Living with My Aloof Ex-Wife After the Apocalypse - Chapter 24

Chapter 24: To Die is Sometimes a Fortune

Since no one had rested well the night before, they all huddled together for a nap in the afternoon. When they woke, everyone began their respective tasks. Chen Xia packed her belongings, Fan Hua played with Doudou, and Qing Meng helped Auntie Chen in the kitchen.

Xing He went out to patrol the surroundings. A barbecue would inevitably create noise; clearing out any zombies nearby beforehand would reduce potential risks.

Auntie Chen’s body hadn’t fully recovered, and the little girl’s digestive system wasn’t great, so neither was suited for heavy barbecue. To keep Doudou from feeling envious, Xing He fed her early and put her to bed.

By seven o’clock, a hazy twilight draped over the sky. A small bonfire flickered in the center of the yard, set up next to an old earthen stove Grandma had built years ago. Fan Hua had cleverly repurposed it into a grill. Since they lacked metal skewers, Xing He had trimmed a cypress tree outside the yard, using the branches to make wooden picks.

Chen Xia skillfully flipped the skewers over the stove, brushing them with sesame oil at the perfect moment before evenly dusting them with cumin and chili flakes. Under her expert hand, the meat and vegetables glistened with golden oil and spices, releasing an aroma that made everyone’s mouth water.

As soon as the skewers hit the table, Fan Hua grabbed one immediately. She and Chen Xia had spent days at the Armed Forces Department with barely enough to eat. Whenever they scavenged for supplies, Peng Peng’s group who did little work demanded the lion’s share, leaving Chen Xia with scraps. After sharing those scraps with Grandma Wang and Zhao Li, the two of them had lived on whatever remained.

On a good day, they had bread; on a bad day, they ate leftover biscuits. As the flavor of the perfectly grilled meat hit her tongue, Fan Hua’s eyes welled with tears. She nearly bit her own tongue in her haste.

“It’s… it’s too delicious!”

Chen Xia wasn’t quite as dramatic as Fan Hua, but she too polished off a massive bite of meat, her mouth full, unable to even speak.

Having struggled through the apocalypse for years in her past life, Xing He understood their feelings perfectly. She remembered days without food or water when her stomach was empty, and her stomach acid became a weapon of pain rather than digestion. With zombies outside and no food inside, she had been a hair’s breadth from death. Only when you have the chance to eat delicious food again do you realize how precious a bowl of rice or a steaming dish truly is.

Fan Hua and Chen Xia ignored all etiquette, eating like hungry ghosts returned to life. Their manner was anything but elegant. This provided a small shock to Qing Meng, who always ate slowly and only until she was seventy percent full.

However, Qing Meng didn’t judge them. She knew she was simply luckier than Fan Hua; she had been brought to safety by Xing He before she truly witnessed the cruelty of the end times. If she had stayed in that hospital with two hundred people, the struggle and suspicion over food would have become the first gate of hell before the first day was even over.

Worried the two wouldn’t have enough, Qing Meng didn’t even pick up her chopsticks. She simply took small sips of her drink and watched them eat. Xing He wasn’t very hungry either; she watched them with interest and leaned in to whisper to Qing Meng.

“Don’t you think they eat with such gusto? It’s like that thing popular with young people what’s it called? Ah, right, Mukbang!”

Qing Meng raised her eyes, looking as if she wanted to say something but stopped herself. She didn’t know if she should tell Xing He that Mukbangs had been popular five or six years ago. If she told her, Xing He would probably feel hurt, thinking she was out of touch with the younger generation. Qing Meng wisely chose to remain silent.

Once their stomachs were half-full, Fan Hua and Chen Xia finally slowed down. Realizing Xing He and Qing Meng hadn’t touched their food, Chen Xia suddenly felt embarrassed. Though she sat upright, a flush climbed her righteous face and spread rapidly.

“Sorry…”

“We’ve just been so hungry,” Fan Hua added sheepishly, patting her stomach despite her usual thick skin. “You know, the two of us are still growing.”

Xing He tilted her head. “Is that so?”

Fan Hua quickly tried to smooth things over, fearing Xing He might kick them out for eating too much. “But we don’t always eat this much! We were just extra hungry today. I promise to eat less from now on!”

Xing He rested her face in her left hand, glancing at their thin frames. “Actually, you didn’t have much food at all back then, did you? I saw. After you gave me those biscuits, you didn’t eat anything.”

Chen Xia didn’t deny it. “Grandma Wang and Zhao Li needed to eat.”

“And what about Fan Hua?”

Fan Hua muttered quietly, “Who are you looking down on? Who says there wasn’t food? I had half a bag of biscuits left—one half for me, one half for Chen Xia.”

