After that, she passed through mountains, salt fields, and farmlands where aqueducts had been built.
During this time, she finally saw the first harmless stranger in years.
Wen Qian was originally just passing through a large salt marsh, and she wasn't planning to stop there, but rather to continue on to the salt lake and salt fields ahead.
Just then, a mother and child took advantage of the good weather to come toward the salt marsh.
There were mountains on both sides of the highway, and further ahead there was a small town, surrounded by mountains on all sides, with a salt lake in the middle.
The people here had been drying salt in the salt fields for a long time.
Later, they also discovered many other resources here, so there was a lot of industrial development.
This mother and child were originally from that small town, but after the world became chaotic, their family led them into the mountains.
The map showed many place names in these mountains, meaning those places all had traces of human activity.
However, as time went on, people started to congregate from the mountains into small towns or cities like this.
No matter if it was transportation, medical care, or education, it would be a little more convenient.
But after the disaster, places with more people weren't necessarily better, but they also didn't want to go south like others, because the journey wouldn't be easy either.
After the disaster, the elders in the family gradually left, leaving only this family of three living in the deep mountains.
This time, when the man went out to hunt, the woman decided to take the Little Child to collect salt near the salt marsh.
After a long winter, the salt they had stockpiled was almost used up.
The woman hadn't come out of the mountains for a long time, so she thought she'd go out once.
She also wanted to get some extra salt to take back, because the round trip would take a lot of time.
Worried about encountering strangers, they didn't go to the salt lake and salt fields near the town, but instead came to the remote salt marsh.
Little did they know that they would still encounter a stranger there.
The Little Child rarely saw people, and was just watching the person riding a bicycle from a distance with curiosity.
His family also had one of those things, but it was very old.
As he watched the other person getting closer and closer, Wen Qian also noticed the Little Boy.
So she got off her bicycle and slowly walked it forward.
For some reason, Wen Qian felt that the other person was harmless, possibly because the other person's expression made Wen Qian lower her guard.
Before Wen Qian approached him, she waved, and then the Little Child started running toward her.
The Little Child's mother had let him play around on his own, and didn't say anything when she heard him running around.
But occasionally, she turned her head and saw that the Little Child was running toward someone.
This immediately made her hair stand on end.
After the volcanic eruption, the entire globe plunged into darkness, and this was only the beginning.
After that, her husband took her into the mountains early on, so she hadn't experienced too much of the darkness, but her husband had been going in and out.
He told her about the things he had experienced himself or heard from others.
The darkness, bloodshed and cruelty lost some of their effect after being passed down, but they still made her have nightmares.
Now her child was running toward a stranger with unknown intentions.
Wen Qian saw the Little Child running toward her, with nothing in his hands, and immediately felt that he was just an innocent Little Child, so she started searching her space for any candy she might still have stored.
But giving candy to a strange Little Child, that ploy seemed like something a human trafficker would do, would the other person even eat her candy?
So Wen Qian hesitated for a moment, and put the candy back in her pocket.
There was a distance of about five meters between them.
The mother behind the Little Child ran over and hugged her child.
It was clear that she was very worried and on guard, but neither of them were female and neither intended to harm the other.
After observing the environment, Wen Qian tried to greet the other in a friendly manner.
She smiled and waved her hand, speaking to the other in Mandarin, "Hello."
The Little Child waved and said, "Hello," just like her.
This put Wen Qian at ease, because if the other was an ethnic minority who didn't speak Mandarin, there could have been a communication problem.
So Wen Qian kept this distance and spoke to the Little Child's mother.
"Hello, I'm just passing through here. I'm from a village near Mangge City."
Seeing the woman sizing her up, but no longer as guarded as before, Wen Qian asked, "Are you a resident of this town?"
The woman shook her head.
"Are there people in the town?"
The woman then answered, "I don't know if anyone has come back."
"So you don't know what the date is today? I live in the mountains, and I never came out after things happened outside, so can I talk to you a bit since I haven't seen people in a while?"
The woman nodded, then asked her, "Where are you going all by yourself on a bicycle?"
Wen Qian said she wanted to leave Xia Province, so she was following the highway out.
The woman saw that Wen Qian's disheveled appearance didn't seem like she was lying.
Seeing that neither of them rejected her, Wen Qian started to feel at ease, "It's been a long time since I've seen people, so I'm quite happy to see you now."
Wen Qian had a lot to say, but didn't know where to start.
So she asked the other for the date, which was the first useful thing she thought of.
Fortunately, the date the other gave was only one day off from Wen Qian's, with Wen Qian's being one day behind, which wasn't too unreasonable.
Realizing that Wen Qian didn't even know the date, the other guessed this person probably really hadn't seen anyone for a long time.
Next, Wen Qian inquired about what had happened here after the volcanic eruption, mainly about what happened after the radio stopped broadcasting news.
The woman could probably also tell that this person must have been living in isolation like herself, otherwise she wouldn't have come out not knowing anything.
But the woman herself didn't have much new to say either, her husband had seen more than her, but after the disaster years, the people she could see also became fewer.
So the woman told her about what had happened in the town initially, that the area this town was in charge of had a total population of less than 30,000.
Since many people later went into the mountains due to the disaster, and their ancestors had originally come out of the mountains too, going back wasn't a big deal.
Because the town later became more and more chaotic, she heard that many people had died, and there were also people forming gangs to rob and loot.
She didn't know what happened to that gang afterward, but her husband told her not to go in that direction.
Years had passed again, and her husband said that hardly anyone was left in the small town.
Actually, it should have been fine to go and dig for salt, but she did not feel at ease doing so, which is why she came here to dig instead.
So Wen Qian asked if the highway was still passable, and the other person replied that it was.
This was because the highway passed through the farmlands at the foot of the mountain, still some distance away from the town area.
Thinking of this, Wen Qian felt a little more at ease.
For if the situation was as bad as they said, Wen Qian might have had to take a detour.
