Chapter 67 Brothers and Sisters
"Okay, brother, I won't run around and wait for you to come back."
"It says on the screen, these are the rules for this car, and we don't have to pay you. You can come back tomorrow!"
"Yeah, if there aren't enough crystal cores, just come early tomorrow! We're not forcing you to get on the bus!"
"Hasn't there always been a rule about overloading? Even if you're overloading, you'll still get points deducted and fined!"
"When the time comes to save my life, I will hand over not only five crystal cores, but even if it's ten or a hundred!"
"Just be happy that you have this car that allows you to travel safely! What if you say the car is bad and it gets angry and doesn't come?"
…
The people who got on the bus first retorted one by one.
Although the person who was being criticized outside was still angry about the unreasonable rules, he didn't dare to speak again in front of so many people. He took back the crystal and kept silent.
Of course, they were not afraid of people, but they were afraid that the car would really not come after hearing his words as they said.
Those who had objections stopped talking, and those who had plenty of crystal cores came forward.
"Make way, everyone, make way. I have the crystal core. Let me buy the ticket first. I still need to get on the bus!"
Those who had already boarded the bus looked at the people squeezing forward and took a deep breath.
Although most of them spoke nicely just now, they were reluctant to actually take out five more crystals than others.
These were all earned by fighting with zombies. Normally, we could have taken two and a half more people on board. Now the situation is not urgent, so how could we spend the precious crystal cores on such things? We have to be frugal.
But I didn’t expect that there would actually be a sucker willing to pay such a large sum of money!
The person who wanted to get on the train was a thin young man as thin as a bamboo pole. He didn't look special, but he suddenly took out a handful of crystal cores from his pocket and put them on the train. After counting carefully, it was found that there was one more crystal core in the handful than the train required.
Someone couldn't help but be curious and asked, "Brother, I didn't realize you were so powerful! How did you kill so many zombies? If you have any good methods, please teach us!"
Although the others didn't ask, they all pricked up their ears silently.
Skinny Bamboo followed the on-screen instructions and retrieved the extra crystal from the recess before he finally paid attention and answered the question, "What's so amazing about that? I didn't kill any zombies!"
"You didn't kill any zombies? Then where did you get all these crystal cores?"
Skinny Bamboo suddenly understood, patted his pocket and said with a smile, "Oh, you mean this? I found it."
"Picked it up?"
"Yeah, didn't a lot of zombies die yesterday? I came down to clean up the bodies and dug this out from those corpses. Many people dug it up at that time! Everyone got a lot."
The young man was very proud, but those around him who heard it were filled with regret.
There were faint moans all around.
"So this is possible, why didn't I think of it?"
"Indeed, they're all corpses, and there are people escorting them. How could there be any danger? Isn't it like picking it up for free?"
"If I had known this yesterday when someone asked in the group, I would have gone too! Wouldn't it be possible to get tickets for the whole family if we just went there?"
"I got these two by killing the zombies that kept wandering around our corridor."
…
But it is no use for them to regret it. They can only hope that they can be ahead next time when there is such a centralized cleanup work.
Seeing that some people were determined to get on the bus even if they had to pay five more crystal cores, the people behind who still had extra crystal cores gritted their teeth and followed behind to buy tickets.
When I bought the ticket and got on the bus, although the red lights were still flashing and the alarm was still sounding, nothing else happened, which made the people who got on the bus later feel relieved.
It seems that even if you are ranked 101st to 120th, you can still get on the bus as long as you pay more magic crystals.
There were no seats for those who got on the bus later, but the floor inside the bus was so bright that they didn’t mind. They just sat on the floor and waited for the bus to depart!
…
City A, Qixia Village.
On the second floor of a villa far away from the center of the village, a little boy of about ten was holding a little girl of five or six in his arms, with snack wrappers scattered all around them.
The girl's tightly closed eyes trembled twice, and suddenly opened them. When she saw the person holding her, she pouted and started crying softly.
The boy was awakened by the crying. He glanced at his sister in his arms, patted his back and whispered comfortingly, "It's okay, don't cry."
The girl's mood gradually calmed down, but her eyes were still red.
She looked at the only person she could rely on and asked hopefully, "Brother, when can we go out? Hasn't Grandma Gui come back yet?"
A complicated look flashed in the boy's eyes, and he said, "Grandma Gui has something going on at home, and she told us to stay home by ourselves for now."
Disappointment flashed across the girl's big, watery eyes. "Oh, well, did Uncle Xiaowei lose a lot of money playing cards again? Tell Grandma Gui that Lingling can give all her New Year's money so she won't cry anymore."
The boy's eyes were complicated, but he still responded, "Okay, I understand. I'll tell Grandma Gui when she comes back."
"Okay." The girl didn't think her brother would lie to her at all.
At this moment, a gurgling sound was heard.
The girl rubbed her stomach embarrassedly, "Brother, I'm hungry again!"
After hearing this, the boy loosened his arms around his sister, took out the only three remaining chocolates from the paper box next to him, thought for a moment, and gave one to his sister.
"Eat this first!"
The girl was not picky. She took the chocolate, tore open the wrapper and put it in her mouth.
The boy leaned against the wall and fell into a long silence.
His name is Chen Chen and his sister is Chen Ling.
After their parents divorced and started their own families, the two extra children, representing their parents' broken relationship, were sent back to their father's hometown in the countryside to be raised by their grandparents.
But my grandparents are old and in poor health. A few years ago, my grandfather was hospitalized after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage and has been unable to leave his wheelchair since then.
