As she spoke, Jiang Zhi took four base-compiled catalogs of known mutated creatures out of her bag and handed them around.
Inside were recorded the traits of many mutated creatures that humans had identified so far.
“Scavenging? What’s there to scavenge? The four of us can just find jobs in the base, that’d be enough to keep us fed.” Ye Qingyun was none too pleased. “Your dad and I aren’t so old that we need you two to support us.”
After three years of fear and dread, all Ye Qingyun wanted now was for the family to stay safe and settled inside the base.
Jiang Zhi felt a little helpless. “Mom, just living on wages won’t work anymore. We can’t pinch and scrape every single day. Wages would barely keep us alive, and what if someone comes down with a fever or an ache?”
What Jiang Zhi didn’t say was that she had a premonition: this summer wouldn’t last.
In the three full years since the great catastrophe, they had lived in warm weather. The only sudden shift had come half a year ago, when the temperature abruptly plunged to zero.
That time, it was said, quite a few people froze to death.
Although it hadn’t happened again since, Jiang Zhi’s instinct told her that winter wasn’t far off.
What a post-catastrophe winter would be like, no one could predict.
All they could do was stockpile food in advance.
And a great deal of it.
Even though Ye Qingyun knew her daughter was telling the truth, she still didn’t want the two of them going out and taking risks.
Jiang Shu cut in. “Right, Mom. Ah Zhi and I are both adults. Are we supposed to hole up in the base our whole lives? Your son’s got to take a wife someday, if I don’t save up a marriage fund, who’d ever agree to marry me?”
Ye Qingyun tried to hold it in, but in the end she couldn’t help laughing.
“Shameless. Looking like that, what girl would give you a second glance? Later I’ll have your dad give you a haircut.”
Although she was talking him down, she no longer objected to the siblings going scavenging.
Jiang Shu scratched at his shoulder-length hair and chuckled.
Watching his sensible children, Jiang Shan felt glad, and a little lost.
He had always been the family’s mainstay, the main force even out in the wild. Now that they had suddenly settled down, the road ahead had lost its direction, and he couldn’t help feeling adrift.
Seeing this, Ye Qingyun walked over and took his arm. “What’s our family’s sea-calming needle [1] “定海神针”, the steadying anchor that holds everything together, from Journey to the West, the magic pillar that became the Monkey King’s staff jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2742492_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2742492_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); brooding about?”
Old married couple that they were, Jiang Shan of course knew his wife was comforting him.
He smiled. “I’ll go with them tomorrow.”
No sooner had he spoken than his son wailed, “Don’t, Dad! If you come with us, who’ll watch the house?”
Ye Qingyun shot him a look. “You little brat, you think we don’t know what you’re scheming? You just don’t want your dad cramping your style.”
Jiang Shu grinned cheekily. “Not at all. I just figured Dad’s worked too hard these past few years, so I want the old man to get some good rest.”
Jiang Zhi added, “Dad, you should stay home and watch the place tomorrow. My brother and I are only going to a Collection Zone the base has already cleared. We won’t go anywhere dangerous.”
Hearing that, the couple knew their youngest had made up her mind. Jiang Shan smiled. “Well, if you put it that way, I’ll stay home and rest easy.”
“I asked around today, too, the base is still expanding. That used to be my line of work, so maybe they need blueprints. I’ll go ask tomorrow.”
In fact, staying home wouldn’t leave him idle anyway.
He still had to design the family’s house.
Their tent currently took up half the plot, nothing else aside, the foundation had to be laid first.
As the family discussed the next day’s plans, the sky quickly darkened.
After dinner, Ye Qingyun dug a small handful of candy and a few packs of biscuits out of the propped-up trailer and said to the two of them, “Oh, right, you two come with me to call on the neighbors.”
Barring the unexpected, they would be living here from now on, so they had to get on good terms with the neighbors. There were only four of them, and for now they had nothing but a tent with no real defenses.
Nothing else aside, to guard against daytime thieves, having neighbors look out for one another was a necessity.
The three of them stepped out of the tent, planning to visit each household in turn.
Nearly every home in the self-built district had put up timber or fencing around the perimeter, all for fear of covetous eyes.
