Chapter 1: Don't Die at Home
"Molly~"
Who is calling her name?
Molly looked up and gazed around. The surroundings were bare, except for a few withered tree stumps.
"Molly~"
The voice was weak and feeble, as faint as a mosquito flapping its wings.
Molly was certain she heard it; someone was really calling her.
The sound came from behind her; behind her was a ditch. The ditch had dried up. A month ago, Molly had dug up a clam in the ditch; the clam was only the size of her fist. Her sister chopped the clam meat into small pieces and made a large pot of soup. That night, she held the chipped earthenware bowl and drank the soup in small sips before it had even cooled down.
Unfortunately, there were many people in her family, and she only got a little over half a bowl. Now, just thinking about that taste makes her mouth water.
Molly walked to the edge of the ditch and saw Mo Honghong lying in it.
"Molly~"
Mo Honghong forced a smile at her, "Can you help me up? I can't get up."
Molly didn't speak, but reached out to Mo Honghong. Mo Honghong was as thin and withered as a chicken claw, and her dry, hard hands grabbed Molly. With one pulling hard and the other climbing hard, it took a lot of effort for Mo Honghong to get out of the ditch.
"I'm hungry again even though I just ate." Molly touched her empty stomach and looked up sadly at the sky.
"What did you eat? Guanyin clay or wild grass and tree roots?" Mo Honghong asked her.
"A paste made of wild vegetables mixed with tree bark, which my sister dug up from the mountains."
"Your sister is really capable."
“My sister can do everything. She can do laundry, cook, plant rice, weave cloth and make clothes…” Molly counted on her fingers.
"Molly~"
Mo Honghong interrupted her, staring intently at her with her large eyes, "Mo Li, I'm leaving."
"Where are you going? Are you going to stay with relatives, or are you fleeing famine?"
“No.” Mo Honghong shook her head. “I’m going alone. Do you see that cave? I’m going there.”
In the distance, at the foot of a high mountain, there is a dark cave, which is usually covered by vegetation. Now, due to the severe drought, the vegetation has withered and turned yellow, and the cave has finally come into view.
What are you going there for?
"Go and wait to die. My grandma said it's bad luck to die at home, so I should find a deserted place to die."
Molly was stunned. She stared blankly at the girl in front of her, who was only twelve years old. Because she had been starving for many years, she looked only seven or eight years old, as thin as a skeleton covered with a layer of skin.
No, she wasn't thin all over; her belly was big, round, like she was five or six months pregnant.
"My stomach is too hard. My grandma says I won't live. I'm going to die." Mo Honghong said calmly, as if each word took all her strength to say.
Molly looked at Mo Hong's pale face, feeling as if a stone was pressing on her chest. It was heavy and painful, making her want to cry. This was the original owner's emotions affecting her.
"It's a bit far from here to the cave. Can you get there?"
"I don't know either." Mo Honghong blinked, her head was too dizzy. She wanted to lie here and never leave, but she was also worried that if she died here, the smell of her rotting body would drift back to the village.
"I'll walk slowly, walk for a while, then rest for a while."
"I'll go with you. I'm going to the mountains to dig up grass roots anyway."
Molly's left arm is congenitally atrophied, shorter than her normal right arm, and she is missing three fingers on her left hand, which are bent at an odd angle. She usually hides this arm under her clothes and never takes it out.
But when Lamo was red just now, this hand also helped, so she rewarded this hand by letting it get some fresh air.
Mo Honghong glanced at it once and then looked away.
"Molly, you're not the same as before."
“You never used to play with us, and you would always stay far away from us when you saw us.”
“You haven’t played with us for the past month, but I can feel that you are different. It’s like you suddenly have energy and spirit, and you’ve come back to life.”
Molly didn't reply. The original owner of this body died of illness last month. She was a lonely soul from the apocalypse, so of course she came back to life.
In the apocalypse, there are pollutants, and you can die anytime, anywhere.
My soul travels to another time and space, where there is a severe drought. There is a lack of water and food, and life is just as hard.
The original owner was already sixteen years old, but her size was similar to that of an eleven or twelve-year-old girl, and her mental development was also behind that of other children. Because of a congenital deformity in her left arm, she was about to be drowned in a chamber pot by her own grandmother right after birth. It was the original owner's mother who risked her life to snatch her back from her mother-in-law and strictly ordered Mo He, who was only three years old at the time, to watch over her younger sister and not let anyone take her away. The two of them guarded the original owner day and night until she was six months old, at which point the original owner's grandmother stopped mentioning the plan to drown her.
When the original owner was five years old, her mother became pregnant again. She had a difficult childbirth and died, leaving behind a son who was as thin as a newborn kitten, and even his cries sounded like a kitten.
This son was the only son of the original owner's father, Mo Gaofeng. For the first three months, his grandmother took care of him. After three months, the younger brother was given to Mo He and Mo Li.
Molly takes care of him during the day, and Moho takes care of him at night. The two sisters save all the good food for their little brother, but he was sickly even in the womb. After he was born, he was always weak. Many times, the two sisters thought that their little brother was going to die. They even chose a burial plot for him, but it was delayed. Now the little brother is ten years old.
Mo Gaofeng married Liu Ahua, a widow from the same village, three years after the original owner's mother died. Liu Ahua had a son named Mo Zhong with her ex-husband, and gave birth to a son named Mo Liang the year after she married Mo Gaofeng.
Mo Liang was healthy and had a robust and lively appearance. From birth, he received Mo Gaofeng's favoritism. Among the seven members of the Mo family, all the good things were reserved for Mo Liang.
