Chapter 86: Apologizing to Shi Yuebai

When night fell, Commander Qiao shamelessly followed behind Pang Ziyuan, trying to get into the Shi family compound.

But once again, he was unceremoniously tossed out by that mysterious woman in the red wedding dress.

He didn’t get angry. He just dusted himself off and went back to digging the trench.

Xu Xuejiao and her two daughters had a tiny bit of food to eat.

It wasn’t nearly enough to fill their stomachs—just enough to keep them alive.

As the sky darkened, Xu Xuejiao walked over to the trench and asked Commander Qiao,

“We already gave the tarp to the Shi family. Where are we supposed to sleep tonight?”

Commander Qiao waved her over, signaling for her to come down into the trench.

“We’ll sleep here.”

He pointed to a hole at the bottom of the trench.

“I dug it today. We’ll make do for one night here. Maybe Yuebai will have cooled off by tomorrow.”

Xu Xuejiao wanted to get angry at his words, but she didn’t even have the energy for that.

All she could do was call her two daughters down into the trench. The family huddled together in the little pit.

“Aren’t you hungry? You should eat something,”

Xu Xuejiao said to Commander Qiao, feeling miserable as she looked at her two daughters curled up in the hole.

He’d been working all day, digging the trench with all his might.

While the Shi and Pang families had eaten two meals, Commander Qiao hadn’t had a single bite.

“I’m really hungry, but I can hold on a bit longer,”

Commander Qiao replied, his lips cracked, but he managed a smile at Xu Xuejiao.

Xu Xuejiao leaned against him and asked,

“Why aren’t you trying to talk sense into me anymore?”

She thought that once Commander Qiao had a break, he’d start lecturing her about life again, telling her to accept reality, just like he used to.

But Commander Qiao shook his head. “There’s no point. You’re smart—you understand everything.”

“Yuebai understands your problem too.”

Shi Yuebai wasn’t stupid; she saw things clearly.

Xu Xuejiao’s problem was that she still couldn’t accept the rules of survival in the wasteland.

People like that either die, or, if they survive, end up undermining the group’s unity.

She always had a sarcastic tone, harboring resentment and dissatisfaction inside.

Just looking at her put people in a bad mood.

“Actually, Shi Yuebai is a capable person,”

Commander Qiao paused, then said earnestly,

“Xuejiao, you can’t expect someone capable to be generous, good-tempered, and always go along with everyone’s wishes.”

No one is perfect.

Commander Qiao didn’t say anything more, and Xu Xuejiao fell silent too.

The family just huddled together in that little pit and made it through the night.

Before dawn the next day, with the stars still twinkling in the sky, Commander Qiao got up and started digging again.

Xu Xuejiao opened her eyes and watched her husband’s back as he swung the hoe. She couldn’t fall back asleep.

She knew the team was on the verge of falling apart.

At first, she’d thought that she and Commander Qiao were both capable people—they could handle anything the wasteland threw at them, and protect their daughters.

But as the days grew harder, more and more people left the team.

The scavenging parties grew weaker, and brought back less and less food.

Xu Xuejiao had gone from being a respected leader in the system, to the admired wife of the commander, to now—just an ordinary woman with pride in her heart but powerless to change anything.

Her life had been on a downward slope.

Inside the trench, her husband was swinging his hoe.

Outside the trench, the Shi and Pang families were busy building the wall and moving stones.

Xu Xuejiao looked at herself and her daughters, huddled safely in the pit.

After a while, when the sun came up, her daughters woke up too.

They looked at Xu Xuejiao.

She sighed, took out half a dry biscuit from her bag, broke it up, and gave it to her daughters.

Looking at her two daughters, so quiet and well-behaved, Xu Xuejiao felt a deep ache in her heart.

At noon, Commander Qiao was once again thrown out by the woman in the red wedding dress.

He hadn’t eaten in a day and a half.

But he still smiled, “Yuebai, I’ll just keep working.”

You can’t go on starving forever, or you just won’t make it.

That evening, after being rejected from the Shi family compound for the Nth time, Commander Qiao ate the half biscuit Xu Xuejiao handed him and sat in the pit to rest.

Xu Xuejiao frowned and said, “We haven’t gone scavenging in days.”

“Maybe we should…”

Their food stores weren’t plentiful. If Commander Qiao kept digging here without any return, they’d run out of food soon.

Commander Qiao sat at the edge of the pit, thought for a moment, and said,

“Yuebai wants a trench dug—she’s clearly setting up a defensive line.”

“If I stop working now, she’ll never use me again.”

Even though he hadn’t gotten a single bite to eat these past days, and wasn’t even paid for his work, it was basically free labor for Shi Yuebai.

But during the day, the two girls would climb up onto the trench.

They’d walk around inside the “Tong” character enclosure, and Shi Yuebai never chased them away.

That was a kind of hope.

The silent protection of an ability user was invisible, but more important than food or pay.

Before, Xu Xuejiao had been afraid her daughters would be targeted by bad people.

She kept a close eye on them, never letting them leave the tarp.

Now the tarp was gone, and all the strong men in the team had left for other groups.

Shi Yuebai’s “Tong” character enclosure was like a wall, keeping the two girls safe.

Once the trench was finished, anyone wanting to get inside the “Tong” would probably have to build a bridge.

Commander Qiao asked Xu Xuejiao, “Can’t you see how many benefits this trench brings?”

Xu Xuejiao was silent.

She knew.

Compared to letting her daughters run around the team, Shi Yuebai’s “Tong” enclosure gave a much greater sense of security.

Xu Xuejiao regretted a lot, deep down.

She could actually apologize to Shi Yuebai.

But Shi Yuebai never came out from behind the Shi family walls.

Xu Xuejiao didn’t know how to get her to stop being angry.

Another night passed. The seven or eight ragtag survivors left in the team came looking for Commander Qiao.

They stood at the edge of the trench, looking at the equally gaunt Commander Qiao, and said,

“Most of the team is gone, Commander, what do we do now?”

“We haven’t gone scavenging in days. Are we going out today?”

Clearly, the food and water they’d gotten from the Pang family had run out.

Xu Xuejiao climbed out of the pit and said to Commander Qiao,

“You go. I’ll dig the trench today.”

She’d thought it over for days—there was no point in butting heads with Shi Yuebai anymore.

The mercenaries hadn’t shown up these past few days, but the Shi and Pang families looked healthy and clean.

It seemed Yi Zhe was still supplying the Shi family with food, but the mercenaries weren’t coming often.

That way, the girls’ bodies wouldn’t suffer as much.

There was no better place than the Shi family.

Xu Xuejiao wanted to show, through her actions, that she was apologizing to Shi Yuebai.

She had a few passion fruits for breakfast, but her stomach kept growling all day."