“Eat without worry. Even if you die, this Emperor can snatch you back.”
Liu Chunhua’s hands stopped kneading the dough, and the smile on her face instantly froze.
“Zhao Jinzhan, you…”
She glared at Zhao Jinzhan furiously.
She had not even held him accountable for Yun Xingwan’s disappearance, yet he had the nerve to come here and humiliate her daughter.
“Uncle Yun, Auntie Liu, all these years, while Xingwan was missing, I treated you like my own parents and did my best to take care of you. Now that Xingwan has returned, I have a life of my own to live as well.”
He pushed the two jin of white rice sitting on the table toward them.
“This was issued by the military, and it is the last time I will do something like this for you.”
Yun Dequan frowned slightly.
“Zhao Jinzhan, you ungrateful bastard!”
“Old Yun, are you refusing now? What exactly are you unhappy about?
That is two jin of white rice. Take a look around. In the entire base, how many families can afford rice this clean, without even a trace of mold?”
Cao Jinyan, who had been standing silently outside the door, pushed it open and walked inside.
“Ever since your son became a cripple, how many times has your family survived on the relief grain my son brought home?
“My son risks his life fighting demon beasts outside, working himself to the bone and nearly getting himself killed, all to support the two of you old fools. And now your useless daughter has finally returned, and you are trying to latch onto our family again!”
“You!”
Yun Dequan trembled with rage, but he was so furious that he could not get a single word out.
“You two old fossils already live off others, and now another beggar has come crawling back. Who knows whether that daughter of yours spent the twenty years she was missing with some other man?
“Let me tell you this. Our Zhao family will never marry a woman whose past is unclear!”
Her narrow, triangular eyes were half closed, filled with undisguised malice.
“What nonsense are you spouting?”
Liu Chunhua glared at Cao Jinyan in disbelief.
When had she and her husband ever needed Zhao Jinzhan to support them?
Their family was clearly the one at fault, yet now they had the audacity to come here and humiliate her daughter.
“Cao Jinyan, shut your filthy mouth! My daughter is perfectly fine. Your son is the bastard here. If it had not been for him back then, would my daughter have disappeared in the first place?”
She grabbed the rolling pin, marched over to the table, and threw the two jin of white rice straight out the door.
Then she brandished the rolling pin and drove them toward the exit.
“Get out! All of you, get out! You really think my daughter gives a damn about your family? Who do you think you are?”
Seeing his wife chase them out, Yun Dequan gave a cold snort.
“Get lost. My house does not welcome you.”
“Fine! So now you are repaying kindness with hostility? If you have the guts, then return all the grain my son has given your family over the years!”
“Zhao Jinzhan, are you sure my Yun family has been living off your charity all these years?”
Yun Dequan’s eyes concealed a burning fury.
Zhao Jinzhan’s eyes flickered. He lowered his head and remained silent, while Cao Jinyan glared furiously at Yun Dequan.
“Oh, so you take advantage of people and then pretend it never happened?
Two old bloodsuckers were not enough, and now you have another one coming back!”
Yun Dequan suppressed the anger in his eyes.
“Zhao Jinzhan, are you certain you want to call off the engagement?”
If he had not been worried about his daughter’s feelings, he would have called off this marriage himself long ago!
“Uncle Yun, I…”
Seeing that her son was clearly beginning to waver, Cao Jinyan reached out and jabbed him in the lower back, giving him a sharp glare at the same time.
“Call it off. Why wouldn’t we?”
“Beep, beep… Assemble, assemble!”
Suddenly, Zhao Jinzhan’s wristwatch rang. It was the emergency assembly signal for the superpowered special operations team.
“Mom, you go home first. I have to report for assembly!”
Outside Number Nine Base.
Yun Xingwan dragged the stone coffin over to the aircraft Shen Xingchen was piloting and pointed toward the leaderless horde of zombies below.
“Little one, you can handle those little things down there, right?”
Shen Xingchen’s eyes narrowed.
Little things down there?
That was true. Compared with a tide of demon beasts, these zombies really were nothing worth mentioning.
He nodded stiffly.
Yun Xingwan dragged the stone coffin another step forward, then seemed to remember something. She turned back and added,
“Can you take me to the cold storage room?”
