After Lin Cheng entered the room, he was silent for a while, as if he didn't know where to start.
Lin Man asked, "Oh, that Lin Wanwan calls me little cousin, but her birthday is obviously younger than mine. How is this calculated?"
Lin Zhongrong saw that she was thinking about this. He recalled that he couldn't even remember the ages of the younger members of the Lin family, but this Lin Wanwan was very memorable. "She is indeed two days younger than you. If I really want to call her, I'd call you cousin. But don't worry about that. We are not related to them."
Lin Man was still persistent: "Then she calls me cousin?" He even insisted on adding a small word.
"When you were in your mother's womb, you were indeed one or two months younger than her, so she probably thought you were younger than her," Lin Zhongrong said. "But you were born prematurely, so you were born earlier than her."
"Oh, I see." This person was just trying to establish a connection without even investigating first. Lin Man returned to the coffee table, sat cross-legged, and took another candy and popped it into his mouth. Lin Zhongrong saw it and smiled, "Is it delicious?"
"Well, it's delicious, but I don't know what it tastes like." Lin Man said.
Lin Zhongrong told her that the orange one was orange flavored, the pink one was lychee flavored, and the green one was cantaloupe flavored. He paused and said, "Haven't you tried these before?"
Lin Man thought for a moment and said, "No, I don't think so. Even if I have eaten it, it was when I was very young. I don't remember it."
Lin Zhongrong didn't know what to say. Because of his departure, his wife was in a precarious situation where she had to struggle to survive, and was eventually paralyzed. His daughter had probably never had a good day since she was born, and had barely eaten any fruits. How could he forgive those people and how could he forgive himself?
Seeing his expression was not right, Lin Man said, "But now I have apples to eat every day, which is something no one can compare to."
Lin Zhongrong felt a little relieved and stroked her hair. His heart was heavy, so he didn't notice that Lin Man was talking about "Tiantian." He thought about it and decided to tell his daughter everything: "Your mother and I met at school. She was a freshman at the time, and my mission at the time was to protect an old professor at their school."
"Huh?" Lin Man asked, "Dad, didn't you go to school back then? You're only one year older than Mom, right?"
“I joined the army relatively early.”
Did he not study because he joined the army early? Lin Man was a little confused, but he didn't dwell on it. He continued to listen to him: "We fell in love very quickly. We kept in touch every day after the mission. Later, the Lin family found out and they didn't agree with your mother and I being together."
Lin Man found that he was very cold when he mentioned the Lin family. He used the term "Lin family members", which obviously separated the Lin family from Lin Man and even himself.
"Why would they object?"
"Your mother's family has little assets and few descendants. Your grandmother passed away early, and your mother's only relative is your grandfather. She has no brothers. And your grandfather is just the vice principal of a middle school in a poor town, and his health is not good... In short, these are the reasons they oppose. I worked hard on the missions and finally got promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel the year your mother graduated. I also applied for a transfer to the city where your mother lives. The Lin family had no choice but to agree."
"We got married very quickly, but not long after, the Lin family suddenly asked me to return. Your mother was already pregnant with you at the time. I didn't want to go back, but they were calling me urgently, so I had no choice but to go. However, as soon as I returned, I received an urgent order to go abroad and bring back several very important scientists. I didn't think much of it at the time, just thinking that there was friction between the countries, or that the higher-ups wanted to summon these people to do something.
“Because it was an urgent mission, I couldn’t even call your mother to tell her before leaving the country. Who knew that half a month later, the end of the world would come.
Lin Man was surprised: "When the apocalypse broke out, you were abroad?"
Lin Zhongrong nodded. "It was chaos. Transportation and communications were completely paralyzed. There were zombies and zombie animals on the ground, zombie birds in the sky, and the sea was extremely dangerous. Just getting from one city to another was extremely difficult, let alone crossing an ocean to return home. But we eventually made it. Three months later, I returned to China, but by then, everything had changed dramatically."
Lin Zhongrong didn't want to dwell on that period, a period of hell on earth, so dark it seemed as if there was no light on the horizon. The nation was desperately trying to repair safe zones, rescuing survivors from city after city. At the time, the number of people with special abilities was still small, and the people were no match for the zombies. Soldiers perished en masse, and manpower was in short supply everywhere. Upon his return, having awakened his special abilities, he was assigned a crucial mission.
