People from nearby cities began migrating to the surrounding farm areas, as in their view, the steel and concrete of the cities could not produce food.
With water, electricity, and fuel no longer available, the cities became unsuitable for living, coupled with sanitation issues in high-rise buildings.
They believed that areas with better farmland and ranches should have more grains and meat.
At first, people would still purchase supplies, but later they began bartering. When money became useless, they started trading goods for goods.
Later on, even when the townspeople claimed they had nothing left, the incoming crowds didn't believe this place would have nothing.
Similarly, bad people also came here.
Since they couldn't get what they wanted openly, they started searching secretly, causing the original residents to flee.
Because as long as they were locals, they would be suspected of hiding things in unknown places, and their words wouldn't be trusted.
This situation couldn't last long, and the local living conditions could become even worse.
Only a small number of people had already left when the people from the cities started coming this way, while the remaining ones gradually left later due to the chaos here.
After the locals left, this place became chaotic for a while but then settled down again.
Some people who came from the cities started farming here, utilizing the existing arable land. In their view, the soil and water here were excellent, and even though the residents had left, growing crops here was better than in the cities.
However, even the desire to farm here was later shattered by consecutive years of disasters.
Therefore, the last remaining people here also chose to leave, and once they left for somewhere else, it became very difficult to come back.
In many parts of Xia Province, even those who stayed after the volcanic eruption eventually left years later due to consecutive disasters that prevented them from producing food, resulting in the desolation that Wen Qian now sees.
Wen Qian spent her first night by the reservoir, where there were indeed fish, but her net wasn't working well.
So Wen Qian decided to set up more hunting traps around the area and try fishing here.
Perhaps because she didn't fish very often, Wen Qian was always able to catch fish. She felt that if she fished every day, it wouldn't be like this.
On the second day, Wen Qian packed up and went down from the reservoir, planning to check out the farms and ranches.
She had confirmed during both day and night that there were no signs of human activity over there.
Although Wen Qian found it strange, she still planned to go and take a look.
First, along the relatively wide concrete road on both sides, there were many severely damaged houses. Houses deteriorate quickly when left unoccupied.
Thinking about this, she remembered her old house in An Province. Knowing she couldn't return, she shouldn't have been reluctant to leave it but should have demolished it and taken it with her.
Although she could have done that, it would have scared her fellow villagers. So Wen Qian quickly came up with reasons for not demolishing her old home back then.
The further she walked, the more Wen Qian realized that the low houses on both sides seemed to have been hastily built later on, not as neat as the original ones here.
After passing through the only street, Wen Qian could see some tombs on the side of the open space at the end.
These tombs and gravestones were made of stones of various sizes, with the writing on them done in paint, ink, or carved.
They must have been for people buried after the natural disasters, using the stone slabs from the sides of the road as gravestones.
This open space was originally a small square, but now with many tombs beside it, it felt very gloomy.
Looking at the irregularly sized and arranged tombs, Wen Qian could only feel sadness in her heart.
Before the disasters, people probably didn't expect to face such situations. Most were unprepared and lacked the ability to withstand risks.
Those who ended their lives here were eventually buried together in this place.
Wen Qian turned and headed towards the distant farmland.
After years of neglect, weeds had grown abundantly. Wen Qian thought that if she could buy some lambs, she could let them graze here.
But she couldn't find any people now, let alone any sheep for grazing.
The wild sheep were not something Wen Qian could control and domesticate. Perhaps in the future, she could try domesticating wild animal cubs, but that would be much later. At most, she could raise some rabbits.
As Wen Qian thought about it, her mind wandered to future plans. It was good to think about these things, as people should have a forward-looking mindset. She planned to write it down in her notebook to prevent herself from forgetting later.
Wen Qian walked around the fields and only took some well-grown wild vegetables, as there wasn't much else to dig up, and then she prepared to leave directly.
After walking for two more days, Wen Qian arrived at the shore of South-North Lake, which consisted of two irregularly-shaped triangular lakes.
The northern shore of North Lake ran parallel to the highway.
After getting off the highway, Wen Qian followed the original concrete road directly to the lake shore. To the southeast of North Lake was a large nature reserve.
South of this reserve was South Lake, while to the northeast was a prairie, and further away were deserts.
Wen Qian had observed this beforehand but didn't see any signs of human activity. As she continued walking, she found traces of human activity.
They weren't fresh traces from the past two days but must have been from after the spring. At this point, Wen Qian didn't see any people around and thought she might have missed them.
Wen Qian looked towards the area where more birds were gathering but there was no road into the reserve, and she would have to walk a very long way around to get there.
In fact, there were people living inside the reserve, although the conditions weren't great, they wouldn't starve.
There weren't many people in the reserve, as most had left earlier.
Those who remained rarely went up towards North Lake, as the resources there weren't as abundant as between the two lakes, so they had no need to come too often.
In early spring, there would be many birds nesting in the middle of the reserve, so these people could gather a good number of bird eggs.
The trace that Wen Qian saw was actually left by a kid over ten years old who had wandered around the lake shore out of boredom.
His family was at ease because there were no ferocious beasts roaming around here; the most common sights were birds.
During this season, they also didn't have to worry about the children starving, as bird eggs could be found everywhere, so they let him go.
For children living here, being able to eat their fill and grow up healthy was already a good outcome. Additionally learning some survival skills, the rest of their time was their own.
As such, although Wen Qian saw traces of human activity, she couldn't encounter them for the time being.
Wen Qian had no intention of going deeper, only needing to take away some things she could use, rather than necessarily finding people.
This side of the lakeshores was comparatively sparse compared to the protected areas with nests strewn everywhere.
For Wen Qian, this was her first time witnessing such a lively world of birds, so she donned a helmet and mask while carrying a foam box, starting to collect bird eggs along the lakeshore.
Taking advantage of the absence of adult birds in some nests, she took away half the eggs; sometimes when discovered, she would be attacked by the parent birds with force or bird droppings.
Wen Qian was well-prepared, wearing windproof clothing that could be wiped clean.
Being able to collect so many eggs already made her happy; what were a few bird droppings?
