Chapter 9: Found a Flatbed Cart

It was probably after the rest of the team returned that the old and weak from the Shi family told them about the tarp incident.

Several men lingered outside the Shi family’s tarp.

Just yesterday, they had righteously criticized Chen Lao’er and his group, saying Chen Lao’er was out of line.

But today, it was as if no one remembered what they’d said the day before.

Shi Yuebai was sitting behind the tarp.

Her eyes, squeezed into two slits by fat, stared coldly at the dirty, still tarp.

Next to her, Shi Yaoyao and Second Sister-in-law Shi had already fallen asleep leaning against her.

Their bodies were filled with abundant energy.

This energy was pure—just the kind the body needs to function.

It made them feel incredibly comfortable, as if they were floating in amniotic fluid.

After being exposed to radiation in the wasteland for so long, their bodies had been in terrible shape, but now, the two of them slept soundly, like a big and small pair of skinny pigs.

Shi Yuebai quietly shifted her position.

But for someone of her size, losing ten pounds in two or three days didn’t make much of a difference.

Her thick, fleshy hand braced against the gravelly ground, and she managed to move herself just a little.

The thick fat pressed against the small stones, but Shi Yuebai couldn’t feel any pain.

She reached out and grabbed the stick Second Sister-in-law Shi had been holding.

In the darkness, she poked at the stones on the ground one by one.

Then, she quietly pressed those stones deeper into the earth.

This way, the stones wouldn’t be easily moved out of place.

After securing the stones around her, Shi Yuebai used the stick to try to push herself up.

She didn’t succeed.

But Yuebai wasn’t discouraged.

Heaven knows how much strength she used just trying to stand.

Even though her butt didn’t lift off the ground at all, she kept at it all night, undaunted...

She had to get up and be able to move as soon as possible.

Otherwise, this terrible start would keep tormenting her.

The men outside the tarp heard nothing from inside the Shi family’s shelter.

Not a single sound to stir their imagination.

They grew bored, but none wanted to be the first to break the team’s rules.

In the end, they left, disgruntled.

At dawn, Shi Yaoyao woke up from a good sleep.

She saw that her aunt, at some point, had managed to move herself to the top of the gravel pit.

Second Sister-in-law Shi, full of energy, groped around with her hands.

“Yuebai, Yuebai, where did you go?”

Shi Yaoyao was already on the move.

She followed the track her aunt had made the night before, crawling along with her little hands.

There was a faint trail of blood along the path her aunt had made.

That was from the gravel scraping Shi Yuebai’s skin and fat, leaving behind bloodstains.

Shi Yaoyao also crawled to the top of the gravel pit.

“Auntie.”

Today, the little girl’s speech was a bit clearer than yesterday.

But not by much.

Shi Yuebai smiled at the little girl, who had scratched her hands bloody climbing the pile.

“Good job!”

Instead of feeling sorry for Shi Yaoyao, Shi Yuebai encouragingly patted her head.

“Yaoyao, see? Even if we can’t walk, as long as we try, we can still see a different view.”

She pointed to the far side of the gravel pit, where an old flatbed cart used for hauling goods before the apocalypse was parked.

The cart was in terrible shape.

But if they picked it up, it might still be usable.

Mainly, aside from this battered flatbed cart, Shi Yuebai couldn’t find anything else that could help her and Yaoyao move.

Second Sister-in-law Shi, guided by their voices, also climbed up the gravel pile.

Following Shi Yuebai’s directions, she climbed over the pile and dragged the flatbed cart back.

“All four wheels are broken.”

Second Sister-in-law Shi, her eyes blank, felt around the cart.

“We’ll need someone to fix it. I know who can.”

In the tarp next door lived a crazy, eccentric man.

While others scavenged for food and water, this man always brought back wires, coils, and all sorts of useless junk—broken computers, motherboards...

He was so skinny he was just skin and bones, and often lost all dignity, begging for food from every tarp.

The Shi family had given him food several times.

But with Shi Yuebai’s bottomless appetite, the Shi family could barely feed themselves, let alone support this oddball long-term.

Shi Yuebai said, “Give him a points card. He’ll definitely help us fix the cart.”

Second Sister-in-law Shi looked pained.

Those points cards they’d gotten from Chen Lao’er hadn’t been easy to come by.

She hadn’t even had a chance to warm them in her hands.

Shi Yuebai made the decision, “You can’t catch a wolf without sacrificing a lamb.”

“Second Sister-in-law, give him the points cards. If he can fix it, someone like him will be useful to us in the future.”

“We should take good care of him.”

Second Sister-in-law Shi had no choice but to take the broken cart and the bundle of points cards wrapped in a dirty handkerchief to the eccentric next door.

His tarp was huge, stuffed with all kinds of parts.

There were even things no one knew the use for—rubber bands, torn books, blueprints...

His junk had piled up so much it spilled outside his tarp.

Because he had so much trash, the others in the team couldn’t stand him either.

So, like the Shi family, he’d been sent to this remote corner.

Second Sister-in-law Shi found him and explained her request.

The eccentric rasped, “I don’t want points cards. They’ll bring me trouble.”

He knew exactly how the Shi family got those cards.

After all, he lived right next to them.

But he never said a word.

When the men in the team asked what happened with the Shi family, he kept silent.

He certainly never mentioned that he’d seen, with his own eyes, the blind Second Sister-in-law Shi dragging the corpses of Chen family’s eldest and second sons away.

Second Sister-in-law Shi anxiously asked, “Then what do you want?”

The skin-and-bones eccentric grinned, “Food. I want food. Give me food.”

He hadn’t eaten in days. Right now, all he wanted was something to eat.

Second Sister-in-law Shi frowned tightly and groped her way back to discuss with Shi Yuebai.

The Shi family’s pile of small potatoes still sat in the corner.

It had been two or three days, and no one had touched them.

Before, that would have been impossible.

With Shi Yuebai’s appetite, that pile of potatoes wouldn’t have lasted her a single meal.

But Shi Yuebai immediately decided, “Give him one. Just tell him we barely have enough to eat ourselves.”

“But if he helps us fix things in the future, as long as we have food, he’ll never go hungry.”"