Ye Qingyun knocked on the nearest door.
After a moment, a wary voice sounded from inside. “Who is it?”
The siblings exchanged a glance.
They didn’t expect everyone in the base to be so guarded. It seemed this place wasn’t as safe as they’d imagined either.
Ye Qingyun’s voice carried a smile. “Hello, we just moved in next door and came to say hi.”
Jiang Zhi had observed this household before.
The house was only a little over eighty square meters, yet six people lived in it.
An old woman, a married couple, and the couple’s two boys and a girl.
With a setup like that, Jiang Zhi didn’t underestimate them in the slightest.
To keep an entire family, old and young, alive after the great catastrophe, that couple absolutely couldn’t be ordinary people.
Soon, a man in his thirties came out.
At the sight of the tall, young Jiang Shu, his posture visibly tensed.
It was precisely for this reason that Ye Qingyun hadn’t brought Jiang Shan along. She smiled. “I don’t think I caught your name, young man?”
The man studied them in silence for a moment before speaking. “My surname is Zhang.”
“So it’s young Zhang. We Jiangs will be counting on you to look out for us from now on.”
As she spoke, Ye Qingyun took out three pieces of candy and pressed them on him.
Zhang Ji was about to refuse, but Ye Qingyun had already led the siblings away.
He looked down at the vacuum-packed mint candies, thought of the children at home, glanced at the receding backs of Jiang Zhi and the others, and in the end kept them.
Ye Qingyun used the same approach at the next house.
This home was about the same size as the Zhangs’, except it was built of mud bricks.
Only a couple in their early fifties lived there, their son, it was said, was an Evolver, now serving as a vanguard on one of the base’s Exploration Teams.
Ye Qingyun and the woman of the house, Ma Hongyan, hit it off the moment they met.
Standing outside the fence, the two of them chatted nonstop.
In no time, they had thoroughly covered the situation of every household around.
“Sister Ye, let me tell you, that young Zhang couple next door are good people, just stingy. The whole lot of them are tight-lipped clams.”
Hearing this, Jiang Shu snickered behind them.
The description really was apt.
“The household behind them is just a grandfather and grandson, and a fierce pair they are. Don’t go provoking them, especially that Lin Yuan kid. He doesn’t say much, but he’s a ruthless one!”
The Lin house was close to theirs too, only two plots away.
Ma Hongyan had no shortage of gossip, and Jiang Shu drank it all in with relish.
When they were done, Ye Qingyun pressed a few packs of biscuits on her as before.
Ma Hongyan accepted them readily. “Hold on a moment.”
Then she ducked back inside and quickly brought out a small bunch of mutated purslane. “We don’t have much to spare either, but take this.”
Ye Qingyun tried to decline, but Ma Hongyan pushed her hand down.
“Don’t stand on ceremony with me. We’ll be dealing with each other plenty from now on.”
As she spoke, Ma Hongyan turned to the two siblings. “Just look at these two kids of yours, you can tell at a glance they’re capable.”
Jiang Shu gave a thumbs-up. “Auntie Ma, you’ve got a great eye!”
Which set Ma Hongyan laughing out loud.
After the three of them made a circuit of the area and returned to the tent, Jiang Shan was busy with some handiwork.
One look and Jiang Shu knew he meant to use the spare tire he’d brought back to make a flatbed cart.
With limited tools, though, the result was only barely passable.
The boards had been whittled from several pieces of wood and joined with mortise-and-tenon work into a simple flatbed.
Jiang Zhi asked, “Dad, what are you making?”
“Aren’t you two going scavenging tomorrow? We’ve got no rattan at home to weave baskets, so pushing a flatbed cart will at least save you a lot of effort.”
Ye Qingyun said, “All right, it’s too late today, and there’s no way to bathe here. You two go rest up and conserve your strength.”
Jiang Zhi quickly said, “I haven’t packed the things I’ll need for tomorrow yet.”
“Then hurry up, don’t dawdle, or you won’t rest well and you’ll have no energy tomorrow.”
