Bai Xi sighed. "Bao Bao, you need to understand your limits. Have you forgotten the time you snuck a popsicle and ended up with a stomachache all day, only able to drink congee?"
"If Bao Bao insists on eating random things, not only will you have to get a shot, but you’ll have a stomachache for days, and there will be lots of things you can’t eat."
Ye Yunyun’s little face turned pale with fright. Giving up delicious food for an earthworm just wasn’t worth it!
’Oh my gosh, Bao Bao will never eat random things again.’
Bai Xi pressed her advantage. "Mommy was wrong too. I haven’t taught Bao Bao any of this common knowledge. Starting tomorrow, Bao Bao will have to memorize a little bit of knowledge every day..."
Before she could finish, Ye Yunyun threw her arms around Bai Xi’s neck. Bai Xi, who was already squatting and caught off guard, nearly fell and landed on her butt.
The soft little baby reined in her strength, clinging to her gently and giving her a little kiss on the lips.
’Mommy, stop talking.’
’Ah, Bao Bao wants a carefree life of playing.’
Bai Xi felt a little helpless. ’Great, she’s already sick of studying before we’ve even started.’
"Normally, Bao Bao can only have one piece of candy a day, and you only get extra candy as a reward when you’re good, right? But if Bao Bao finishes her lessons every day, you’ll get an extra piece of candy every single day."
The little cub’s eyes lit up instantly.
’Wow, Bao Bao wants to study!’
Bai Xi asked her, "Does Bao Bao want to study?"
Ye Yunyun nodded vigorously, the soft fuzz on her little head bobbing up and down.
’She looks a bit like an Angry Bird,’ Bai Xi thought inappropriately, almost laughing out loud.
’Yes, Bao Bao wants candy.’
Bai Xi gently pinched her chubby cheeks and gave them a little flick. "Okay, Mommy’s good little Bao Bao. But you can’t kiss boys on the lips from now on, okay?"
’Bao Bao knows!’
There was a noise from behind. Bai Xi turned around; it was Bai Chen and the others, back from outside.
The two teenagers were already out of breath, but Bai Chen and Bai Jiao still had good color, their faces flushed.
Bai Xi asked, "How is it outside?"
Bai Chen said, "The hail isn’t too big. I’ll take the two little ones inside for some brown sugar ginger tea to warm them up. I’ll let Jiao Jiao tell you the rest."
Bai Chen picked one up in each hand and carried them straight back into the house.
Bai Jiao took off her protective suit and stretched her limbs. Only after confirming her body temperature was normal did she approach Bai Xi.
"My brother and I have been drinking the Spiritual Spring Water, and I found that we’re not afraid of the cold outside at all. Halfway through, my brother snuck away for a bit, took off his protective suit, and found that the hail didn’t hurt at all when it hit him."
Bai Xi frowned in disapproval. "That’s way too risky. If you’d gotten hypothermia..."
"Then we’d just enter the space," Bai Jiao said with a wink.
Bai Xi shut her mouth. She’d forgotten that her brother and sister both had a cheat ability.
’Oh, right, her little cub has one too.’
’A life of isolation... lonely as snow.’
Bai Jiao continued, "I plan to give everyone a little more Spiritual Spring Water. It’ll make them better suited for this extreme environment."
Bai Xi nodded. "Of course, you can. But, you and our brother have been drinking it continuously. How much have you had? Once you’ve achieved the goal of strengthening your bodies, you should stop."
This Spiritual Spring Water came from a space unknown even to the cub. Rather than power, Bai Xi was more afraid of potential side effects.
Shi Tou had already become a giant dog, and Bai Xi was terrified that her brother and sister would become giants too.
Ye Yunyun blinked, having heard the keywords: Spiritual Spring in the space.
She knew about that. It was full of Spiritual Energy, a great restorative.
Although Ye Yunyun was greedy, her auntie had told her not to eat things from the space without permission, so she hadn’t secretly touched anything yet.
’It’s okay, Mommy. If a mortal drinks too much, at worst they’ll be too weak to absorb the nourishment and just explode and die. Then they’ll become a ghost soul full of Spiritual Energy, which makes it easier for them to cultivate into a great ghost than other ghosts.’
Bai Jiao, who had been about to tell Bai Xi it was fine, fell silent.
She changed the subject. "Bao Bao, do you have no concept of your own identity? Human babies are very fragile."
’Bao Bao knows. When Bao Bao was a human in my last life, I died at ten.’
Bai Xi nodded grimly. The cub had no concept of life and death. If this wasn’t corrected in time, it could lead to unbearable consequences.
Although the cub had been a ghost before, no one could guarantee she would still exist after dying this time.
After all, according to the cub’s own thoughts, a ghost like her only appeared once every few thousand years.
She didn’t understand what human fragility meant.
Bai Xi said, "Starting tomorrow, I’ll teach her some common sense."
Bai Jiao suddenly noticed the leaf-wrapped rice balls on the ground and comforted her sister, "Xiao Yunduo is just playing house. You should be glad she didn’t stuff these in her mouth."
Bai Xi fell silent.
’Mmmph.’
Bai Jiao realized the truth behind the silence and asked Ye Yunyun in disbelief, "Xiao Yunduo, what were you just eating?!"
’Mmm, a little earthworm.’
Ye Yunyun pressed her lips together tightly and buried her head in her mother’s embrace.
Bai Xi explained, "She didn’t put the dirty thing in her mouth yet."
Bai Jiao pulled Ye Yunyun out of her mother’s arms, bit her chubby cheek, leaving a faint teeth mark, and threatened, "You little cub, you little rascal, if you dare eat random things again, your auntie will eat you up!"
Before Ye Yunyun could even react to what was happening, she was snatched back by her mother, who also gave her auntie a knock on the head.
"You can’t bite a child’s face!" Bai Xi warned, pulling out a wet wipe to clean Ye Yunyun’s cheek.
"Alright, Bao Bao, let’s go inside and find the big kids."
’Okay. The big kids looked like they were about to die from exhaustion just now.’
The two teenagers were collapsed on the sofa, still panting heavily.
Bai Jiao explained, "We did a lap around the villa. The ground outside has already frozen over. Xiao Xue almost slipped."
"Also, the river has frozen. According to our instruments, the groundwater is frozen too."
Everyone’s expression grew heavy. The water outage was going to arrive before the power outage.
They had enough water stored in the space to last a hundred years, but they still had friends and family outside to worry about.
「Two days before the extreme cold of -70 degrees arrived」
Berry Bliss wanted to drink congee and spent 500,000 to buy a small bag of rice and two bottles of mineral water from Ye Jun.
Once you start, it’s hard to stop. Ye Jun couldn’t resist the temptation of huge sums of money and sold things to Berry Bliss and others in the homeowners’ association group a few more times.
「On the final day before the extreme cold of -70 degrees arrived」
More and more pleas for help appeared online. Widespread water outages occurred across the globe, and cell signals in less developed regions were cut off by the frost.
In the luxury apartment complex’s homeowners’ group, faced with the temptation of one million, Ye Jun sold another small bag of rice. He and Su Mian stayed up until midnight counting their money.
After midnight, alarms began to blare. A global alert was issued as the temperature plummeted. More fatally, giant hailstones began to fall on the fields. What looked like entire clouds came crashing down, instantly collapsing one building after another.
Governments around the world scrambled to fire artillery shells into the sky, trying to break up the giant, cloud-shaped hailstones.
That night, only the Bai family slept soundly.
No, that’s not right. Bai Chen, Bai Jiao, and Bai Xi were in the conference room, using the weak signal to check for new posts from netizens online.