“I’ll take you there!”
Shen Xingchen handed the matter over to Feng Changlan and led Yun Xingwan to the base’s cold storage room.
The moment they entered, a blast of cold air swept toward them. Shen Xingchen instinctively stepped in front of Yun Xingwan.
“Miss Yun, it is a little cold here, so be careful…”
Before he could finish, Yun Xingwan simply dragged the stone coffin past him.
“Mm, all right!”
Shen Xingchen pressed his thin lips together. On the surface, he looked as composed as ever, but the fingers hanging at his side kept nervously picking at the edge of his trousers.
It seemed he had been worrying for nothing.
Yun Xingwan’s hearing was exceptionally sharp, so she heard every faint scraping sound clearly.
Her gaze fell on his fingers. The corners of her lips curved slightly, and a hint of gentleness appeared in her eyes.
“Thank you for your concern.”
Shen Xingchen happened to catch that faint smile at the corner of her lips. It was like an epiphyllum blooming in the dead of night, beautiful yet fleeting.
His fingers stopped picking at the seam of his trousers, and an unconscious flush crept over the tips of his ears.
“N, no need to thank me!”
Yun Xingwan withdrew her gaze and looked at the refrigerated storage space in front of her.
“Too small. Is there a larger one?”
“Huh?”
Shen Xingchen was still lost in her response and had not yet recovered.
“Is there a larger cold storage room?”
Shen Xingchen finally came back to his senses.
“Resources at the base are limited. This is the largest cold storage room we have.”
“Then find me an empty space as large as the area beneath this building.”
“All right!”
Under Shen Xingchen’s guidance, the two arrived at the military cafeteria.
The cafeteria was large enough to serve ten thousand people, covering roughly a thousand square meters. It was already noon, and soldiers were gradually filing inside.
While Shen Xingchen stared at her in confusion, the tightly sealed stone coffin slowly opened, and a black vortex appeared above it once again.
As the vortex spun, one corpse after another of demon beasts was expelled from it.
The soldiers entering the cafeteria froze on the spot.
Another miracle!
Some of the soldiers here had returned directly from the battlefield, and they had even signed confidentiality agreements. Every one of them stared at Yun Xingwan with feverish admiration.
“Miss Yun, what is this?”
Shen Xingchen stared at the mountain of demon beast corpses piled up in front of him.
“Extra food. The meat does not taste very good, but it will do.”
“Ah, divine immortal auntie, those are demon beasts! You cannot eat them!”
After distributing the mission to clear out the zombie horde, he had been terrified that he would miss his idol, so he hurried over as quickly as possible.
He had heard that she was in the cafeteria, and the moment he arrived, he heard his idol say those words.
His expression changed drastically, and he immediately stepped forward to stop her.
“There is a kind of violent energy inside these demon beasts. If a person eats them, the consequences can be fatal. At worst, their body will explode, and at best, they will turn into zombies, losing all awareness and reason.”
“Do not worry. I will not let you become an idiot.”
Yun Xingwan replied calmly.
She rummaged through the pile of demon beasts and picked out one that was two or three meters long and about a meter wide, with a body shaped somewhat like a pig. She casually tossed it onto the stone coffin.
“I am going home to make dumplings.”
She dragged the stone coffin toward the door.
Just as she reached the entrance, a soldier stepped directly in front of her without the slightest hesitation.
Yun Xingwan raised an eyebrow and calmly looked at him.
His wheat colored face, darkened by years of military training, had turned bright red after holding himself back for so long.
The instant his eyes met Yun Xingwan’s, he felt as though his entire being were about to be sucked into an endless universe.
“Is something wrong?”
The soldier snapped back to reality at the sound of her voice. Gathering all his courage, he pointed toward the demon beast lying on her stone coffin.
“G, g, great immortal, you cannot eat this! You will get sick!”
“Do not worry. If you die, this Emperor will go before the King of Hell and snatch you back.”
With that, she left without looking back.
The entire cafeteria once again fell into absolute silence.
The only sound that remained was the rattling noise of the stone coffin being dragged along the floor, echoing through the entire cafeteria.