Seeing his mother working herself up, Jiang Shu greased his heels and slipped off before he could become collateral damage, a fish in the moat that suffers when the city gate catches fire [2] “城门失火,殃及池鱼”, when trouble breaks out, innocent bystanders nearby get dragged into it jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2742492_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2742492_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
After shooing the two kids back to their own tent, Ye Qingyun put the mutated purslane into a simple storage box.
She planned to cook it the next morning with their two remaining packs of instant noodles.
A single stalk of the mutated purslane was worth a whole handful of the old kind, she just wondered how it would taste.
Just then, a sound came from outside the tent.
The couple froze. After a wary glance at each other, Jiang Shan crept to the curtain, lifted it, and peered out. There was no one in sight, but on the ground he spotted a bunch of mutated dandelions.
Jiang Shan brought the dandelions inside.
Ye Qingyun came over and looked out as well. “Did you see who it was?”
“No.” Jiang Shan handed the dandelions to her. “Probably one of our neighbors.”
Ye Qingyun could guess who.
Inwardly she agreed with Ma Hongyan: the young Zhang couple were good people, just tight-lipped.
Jiang Shan smiled and went back to his work.
Even such a small, simple thing gave them an unaccountable sense of belonging.
As night fell, a faint kerosene lamp glowed inside the tent.
Listening to the neighbor children’s laughter, her father sanding boards in the next tent, and her mother’s occasional muttering, Jiang Zhi felt an inexplicable happiness.
She leafed leisurely through the mutated-creature catalog, her heart gradually settling.
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
After Niu Dali gave his wife, Liu Xu, the powder Jiang Zhi had handed him, her breathlessness quickly eased.
But she still hadn’t woken.
Niu Xiaolu, his eyes red, asked from beside the bed, “Daddy, when will Mommy wake up?”
That feeling of helplessness welled up in Niu Dali’s heart once more.
Bewildered and miserable, all he could do was keep stroking his son’s head. “Wait a little longer. It should be soon.”
He knew full well that such a small amount of low-toxin food couldn’t actually cure Liu Xu.
At most it could buy a little time against her organ failure.
He had to get hold of enough low-toxin food within that limited window.
But…
These past two days he had asked everyone he could. Without enough to offer in return, he simply couldn’t find anyone willing to sell low-toxin food.
Niu Dali clenched his fists.
Over the years, relying on brute strength, he’d hunted no small number of mutated beasts. He had finally saved up nearly enough points, then borrowed some more, to buy this plot of land.
He’d thought life would slowly get better, who would have guessed the toxin in his wife’s body would suddenly flare up?
If Ah Xu hadn’t been bitten by a mutated ant back then, the toxin wouldn’t have erupted so fast.
Niu Dali kept watch at the bedside for a while. Seeing his wife’s condition gradually stabilize, he instructed his son, “Xiao Lu, I have to go out tomorrow to find detox food. You stay here and watch your mom. If anything happens, go find Grandpa and Grandma.”
Niu Xiaolu clutched his father’s hem. “Daddy, I don’t want to go to Grandpa and Grandma. They won’t help us!!”
Niu Dali knew his adoptive parents wouldn’t help him either, but in his current situation, he truly couldn’t be in two places at once.
Gritting his teeth, Niu Dali made a decision. “If they won’t, then tell them they can have our land, signed right over to them!”
At that, Niu Xiaolu looked at him with brimming eyes. “Daddy… Mommy won’t agree to that…”
Young as he was, Niu Xiaolu knew his parents had gone to enormous lengths to buy this house.
They had finally split off from Grandpa and Grandma’s household and gotten a home of their own, and now they were going to give it away.
The thought of his home being snatched off by his loathsome cousin’s family made Niu Xiaolu want to cry.
Niu Dali said, “Be good, Xiao Lu. Don’t you want your mommy?”
Niu Xiaolu cried out at once, “Of course I do!”
Niu Dali stroked his son’s head. “Xiao Lu, remember this: however important the house is, it’s not as important as your mom’s life.”
He might not be clever, but he could still tell what mattered most.
Niu Xiaolu half understood, but nodded anyway.
Having instructed his son, Niu Dali began gathering his things.
Just as he was wondering which district might let him find low-toxin food fastest, Liu Xu let out a soft groan from the bed and slowly opened her eyes.
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