After returning to his room, Bai Dad was still deeply shaken. When he saw Bai Mom sitting on the edge of the bed, lost in thought, he could not help but voice the emotions weighing on his heart.
“Manman, without even realizing it, Yangyang has grown up, but her personality is nothing like yours. Yangyang is much more independent and decisive. Just now, Yangyang took a gun from me. Can you guess what she went to do?”
“Did Yangyang take the gun and kill that security guard?”
Bai Mom was not surprised by Bai Yang’s actions. The girl’s personality was similar to hers, but there was also a certain indifference in her heart. She believed in repaying every grudge and could not stand seeing anyone she cared about being bullied in the slightest.
“You really do understand her.”
Bai Dad sat down beside Bai Mom on the edge of the bed and tightly held both of her hands in his.
“Manman, I have regretted it all these years. If I had not gone into the military back then, do you think you would have been with me much sooner and never had to suffer through all those things?
“Although Yangyang is not my biological daughter, I know how important she is to you. You care about her even more than Suisui. I am also very grateful that while I was away, you had Yangyang by your side.
“If it weren’t for Yangyang, would you have already…”
By the end, Bai Dad’s voice became choked with emotion. The girl he had loved since his youth had remained in his heart for most of his life. He had desperately tried to treat her well and spent the second half of his life making up for everything, yet he still felt that it was not enough. If he had not left first back then, how could Manman have been forced to marry someone else?
Bai Mom’s given name was Wen Man, and the Wen family had originally been considered one of the prominent wealthy families in the capital. Old Master Wen doted on Wen Man immensely.
When Wen Man was in high school, she transferred to Bai Dad’s school and ended up in the same class as him. The first time Bai Dad saw her, he immediately thought that if he ever married, he wanted a wife like Wen Man.
Later, he really did get together with Bai Mom. However, he was deeply insecure and had always believed that he was not worthy of someone as beautiful as Bai Mom. After the college entrance examination, he resolutely enlisted in the military, thinking that once he had made enough money, he would marry Wen Man in a grand and respectable way.
Unexpectedly, just two months after he left, something happened to the Wen family. Old Master Wen suddenly passed away, and Wen Man, who had once been deeply cherished, began to suffer ridicule and humiliation from all sides. The second branch of the family forced her to marry a wealthy young heir from a prominent family in the capital who was known for being spoiled and irresponsible. In the second year of their marriage, she gave birth to Bai Yang.
That man had no affection for Wen Man or her daughter. He frequently beat and verbally abused Wen Man, eventually causing her to develop severe postpartum depression. She came close to taking her own life several times. If it had not been for Bai Yang, Wen Man truly would have had no hope of continuing to live.
And Bai Dad, who had been serving in the military at the time, knew nothing about any of this.
Bai Dad looked at his wife beside him. It had taken him a full six years to completely help Bai Mom recover from her postpartum depression. Even after the two of them got married and unexpectedly had Suisui, Bai Dad had once considered having her aborted, but Bai Mom ultimately talked him out of it.
“Old Bai, none of this was your fault. You don’t need to keep blaming yourself.”
Bai Mom had always known how much pain Bai Dad carried in his heart. In the seventeen years since they got married, she had always known that his sleep was poor. He would often wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, then sit completely still and stare at her for a long time, only closing his eyes and sleeping again shortly before dawn.
When they had first married, Bai Dad had been even more anxious and often could not sleep at all throughout the night. Sometimes, Bai Mom would feel him carefully kissing her forehead and the corner of her lips while he thought she was asleep. At other times, she would hear Bai Dad quietly crying as he tried to suppress his sobs.
He always left his best side for her and the children. Sometimes, even she had been deceived by Bai Dad’s remarkable acting skills.
Neither of them spoke for a while. They simply sat there quietly as the intermittent roars of zombies outside the window failed to disturb them.
Meanwhile, Bai Suisui did not return to her own room. Instead, she followed Bai Yang into Bai Yang’s room.
After they entered and closed the door, Bai Suisui looked at Bai Yang expectantly, hoping that Bai Yang would tell her where the two guns had come from.
Bai Yang did not disappoint her. She came up with a very convincing explanation and casually brushed off her questions.
“Sis, there are so many zombies. What are we going to do from now on?”
Bai Suisui was scrolling through the news on her phone and discovered that the zombie outbreak was not limited to Q City. Large numbers of zombies had appeared in other provinces as well, while the capital was already close to falling because of the overwhelming number of zombies. People had begun calling this day the arrival of the apocalypse.
“What are we going to do?”
Bai Yang let out a soft snort and sneered. “As a successor of the new era of socialism, shouldn’t you kill a few more zombies and make a contribution to the country?”
Hearing this, Bai Suisui’s face twitched. Here it came again. Her sister was about to start being sarcastic again!
“Suisui, our dad served in the military, after all. As his daughter, you shouldn’t be lacking in courage. So after we finish eating, I’ll take you outside to practice.”
“Sis, I’m only fourteen…”
Bai Suisui tried to muddle her way out of it. She was not nearly as brave as her sister, nor had she ever practiced underground boxing like her sister. She was just a delicate little girl.
Have her go outside and practice on zombies? It would be more accurate to say that the zombies would be practicing on her!
“Bai Suisui!”
Bai Yang’s low voice made Bai Suisui immediately fall silent. She did not dare to argue even a little.
After all, she had heard that before she was even born, her sister had already dared to send her own biological father to prison, and when it came to underground boxing, her sister had always fought as if she did not care about her own life.
Normally, Bai Suisui still dared to joke around with her sister, but whenever her sister became serious, she was so frightened that she did not even dare make a sound.
Rather than bargain with her sister, she would rather let the zombies use her to practice.
The arrival of the apocalypse seemed to have had little impact on the Bai family of four. Aside from the shock they experienced when they first encountered zombies that morning, the family quickly accepted reality and even sat down for lunch at their usual time.
After lunch, Bai Yang told the couple that she planned to take Bai Suisui outside. Bai Mom said nothing and simply looked at Bai Dad.
Bai Dad paused for a moment. He did not say anything, but he did not object either.
After receiving his approval, Bai Yang took Bai Suisui out, while Bai Dad and Bai Mom stayed home to clean up the messy living room. Bai Yang left the guns at home and did not take them with her.
Bai Yang brought Bai Suisui to the underground parking garage and told her that their main task that afternoon was to practice fighting zombies, while their secondary task was to collect supplies.
Judging by what had happened during the morning, Bai Yang estimated that the nearby supermarkets had probably already been swept clean by survivors, leaving very little behind. Therefore, she decided to drive with Bai Suisui to F City, sixty kilometers away.
As Bai Yang drove past the security booth at the entrance of the residential complex, Bai Suisui deliberately glanced inside. She saw the security guard who had tried to rob their home that morning lying back in a chair, already dead. A bullet hole was clearly visible in his forehead.
Bai Suisui lowered her eyes. She did not need to think about it to know that Bai Yang had been the one who shot the security guard. Although she did not know how Bai Yang could kill someone without feeling the slightest psychological burden, she nevertheless felt satisfied.
As for that security guard, her father had only taken care of the situation and driven him away, but Bai Suisui had never felt that was enough.
The security guard had not only broken through her window. When he saw her, he had also hurled a string of vulgar and extremely insulting remarks at her.
She had originally thought they would have no choice but to let the security guard go. Then her sister came back and avenged her.