"No need for that. We're used to being free. We'll just go wherever that car takes us."

Shi Jinzhe had his own considerations. Bing Zhou understood the shelter, and he might know about the crisis in Dota City. There was no need for them to have too much interaction for the time being. The more they knew, the more flaws there would be. There was no need for the mutant group to think that his stance was wavering.

We'll see if we run into each other again.

"Alright." Bing Zhou made no attempt to hide his regret. "Then we'll be going. Thank you all for your help this time."

You're too kind.

After saying goodbye, Shi Jinzhe turned and took two steps, but then realized that Shekh hadn't followed. He turned back and asked, "Why aren't you leaving?"

Shekh turned to the side, letting him see that his sleeve was being held by Xiao Wu's four hands.

“Your eyes.” Xiao Wu’s gaze was extremely focused. She said, “I’ve seen them before. They’re purple and very beautiful.”

"You mean, you've seen me before?"

Shekh couldn't quite understand how Xiao Wu, who was only five or six years old, could have seen him before.

"I just remembered." Xiao Wu rummaged through his clothes, turning them over and over, and pulled out something wrapped in thick cloth from the innermost pocket.

She carefully opened it, and inside was a portrait wrapped in plastic film.

Shekh and Shi Jinzhe exchanged glances and took the paper with a puzzled look.

Under the bright headlights of the modified car, she could make out the old portrait.

The image depicts a girl with purple eyes and long, black curly hair. The art style is simple and not at all attractive; it's more like a doodle.

Xiao Wu's ability to recognize her from this portrait is purely a matter of innate talent.

Schech's gaze, however, was fixed on the ears of the portrait, where a pair of double S earrings were painted.

A person can be drawn haphazardly and not accurately, but anyone who can hold a pen can roughly draw these earrings, so it's possible that they really are her.

"I remember those eyes."

It was too dark inside the nuclear power plant, but now, with the car headlights shining on it, those purple eyes became more conspicuous beneath the thinned black ribbon.

Xiao Wu recognized them; she remembered those purple eyes.

"You're a doctor, you know how to save lives."

"Your memories..." Shi Jinzhe walked back to Shehe's side. Bing Zhou understood the unfinished meaning without needing to ask.

It sounds incredibly strange that a five- or six-year-old child would say to an adult who has been imprisoned for over twenty years, "I remember you."

After much hesitation, Bing Zhou said, "Xiao Wu's superpower is memory inheritance, but she can't remember things all the time. It often requires specific circumstances to trigger."

His voice was low. "Her mother died when she was two years old, and then we discovered that she actually knew about things that happened to her mother, her maternal grandmother, and even her maternal great-grandmother's generation."

“At first, Xiao Wu could only say simple words, but as she has grown up over the years, she can remember more and more things. Some of the traditions we have lost are things she has remembered.”

Shi Jinzhe observed Xiao Wu closely, and it was no wonder that among this group of people who didn't even know what "idiot" meant, a five or six-year-old child could use words like "snake spirit" and "vegetable person."

She may not know the exact meaning of the word, but she must have heard it somewhere to be able to say it.

If it's because of the inheritance of memories, then it makes sense.

To confirm, Shi Jin asked Bing Zhou, "Do you know what the terms 'snake spirit disease' and 'vegetative state' mean?"

Bing Zhou was completely bewildered: "Huh? What?"

Shi Jinzhe waved his hand: "Okay, it's alright."

Beside her, Xiao Wu was still clutching Shehe's sleeve, looking at her with bright, sparkling eyes.

Curious, Shekh ignored the fact that his clothes had been grabbed and tried to see through the little girl: "Why did you say I was a doctor?"

"You have saved many people."

Xiao Wu loosened his hands and waved them wildly in the air, his movements resembling those of someone plastering a wall.

"That person said, 'Just do this,' and then people were cured by you."

Shekh noted down her words, "Do you remember the person you mentioned? Also, what illness do you have?"

"Hmm..." Xiao Wu couldn't describe it; it was too difficult for her.

She rolled her eyes and pointed to the night sky. "It's black, we can't catch it. You ate those things, and then we stopped killing."

Xiao Wu suddenly became frustrated halfway through his sentence: "But so many people still died."

Black, impossible to catch, Shekh's first thought was black mist.

Many years ago, she may have absorbed the black mist in this world.

But in her memory, Bai Weishuang said that she couldn't absorb the black mist, otherwise her mind would be corrupted, which seems a bit contradictory.

Shekh then asked Xiao Wu, "What about the person who described me to you? Do you remember them?"

“I remember.” Xiao Wu took the portrait from her hand. “This is the portrait she drew for you. She’s a beautiful older sister.”

"Does this older sister you're talking about look a bit like me?"

Shi Jin bent down to look Xiao Wu in the eye, lifting all his hair so that Xiao Wu could see him more clearly, especially his eyes.

Xiao Wu didn't blink, and his eyes gradually lost their childlike innocence, becoming like those of an old man who had experienced many vicissitudes.

A minute later, the signs of aging faded, and she nodded, "The eyes are very similar."

Shekh confirmed: "It was your mother and me. We've been here before."

She pressed on, "Do you remember anything else about me? Like that black thing, or the person who drew my portrait, anything."

Xiao Wu, regaining his childlike innocence, slowly replied, "I need to think about it."

"It's okay, no rush." ​​Shi Jinzhe took a bag of candy out of his pocket and handed it to her and Bing Zhou.

The sweet candy awakened some long-forgotten memories. Xiao Wu let out a soft "Ah," and said, "I wanted to thank you in person, but the artist said that others shouldn't look into my eyes, so she drew this for me. She said my purple eyes were so beautiful, and she told me to always remember that it was you who did this."

“Actually, I vaguely remember what Xiao Wu said,” Bing Zhou suddenly said.

Shi Jin straightened up and said, "Tell me."

"About thirty-five or thirty-six years ago, I heard my father say that for a period of time everyone was like a madman. Everyone was dominated by killing, without distinction. They would kill whoever they saw, even if they were about to die and only had one arm or one leg left, they would still bite off a piece of someone else's flesh."

Bing Zhou emphasized, "Everyone, even children who are only a few years old, as long as they are human, will want to kill people endlessly. Later, as more and more people died, even the sky turned black."

"But one day, the situation suddenly improved. No one knew why, but they knew that a woman came and gave Xiao Wu's grandmother something. Now it seems that it was this portrait."

Sheh held the edge of the portrait, which had an earring on it, indicating that it was taken after she had been to the world of Mubai.

Bai Weishuang had taken her to many worlds, and this post-apocalyptic world was one of them.

She didn't let the local inhabitants see her, but she left this portrait so that Xiao Wu's grandmother would remember her. Why was that...?

And why would she absorb the black mist of this world?

Shekh did not consider herself a savior, and she had no reason to do so.

As she pondered, Shi Jinzhe stared at Shekh's face, thinking of another question.

Sheikh was much older than her mother, so why did she look so young when her mother met her?