Chapter 130: Are You My Husband’s Illegitimate Son?

Yi Zhe was at a complete loss for words.

He’d been stationed at the front lines for a while now, but every day, he found himself thinking about the Shi family.

Ever since Shi Yi left, and after he’d saved Shi’s mother, the Shi family had become something he couldn’t help but worry about in this wasteland.

He had no family of his own, so this concern for them filled the hole in his heart where family should have been.

Of course he worried, but he was always too busy to do much more than send the occasional text to Shi Yuebai to check in.

Deep down, Shi Yuebai was still that proud, sharp-tongued little girl.

Sometimes, if she was in the mood, she’d reply with just two words: “All good.”

Other times, she wouldn’t reply at all.

Yi Zhe figured she was just too proud to admit if she was having a hard time.

But seeing them today, the Shi family was clean, tidy, and honestly looked like they were doing pretty well.

Yi Zhe and Huo Chenggui walked into their “little courtyard.”

Looking at the three tents set up behind the waist-high wall, with white smoke curling around them, Yi Zhe and Huo Chenggui felt like two moles who’d just tunneled out of the mud and into paradise.

Yi Zhe glanced at Huo Chenggui.

Clearly, Huo Chenggui seemed a little less shocked than he was.

In fact, Huo Chenggui was doing his best to act natural.

“Hahaha, Boss, the air here is amazing! The air at Yuebai’s place is sweet as honey!”

Yi Zhe didn’t say anything. He walked over to his tent, where a layer of tiny, sparkling dew drops clung to the surface.

Even with the sun shining on them, the droplets glistened beautifully.

Yi Zhe couldn’t help but swallow; his mouth was suddenly dry.

When he opened his tent, everything he’d left inside was still there.

Not that it was much—just an inflatable pillow.

A while later, Shi Yaoyao came bouncing over, grabbing onto the wall and calling out,

“Uncle Yi, Uncle Huo, do you want something to eat?”

She was holding a plastic bag, her eyes crinkling with a smile.

“Auntie asked me to bring this over.”

The little girl was just over eight years old. That big head of hers, which used to look so odd a few months ago, didn’t seem nearly as strange anymore.

You could always tell when a child had cognitive issues, just from their appearance.

The Shi Yaoyao of today was a completely different child from the one she’d been before.

Yi Zhe watched her quietly and nodded.

Inside the plastic bag Shi Yuebai had sent were six bagels, the kind with jam filling.

They were vacuum-packed, so even though they were past their expiration date, they hadn’t spoiled.

Lately, with water prices rising, the mercenary group’s days had gotten tighter and tighter.

But that wasn’t even the worst of it.

The worst part was that even in the big cities, there were no medical supplies to buy anymore.

None of the big cities provided medical care for mercenaries.

Yet mercenaries were the ones who consumed the most medical resources in the wasteland.

This time, Yi Zhe had come back from the front lines not just to check on the Shi family, but also to see if he could find any place in the city selling medical supplies.

Everyone was scrimping and saving, trying to stretch their food budget to buy medicine, and they still had to make sure Pang Ziyuan had enough to eat.

So neither Yi Zhe nor Huo Chenggui had had a proper meal in ages.

“Let’s eat first. We can talk after,” Huo Chenggui urged Yi Zhe.

But as he raised his hand, he suddenly froze.

Yi Zhe turned to him. “What’s wrong?”

Huo Chenggui’s expression was a little odd. He shook his head. “No, it’s nothing.”

Family, huh.

Who could understand the shock Huo Chenggui was feeling right now?

There was a deep, bone-deep wound on the back of his hand.

But right now, that wound was actually healing.

Really—new flesh was growing over it. Huo Chenggui quietly rubbed at the scab, and it flaked off, revealing a fresh pink scar underneath.

Oh my god, Huo Chenggui felt like he’d just discovered something incredible.

Meanwhile, over at the Shi house, Shi Yuebai had sent Captain Qiao to the city to look around.

Captain Qiao had a communicator too. Back when his team was big, life wasn’t nearly as hard as it was now.

He used to have so much food it was piled up like a mountain, and a communicator was nothing special.

But after the team fell apart, the only time he used the communicator was to contact the water supply managers when buying water.

Captain Qiao knew the city well and quickly sent back a message.

There was only one person in the city selling seeds.

But that person didn’t really sell seeds—he sold people.

If you bought a person from him, you’d get a seed as a bonus.

Shi Yuebai hadn’t misread it; Captain Qiao’s message really did say “one” seed.

[Captain Qiao: Yuebai, this is a terrible deal. He treats people like livestock. Just for a single seed, we’d have to take in another mouth to feed.]

[Shi Yuebai: What kind of seed?]

[Captain Qiao: …No idea. It’s tiny. No clue if it’s any good, or if it’ll even grow.]

No one could get seeds to sprout anymore.

So even though there were people selling seeds, they went for dirt cheap.

The closer it got to the end, the cheaper seeds became.

Some people even ate the seeds as food.

In the end, seeds would disappear from the wasteland altogether.

Shi Yuebai thought this was a deal worth making.

Because the cheapest person Captain Qiao could buy was only 10,000 credits.

Human life was worth less than grass. And as for what happened to those people after they were bought—well, best not to think about it.

Anyone who’d sunk to being worth 10,000 credits was only good for the dinner table.

Shi Yuebai’s account had just under 10,000 credits.

She was short 1,080.

Shi Yuebai turned her gaze to Yi Zhe.

For some reason, Yi Zhe felt a chill run down his spine.

Shi Yuebai wheeled herself over to him.

“Brother Yi Zhe.”

She grinned, her chubby cheeks bunching up.

“Do me a favor?”

She pulled out her account’s QR code. “Lend me some credits. Twenty thousand. Lend me twenty thousand.”

Credits were money.

Shi Yuebai was blatantly asking Yi Zhe for a loan.

Before Yi Zhe could react, Huo Chenggui whipped out his communicator and scanned the code. “Beep!”

“Yuebai, if your Brother Yi Zhe won’t lend it, your Brother Chenggui will.”

“Is 37,649 credits enough? I’ll send it all to you.”

That was all the credits Huo Chenggui had.

Once, he’d been a well-educated young man, but now, as a wastelander, he was living paycheck to paycheck.

It was a long story.

Shi Yuebai smiled and nodded, looking at Huo Chenggui, who was all but wagging his tail at her.

“Do I have to pay you back?”

“Heh, aren’t we siblings? I suspect you’re my long-lost little sister.”

Huo Chenggui was determined to establish a connection with Shi Yuebai.

“What’s wrong with a brother giving his little sister some pocket money? No need to pay me back.”

But before Huo Chenggui could finish, Shi’s mother suddenly rushed over, brandishing a broom.

“You’re my husband’s illegitimate son? Oh, so now even the illegitimate kids dare to show up at my door!”

“Let’s see if I don’t beat you to death!”

Bought another set of rulers today.

So strange—does the school eat stationery for breakfast or something?"