Exchanging supplies was something Wen Jiuzhe did with practiced ease, and he quickly traded for a pile of things he needed.
While waiting at the trading point to collect the goods, he kept his attention fixed in the direction of his vehicle.
He had parked the car in the nearest parking space; standing at the entrance of the trading point, he could see it clearly. If any strangers approached, he would notice in time.
He didn’t feel at ease in a place like this letting Xue Ling leave his sight.
While handing over the items, Wen Jiuzhe heard a “Cousin” from behind him.
Dai Ying, his arm in a sling, looked at him with an awkward expression. Wen Jiuzhe glanced at him and continued stuffing things into his pockets.
Dai Ying hesitantly edged closer and said in a low voice, “Cousin, how are you? Are you okay? Mi-ge and the others in our convoy were driven off by the local thugs over in Anxi. We didn’t get the supplies, and we even got beaten up. I hurt my arm.”
He moved his arm a little.
Wen Jiuzhe snorted with a laugh. “Serves you right.”
“Cousin, I know I was wrong.” Dai Ying followed behind him, glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention, and lowered his voice. “After I got back, my mom scolded me. I shouldn’t have done that.”
His mom said that the others in the convoy were worried about their own safety, and wanting to deal with the zombies was understandable. But they were family—he should have been more considerate of his cousin, put himself in his cousin’s shoes, and stood on his side.
His cousin had ability and knew what he was doing. It wasn’t his place, an inexperienced hotheaded kid, to make decisions for him.
There were many more tactful ways to handle the situation, yet he had been incited by a few words from others and stepped forward to do something stupid.
“Cousin, are you still with that… you, your girlfriend?”
Wen Jiuzhe said, “Say what you want to say.”
Dai Ying grew even more embarrassed. “That Uncle Feng in the convoy—after he came back, he’s been spreading it all over the base that you’re raising zombies. If you keep bringing them with you, you probably won’t be able to stay in the base anymore. They’ll investigate.”
Wen Jiuzhe said, “Oh, I’m leaving soon anyway.”
He hadn’t planned to stay long in this base. For some people, being rejected by a base was a catastrophic disaster, but for Wen Jiuzhe, the world was so big—where couldn’t he go?
Dai Ying looked disappointed. “Ah, Cousin, you’re leaving already? My mom even told me to wait for you here. She said she wanted to invite you back for a meal and asked me to apologize to you properly.”
Wen Jiuzhe didn’t indulge him at all. “If you want to apologize, you can do it right now.”
Dai Ying lowered his head and apologized, his face drawn. “If my mom finds out you just left like this, she’ll definitely scold me to death.”
His mother was his own mother’s cousin, whom Wen Jiuzhe called Auntie.
Back then, when that fickle and promiscuous man from the Wen family tricked his mother, took advantage of her body and feelings, and then disappeared without a trace, his mother had been nothing more than a high school student who didn’t understand anything.
Pregnant before marriage, she endured countless sidelong glances and endless gossip. People said she lacked parental upbringing from a young age, was so shameless, and got pregnant at such a young age with some unknown bastard.
The relatives all felt it was shameful and cut off contact with her. Only this cousin of his mother’s had gone to take care of her for a while when she gave birth, and later had offered some help as well.
When Wen Jiuzhe was young, the few times he ever got snacks were when this Auntie came to visit and bought them for him.
So when they met again after the apocalypse, he was willing to take Dai Ying along and teach him a few things.
Dai Ying followed behind him, chattering nonstop—at one moment saying he should come back to eat, that he knew a place where zombies could be hidden so no one would discover them; at another moment worrying about him, afraid he would be ostracized if people found out he was bringing zombies with him.
Wen Jiuzhe turned around and tossed him a box of painkillers. “Give this to Auntie. Doesn’t she often have headaches?”
“And you—take the medicine, shut up, and leave. Don’t say another word.”
He found it noisy.
Dai Ying stood there dumbly holding the medicine. He actually admired this cousin of his a lot. Seeing that he was about to leave, he finally couldn’t hold back and asked one last question: “Ge, will you come back?”
Wen Jiuzhe waved a hand.
He probably wouldn’t come back here again.
If he couldn’t find Wen Yi in Andong City, then he could only… go see the Terracotta Army. Maybe he’d die on the road someday—there was nothing special about that, sooner or later anyway.
Carrying the supplies back to his car, during the time he’d been away no strangers had come near it, but there was a familiar dog here.
