Chapter 430: Apocalypse Trading System (2)

The last phone call was on the morning three days ago, saying that the father and son were trying to find a way back and telling his wife and daughter not to worry.

Afterwards, following the city-wide power outage, the signal towers also went on strike, communications were completely cut off, and Yu Baozhi could no longer reach her husband and son.

She had a gentle and weak personality, and her daughter was sickly; with just the two of them, frail and powerless, even if they mustered the courage to go out and find supplies, they could not carry back much.

The others in the Xie Family gradually began to treat the mother and daughter as a burden, their eyes growing increasingly impatient when looking at them.

"Third Sister-in-law, Third Brother and Xie Yan are likely in grave danger; are you really not coming out of the city with us tomorrow?"

Before leaving, Xie Laosi glanced at Yu Baozhi's slender and graceful figure, and a wicked fire began to run wild inside him.

Perhaps no one knew that he had taken a fancy to his Third Brother's wife for many years.

Who told his own wife to be dark and fat? How could she compare to the charm of Third Brother's wife?

Come to think of it, Third Brother was truly lucky; he had actually married the village beauty from the neighboring village back then, and she was an only daughter. After the old couple of the Yu family passed away, everything belonging to the Yu family became Third Brother's, and Yu Baozhi was always obedient to his Third Brother, never once going against him.

However, the heavens would not always stand on Third Brother's side.

For instance, during the demolition, he received one more house than Third Brother; and for another, he had two sons, while Third Brother only had one son, and the other was a money-losing daughter; and ever since the apocalypse arrived, he felt even more that the heavens were on his side—

First, it let his wife undergo Alienation into a Zombie, and then it trapped his Third Brother in the Zombie-infested University Town, unable to return.

Wasn't this clearly creating an opportunity for him?

Xie Laosi sniffed the fragrant scent of the woman, his mind wandering as he thought this.

Anyway, this world was already in chaos.

Things he didn't dare to covet before, who would care now?

Yu Baozhi's eyes held only endless worry and longing for her husband and son, and she shook her head, saying:

"No, I promised your Third Brother that I would wait here for him and Xie Yan to return. Even if... I must see the person if they are alive, or the corpse if they are dead. It's just that for Yang Yang, I'm afraid it's not safe for her to follow me; could she go to the base with you all?"

"This..."

Xie Laosi thought to himself, if Yu Baozhi wasn't going to the base, why would he bring a tagalong?

He gave a vague reply of "I'll go discuss it with Big Brother and the others and talk about it tomorrow," and hurried away, masking the calculation in his eyes.

Yu Baozhi sighed silently.

She knew that everyone thought she and her daughter were useless.

And they were indeed useless.

While following the group out to find supplies, she accidentally tripped, and the opened bag of loose Twisted Dough Sticks in her hand wasn't held steady, spilling all over the ground. In the rush, there was no time to pick them all up, and quite a lot was wasted.

Her daughter had managed to carry back a box of instant noodles, but unfortunately, she ran too slowly and was almost caught by a Zombie, and she even developed a high fever after returning...

Thinking of this, Yu Baozhi had no time to dwell on it; she hurriedly walked over to her daughter, crouched down, and concernedly felt her daughter's forehead.

"The fever has broken, it's broken! Thank heavens! The ancestors have blessed us!"

She then asked her daughter if there was anywhere else she felt uncomfortable.

Xie Yang shook her head.

Yu Baozhi lovingly embraced her: "Mom's precious baby girl has suffered! It will be fine once your father returns."

"Mom, I won't go to the base with them; I will stay with you and wait for Dad and Brother."

Yu Baozhi had originally wanted to persuade her daughter again, but seeing her daughter wearily close her eyes, she heart-achingly smoothed the bangs that were damp with sweat from the fever and said softly:

"Alright, then we will wait together for your dad and the others to return. After your eldest uncle and the others leave, we will lock the glass door and push a few office desks against it. Mom secretly hid some food; if we ration it, we should be able to hold out until your dad returns."

