Chapter 77: A Consoled Conscience

A-Hong braced herself, stumbling along behind Shi Yuebai’s paper airplane.

She couldn’t see the path in the darkness—only the white paper airplane floating ahead.

Shi Yuebai did her best to guide A-Hong along a relatively smoother route.

But still, A-Hong staggered and tripped through the ruins.

Her hand—pierced through the palm by an exposed steel bar—was dripping blood, drop by drop.

Shi Yuebai said nothing. Maybe she hadn’t noticed A-Hong’s injury. Maybe she had.

But that wasn’t the most important thing right now.

Soon, under Shi Yuebai’s guidance, A-Hong found Pang Zhenggong lying amidst a tangle of steel bars in the rubble.

“Honey!”

A-Hong lurched forward, tripping over a steel bar and falling straight into the debris.

She didn’t care about the pain.

She crawled over the jagged stones. “How did this happen?”

“Weren’t you going to the family meeting? How did you end up here?”

Pang Zhenggong didn’t answer. His eyes were tightly shut.

He looked like a rag doll, discarded among the sharp ruins.

A-Hong’s tears fell, one after another.

She lifted her pierced hand and wiped her face.

Very quickly, her face was smeared with soot, sweat, and blood.

But she knew now wasn’t the time to cry.

The urgent thing was to check on Pang Zhenggong.

Dead or alive?

She needed to know for sure.

“This shouldn’t have happened. You and Ah Cheng were good brothers.”

A-Hong crawled closer, raising her bloody hand to gently touch Pang Zhenggong’s cheek.

The moment she spoke, Pang Zhenggong—who had seemed on the verge of death—suddenly fluttered his eyelids.

“He’s still conscious.”

Shi Yuebai’s paper airplane circled above Pang Zhenggong and A-Hong.

“Stay here. I’ll go get Commander Qiao and your son.”

As long as he wasn’t dead, Shi Yuebai believed he could be saved.

Of course, even if he died, she could find a way to bring him back.

Though, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

In any case, the first priority was to get Pang Zhenggong back.

In the darkness, all the scattered paper airplanes gathered and landed in front of Commander Qiao and Pang Ziyuan.

Everyone stopped in their tracks, staring at the floating paper airplanes.

“Uh…” Commander Qiao swallowed hard.

He felt like he was witnessing something supernatural.

After all, four or five white paper airplanes were hovering in front of him and Pang Ziyuan.

Was this some kind of superpower? Or had the wasteland world turned into a ghost story?

He seemed to recall seeing A-Hong chasing after a paper airplane earlier.

Good grief—humans hadn’t even figured out how to survive in the wasteland, and now they had to deal with all this spooky stuff.

Up ahead, Pang Ziyuan suddenly had a flash of insight.

“Commander Qiao, follow them, quickly.”

He didn’t really understand what these paper airplanes were.

But he was sure that following them would lead him to his mother.

Pang Ziyuan’s limbs felt weak as he started climbing over the rubble ahead.

Chunks of concrete, steel bars, bricks, and all sorts of debris formed a strange mountain.

Pang Ziyuan struggled to climb up.

Commander Qiao followed behind. As an adult man, he quickly caught up to Pang Ziyuan.

He reached out to steady Pang Ziyuan. “Careful, there’s steel bars everywhere. Don’t get hurt.”

Below them, a few scrawny, out-of-breath men were catching up.

They all had one thing in common: they were skinny—almost as skinny as Pang Ziyuan.

By the faint starlight, they looked up at the towering ruins ahead.

“It’s too high, Commander. Maybe we should just give up.”

“It’s too dangerous up there. Let’s go back.”

Anywhere there were ruins, there were all kinds of hidden dangers.

Sometimes it was a kitchen knife.

Sometimes a razor blade.

Exposed steel bars were actually the most obvious, most visible danger.

Commander Qiao and Pang Ziyuan were halfway up. Commander Qiao looked down and snapped,

“Cut the crap! Do you want Pang family’s food or not?”

“If you miss this meal, with your skills, you won’t scavenge anything edible.”

Commander Qiao was now determined to cling to Shi Yuebai for dear life.

Everything was so unusual—paper airplanes floating over the ruins in the middle of the night.

That said it all.

The Pang family was now following the Shi family.

To put it more bluntly, the Pang family was Shi Yuebai’s loyal follower.

When Pang Ziyuan came to him with a can of pet food, Commander Qiao knew—

It was Shi Yuebai giving him orders.

This was a great chance to prove himself to Shi Yuebai.

The skinny guys below, hearing Commander Qiao’s words, grumbled but had no choice but to start climbing the ruins as well.

Soon, they reached the spot the paper airplanes had led them to.

Pang Ziyuan stumbled forward. “Mom, what happened to Dad?”

Before A-Hong could answer, one of the paper airplanes circling in the night sky swooped down.

“Still got time for questions? Your dad’s about to die.”

Pang Ziyuan snapped out of it, and—with Commander Qiao and the other skinny men who’d just climbed up—hurriedly lifted the blood-soaked Pang Zhenggong.

Commander Qiao was shocked. “Quick, let’s get back!”

A paper airplane could actually talk.

And it was Shi Yuebai’s voice.

He finally realized—Shi Yuebai was an esper.

But weren’t espers in the stories always about wind, rain, thunder, lightning, the five elements?

What kind of power was Shi Yuebai’s?

Aaaaah.

Commander Qiao racked his brains, but couldn’t figure out which category in the wasteland a talking paper airplane would fit into.

“This way.”

The paper airplane led Pang Ziyuan down a shortcut.

Pang Ziyuan immediately waved at the now-enthusiastic Commander Qiao.

Meanwhile, in the neighboring team, the muscle-bound commander was calling roll.

When he called Song Yucheng, he sneered maliciously:

“Your little team is really something—getting people killed and not even cleaning up the mess.”

“Go deal with them. Don’t let them bother me again.”

He paused, then added to Song Yucheng,

“Your brother’s wife still has some meat on her. Don’t kill her.”

Song Yucheng’s eyes were red, his whole body shaking.

He exchanged glances with his fellow dig team members.

The group left the team, heading in the direction A-Hong had run.

They knew where Pang Zhenggong’s body had been dumped.

They’d thought Pang Zhenggong was dead, and that no one would try to take any of the team’s rescue and digging tools anymore.

But then A-Hong and Pang Ziyuan came looking for him.

And went straight to the new commander.

“A-Zheng’s wife and kid are looking for death. What’s it got to do with us?”

A teammate muttered, as if comforting his own conscience,

“A-Zheng shouldn’t have tried to take the team’s communal property. He deserved what he got.”

I found the source of the smell.

Little Mie-mie spilled something sticky under the sofa.

It took me ages to clean it up last night.

It’s much better today."