Global Evolution

“In fact, the growth rate of both animals and plants is fast. There should be an abundant food source,” Qing shui said as he looking at the city. “Without preservatives or other forms of storage like vacuum sealing and fridges, most foods will perish extremely quickly. Therefore, we need to go out every day to look for food.”

“That’s too dangerous!” Chang shook his head, “Even if Jing is helping, it’s still not a guarantee that we’ll be able to avoid danger.”

“But there’s no other way around it... Perhaps vacuum sealing could make food last a little longer, but it wouldn’t stop the growth of mold and bacteria. Speaking of which, we don’t even have the necessary equipment to vacuum seal food,” Qing shui rubbed his temple.

“Wasn’t there a chemical that stops bacterial growth?” Lin hadn’t spoke at all the entire time, but what she suggested had shocked everyone in the group. “Formalin... the chemical used to preserve corpses. Doesn’t it prevent the growth of microbes? Wouldn’t that solve the issue of spoiling and rotting food?”

“Formaldehyde?” Pangzi exclaimed, “Are you crazy? We’ll get poisoned!”

“It won’t be that bad as long as we dilute it to certain extent,” Qing shui surprisingly made no objections after he heard what Lin said. “Although it’s bad for your health, we can still try it. At least it’s a good preservative that can help us store food for a few days without rotting.”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Chang added, “It’s a bit too early to think of a way to preserve food without even having any food in hand. We’ll see how the military arranges us first.”

The group sunk into a brief silence as Chang spoke, and then they looked at each other and waited quietly where they stood.

After about three hours, the military finally informed all the residents in front of the base – it required great effort just to make a single announcement to more than 50,000 people in a world without radio transmissions and electricity.

The crowd was separated into two huge groups based on those who had chosen to stay and those who had chosen to go to Zhengzhou. Those who wished to stay were slowly brought into the base.

The base was huge and there were two or three empty hangars. Even though there were a large number of civilians staying here, there was still enough space for all of them to live there. Everyone walked orderly as if they were afraid of being left behind.

Soldiers on both sides of the thick line were fully armed. In the military, there were no signs of mutated animals of any kind, likely because they had already been eliminated immediately; the base looked safe.

After the long wait until sunset, all the civilians were placed into different zones.

For those who staying in the hangars, some moved to tents, some received clothes and some obtained blankets. Chang and his company were arranged in the soldier’s barracks in a small room with 4 bunk beds. The layout of the room looked like the student dormitory, but it was cleaner and simpler.

The arrangement wasn’t gender specific; people were placed in the base in families and parties like Chang’s. Therefore, the five of them stayed together. After all, in this environment no one wanted to be separated from loved ones and friends. In survival situations like this, gender became a negligible issue.

This room could normally fit 8 people, but there were currently 12 people in this room – except for Chang’s party, there were a family of three and a family of four.

The family of three seemed exceptionally vulnerable considering the state of the world. They consisted of a young woman and her parents that were nearly seventy years old.

However, the family of four seemed much more assertive; there were two brothers in their twenties who looked fierce, and their parents were about 50 years old, but looked energetic. This appearance of all four were unfriendly; the two brothers were wearing vests without shirts, showing off their heavily-built figure.

They occupied the best four beds in the room and were being completely unreasonable which irritated Chang a lot.

“Yo, buddy! We have 12 people in total and there are only 8 beds. It should be two beds for three people; you’ve already taken advantage of us by taking 3 beds. There’s no room for negotiation, you have to at least give up one bed.” Chang stepped forward as he said, “there are only 8 beds, no one is taking advantage of another!”

“Look at this angry little man!” The 2 brothers turned around from making their bed.

Qing shui and Pangzi also stood up as they saw the conflict.

The three young men on Chang’s side confronted the three other men from the other side. Both side were aggressive. Chang became less sympathetic as he had previously killed three men. Pangzi was the most thug-like person in the school dorm already, in addition to the fact that his mother was torn apart by a mysterious monster; he wouldn’t be afraid of any of the three men he faced.

As of Qing shui, though he was usually modest and humble, he wasn’t afraid of anyone right now.

Hence, both sides seemed evenly matched, and it seemed impossible to resolve the issue without a fight – both of them were simply acting in their own interests. More importantly, no one wanted to to injured in the battle.

After a few minutes, the mother of the brothers came over with fake smile on her face, trying to mediate the conflict.

“Well, everyone came for sheltering; it was fated for us to be assigned to the same room. It’s not beneficial for either of us if we fight. How about this...” the woman glanced at the other family as she talked, “We’ll give out a bed, you guys can have four since there are five of you. They can have one for their family. I think it’s fair this way.”

She smiled at the family and asked, “Am I right?”

The family of three didn’t say anything.

“See, they agreed. Let’s just forget about.” As she spoke, she pulled her husband and sons back.

This confrontation ended just like that – both sides flaunted their power to get what they wanted in this negotiation. It wasn’t a conflict or battle, so there was no winner. To be more accurate, both parties were winners, and the weak third party was sacrificed.

The law of jungle applied everywhere, especially in the current situation.