Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 124 Hot Soup

Wang Xiao was idly fiddling with the rough seal on the burlap sack when he heard this. He didn't even look up, just shook his head dismissively, then patted the still bulging burlap sack next to him, filled with their remaining oranges. His tone was one of nonchalant "Why bother?" "Hey! Why bother looking for water? It's too much trouble! Running around like this, we don't know anyone here, who knows where's clean and where's dirty? We still have so many oranges!"

He picked up an orange and weighed it in his hand, as if demonstrating a perfect solution. "Look, isn't this great! It quenches thirst, staves off hunger a little, and most importantly, it's juicy! Break it open, take a bite, and the juice bursts out of your mouth—it's even more refreshing than drinking water! We can eat oranges all the way here; we won't have to worry about not having enough moisture to soothe our throats. There's no need to bother looking for any!"

He clearly thought that using readily available, sweet, and juicy oranges to solve the problem of dry mouth was a convenient and enjoyable idea, and he couldn't understand why Xu Xiaoyan wanted to find another source of water.

After hearing his words, Xu Xiaoyan subconsciously touched the round fruits in the sack and felt that Wang Xiao's words did make some sense. But then she thought that it was still early and there was still a whole night before the troops set off at six o'clock the next morning. If they could find a relatively clean and reliable water source, they could try to start a fire and boil some hot water at night!

Once the thought arises, it carries an irresistible allure. Just imagine sitting around a small campfire on a chilly night, brewing something with boiling water, or, to be even more extravagant, cooking a small pot of steaming, fragrant soup with the winter bamboo shoots and sausages you just got today!

For them, who had been huddled in the cold, bumpy military vehicles for days, only able to eat dry, hard, and throat-scratching cold pancakes, their stomachs almost frozen, that was an unimaginable delicacy and the ultimate spiritual comfort! The warmth and satisfaction brought by that bowl of hot soup was far beyond what a few icy oranges could provide.

"That's true, oranges do quench thirst," Xu Xiaoyan said, adjusting the straps of her backpack as she stood up. "But if we can find clean water, even just a little bit, we can try to cook something hot tonight, even if it's just boiling some water to warm ourselves up or making a simple soup. It's a hundred times better than eating these tooth-crushing biscuits with ice-cold oranges. I'll go take another look around the neighborhood and see if I can find a water source. Anyway, we're just killing time."

She looked at Wang Xiao, who was still sitting on the sack, seemingly nonchalant, and earnestly instructed him, "You stay here and keep a close eye on our luggage, especially these sausages and bamboo shoots we just got today, as well as the remaining oranges and biscuits. There are a lot of people around here, and someone might try something funny. We don't want anyone to steal anything." She knew that although Wang Xiao could be a bit eccentric at times, he was reliable in crucial moments.

Wang Xiao wanted to argue further, but upon hearing the words "hot soup," his long-dormant cravings seemed to awaken instantly, and his eyes lit up. He immediately sat up straight, his lazy expression vanishing, and patted his chest vigorously, confidently assuring everyone, "No problem! Xiao Yan, you can rest assured! Finding water is important! Leave this to me, absolutely no mistakes! The food is here! I guarantee not a single bamboo shoot or sausage skin will be missing!"

He even deliberately pulled several sacks and backpacks filled with food closer to himself, half-blocking them with his body, adopting a guarded stance that said, "If you want to touch these things, you'll have to step over me first."

Seeing his reaction, Xu Xiaoyan smiled and quickly disappeared from the perimeter of the base, deliberately heading towards an uninhabited area.

This place seemed like a forgotten corner, with all sorts of household garbage and waste piled up haphazardly, emitting a nauseating stench of rotting organic matter, human sweat, and excrement.

She tensed up, focusing her search on areas that appeared to be low-lying or where the vegetation in the distance looked relatively lush and green—a basic common sense she had learned from books or documentaries about finding water in the wild.

She walked on the land full of gravel and garbage, her eyes scanning every possible place where water might accumulate—puddles in low-lying areas, near broken water pipes, and even the soil moisture around the roots of large plants.

Time passed by, and after walking for about twenty minutes, she gradually approached the outer edge of the base's barbed wire fence. However, all she could see was dry, cracked land and stubborn weeds. Occasionally, she would see a small puddle, but it was murky, full of mosquito larvae, and completely unusable.

Just as she was about to give up the futile search, a very faint "gurgling" sound, almost drowned out by the wind, reached her highly focused ears.

It's the sound of flowing water!

