Chapter 16: A Mattress

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Shi Yuebai ordered Second Sister-in-law Shi to push her along while carrying Little Yaoyao on her back, and together they went back to rummage through the newly reclaimed wasteland.

The limitation of having Second Sister-in-law Shi push Shi Yuebai outside was that they could not get through places that were too uneven.

A flatbed handcart simply had no ability to climb mountains or cross ridges.

But along the easier roads, there was not a scrap of food left to scavenge.

Every inch of the roadside had already been combed through by the survivors.

How could there possibly be anything left for Shi Yuebai and the others?

After searching through the ruins for several hours, Second Sister-in-law Shi began to despair.

She raised her head and felt the sun overhead. It was unusually fierce today.

In the wasteland, temperatures were unpredictable, the weather was unpredictable, and even the seasons were unpredictable.

One day might be bitterly cold, while the next could bring unbearable heat.

No one could say for certain.

After all, no one in the wasteland had the leisure to monitor changes in the weather, let alone prepare a forecast.

Besides, everyone in the wasteland knew that the brighter the sun, the stronger the radiation.

Recently, whenever Second Sister-in-law Shi had been exposed to the sun, she had felt dizzy.

Before Second Brother Shi died, she had suffered several nosebleeds.

Even then, Second Sister-in-law Shi had sensed that something was terribly wrong.

She feared that the radiation had given her some terminal illness.

But in this family, some were fools, some were crippled, and Mother Shi was more than a little insane.

Only she and Shi Yuebai possessed anything resembling ordinary intelligence.

And Shi Yuebai had that sort of temperament.

How could Second Sister-in-law Shi tell her family that she might not have long to live?

As the warmth of the sunlight settled over her face, pressure began to build inside Second Sister-in-law Shi’s head.

It felt as though something were trying to burst out through her skull.

“Yuebai, the sun is getting stronger. Shouldn’t we find some shade and hide for a while?”

Second Sister-in-law Shi was growing anxious.

She could not afford to collapse now. Mother Shi was about to be brought back, Shi Yuebai could not move on her own, and Little Yaoyao was still so young.

She was the only person in the family who was both mentally sound and capable of moving about.

If she died, what would become of them?

Shi Yuebai was sick to death of the sun as well.

Even a brief spell beneath it sent her weight shooting upward.

She could only keep holding Little Yaoyao’s tiny hand and pouring energy into her.

She had even filled the two glass bottles in Little Yaoyao’s backpack with water.

Whenever they were full, she made Little Yaoyao drink them.

Before long, the child’s little belly had grown round.

Hearing Second Sister-in-law Shi, Shi Yuebai answered and pointed toward the ruins ahead.

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“There’s a house over there that hasn’t completely collapsed. Let’s go find a place inside to take shelter.”

Following Shi Yuebai’s directions, Second Sister-in-law Shi stumbled along until she finally managed to bring Shi Yuebai and Little Yaoyao to the front of the half-collapsed house.

Fortunately, it stood right beside the road.

Without too much effort, she pushed Shi Yuebai inside with the flatbed cart.

The moment they entered, Little Yaoyao, still strapped to Second Sister-in-law Shi’s back, began to fuss, speaking with startling clarity.

“I need to pee. I need to pee.”

“Waaah! I need to pee!”

She had never before explained so clearly what she wanted.

Before this, Little Yaoyao had not even been able to relieve herself without help.

She often soiled her trousers, and the Shi family’s tarp shelter was constantly filled with the stench of urine and feces.

Of course, the Shi family was not the only household with a fool in it.

In truth, the survivors who had been driven outside the city into the wasteland all lived in more or less the same conditions.

The Shi family was merely worse off than most.

They had fools, madwomen, and cripples all gathered together.

“Mommy, Mommy, I need to pee!”

Little Yaoyao was still holding it in.

Her aunt had made her drink so much water just now. She could not hold it anymore. She really could not hold it!

For a moment, Second Sister-in-law Shi had no idea how to respond.

She had never encountered such a situation before.

Shi Yuebai calmly instructed her, “Hold it for a little while. Where would we even find a place—”

Before she could finish, they spotted an open-air toilet behind a collapsed wall.

The room had once been a bathroom. Its roof had been blown away, but the toilet itself remained intact.

Shi Yuebai said, “There’s a toilet over there. Take her there.”

Second Sister-in-law Shi hurriedly felt her way forward and carried Little Yaoyao to the open-air toilet.

Shi Yuebai, sitting in the handcart, sensibly turned her head to watch the surroundings, lest some ill-mannered person appear while Little Yaoyao was using the toilet.

Her gaze fell upon a slingshot lying in the corner of the ruins.

She struggled over to it and picked it up with hands scraped raw by the jagged rubble.

At that very moment, a foul stench drifted over.

Shi Yuebai turned around and saw Second Sister-in-law Shi bent over beside the half-collapsed wall, vomiting.

Little Yaoyao sat on the toilet, her face flushed with embarrassment.

When she noticed Shi Yuebai looking at her, she swayed her oversized head and said shyly, “I made something black and yellow, Auntie.”

Shi Yuebai did not mind in the least. “It’s fine. Think of it as detoxification.”

Both Little Yaoyao and Second Sister-in-law Shi carried massive amounts of radioactive contamination in their bodies.

Shi Yuebai had just made Little Yaoyao drink several bottles of pure water with zero radiation contamination. It was bound to have some effect on the child’s body.

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So long as the effect was not harmful, there would be no real problem.

Having received her aunt’s forgiveness, Little Yaoyao was delighted. Her freshly washed, oversized face glowed with a rosy flush.

Second Sister-in-law Shi could not see what her daughter had produced.

But once again, she was astonished.

Her daughter could speak in complete sentences now.

Before, she had only been able to shriek or force out words one at a time.

At most, she could say two words together.

Now she could even describe the color of her own excrement.

It was an astonishing improvement.

Seeing that it was growing late, Shi Yuebai pointed to the few broken beds inside the collapsed house.

“Let’s drag one of these mattresses back.”

Shi Yuebai had counted them earlier. There were three broken beds in all, each with a mattress.

They were old mattresses, but after being washed, they should still be usable.

They had to be better than sleeping on bare rocks.

Besides, Mother Shi was about to be brought back. Shi Yuebai’s memories told her that Mother Shi was not only insane but heavily pregnant as well.

She might give birth within the next few days.

In a wasteland like this, they could hardly expect the child Mother Shi delivered to be healthy.

But a baby was still a baby. They could not simply leave it on the rocks the moment it was born.

Human children were not like children of the Witch Clan.

Human infants were so fragile that a single breath might snuff them out.

Second Sister-in-law Shi had become numb to the stench.

She was blind—the radiation had robbed her of her sight—but her other four senses had grown far keener than those of ordinary people.

What Shi Yuebai merely found foul, Second Sister-in-law Shi reacted to with such violent sensitivity that it made her vomit.

Feeling her way forward, she tied her soiled daughter securely to her back again, then followed Shi Yuebai’s instructions and began dragging the mattress.

By the time the sun had set, the group had stumbled and struggled for several hours before finally managing to drag one mattress back to the team.

Inevitably, the entire group burst into laughter.

“This is killing me! Hahahaha!”

“Would you look at that! The sickly cripple from the Shi family actually dragged back a mattress?!”

“Are they planning to eat it?”

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