Ma Xiaoli went silent for a moment and then agreed—even though she knew full well that doctor’s medicine would not ease the awakening of a superpower in the slightest, she was worried that if she refused again, Ye Huiling might secretly take her grandmother to the hospital.
Perhaps because Ma Xiaoli usually had a sour expression, seeing her agree to the suggestion made Ye Huiling quite pleased.
Before leaving the room, Ye Huiling said softly: “Your father hurried back out of concern for your grandmother’s condition. Hearing that you’re selling the apartment, he’s very worried about you.”
Ma Xiaoli waved her hand perfunctorily, presenting a sulking profile to Ye Huiling.
Ye Huiling felt that although this father and daughter had been absent from each other’s lives for eleven years, they were still quite alike in certain ways. Secretly curling up her lips, she said: “Your father is cooking dinner himself tonight. I’ll call you when the food is ready.”
Ma Xiaoli said nothing. After Ye Huiling left, she took off the Jade Buddha, swapped the red string onto the fake jade Buddha, and then attached the Jade Buddha’s original silver chain to the fake one.
Finally, she wore both jade Buddhas around her neck before logging into WeChat on her new phone.
Sure enough, Luo Xiaoxiao had sent her a mountain of messages.
At first, she urgently asked where Ma Xiaoli went, then asked if something had happened, and even sent several emotional voice messages, saying in a trembling voice, “Xiaoli, don’t scare me,” “Xiaoli, I miss you,” “Xiaoli, please answer my messages…”
Ma Xiaoli sneered inwardly. As if acting was a rare skill!
Relying on the three years they spent together in the apocalypse, she had learned plenty of tea-talk and manipulative rhetoric from Luo Xiaoxiao!
Thus, clearing her throat, she sent a voice message to Luo Xiaoxiao: [Xiaoxiao, I got robbed! My phone was stolen, and I just got my number back!]
Luo Xiaoxiao, who was heading toward Ma Xiaoli’s city-center luxury apartment, suddenly received Ma Xiaoli’s message. Hearing that Ma Xiaoli had been mugged, her heart shuddered, and she blurted out: [Xiaoli, where is your Jade Buddha!!]
Luo Xiaoxiao’s screeching voice—heightened by an octave after breaking composure—blasted in her ear.
Ma Xiaoli’s eyes turned icy cold. Tapping her fingers on her thigh, just as she was about to reply, she saw that Luo Xiaoxiao had recalled the voice message.
[Xiaoli, are you okay? You’re not hurt, right? Where are you? How about I come find you!]
A new voice message popped up. A hoarse tone that sounded on the verge of tears carried deep emotion, striking the perfect balance of a friend worrying franticly over her best friend.
Ma Xiaoli’s eyes darkened. Her opponent was high level, so it wasn’t surprising that she had been sold out and still helped count the cash in her past life.
However, she was now Niohuruh Ma Xiaoli. Opening her mouth, she instantly channeled her inner drama queen: [Xiaoxiao, I was scared to death. I was mugged while riding my electric scooter, sob sob sob… Don’t worry, my heartless dad picked me up. I’m over at his place…]
Before the voice message finished sending, she caught sight of the bedroom door cracking open, revealing her father’s face completely filling the gap… With a slip of her finger, the voice message sent. Ma Xiaoli hurriedly added another one: [My dad loves me so much, he insists on having me stay overnight no matter what. I’ll head back to find you guys later. Talk to you soon!]
Her father at the door crack: !!!
Seeing Ma Xiaoli walk over, her father suddenly felt awkward, trying to put on a brave and dignified expression. Yet he failed because he couldn’t suppress his wildly upturned lips at all. Unaware of his failed disguise, he deliberately spoke in a deep, raspy tone: “Dinner’s ready. Come downstairs.”
Ma Xiaoli, who was about to slam the door shut, felt her fingertips tremble on the doorknob.
Looking at the flamboyant backside of her father, who was whistling as he walked downstairs, Ma Xiaoli: “…”
When Ma Xiaoli went downstairs, bowls and chopsticks were already laid out on the dining table.