In her heart, she repeatedly recited "may the gods of all paths protect us," praying for her husband and son to return safely.

Xie Yang nodded, closed her eyes, and pretended to rest, beginning to receive the memories of the original owner.

The original owner was born into a happy family of four.

Her father, Xie Yongcheng, was a village electrician in his early years. Later, when the Xie Family Village was demolished and they moved to the Relocation Residential District, he was hired by the property management as the residential electrician. The pay wasn't considered good, but it was easy and comfortable.

Fortunately, they were allocated six Relocation Housing units during the demolition; two were connected for their own use, and four were rented out, which was enough to support the family with the rent.

Her mother, Yu Baozhi, had always been a housewife; because of her personality, she didn't like to go out much.

When they lived in the village, she liked to tinker with the vegetable patch and Orchard in front of and behind the house.

After moving to the Relocation Housing, Xie Yongcheng saw that his wife was bored, so he converted the twenty-square-meter large terrace into a sunroom, continuing to let his wife enjoy the pleasure of Planting.

Unfortunately, on the day the apocalypse descended, the farmers' market across the road from the Relocation Residential District was struck by a meteorite, shaking the entire district and causing many buildings to collapse.

Although the Unit Building where Xie Yongcheng's family lived didn't collapse, the sunroom was shattered by the shock, and the terrace door was deformed and couldn't be opened.

Otherwise, they could have lasted several more meals relying on the seasonal vegetables and ornamental fruits in the sunroom.

The original owner had an older brother, Xie Yan, who was just a freshman in college this year.

Although he attended university in this city, the University Town was more than forty kilometers away from home, so he definitely had to live on campus.

Xie Yan attended middle school at the entrance of their home; high school was two kilometers away, and he could reach it in ten minutes by bike, so he was always a day student.

This was his first time living on campus.

Even though he was an adult, his parents were still worried.

They were worried that he wouldn't be used to living away from home for the first time, and that he would have to undergo military training for half a month as soon as school started, during which time he couldn't come home.

On Friday night, seeing the photos the counselor posted in the parents' group, Yu Baozhi saw that her son had become darker and thinner, and she inevitably felt heartache, so she wanted to send her son some fruit and milk, and meet him to tell him to eat more.

And so, early Saturday morning, Xie Yongcheng drove to the University Town, wanting to meet his son before his military training.

Unexpectedly, just as he arrived at the gate of the University of Finance and Economics, before he could even meet up with his son, the apocalypse arrived.

Fortunately, there was cell phone signal for the first few days, and the father and son managed to find a way to meet up; with the fruit and milk Xie Yongcheng brought, they didn't have to go hungry.

The trouble was that the road from the University Town to the city center happened to be blocked by a huge meteorite.

Taking a detour meant encountering Zombies everywhere.

Yicheng was the provincial capital, and the University Town gathered most of the provincial and municipal-level universities, with a total of more than sixty thousand teachers and students.

Don't look at the fact that the apocalypse arrived around 7:30 on a Saturday morning; freshmen had military training, and upperclassmen weren't all sleeping in their dorms. Disciplined students had already left their dorms at this hour; some were walking on campus roads, some were eating breakfast in the Canteen, and some were already studying in the library.

This led to a very fast rate of Alienation, and soon, the place was filled with a vast army of Zombies.

The original body was still wrapped in an air-conditioning quilt sleeping in, when she was startled awake by a loud bang and the shaking that followed; terrified, she thought it was an earthquake, calling out for her mom and dad, and in her panic, she didn't even bother to put on her shoes, pulling open the bedroom door barefoot only to see her mother standing before the floor-to-ceiling window, face full of horror, muttering to herself:

"Good heavens! What is going on? How could perfectly fine people suddenly turn into monsters? And they're eating everyone they catch. The people who get eaten turn into monsters themselves after a short while..."

"!!!"