She perked up and immediately stopped, listening intently. The sound was faint and intermittent, but it was definitely there! Following the direction from which the sound came, she carefully walked around a pile of construction debris made of broken bricks and rotten wood, and pushed aside a clump of thorny weeds that were almost as tall as a person. Suddenly, the view opened up before her.

However, hope instantly turned into greater disappointment. It was a narrow and dirty drainage ditch, almost half-covered by dense weeds and various plastic waste. The water flow was very weak, and its color was an unhealthy grayish-brown. Some rotten leaves, bloated unidentified debris, and white foam floated on the surface. The ditch walls were slippery, covered with moss, and emitted a faint fishy and rotten smell.

This water was so polluted that it was unthinkable to even use for washing, let alone drink. It was clearly contaminated by a mixture of sewage and rainwater from the base, making it completely undrinkable. Xu Xiaoyan looked at the filthy ditch and sighed deeply, her last shred of hope shattered.

She quickly surveyed her surroundings to make sure no one was around, then took out three 500ml bottles of mineral water from her spatial storage and put them into her backpack.

After finishing, she quickly returned along the same route. When she got back to the military vehicle, Xie Yingtang had already returned and was squatting in the carriage with Wang Xiao, counting the large pile of various kinds of cakes that they had exchanged for oranges, but which all looked dry and rough.

"Brother Xie, you're back!" Xu Xiaoyan greeted him while casually taking off her backpack and taking out the three bottles of mineral water, showing them off as "the ones I traded with someone."

Wang Xiao immediately came over, picked up a bottle of water, weighed it in his hand, and his face lit up with joy. "Great! You're really something, Xiao Yan! Now we'll have hot water to drink tonight!"

Wang Xiao took the initiative to run to the edge of the area near the vehicle, picked up a lot of dry branches and fallen leaves, and piled them in a sheltered and relatively hidden corner next to the carriage.

Xie Yingtang then used several appropriately sized stones scattered around to quickly and skillfully build a simple yet sturdy stove, which could both support the pots and effectively block the wind.

Xu Xiaoyan took out the stainless steel pot from her backpack, wiped it with a clean cloth, and placed it on the stone stove that Xie Yingtang had set up.

She opened a bottle of mineral water and poured the cool drinking water into the pot with a "glug glug" sound. The water level gradually rose, and Wang Xiao couldn't wait to use the dry grass and twigs she had picked up to start a fire. The orange-red flames licked the bottom of the pot and made a soft "crackling" sound.

The water, heated by the flame, quickly began to bubble and then boil, making a pleasant "gurgling" sound. White steam rose in wisps, carrying a pure, watery aroma.

While the water was boiling, Xu Xiaoyan deftly peeled the muddy outer shell off the winter bamboo shoots, revealing the tender yellow flesh inside, and sliced ​​them thinly with her small knife. She then took out a sausage and sliced ​​it into thin, red and white pieces as well. Once the water boiled, she put the bamboo shoot slices and sausage slices into the boiling water one after another.

Almost instantly, an indescribable aroma, a blend of the unique sweetness of fresh winter bamboo shoots and the rich, savory meaty fragrance of heated sausage, quickly spread around the carriage with the rising steam!

Wang Xiao took a deep sniff, his eyes fixed on the small pot, and murmured, "It smells so good! It really smells so good! It feels like... it feels like it's been such a long, long time since I've smelled such a proper, decent food aroma..." His tone was tinged with an almost emotional sigh. Even the usually composed Xie Yingtang couldn't help but glance at the bubbling soup pot a few more times, his Adam's apple bobbing almost imperceptibly.

Once a layer of tempting oil floated on the surface of the soup, Xu Xiaoyan signaled that it was ready. The three of them, ignoring the heat, took out their own lunchboxes and squatted around the small stove. Wang Xiao had already impatiently broken the hard, dry flatbread into small pieces and soaked them in the boiling soup.

The dry biscuits, which were originally hard to swallow, softened and expanded at a visible speed after absorbing the hot soup full of fresh bamboo shoots and meat. They became soft and flavorful in the mouth, no longer rough and harsh. The combination of the crispness of the bamboo shoots and the saltiness of the sausage made them unexpectedly delicious!

A mouthful of piping hot, fragrant soup slid down my esophagus into my stomach, soothing my stomach and intestines, which had been exhausted and almost cramping from days of bumpy travel and cold food.

"Thank goodness... thank goodness Xiao Yan insisted on changing the water..." Wang Xiao exhaled a long breath filled with the aroma of food, his face beaming with a happy, simple smile. He mumbled, "This hot soup... it's... it's saved my life..." He felt every pore on his body open up. Xie Yingtang didn't speak, but he nodded slightly, his eyes showing the same satisfaction.

