From morning to noon, Li Zhen felt that his stomach was shrunken. Perhaps because of the summer earthquake, it was hard to see even a rabbit in the nearby mountains. He had originally hoped to get some wild fruits in the forest to eat, but he knew that the nearby mountains were all private forest farms, and there were ponytail pine on the mountain.

After growing meat all night at night, he felt that he was getting weaker and weaker. If he couldn't see anyone for a few more hours, he might not be sure to starve to death here.

Or... he couldn't starve to death, and could only wait motionlessly for some small animal to pass by. He reached out to grab it, and then...

He immediately stopped this idea.

He didn't want to recall the days in the grave at all.

Fortunately, there was no way out. After walking for another two hours, a corner of the house finally appeared at the foot of the mountain. He quickly accelerated his pace and turned the hillside, and what was revealed in front of him was a village.

It took half an hour to go down the mountain along the rugged road. When he walked to the convenience store at the entrance of the village, his face was covered in dust.

The convenience store was quite lively at this time. Three rural men were sitting on small stools against the wall smoking cigarettes and squinting their eyes. They didn't know what to talk about. Two hens were digging on the ground, and the dust was flying in the autumn afternoon sun.

As soon as Li Zhen appeared, the sharp-eyed one noticed it. He immediately stood up and looked over vigilantly.

It was not that the folk customs were cold, but that Li Zhen was dressed in rags at this time, and there were black blood stains on it, which looked quite scary. But when the man saw that he was just a teenager, he relaxed a lot and looked at Li Zhen slowly walking over suspiciously.

The four of them looked at each other for a while, and then Li Zhen whispered: "...I want to ask, where will Pingyang go?"

The three men looked at each other, and the person in the middle who was wearing a gray cardigan responded: "Who are you? How did you cause this? - Oh my god, where did you get so much blood on your body?"

Seeing the blood stains on Li Zhen's body, the three men couldn't sit still. The person who was speaking strode over and pulled his clothes and looked at it, then pulled his arm: "Go into the house - why did you make it like this?"

This man is in his forties, with a big waist and a round waist, and looks very similar to his father. Li Zhen felt a little more intimate in his heart, so he let him pull himself in. Then he heard two other people whisper behind him: "I heard that the accent is not ours..."

"I'm..." Li Zhen entered the small hut. The first thing he saw was a row of food on the counter. He couldn't help swallowing, and then he said the words he had prepared before, "I went to the north to play in summer, but I came out after the earthquake."

Of course, this statement cannot stand scrutiny. However, for his embarrassed look, it can be considered a reasonable explanation - not to mention that they didn't want to dig into the bottom line.

The man noticed his eyes and immediately brought two bags of bread and a bottle of mineral water and handed it to him: "You have just arrived here? Where is your house? In Pingyang? I have a phone call, do you want to make a call?"

Li Zhen was stunned for a moment with half of the bread, and then said, "Yes, I want to call, please, I have to call home!"

The man looked like he was crazy, and repeatedly confirmed that there was no injury in his head or body, so he handed his phone to him. Li Zhen took the phone and trembled and pressed it three times before dialing his father's phone number right, and then pressed it tightly in his ear.

However, a second later, the sound from the receiver was: "The user you called cannot be connected for the time being."

He was stunned for a moment, then dialed his mother's mobile phone number, and the reply he could get was still: "The user you called cannot be connected for the time being."

He listened to the female voice broadcast in Chinese and English three times before hanging up the phone. Finally, he dialed the number of the landline at home with his trembling fingers.

"The phone number you called is an empty number."

Li Zhen was stunned and loosened his fingers, and the phone fell to the ground. Fortunately, the man was quick-eyed and quick-handed, so he copied it over and asked him, "What's wrong? Can't contact him?"

Li Zhen turned his head mum: "It's all...it's an empty number. My house may have moved."

The three men looked at each other, and the other said, "Where is your relative? Call them?"

He asked twice in a row, and Li Zhen said, "It's gone. It's gone long ago."

The man in a wool sweater sucked his teeth: "Or you call the Public Security Bureau. Call 110."

Only then did Li Zhen come back to his senses from his complicated thoughts and say repeatedly: "No, no need."

Of course, it is impossible to fight. If a person dies, he has to cancel his household registration. He knows that. When the police come, he takes him away. He asks about his identity again - how do he explain the person who died last year?

He knew a lot about gods and ghosts, and he had read many novels with special abilities. However, once this happened to him, it was still in such a painful and almost disaster-stricken way... How could he feel at ease to entrust this secret to people other than his parents? Even the little girl Qingqing hid in secret for several days after being discovered for the first time, and finally couldn't stand the torture of hunger and loneliness, so he stretched out his hand again.

He clenched his fists tightly, raised his head again, and said in a voice that he could hardly hear, "Uncle, can you lend me some money? I'll take the bus back to Pingyang. Give me your phone number and find my house. I'll pay you back."

He felt quite uncomfortable and almost ashamed. It was the first time in so many years that such words were said with a nearly beggar attitude. He had even made up his mind that once the man showed even a little embarrassed look, he would immediately get up and leave here.

But the man looked at him, sighed, turned around and walked to the counter, took out forty dollars and handed them to him.

"Take it." He said, "I can't find anyone to go to school to find the teacher first, and ask the teacher to help you find it." Then he looked at Li Zhen's clothes again - it was still a single piece of clothing. It was scratched, scratched, torn, and now it can hardly be called clothes.

So he walked into the inner room behind and brought him an old but clean autumn clothes, a pair of tangy wool pants, a dark blue jacket, and a pair of semi-new travel shoes.

During this period, the two men sitting next to him took out two five dollars from their pockets and stuffed them into his hands, and whispered to him: "Your Uncle Wang's boy was smashed during the earthquake and is still in the county hospital."

Li Zhen looked up at the man, and then he realized that there was an unexplainable layer of worry on his face.

When the three men left the house, he took off the torn clothes that had been dug out of the ruins, and put on the new pieces. His body suddenly became warm - and the half of the bread was also due to the credit.

Then Li Zhen held the leftover bread in his hand and pushed them away, bowed to the three men: "Uncle, I'm leaving. When I find my home, I'll pay you back the money."

The man smiled and waved his hand at him: "Be careful on the road." Then he stopped talking.

Li Zhen took their appearances into his heart one by one, and then walked along the dirt road to the other end of the village.

Seeing that he had gone far, one of the men said, "I think something is wrong. It's been earthquakes for several months... Look at the blood in his clothes, there is no scratch on his body--"

The man in a wool sweater stood up and looked at Li Zhen's staggering back in the distance, sighed: "Don't worry about so much. Go and burn the changed clothes."

He paused and said, "It's still a child."
Chapter completed!