Chapter 242 - Mother-daughter Difficulties
Along the way, Shangguan Bing Xue surprisingly seemed to be very empathetic to the situation of Yi Fang and her young daughter Xiang Feng. She, who was usually cold as ice, suddenly seemed to turn into another person.
This secretly surprised Bai Zemin very much. After all, it was the first time he had seen this ice woman act like that; even when Wu Yijun, who was her childhood friend, was trapped in the female dormitory and her life or death was unknown, she did not show such an amount of care.
Perhaps, thanks to her beauty acting as a kind of buffer or confidence booster, Yi Fang did not have too many barriers and neither did she have too many wariness towards the beautiful Shannguan Bing Xue. After talking for a couple of minutes, the woman slowly narrated the story of how she and her daughter ended up in such a precarious situation.
In the past, Yi Fang had married with a good and family-oriented man. Her husband, the father of little Xiang Feng, was not a wealthy person but he worked hard every day to take care of his family and the relationship between the three of them was quite good even if there were sometimes disagreements as was the case with most couples in the world.
Unfortunately, after about fifteen years of marriage, little Xiang Feng's father passed away... More specifically, this happened a month ago; just when the Soul Record showed up in the lives of all living beings on Earth without being invited and when the mana that had just awakened caused the apocalypse.
To protect the two most important women in his life, Yi Fang's husband killed several zombies along the way in order to make a path out of the apartment they lived in with his own hands. With his efforts, he even managed to become a level five soul evolver in a very short time.
Sadly, the man had been scratched by a zombie in order to protect his daughter... And as with any soul evolver infected by the zombies' vicious mana, the man naturally began to lose his rationality little by little.
Before he lost his mind and his body did not belong to him anymore, the man said goodbye to his family, and under the pain-filled gaze of the mother-daughter pair, he went into a forest to never be seen again.
Fortunately, after hiding in the basement of a small house for two days, the mother and daughter duo were found and rescued by a couple of Tinyuan Town police officers and then relocated in the current base that was just beginning to take shape.
During the first week, Yi Fang had worked really hard. Whether it was breaking her hands lifting objects twice her body weight or cleaning the houses of some government officials, she was willing to stay up all night just to bring some food to her daughter. Unfortunately, such a situation did not last for a long time.
The house where she worked belonged to a pervert with a not very nice record within the base. One day, Yi Fang saw with her own eyes how the pervert forced himself on another maid and, fearing for her own safety, she did not go back to that place.
As if the aforementioned was not enough, food soon became scarce and the work of reinforcing the walls had to stop as there was not enough food to pay the workers. It was then that the plight of the mother and daughter duo began in earnest.
To this day, mother and daughter had survived only by eating the relief gruel that the government prepared once per day for the survivors. However, the human body could not survive by eating only gruel endlessly, let alone with only one bowl a day. After about three weeks, Yi Fang noticed that her daughter Xiang Feng's health began to deteriorate more and more.
Being at the age of full growth, Xiang Feng needed a lot of nutrients to keep up with her body's progress. Therefore, Yi Fang, with a heart filled with sadness and sorrow, tried to sell her body to feed her daughter.
Fortunately or not, Yi Fang did not manage to sleep with any man besides her deceased husband. This made her extremely happy as she could still remain faithful to the love of her life even in death, but at the same time, it made her extremely anxious as her skin gradually began to turn more and more yellow while her not so outstanding beauty began to fade.
At her wits end and seeing that her daughter couldn't even make it through another week with the situation they were in, Yi Fang finally opted to do what no mother wanted to do; she simply had no choice. If she could go kill zombies she would gladly do so... But, killing zombies now was no longer so easy compared to a month ago. Besides, if she died, her ten year old daughter would be left alone in this desolate world and would definitely die, or worse, she could become the plaything of a pervert before being killed silently inside the darkness of some alley on the west side of the base.
"I guess the gods finally took pity on us, mother and daughter." Yi Fang muttered in a weak voice amidst almost inaudible sobs of bitterness that were a mixture of joy and sadness. "If it weren't for mister and miss... I'm afraid Xiang Feng and I would already..."
"The gods?" Bai Zemin unconsciously sneered. "Putting aside whether the gods are as venerable and all powerful as we thought, do you really think that if the gods were kind mankind and the rest of the races would be in this kind of situation?"
Since he learned from Lilith the truth about the gods and demons, Bai Zemin trusted no one but himself.
Miracles could only be achieved by oneself and expecting outside help would only end up killing you someday. This was the law by which the current Bai Zemin was governed.
Shangguan Bing Xue looked at Bai Zemin with her face still covered. Her blue eyes had a strange glint in them as she clearly noticed the ridicule of the young man who walked shoulder to shoulder with her when he mentioned about the gods.
Yi Fang didn't know what to say either so she just lowered her head in silence not daring to speak too much for fear of being kicked into the cold street once again.
When he sensed the woman's discomfort behind him, Bai Zemin softened his tone and said calmly, "You can call me Bai Zemin. No need to use the word mister when it's just us around."
"O-Okay." Yi Fang nodded somewhat hesitantly.
"Em?" Bai Zemin suddenly felt his sleeve being pulled and stopped his steps as he looked behind him. What he saw were two big bright eyes looking at him like those of a small kitten that was bullied and his heart was slightly shaken.
"Big brother, Xiang Feng is hungry..."
This little brat... Bai Zemin didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he heard the pity-filled voice of the little girl behind him.
Could it be that all girls were as innocent as Luo Ning and Xiang Feng? He shook his head before crouching down and gently patting the girl's messy hair, "Xiang Feng, be good and hold on a little longer. Big brother will give you something good later, but you can't eat too much now or your stomach will start to hurt."
Xiang Feng had been starving for a long time, so Bai Zemin needed to give her food little by little so that her stomach would widen enough to keep up with her appetite. Otherwise, it would only end up causing more harm than good.
The girl seemed to understand but at the same time she didn't seem to understand at all. Still, she nodded wisely and stopped insisting. Although she was a young girl of only ten years old, she had gone through many hardships during the past month and had seen her mother experience many hard things. Xiang Feng, who was only ten years old, knew when to move forward and when to move backward as if she were an adult.
For better or worse, today's world forced this formerly innocent child to mature a little faster than she really should.
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