Chapter 70: If They Want to Fight Among Themselves, What Can I Do?

Shi Yaoyao looked at the few sneaky women standing outside the door with an especially innocent and naive expression.

If you said she was deliberately saying such things, she blinked her eyes, as if she didn’t understand what her words even meant.

The women outside the door couldn’t reason with a mentally challenged child of just a few years old.

One of the women stepped forward, forcing a smile onto her face as she gritted her teeth.

“What’s the big deal? Why are you suddenly cutting ties with us?”

“Haven’t we always gotten along just fine before?”

Shi Yaoyao didn’t reply. She just tilted her little face up, trying hard to understand the expression on this woman’s face.

Although, with her level of understanding, she still couldn’t tell whether the woman’s smile was kind or malicious.

But she didn’t like this woman.

Because Shi Yaoyao had once overheard this woman call her a stupid, disabled child.

Shi Yaoyao said, “No, Auntie said, it’s not that you don’t want to play with us anymore.”

“It’s that we don’t want to play with you bitches anymore.”

Shi Yaoyao was very honest.

She repeated her aunt’s words word for word.

The woman’s smile instantly twisted into something ferocious, like a demon in the night.

“You little idiot, who are you calling a bitch?”

She raised her hand and shoved Shi Yaoyao.

Just as Shi Yaoyao stumbled backward, a fierce wind suddenly swept through the Shi family courtyard.

A corner of a red dress hung down in front of the woman’s face.

At first, the woman thought it was just a scrap of cloth and swatted it away.

But behind the corner of the dress appeared an upside-down face.

It was a deathly pale woman, hanging right in front of her.

The woman at the door froze, her heart stopping for a moment.

She saw the upside-down woman in red, her long hair trailing on the ground, her eyes staring straight at her.

In the next instant, the eerie woman in red grinned.

Her mouth stretched wider and wider, the corners splitting all the way to her ears, as a chilling “jié jié jié jié” laughter came from her mouth.

“Ahhh!”

The woman by the door rolled her eyes back, foaming at the mouth, and collapsed backward in a dead faint.

The women behind her caught her.

They looked around in confusion at the empty courtyard gate.

All they saw was Shi Yaoyao sitting on the ground.

What else could there be?

But the woman who had fainted kept convulsing, the foam at her mouth growing thicker and thicker.

It looked downright creepy.

The women who had wanted to trade trash for supplies didn’t dare linger any longer.

They hurriedly carried the convulsing woman away.

Each of them was both angry and anxious inside.

Once again, they’d come away empty-handed.

Their families weren’t like Wei Lingxia’s or Zhang Xueyao’s—their food was nowhere near enough.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have snuck over to look for Shi Yuebai tonight.

But now Shi Yuebai had been angered.

Not only did they fail to get any supplies, one of them had even started convulsing for no reason.

The women carried the convulsing woman back to their tarp shelter.

But she didn’t receive any proper care from her family.

The whole group could hear the men inside the tarp cursing and yelling.

He wished he could just throw out this useless woman who only brought trouble to men.

At a time like this, medical care was out of the question. So what if she was convulsing?

She could just keep convulsing.

The next morning, Wei Lingxia stormed into the convulsing woman’s home in a rage.

She wanted to confront her for betraying their united front.

But what she saw was the woman twisted up in spasms.

Wei Lingxia demanded, “Did you go to the Shi family yesterday?”

The woman’s mouth and eyes were crooked, but she managed to pick up a stone and throw it at Wei Lingxia.

Wei Lingxia, furious, stepped forward and kicked her.

“How dare you hit me? Don’t you know who my man is?”

“Fuck you!”

A man burst out of the tarp, grabbed Wei Lingxia by the hair, and slapped her twice across the face.

“You told my wife not to go to the Shi family for supplies?”

“Now my wife’s like this because of you. Are you looking for death?”

The men in the group had all been out searching for food lately.

Those who could leave, left.

Before leaving, they’d tried to trade for as much food as they could from the Shi family.

But they hadn’t gotten any food, and now his wife had ended up like this.

The man, understanding the situation, dragged Wei Lingxia by the hair straight to the Chen family’s tarp.

“My wife is gone. Your family has so many women—give me one to replace her.”

He made it clear he had no intention of keeping his now-disabled, convulsing wife.

Wei Lingxia screamed all the way as the man dragged her off.

The whole Chen family erupted in terrified cries.

The team leader stood watching from a distance, shaking his head.

“Really, when you pick up a stone, you never know whose foot you’ll smash.”

Behind him, the team leader’s wife, her face waxy and dark, asked,

“Can we still trade for some canned food today?”

Practical matters first—nothing in the group was more important than staying alive.

The team leader immediately turned to look at the Shi family, plastering on a smile as he went to knock on their door.

Like a cadre inspecting the countryside, he said,

“Yuebai, your courtyard is really well built.”

Shi Yuebai sat in the shade, glancing at the team leader.

She lifted a finger, and Shi Yaoyao immediately got up to block the team leader’s path.

“My aunt says: Get lost!”

Shi Yaoyao beamed at the team leader, her face full of innocence.

The team leader’s expression stiffened, but he quickly recovered and said,

“Yuebai, do you still need any supplies? What about those disposable bowls—do you still want them?”

Last time, the team leader’s whole family had gone out and managed to scavenge half a street’s worth of disposable bowls from the night market.

He could still get another half street’s worth.

Shi Yuebai, sitting in her wheelchair, her fleshy face indifferent, let her hand fall and picked up a can of pet food from the ground, tossing it to the team leader.

“In your group, there can’t be any more cases of women being forced.”

“Go stop it!”

A trace of difficulty appeared on the team leader’s face.

“Yuebai, if those people want to fight among themselves, what can I do?”

Shi Yuebai swung a long stick, striking the team leader’s hand and knocking the can of pet food to the ground.

She said coldly,

“That’s your problem. I don’t want the children in my family growing up watching this filth every day.”

The team leader’s hand throbbed with pain. He frowned, clutching his injured hand with the other.

A purple bruise appeared on his hand at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The team leader frowned, but forced a smile as he picked up the can of pet food from the ground.

“Alright, Yuebai, calm down. I’ll make sure you don’t have to see any of that.”

Outside the big city, there were no police.

Which meant that outside the city was a vast lawless land.

Anything could happen here.

And everyone was used to anything happening.

No one had ever given the team leader a can of food to make him stop these things.

He’d also gotten used to women being forced against their will.

Life just went on like this.

But now that there was food to be had, of course the team leader was willing to do as Shi Yuebai wished.

Clutching the can of pet food, he rushed into the Chen family’s tarp.

A stone came crashing down, simply and brutally knocking the man off the woman he was pinning down.

(The last two lines are author’s notes and not part of the story.)"