that he was holding tightly. He needed to recover, and a brief recovery. As long as he had a little strength, he could slowly drag the rich prey back to the crypt and have a beautiful meal with Tianrou.

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Fortunately, no other creatures appear, which is a very rare phenomenon in the dark world without the sun. You should know that no matter how little wounds appear in any animal or human body, the scent of blood that gushes out will immediately attract carnivorous insects who are very sensitive to the smell of blood. Of course, even if the injured are of the same race as the bugs, these crazy predators will not miss the opportunity to fill their stomachs with similar corpses.

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Therefore, you must not stay here for too long. Only by returning to the crypt where you are hiding as soon as possible and slowly washing away the liquid from the insect corpse with clean water can you cover up the dissipation of the bloody smell in the air. In this way, although your physical strength has not recovered much, Tianxiang still forced himself to climb up from the ground with a steel spear, and slowly moved step by step to the corpse that gnawed the grass insects had long stopped moving.

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Hungry! I'm so hungry! The colic from the stomach and the thunderous sound in the abdomen are reminding Tianxiang and their most urgent needs at all like two life-seeking ghosts who don't know how to satisfy them. Tianxiang himself has no choice but to eat anything without food? He can't cut off the meat on his body to meet the needs of the stomach bag? Of course, eating raw insect meat is also a very good choice. However, according to past experience, all insects that are not red blood cannot be eaten raw without being cleaned. Although other blood-colored insect corpse meat is not waiting and poisonous, the consequences of eating randomly are also quite serious. This situation often occurs among hunters: a very hungry person can't help but swallow the blood from the wound when his prey just fell down, which eventually leads to inexplicable death.

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Tianxiang is not stupid. Although he is extremely hungry, he is still unwilling to exchange his life for a chance to fill his stomach immediately. What's more, there is a weak sister in the crypt waiting for him to go back. Therefore, although the sour water swells up in the stomach, cleaning the entire esophagus without any obstacles. Tianxiang still forced himself to suppress the crazy idea of ​​holding the insect corpse and swallowing it little by little, be careful to get the huge insect corpse on the ground, and slowly patrol his prey.

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However, his luck was really good today. When Tianxiang staggered slowly to the insect corpse, and struggled to lift the cement fragments covering it, he unexpectedly discovered what he needed most at the moment.

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Insect eggs! Two fists are as big as yellow and tender as insect eggs.

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"Eggs are delicious, supreme delicacies!" This is a classic word of emotion that is circulated in the mouths of survivors on Earth. According to those who are lucky enough to taste the eggs, that supreme delicacy is comparable to that of bird eggs that once reproduced in large quantities on Earth hundreds of years ago. Therefore, hunting a female worm that is laying eggs is a lucky thing that any hunter hopes to obtain. This means that all the eggs in the belly of the obese female worm are left for themselves to enjoy. Because the nutritional value of this thing is far beyond the insect meat itself. On the earth where food and strength are everything, obtaining an egg means that there will be a long time when you don't have to fight the terrifying insects for a long time.

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Without any thought, Tianxiang rushed to the ground almost as fast as a flying insect, hurriedly picked up two hard-earned insect eggs and stuffed them into his mouth. They didn't care about the amount of mucus on the surface, and they also brought a lot of dirty soil into their stomach bags. The rude and crazy eating style, I'm afraid even the most fierce sickle beetle would feel chilled when they saw it.

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As soon as the insect eggs got a stomachache, the stomach bags with the sour rolling acid immediately transferred the object he was ravaged. Only then did Tianxiang get a temporary relief from the painful hunger. The most important thing was that the physical energy brought by it was quickly recovered. He happily discovered that as the slightly sweet egg fluid entered, his tired body seemed to have regained new vitality. The long-lost power returned to him bit by bit.

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"We can't stay here for a long time, we must leave immediately." Tian Xiangxuan, who had become much clearer, stood up from the ground, grabbed the long handle of the steel spear tightly inserted into the soil under the insect corpse, and turned it hard. He pulled it out suddenly, and the sharp spearhead suddenly abandoned the tight constraints of the soil and appeared happily in the air with almost no light.

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It is actually just a thick steel bar with sharp tips at the front. Tianxiang has six such weapons, two long and four short. The life of turtle huddling in the crypt is lonely and meaningless. If it weren't for the monotonous grinding of steel bars and the company of his sister to pass the time, Tianxiang suspected that he would have become a brainless zombie who only knows to hunt insects to satisfy his desire for mouth and stomach. After all, living without hope is no different from a living dead person.

