Chapter 49: Share
Translator: Letty / Editor: DarkGem / IceTea
Observing Qing Shui from the back, this was the first time Chang had ever seen Qing Shui stooped. Although Qing Shui had a skinny figure, he had always been exceedingly shrewd. Chang remembered a quote that he read in a book – “if a person who usually stood upright began to bend his back, it was because he had something heavy either on his shoulders or in his mind.”
The bag wasn’t that heavy for Qing Shui, since he had also become stronger after the “Deadly Evolution” period; hence, there was only one cause – the pressure in his mind.
“What does the Willow really look like?” Chang tried hard to uncover the myth – what kind of life could give Qing Shui this amount of unbearable pressure?
“A gigantic tree, it spoke…and it has seven brains…” Jing walked slowly as she recalled the details, and she told everything she saw to Chang.
The expression on Chang’s face became more astonished as Jing told the story. Chang seemed to be unable to process their unbelievable experience with the Willow as his mouth opened unconsciously.
Chang was lost in thought like Qing Shui after hearing the whole story. His lips pressed together tightly.
None of them talked afterward, and Chang followed the group to the base and went straight back to their dorm room.
Qing Shui pushed the door with his left shoulder, causing it to creak open. They entered the room one by one; Qing Shui, Pang Zi and Ling put down the weight on their back in a corner of the room before they had a chance to catch their breath.
“Pang Zi, put aside the formalin; we still need to go to find some barrels. Time waits for no one and the longer we wait, the harder it will be for us to treat the meat.” Qing Shui wiped off the sweat on his forehead and pulled Pang Zi to go out with him.
A moment later, they came back and forth four times in total, and each time they went back, either Qing Shui or Pang Zi would carry a big dark green iron barrel filled with water. After four trips, they had the barrels aligned tidily under the window. Then, Qing Shui poured the same amount of formalin into three of the barrels, letting the chemical mix well with the water.
“The formalin I brought from the hospital was 40% formaldehyde. The concentration is way too high for us even now, so I’m diluting it.” Qing Shui explained his intentions while mixing the chemical with Chang’s iron spear.
After Qing Shui did this, he untied the woven bags and carefully placed chunks of frog meat into the formalin solution.
“What are these?!” Noticing Qing Shui unfastening the bags, the mother from the family of four could no longer hold herself back. She stood up from the bed weakly and pointed at Qing Shui’s face, “That is meat; you have MEAT!!” she shouted.
“Stop yelling for god’s sake.” Pang Zi interrupted her immediately as if her shouting had caught the attention of the entire building. This was a special and sensitive period; they couldn’t let other people know that they had food, especially protein! Otherwise, their room would be swarmed with starving people within 5 minutes.
“How is it possible that you have so much meat!” The mother stared at Qing Shui eagerly, and desire was obviously showing on her face. “No wonder none of you died these days, not even that skinny little girl! I see…I see! You have food! You have meat!”
“Shut up, whatever we had and have is none of your business!” Pang Zi’s face became ferocious as the woman kept being annoyed.
At the exact same moment, the door opened again. IIt was the younger son, whose older brother was torn by the tentacle, that walked into the room. His appearance intensified the atmosphere; he only had a small trunk of root in his hand – without a doubt, that was their only food today.
“What’s wrong, mom?” the son was alerted as he saw Pang Zi confronting his mother.
“Meat?” the son turned his head and sure enough, he saw the meat bathing in the barrels. Like his mother, his expression changed, his hand loosened and the root dropped. The son wanted to get closer to the barrels out of instinct.
However, he didn’t even step forward two steps before being stopped by Chang.
“We do have meat, but why you do you think it’s any of your business?” Chang clenched the crossbow tightly; even though he looked severely injured, he was not chicken at all! Chang’s charred and scarred chest scared the son into taking a step back.
“How can we not get involved, we live together, with you! Cheapskate!” Seeing her son withdraw, the woman was hot with emotion. “It was said in our Kaifeng idiom, the witness gets a share; if you are not going to do as I say, you won’t get to have that meat either.”
“Look at my body, old b*tch! I even got half of my face burned, I almost exchanged my life for this food. I am not going to give anything to you, not even a single slice!” Chang pointed at his chin angrily, his eyes filled with rage.
“Well, guess what, I DON’T CARE! if you aren’t sharing, I guarantee that you won’t have a slice either. I will call everyone in the building and, if I were to shout loudly, the whole building… and the people in the next building would rush here. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to handle the inflow of people, would you?” The mother crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You’re welcome to try.”
“Witch…” Her gesture made Chang so furious that his finger started trembling, and Pang Zi stepped forward to hinder the shameless pair.
“What! You wanna fight?’ The mother revealed her domineering nature as she felt intimidated by Chang and Pang Zi. She raised her chin up high, “a few days ago, the military had published the . It says that fights are absolutely prohibited among citizens; whoever gets involved in the fights will be deported from this base regardless of whether they are right or wrong.”
“And the consequence of leaving here… the nightmare of being torn apart by some random monsters while you are sleeping will come true.”
“Like your son, huh?” Chang sneered.
“You!” the woman was shocked, and the atmosphere was extremely intense.
At this moment, it was Qing Shui who broke the tension; he seemed relax and walked to the window.
“Save some energy, both of you. I can give you some meat, but there are rules.” Qing Shui paced in front of the mother. “Two points: one, don’t tell anyone about the food. Of course, I believe you can keep this rule, because if you break it, both of us will starve, and I know you are clear about this.”
“And second, we will be eating raw meat; roasting or boiling it will give off an aroma, and that will attract our neighbors for sure. Therefore, we can only eat raw meat. Is that a deal?”