Dai Ying’s golden retriever, Puff. It had followed its owner out for a walk and, upon seeing this familiar car, ran over on its own.
While Dai Ying was talking with Wen Jiuzhe over there, Puff had been lying against the car window here, panting with its tongue out and wagging its tail.
The window had privacy film on it, so it couldn’t see inside, but it could sense that someone was there.
Xue Ling was sitting in the back seat, looking at the dog through the window.
With the car door between them, she wasn’t afraid, and even thought it was quite cute. She tapped on the window with her finger to tease the dog.
She tapped the window once with her fingernail, and the dog outside would pat it once with its paw. They played like this for quite a while, until Wen Jiuzhe came back.
Seeing him, Puff stopped leaning on the window, trotted down to greet him, and rubbed against his legs.
Wen Jiuzhe freed a hand to pat its head. “Good dog. Much cuter than your owner.”
He opened the car door and put the things inside. Xue Ling in the car shrank back a little, then poked her head out to look at the dog again, looking both scared and eager to play.
Wen Jiuzhe glanced at the dog by his feet and suddenly asked, “Want to keep a dog? Otherwise, how about we take Puff with us?”
Xue Ling: What kind of bully cousin is this—how is this any different from going to relatives’ houses during New Year and taking their kid’s toy with you?
She quickly shook her head and waved her hands to refuse.
Her interest in dogs was a case of “Lord Ye’s love of dragons”—when they were still, she thought their fluffy fur was cute; once they moved and came closer, she felt scared again.
Besides, she already had a “dog” to keep.
Smart at times like a border collie, and when causing trouble and being obnoxious like a husky—who dared say Wen Jiuzhe wasn’t a dog!
Anyway, back when she had just come to recognize Wen Jiuzhe’s true nature and had been so mad at him she was speechless, she’d secretly comforted herself by thinking, just treat him like a dog.
Thinking of those people who keep huskies—they also get driven mad by their dogs at home. At least Wen Jiuzhe didn’t tear the house apart, and he could even understand human speech.
Once she thought of it that way, her tolerance for him shot up.
Wen Jiuzhe, who had no idea what Xue Ling was thinking, thought she was still shaken from being chased by a dog before and didn’t want to see this big dog, and regretfully gave up the idea.
He had even wanted his foolish cousin to experience what it felt like when something he cared about was suddenly taken away.
Then, when he chased after it crying, he’d give the dog back to him.
Thank your sister-in-law’s kindness.
“Go on, go back to your owner.” Wen Jiuzhe nudged the golden retriever with his foot.
The golden retriever, completely unaware that it had almost been kidnapped, understood the meaning of his shooing. It barked a couple of times unwillingly, then obediently ran back to its owner.
“Look, learn how to cook.” She picked out a few relatively simple ones and showed them to Wen Jiuzhe.
Wen Jiuzhe watched the video and replied with a hell joke of his own: “You’re getting me to work hard at learning cooking skills to fatten myself up—so you’ve gone into the breeding business too.”
He even grew a bit curious. “What am I to you now? A chicken leg? Beef? Pork chop?”
Xue Ling: “……”
What was he even talking about—Wen Jiuzhe was Wen Jiuzhe. No matter what, he could never turn into beef or pork chop.
If she really had to say it, it was like when she was little and her uncle and aunt took her out to play on the street, and they bought her a very cute sugar figurine.
The caramel smell was fragrant; one lick was sweet. She kept it by her bedside for several days.
At night when she was hungry, she looked at the pretty sugar figurine and still couldn’t bear to eat it, feeling that just looking at it already made her satisfied and happy.
Later it attracted ants, and her aunt urged her to hurry up and eat it, but she still couldn’t bear to.
In the end it melted, and she still couldn’t bear to eat it.
Her aunt muttered that it was a waste, but she didn’t regret not eating it earlier, because she liked it so much that she couldn’t bear to chew it up and destroy it.
She only thought—if it could be properly preserved and kept for a bit longer, that would be nice.
“Say it—do you think I’d taste good?” Wen Jiuzhe pressed on with a smile.
Xue Ling shook her head firmly.
She was afraid that if she said he tasted good, Wen Jiuzhe would slice a piece off to let her satisfy her craving.
After thinking about it, she wrote: “It’s dog meat. Not tasty.”
Sure enough, after hearing that, Wen Jiuzhe didn’t ask anymore. He was very dissatisfied with her answer and reached out to twist and rub her face left and right, up and down.