As for the meal…
A bowl of milky-white pork lard, a bowl of fried lard cracklings, and a piping hot pot of cured sausage rice. The aroma alone made one’s mouth water—eating warm white rice felt like something from a past life, let alone this insanely fragrant cured sausage rice!
However.
Ma Xiaoli tilted her head, looking at Ye Huiling, who was already seated at the dining table.
Ye Huiling quickly glanced at Ma Xiaoli’s father: “I heard that whenever you cried as a child, you liked eating lard rice and fried lard cracklings, so…”
The corner of Ma Xiaoli’s mouth twitched, giving her father a dead-fish stare: “This is all you cooked?”
Her father unconsciously straightened his back. Although he rarely had time to cook after starting his own business, lard rice was such a simple, cost-saving dish that was practically encoded in every Cantonese person’s DNA; making it wasn’t difficult at all.
Unexpectedly, Ma Xiaoli rolled her eyes and angrily rushed over to snatch Ye Huiling’s bowl and chopsticks: “Is your brain fried because his is? You’re pregnant! How can you eat this!”
Before the two could react, Ma Xiaoli left a quick “Wait here” and darted into the kitchen.
There were plenty of vegetables and meat in the refrigerator, even scaled fish.
Thinking that a pregnant woman shouldn’t go hungry, Ma Xiaoli didn’t prepare anything complex, making only boiled greens and stir-fried shrimp with tomatoes.
Neither dish required much skill, yet when her father saw Ma Xiaoli set the dishes on the dining table, his eyes widened in utter shock: “You…”
“No poison in it. It won’t kill you.”
To prove it was edible, Ma Xiaoli even took a bite herself.
Ye Huiling beamed and picked up a piece of stir-fried shrimp with tomatoes: “Xiaoli’s cooking smells so good!”
Ma Xiaoli possessed self-awareness; even though she had worked as a kitchen assistant in a noodle shop throughout her three years of high school, her cooking was only at the level of a small noodle shop, nothing extraordinary.
Her father opened his mouth, then suddenly wore a pained expression.
Ma Xiaoli pretended to drop her chopsticks, and as she bent down to pick them up, she caught Ye Huiling quickly retracting her foot from her father’s instep.
Ma Xiaoli: “…”
Having finished dinner in silence, before her father could open his mouth to lecture her again, Ma Xiaoli hurriedly ran into the kitchen, scooped up a bowl of meat porridge, and brought it upstairs.
Just after she woke her grandmother, Ye Huiling brought the family doctor over.
The doctor was an elderly man. He took her grandmother’s temperature and performed an examination, stating only that the elderly woman’s body temperature was slightly high, but within normal ranges, and that initial checks showed no major issues.
Hearing this, Ye Huiling hesitantly asked if they needed to take her grandmother to the hospital for further checks.
The doctor shook his head: “Elderly people are naturally frail, and hospitals carry many germs. Since there’s no major illness, spare her the trouble of going to the hospital. I’ll prescribe some medicine—have her take it and get good rest.”
Her father breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly asked the doctor a few more questions before leaving with Ye Huiling to see the doctor off.
Once they left, Ma Xiaoli helped her grandmother eat the porridge. Her grandmother had a decent appetite; although her swallowing was a bit slow, she still managed to finish the entire bowl of meat porridge.
Watching her grandmother fall back into a drowsy sleep, Ma Xiaoli felt a surge of mixed emotions.
In her past life, she had been just like this before awakening her ability—running a recurring fever for seven straight days. Her mind was clear, but her limbs felt weak, and she was perpetually sleepy. It wasn’t until the day zombies began biting people that her superpower awakened, and she suddenly recovered.
If her grandmother’s fever in the previous life was also due to awakening a superpower, that grand-aunt’s family would very likely have forced her grandmother out to search for supplies. Her grandmother’s death back then was definitely tied to them, and could never have been simply because she dragged them down and got bitten by zombies!