He agreed on the surface, but turned around and hijacked a plane to fly south. Three months after the outbreak of the apocalypse, he was finally able to return home. However, his and his wife's new home was surrounded by corpses. The entire city was completely occupied, perhaps because of its overcrowded population. Even the surrounding suburbs were full of zombies.
Lin Zhongrong was almost going crazy.
He searched for the remaining living people in the city, the area near his home, the nearby safe zones, and the gathering places of survivors, but found nothing. Moreover, because he was alone, his efficiency was extremely low.
The north is close to the center of national power, so the situation is better. However, the south is completely a mess. A few hundred people who can find a hideout and survive can be called a force.
In this situation, it is almost impossible to find someone. Lin Zhongrong did not dare to directly report his wife's name and characteristics to look for her everywhere, because at that time, the depravity of people's hearts and the corruption of morals were simply unimaginable. Chen Yu's beauty was a death warrant at that time. If she was still alive, if she was carefully hiding herself, and because of his extensive search she was exposed, it would definitely be a disaster.
He could only make his name, Lin Zhongrong, as loud as possible and spread as far as possible, but even so, he did not get any good news. His wife seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. He didn't even know if she had died long ago and had become one of those zombies.
At the same time, he learned through the radio that the national regime had collapsed. The army had been nearly wiped out, along with many leaders and generals. The survivors were trapped in various locations and cities across the country. With communications paralyzed, they couldn't contact each other and could only establish their own safe zones, huddled within them to defend against the zombies. This was the origin of the subsequent bases.
Lin Zhongrong was at a loss. He disobeyed orders when his country needed him most, and before he could go back and apologize, everything was over.
Then, he heard a broadcast among countless redundant broadcasts. His parents were desperately calling him to go back. There was chaos in the north and the Lin family was in trouble.
He struggled for a long time, struggling between his wife, whose fate he didn't know whether she was dead or alive, and his parents and entire family who had raised him. He had already betrayed his country for his own selfish reasons and could no longer ignore his parents. Then he made a second decision in his life that would make him regret his whole life: he gave up everything he had achieved in the South and headed north again.
The capital's security zone had fallen into chaos at that time. Due to the collapse of the national regime, there was no unified command from above. On the one hand, people were busy rescuing people and settling them down, while on the other hand, another struggle began.
Countless forces were vying for supremacy, including the remaining military leaders, high-ranking government officials, wealthy businessmen with vast resources, and rapidly rising civilian organizations thanks to their supernatural powers. Outside, zombies surged in wave after wave, while the base remained divided and internal strife continued.
The Lin family was also caught in the vortex. They had a military background. His grandfather was a retired officer, well-connected with the higher-ups. His father and eldest brother were both active-duty officers, though relatively mediocre, with no awakened special abilities. They both commanded a number of subordinates. His second brother, meanwhile, started his own company and, after marrying the daughter of a listed company, had a successful business, which gave him access to a certain amount of supplies.
With a Lin family like this, even if you don't want to fight, others will not let go of this piece of fat meat.
Lin Zhongrong did not give up looking for his wife, but he also understood that in order to find someone, people, power, and resources were all indispensable. He could not accomplish the goal of finding someone alone, so he immediately participated in the competition and led the Lin family to grab resources by almost any means. His powerful supernatural powers allowed him to gather a group of people and become the leader of one of the major separatist forces in the safe zone.
This process took only a few months. After Lin Zhongrong had gained a foothold, he returned to the south again. This time he brought many people with him, but he still couldn't find anyone.
The capital's security zone evolved into a large capital base, and was later split into several bases. For many years, Lin Zhongrong went back and forth between the two.
His family couldn't stand it anymore. Perhaps his constant trips south had caused the Lin family to miss out on many opportunities and waste too many resources. Many of his subordinates were also dissatisfied. In short, these people kept telling him that Chen Yu had died a long time ago, asking him to let it go and start a new life.
After all these efforts were of no use, his parents began to tell him to pay more attention to his family. The whole family depended on him, and he could not be so absorbed in his own little family.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