After more than a year of severe drought, while others became so thin they looked like skeletons, Mo Liang only lost a little weight, his chin becoming more pointed.
Under the blazing sun, Molly and Mo Honghong, each wearing a tattered straw hat and leaning on a wooden stick, walked down the mountain.
When they got tired along the way, the two stopped to rest.
None of them spoke, partly because their lips were dry and cracked, and partly because they needed to conserve their energy to continue their journey.
By the time they reached the foot of the mountain, the sun was already setting.
It was very quiet all around; you couldn't even hear the chirping of insects or the calls of birds.
The cave was not far away, but it was dark and Mo Honghong dared not go there.
“Molly, do you know how to comb hair?” she asked.
Molly looked at Mo Honghong's sparse and yellowish hair, which was tied with a dark blue strip of cloth. The cloth was a little loose, and most of the hair had fallen out.
"I want to die looking good," Mo Honghong said with a shy smile.
Molly then nodded, "Yes."
Mo Honghong brought a small wooden comb, a few teeth of which were broken, but it didn't affect its use. Since she couldn't comb her hair with one hand, Molly used her other hand as well. The original owner was afraid of this withered arm and deformed fingers, and usually wouldn't even look at it, let alone use it.
She was different; she wasn't afraid. She discovered that this hand, aside from being thinner, shorter, and having slightly twisted fingers, was fairly dexterous and could grasp things, but it lacked strength.
Molly plans to give Mo Honghong a bun hairstyle; it's simple and cute.
Molly, having no experience combing someone's hair for the first time, was so focused and attentive that she didn't notice a dark shadow suddenly appearing in the sky.
It was a giant eagle with a wingspan of two or three meters. As it swooped down on Molly and her companion, it kicked up a cloud of dust.
Molly felt a sudden darkness before her eyes, and a strong pulling force came from her hand. She instinctively gripped what she was holding tightly. But the other person was too strong, and she was dragged forward several meters.
Only then did she realize that what was in front of her was an eagle. Its sharp talons were gripping Mo Honghong, and its eagle eyes were looking down at her as if she were some weak ant.
Mo Honghong screamed in a hoarse voice, the sound echoing throughout the valley.
Molly's body continued to slide forward, carrying both of them, preventing the giant eagle from taking flight.
The sharp beak of the eagle pecked at Molly's arm that was holding Mo Honghong's hair. At the same time, Molly grabbed a rock and smashed it against the eagle's head.
She was so fast that the giant eagle couldn't react in time and was hit squarely.
cracking--
The giant eagle let out a piercing scream.
Molly's arm had a chunk of flesh torn off, leaving it bloody.
Without even checking her injuries, she grabbed the giant eagle by the neck.
Bang!
The sharp wings slapped at Molly, causing her to faint from the pain. She felt as if her internal organs had shifted and her body was about to fall apart.
"Molly, watch out!"
Pfft!
Claws embedded themselves in flesh and blood.
Molly gasped, grabbed the giant eagle's neck with both hands, and bit down on its glossy feathers.
Glug, glug, glug...
It was the sound of desperately swallowing.
Molly only released her grip when she could suck out no more blood, and the giant eagle crashed to the ground with a thud.
"Dead?" Mo Honghong murmured.
Molly slumped to the ground, her eyes vacant, and did not answer.
Villagers from nearby areas came upon hearing the news.
What happened?
What was that just now?
"Wow, what a huge eagle!"
The giant eagle was taken back to the village, along with Molly and Mo Honghong.
"Captain, what are you holding?"
The villagers stared wide-eyed, their eyes gleaming with a greenish light.
"It's an eagle. Don't circle around it. Go back and tell your families to bring a bowl of meat soup to the canteen tonight," the captain announced.
Upon hearing that there would be meat soup, everyone cheered loudly.
For the past six months, they haven't seen a single grain of rice, let alone meat.
“They are both injured. Mo Er, take them to the town clinic to treat their wounds.”
The captain pointed at Molly and Mo Honghong, both of whom had several bloody wounds on their bodies, their faces were pale, and they looked like they were still in shock.
"The Mo family and Uncle Gaofeng's—"
Mo Er hesitated, "These two families are unwilling to spend money to send the two girls to the clinic for treatment."
"They don't need to pay us." The captain waved his hand. "They killed the eagle, so they did a good job. The team will pay for it."
The Mo family brigade originally had more than 400 people, but some died one after another over the past year, leaving only more than 300.
The eagle was very large, weighing about ten pounds even after it died. Ten pounds of meat wasn't enough for each member of the Mo family brigade to have a piece, so the brigade leader immediately ordered his men to chop the eagle into pieces, leaving no bones or intestines behind. The pieces were minced into a paste, which then dispersed in water, leaving not a single grain visible.
The broth was cloudy, with specks of oil floating on top, and it smelled of meat.
Apart from Molly and her two companions who went to town, the rest of the group, bowls in hand, crowded onto the playground in front of the canteen. The sounds of gulping saliva rose and fell as everyone craned their necks to look into the canteen.
"Big sister, where's second sister?" Mo An asked, holding a bowl with a well-behaved expression.
The ten-year-old boy was pale and thin, but had a well-behaved appearance, looking like a five or six-year-old child.
"Second sister is injured and needs to go to town for treatment." Mo He was worried about her younger sister's injury and felt anxious, but she couldn't go to town. She had to take her younger brother to queue up for meat soup and get her sister's share as well.
"The captain said that Second Sister and Sister Honghong teamed up to kill the eagle. They're really amazing." Because of hunger, Mo An's voice was weak, and he was panting after saying just a few words.
Mo He touched her younger brother's bald head without saying a word.
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