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Two flipped steel spears were carried obliquely on their shoulders, and the fat body of the insects was tightly inserted at the tip of the spear. Compared to when they came, Tianxiang, who had recovered some of his physical strength, took a very fast step. The saying "Man is iron, and rice is steel" seems to be quite accurate from ancient books. In less than five minutes, Tianxiang, who had returned with a full load, had already returned to a steel wreck not far from the crypt.

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"This is a car." Every time I come back from out, Tianxiang will involuntarily stop his foot in front of this pile of strange-shaped steel. There are several tall iron cabinets in the crypt where he is hiding, and Tianxiang has also found many useful things inside. A small learning machine that relies on solar energy has become his and his sister's favorite. With the simple words taught by his father during his lifetime, Tianxiang has learned how to use this scrapped machine. It is precisely because of the existence of this thing that he can gain an understanding of certain antiquities from the well-preserved ancient books in the cabinet. Cars are the ones that Tianxiang is most interested in.

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However, Tianxiang has no time to look at this skeleton-shaped "car". Tianrou is starving, the insect corpse is smelling blood, and everything is waiting for him to return to the crypt as soon as possible.

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The rich harvest brought back by the brother made Tianrou very excited, and the few intact insect eggs that Tianxiang took out from the cut-out worm belly also made Tianrou, who had been tortured by hunger for a long time, smiled happily. The child's psychology is actually very simple. In Tianrou's opinion, his brother is his protector, his elder brother who loves his most, or a supervisor who can provide his own warmth and food. He really has no reason to leave his brother. In this way, Tianrou, who carefully sucked the tender yellow worm eggs in his hand, suddenly flashed with a pair of beautiful big eyes, and looked happily at his brother using the accumulated water deep in the crypt, cleaned the fat insect corpse, peeled it bit by bit, cleared the internal organs, and then carefully removed the tender flesh from the limbs and the insect body. He passed through it with a few hard steel waste materials, and finally put it on a pile of strong fire lit with wood, and slowly roasted it.

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After a while, the entire crypt was filled with an exciting aroma of barbecue. Tianxiang, who was smiling, also cut off a piece of white tender insect meat with oil bubbles from a rack full of insect meat. He then went into an open iron can at hand, picked out a wisp of white salt, gently scattered on the barbecue, carefully approached his mouth and blew it, and after confirming that the temperature was no longer hot, he handed it to Tianrou with a smile.

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The brother and sister who hadn't seen food for a long time were only now, so they could get a chance to have a full meal. Compared with other insect meat, the taste of chewing grass and insects was indeed delicious. Especially the tender white and soft meat taken from the waist and abdomen was covered with a thick layer of oil. After roasting it, it was soaked in the meat. Although the seasoning was only necessary, the sweet taste of the brother and sister made it feel extremely refreshing. Needless to say, Tianrou, who had been hungry for a few days, even Tianxiang, who had always been restrained in the consumption, chewed the six insect limbs that didn't have much meat in just a few minutes. Then he satisfied his lips with oil stains. After explaining Tianrou's old words, he picked up two hard steel spears again and drilled out of the crypt.

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The sun has revealed its long-lost red face, and now is the best time to hunt. Once you miss it, you have to wait for another hundred hours. Although you have already got a fat worm, such good things will not be delivered to your door every day. Only by seizing every opportunity and getting more food can you ensure your future life needs and Tianrou. Therefore, such opportunities must not be missed.

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Maybe it was because good luck continued to follow! Today's hunting results were unexpectedly good. More than an hour later, Tianxiang, who returned to the crypt, hung five chubby aphids. These things, plus the delicious grass-bearing insect, were enough for the brother and sister to eat until the fourth sun day. With the fixed hunting time between them, Tianxiang believed that at least, there would be no food storage like today. There was water and food here, and he could maintain sufficient physical strength. As long as there was no accident, he would wait for Tianrou to grow up.

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Hunger is the most difficult enemy that humans can deal with and the easiest enemy to satisfy. Once the enemy's requirements are met, human desires will immediately shift to other aspects. The same is true for Tianxiang. After two consecutive sun days, he also obtained the same rich prey and ensured sufficient food supply, his thinking scope returned to the yellowed books in the iron cabinet.

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The knowledge of the ancients has always been the thing that Tianxiang is most interested in. Although he has never seen most of the objects, Tianxiang still draws some concepts of ancient people from the descriptions in the book. Among them, except for the weird objects such as TVs or cars that can automatically show stories and carry people to move, what makes Tianxiang most excited are the things called "guns".
To be continued...