The next morning, just as dawn was breaking, the troops sounded the whistle to assemble and depart on time. The massive convoy slowly started moving and drove away from the temporary base.

During the day, amidst the constant roar of the engines and the rhythmic swaying of the vehicles, they tried to catch up on sleep and rest to conserve their energy; when the convoy stopped for the night in the evening, they would venture deep into the nearby mountains or fields to search for any edible food.

The days, under this peculiar rhythm, somehow developed a strange, tense regularity and a certain degree of... "comfort"? This state continued until the evening of the seventh day.

At six o'clock in the evening, the convoy slowly stopped in an area backed by continuous mountains and forests, as usual. As soon as the engine stopped, Xu Xiaoyan, Xie Yingtang and Wang Xiao tacitly picked up the backpacks that they had prepared during the journey and jumped out of the car one after another.

In fact, thanks to the large amount of dried biscuits and other grains they obtained by trading oranges at the first survivor base, even if they "lay flat" for the rest of the journey and did not conduct any additional searches, their food reserves would be more than enough to reach the final destination, Linchuan.

However, the three of them knew the principle of "sitting idle and eating away one's fortune." As the rumored largest and most stable survivor base in the country, Linchuan's internal situation was completely unknown, and the competition was bound to be fierce.

Upon arrival, unfamiliar with the place and its people, how can one acquire a relatively safe place to live without sufficient, readily available "hard currency" as start-up capital? How can one obtain crucial inside information and intelligence? And how can one exchange for medicine or other scarce resources? Relying solely on the remaining scraps is far from enough.

"With food in hand, we have nothing to fear," Xie Yingtang said during a break, which reflected the consensus of the three. "While we are following the army now, the route is relatively safe, and we can find some resources along the way. The more we stockpile, the better. When we reach Linchuan, our starting point will be higher."

Therefore, they agreed that as long as the external environment is not extreme weather, this unwavering "foraging" operation must continue on nights when the convoy is parked.

Tonight, they chose a relatively gentle, densely vegetated hill next to the convoy's rest stop as their starting point. Pushing aside the waist-high weeds covered in night dew and the low, thorny bushes along the way, the three of them, relying on their previous experience and tacit understanding, carefully began their ascent in a dispersed yet coordinated formation.

The hillside wasn't steep, but the recent autumn rains had made the ground somewhat slippery and muddy. It felt soft and slippery underfoot, and one had to be extra careful.

It took them about half an hour to climb to the top of the mountain, panting slightly. From there, the view opened up, allowing them to overlook the scattered lights of the convoy below and a deep, mysterious valley in the twilight further on.

Xu Xiaoyan habitually took out the children's binoculars from the side pocket of her backpack, adjusted her posture, and began to carefully scan the other side of the hill. Her gaze swept over the dark green tree canopy outlines nearby and turned to the blurry mountain shadows and lower-lying areas in the distance.

Suddenly, she stopped moving, and the focus of the telescope locked onto a relatively open, low-lying area between two mountains.

There, under the dimming, remaining light of the sky, a faint, fragmented glow, different from that of the soil and vegetation, was reflected—the glow of water!

"Over there..." she said softly, her voice carrying a hint of barely perceptible excitement, as she adjusted the limited focus of the children's binoculars, trying to see more clearly. "It looks like... a pond? Or a rather large puddle."

Upon hearing this, Wang Xiao and Xie Yingtang, who had been keeping a close watch nearby, immediately moved closer. Following the direction she was pointing, they squinted and strained to see. Despite the hazy twilight and the distance, they could only barely make out that the area appeared to be a darker color and its outline was different from the surrounding dry land, suggesting the presence of water.

Xu Xiaoyan continued to hold up her binoculars, trying to discern more detailed features. "On the edge of the pond, in the shallow water near the shore, there are many... long, slender plants with pointed leaves, lush and green, growing quite tall, densely packed together..." She searched her vocabulary to describe the plant shapes she saw. "Also, on the surface of the pond, there seems to be a layer of... green stuff, thin, moving with the ripples, like... duckweed? Or some other kind of algae? It's too far away, and the binoculars aren't magnified enough, so I can't see clearly what it is." Her tone carried a hint of uncertainty and inquiry.

"Duckweed?" Upon hearing this, Wang Xiao stroked his chin, trying to recall his meager knowledge of the wild. "The presence of duckweed means the water quality might not be too bad? At least it's not stagnant water?" he guessed, with a hint of optimism. "What are those long, pointed-leaved things...? Ordinary aquatic plants? Or... reeds?"