Xing He narrowed her eyes, her sharp gaze carrying a natural authority. Fan Hua shut up and went back to her skewer.

Xing He gave a cold warning: “At all times, ensuring your own survival is the priority. A dead person can’t save anyone.”

Chen Xia seemed to take it to heart, lowering her eyes. “It won’t happen again.”

Seeing that at least one of them was listening, Xing He’s tone softened. “I haven’t eaten those biscuits. I was going to return them to you when I left.” She reached into her bag, but it was empty. She remembered she had used them as a decoy for the horde.

Her fingers brushed against something round. She pulled out an egg in a plastic bag. It was the one Grandma Wang had given her before bed the previous night. She held the egg and dazed out.

Xing He wasn’t hungry, but Grandma Wang had insisted on pressing it into her hand.

“What is that?” Qing Meng asked, noticing Xing He’s obvious drop in mood.

Chen Xia and Fan Hua knew exactly what it was; they had received eggs from Grandma Wang too.

“A grandmother I met yesterday,” Xing He said softly. “She was a wonderful person. She only had one egg, and she insisted on giving it to me.”

Qing Meng didn’t need to ask where the grandmother was or why she hadn’t come back with them. She was smart enough to understand immediately.

Fan Hua lost her appetite. She put down her chopsticks and whispered, “Just a little more, and Grandma Wang could have eaten this delicious barbecue too.”

The image of Grandma Wang appeared before Xing He’s eyes again—the toothless old lady who only wore her dentures to eat, her wrinkles forming a specific shape when she laughed.

“It’s all lean meat,” Xing He said, her voice devoid of its usual humor despite the joke. “Even with dentures, that little old lady wouldn’t have been able to chew it.”

Chen Xia continued to chew, but her nose felt sour and her eyes burned. A hot tear dropped into her bowl. Feeling embarrassed, she buried her face deeper into her bowl, not daring to look up.

Xing He lowered her gaze. Over the years, she had seen comrades she slept next to blown to bits by bombs, and teammates swallowed by swarms of zombies. She thought she had learned how to face death. But learning that Grandma Wang had passed away in her sleep left her feeling lost. Even now, she couldn’t identify exactly what she was feeling.

Grandma Wang was old. Her health meant Xing He could never have brought her back to the courtyard long-term. Even if she had escaped the Armed Forces Department, Grandma Wang’s future wouldn’t have been a wide-open field, but a path of visible suffering. She would have had to travel to a larger city with medical facilities, displaced and endangered. Even if she weren’t abandoned and reached a settlement, she would have spent her remaining years struggling at the bottom of a base.

Rationally, Xing He knew that death was a mercy for Grandma Wang—leaving happily before the real pain set in. She was just sad. Sad that someone who had looked after her like a grandmother was gone.

Fan Hua raised her glass with red-rimmed eyes. “Then let’s wish Grandma Wang a speedy reunion with her family.”

The group stood and raised their glasses, repeating the sentiment in their hearts.

The atmosphere remained heavy. Surprisingly, Qing Meng was the one to break the silence. “Let’s play Truth or Dare.”

Fan Hua wiped her eyes and agreed, “Yeah, yeah! What’s the point of just drinking? Let’s play!”

Chen Xia and Xing He also composed themselves. As Grandma Wang had said, people can’t live in the past; they have to look forward. Fan Hua explained the rules.

“Rock-paper-scissors. The winner spins the bottle. Whoever the bottle points to chooses Truth or Dare.”

Chen Xia and Qing Meng had no objections. Xing He memorized the rules silently. She had never played and hoped to stay “underwater” for a while to see how the others did it.

In the first round of rock-paper-scissors, Xing He—the one who least wanted to win—won. Since no one had gone first to demonstrate, she had no idea what a Truth or a Dare actually looked like. But under their watchful eyes, she had to step up and spin the bottle.

The bottle spun a few times and slowly pointed toward Chen Xia.

Startled by her bad luck, Chen Xia’s eyes widened. Fan Hua, however, was full of schadenfreude, eager to see her girlfriend embarrassed. “Hahaha! Someone’s in trouble! Picked on the very first round!”

Facing the inevitable, Chen Xia said with the air of someone going into battle: “I choose Dare.”

“A Dare, huh? A Dare…” Xing He’s eyes wandered, unable to think of a single thing. The other two thought she was seriously brainstorming a prank. Only Qing Meng saw that Xing He had no idea what she was doing.

Qing Meng said, seemingly casually, “Don’t make the punishment too excessive, or we might wake Doudou and the others.”

Receiving the signal, Xing He’s confidence returned. “Then I punish you to—”

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