Later, the man they called Dad sent their grandparents to a nursing home and found an elder from their own family in the village to act as a nanny for them as they were left unattended in their hometown.
This person is Xue Jingui, Grandma Gui.
In the three years since Grandpa fell ill, it has been Grandma Gui who has been taking care of them. My younger sister Lingling was raised by her single-handedly. It can be said that she is closer to them than their own family.
Qixia Village is located on high ground, and their villa is located on an even higher ground, so they were not affected even during the heavy rain.
But Grandma Gui was worried about the situation at home. On the third day of the heavy rain, she went back to check on them and caught a cold when she came back.
Don't be afraid of catching a cold. Grandma Gui is very careful in her work. All kinds of common medicines are prepared in the villa. You just need to take them.
But what they didn't expect was that the end of the rainstorm was just the beginning of the disaster.
After the rain stopped that day, everyone was very happy. Lingling, who had been cooped up at home for five days, wanted to play badminton in the yard.
Maybe because of the exercise, they both went to bed early that night.
But when I woke up, the world had changed.
At seven o'clock in the morning, his sister was still asleep. Chen Chen went downstairs to have breakfast, but saw Grandma Gui, who should have been busy in the kitchen as usual, walking around aimlessly in the living room downstairs.
He shouted in surprise twice, and when Grandma Gui turned around slowly, he saw the hideous face.
Grandma Gui no longer had her usual kindness and gentleness, and even pounced on him like a wild beast when she saw him.
Fortunately, he reacted quickly and realized that something was wrong with Grandma Gui. He ran up the stairs before she caught him.
He looked down from the second floor and was relieved to see that the other party didn't catch up for some reason.
He thought Grandma Gui was sick, so he found his phone watch and wanted to call 120, but the emergency number could not be reached.
He found the phone number of the Qixia Village chief's home in his home phone book, but before he called, he saw a figure similar to Grandma Gui wandering on the village street not far away.
At that time, he realized that everyone had changed! The whole world seemed to have changed!
There is no one around to help them!
He called his grandparents and his parents, who were always unreliable, but no one answered.
At that time, he knew that he was the only one who could protect himself and his sister.
After his sister woke up, he made up a lie that Grandma Gui had returned home and prevented her from going downstairs. The two of them barely survived by relying on snacks in the second-floor bedroom.
These days, Chen Chen has been constantly calling for help.
120, 119... He called all the numbers he could find, and even sent text messages to all his contacts, but none of the calls went through, and he didn't receive a single reply.
The day before yesterday, he heard footsteps on the wooden stairs of his home while he was in a daze. He thought it was the rescuers coming, but he didn't expect to see Grandma Gui going upstairs.
In a panic, he could only move the furniture in the house to block the stairs, completely blocking Grandma Gui's way to go upstairs.
But at the same time, their way downstairs was also blocked.
He and his sister had been staying upstairs for more than ten days, but still saw no sign of rescue.
He had already dug out all the food on the second floor, and the only edible ones left were two chocolates. What would they do after they finished these two chocolates?
He used a tissue to wipe the brown stains left by the chocolate at the corner of his sister's mouth, and his eyes gradually became firm.
He tore open the wrapper of a chocolate and put it in his mouth, then put the remaining chocolate into his sister's hand.
"Lingling, I'm going out to take a look and will be back soon. You stay here and don't run around, okay?"
The girl looked at her brother in confusion, her eyes filled with anxiety and panic.
"Where are you going? Didn't they say there were robbers outside?"
"Yeah! So don't run around. I'm going to check if there are any police officers outside to protect us."
Since he discovered something was wrong outside, Chenchen pulled the curtains in each room tightly. In addition to not allowing his sister to go downstairs, he was afraid of scaring her and did not dare let her look outside. He just said that there were bad guys outside, so they had to hide.
At this time, the girl heard him say this without thinking much and nodded obediently.
"Okay, brother, I won't run around and wait for you to come back."
【Author’s words】
Here is today's update.
It turned out to be a wise decision to apply for the list this week. I have been full of inspiration in recent days, so I should have another chapter tomorrow, and the specific time should still be before 3 pm.
To be honest, because the list has a word count requirement, I usually only dare to apply when I feel I have a lot of inspiration [tears]
The content of the previous chapter was changed a little, mainly because our heroine received five extra crystals and her psychology was described in one more sentence.
Someone suggested in the previous chapter that it would be better to limit the number of passengers on the train to 100. Actually, I thought about this when I first started setting up the plot. It would even be possible to simply set a limit of no overloading, thus eliminating a lot of future troubles.
But I still want to write something with a human touch. If I can, I don't want to be too rigid about some rules, like the 20-passenger capacity. Just like during the Spring Festival travel rush every year, I hope everyone can successfully buy a ticket, even if they have to stand all the way.
From the heroine's perspective, she's not a heartless person. If someone were to be put in danger in the future, as she had before, with zombies surrounding her, she would definitely allow the car to be overloaded. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she refused to allow anyone to board the bus even though she had enough capacity. She understands her own and her family's personalities, so she made this decision.
Since overloading is inevitable in the future, it's better to make it clear from the beginning and clearly mark the price. She did what she could, and although it seemed a bit troublesome, she just wanted to have a clear conscience.
Some babies may not look back, so here I will explain the psychology behind her setting this way. I don’t know if I can convince everyone, but I convinced me, hahaha.
Feel free to share any opinions in the comments section, as it's difficult for me to consider all aspects of the discussion alone. Your suggestions can also help me correct mistakes. If I see something that makes sense, I'll make changes. If there's something I can't change, I'll explain it to you, just like I did today.
Thank you for your support!
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