Chapter 6: Let’s Clear Things Up
After selling off the remaining vegetables, Su Ruizhe dragged his cart and followed behind Chen Huizhen.
Stepping once again into his uncle’s three-bedroom apartment, Su Ruizhe’s mood was completely different from before. The unease and anticipation he’d felt back then had been entirely replaced by cold indifference.
“Little Zhe! Come, come—sit down!” Chen Huizhen warmly pulled Su Ruizhe over to the sofa, then went into the kitchen and brought out drinks and snacks, all popular brands on the market. “Have something to eat and watch some TV first. Your aunt will go cook! Look at you—so skinny! Tonight I’ll make sure you eat well and eat your fill!”
Hearing that, Su Ruizhe immediately threw his plan to get things over with quickly far out the window. Whatever needed to be said could wait until after he was full!
A fine young man, yet after returning from the apocalypse, he’d somehow picked up the habit of being greedy for food…
His uncle came home right around dinnertime. Just as Auntie was setting the dishes on the table, the front door opened. When his uncle saw Su Ruizhe sitting on the sofa, he froze for a moment, then said stiffly, “It’s Little Zhe?”
“Hello, Uncle,” Su Ruizhe stood up obediently to greet him.
His uncle was a classic henpecked husband, with little say at home—everything was decided by Auntie. The night before Su Ruizhe had been sent to the research institute, his uncle had once knocked on his door. But after Su Ruizhe opened it, his uncle hesitated for a long time and ultimately left without saying anything.
Perhaps his uncle had once wanted to warn him about something, but in the end, he chose to be selfish…
For that faint trace of conscience—his uncle’s unspoken attempt to warn him—Su Ruizhe was willing to show him some respect. But nothing more than that.
“Little Zhe! Come, come—sit down and eat!” Auntie efficiently finished setting the dishes and called him over.
“Okay.” Su Ruizhe didn’t stand on ceremony. He plopped down at the dining table at once. Even though he tried hard to restrain himself, he still couldn’t help swallowing.
To win Su Ruizhe over, tonight’s dinner was extraordinarily lavish. Chen Huizhen pulled out all the stops, preparing a table full of dishes with great color, aroma, and taste—probably more sumptuous than their New Year’s feast. Braised pork, beef brisket stewed with potatoes, sweet-and-sour spare ribs, minced meat steamed egg, steamed mandarin fish, pork rib and Chinese yam soup, mapo tofu, tomato and egg stir-fry, sour and spicy shredded potatoes—eight dishes and one soup in total!
Though Chen Huizhen wasn’t a professional chef, she’d been a housewife for many years, and her home-style cooking was truly presentable. And in the apocalypse, where food was extremely scarce, anything that could be eaten and fill one’s stomach counted as a delicacy—let alone food prepared with such care.
In his previous life, Su Ruizhe had fled from place to place with his uncle’s family. Days when they could eat their fill were few and far between. Sometimes they survived only by chewing on raw lettuce leaves and gulping down water to stave off hunger. Later, after finally entering a base, life improved somewhat. They could at least eat until full, but it was mostly coarse grain lumps and bean dregs cakes issued by the base—dry and hard, needing to be soaked in water before swallowing. After he was sent into the laboratory as a test subject, his days were even more miserable. Bound to an operating table, unable to move, let alone eat, he survived solely on IV drips.
Thus, after returning from the apocalypse, Su Ruizhe’s appetite had visibly grown several times over—hunger had forced it that way.
Now, staring at this table of delicious food, how could he possibly hold back?
Holding his rice bowl, he looked expectantly at his uncle and aunt. Once they picked up their chopsticks and took a bite, he didn’t wait for them to urge him on. He immediately began devouring the food like a whirlwind…
Both his uncle and aunt were stunned by his unrestrained eating. Chen Huizhen had originally planned to slowly persuade Su Ruizhe to move in with them while they ate, but this kid was burying his head in food, his chopsticks moving so fast they left afterimages. How was she supposed to get a word in?
Thinking about how the old man had passed away nearly twenty days ago, and how the child had been living alone since then, he probably hadn’t been eating properly at all. Still, this eating style was a bit too ugly—like a starving ghost reincarnated.
After silently looking down on Su Ruizhe for a moment, Chen Huizhen put back on her gentle, kindly smile and urged him to eat more. As for that matter, it could wait until after the meal.
Su Ruizhe refilled his rice bowl three times, each time piling it high, then continued desperately shoveling food into his mouth. Eight dishes and one soup—enough to feed five or six people—and a full pot of white rice were all wiped clean by him. If it weren’t for the increasingly dark looks on his uncle’s and aunt’s faces, he might have even picked up the plates to lick them clean…
After letting out a satisfied burp, Su Ruizhe leaned comfortably against the genuine leather sofa in his uncle’s living room, gently rubbing his slightly protruding stomach. This was truly the best and most satisfying meal he’d had since his rebirth.
Delicious—and free! Where else could you find such a good deal?
“Little Zhe… you can’t really take good care of yourself living alone. After all, you’re our flesh and blood. Your uncle and I talked it over, and we want you to move in with us. Our A-Qiang is married with a child now and moved out long ago. His old bedroom is just right for you. As for your tuition and such, we’ll take care of it.”
Heh. Here it comes.
Considering the delicious meal he’d just had, Su Ruizhe didn’t plan to make things ugly with Chen Huizhen. He put on a shy smile and said, “Auntie, don’t worry. I can take care of myself, and I can handle my tuition on my own.”
“How can you take care of yourself? By setting up a stall at the vegetable market?!” Chen Huizhen shot back. “You’re still a student—you should focus on your studies. Running around working and selling things every day will delay your learning. If the old man knew from underground, he definitely wouldn’t be happy!”
Seeing Su Ruizhe selling vegetables at a stall, Chen Huizhen hadn’t thought much of it. She assumed he’d just gotten some cheap wholesale goods from somewhere and was making a bit of pocket money. She had no idea that what Su Ruizhe earned in a single day was more than the combined daily wages of the two of them.
Hearing Auntie use his grandfather to pressure him made Su Ruizhe displeased. He decided to get straight to the point.
“Auntie,” he said, “I heard that the old house my grandfather left behind is going to be demolished. By headcount, each person can get three hundred thousand yuan, right?”
As he said this, Su Ruizhe still wore that shy, innocent smile on his face.
However, Chen Huizhen and his uncle could no longer smile. Chen Huizhen’s expression stiffened as she said awkwardly, “R-really? Who did you hear that from?”
“I heard it from Grandpa Wang in the alley. His grandson happens to work at the sub-district office. I ran into him this morning when I went to the square for morning exercises, and he told me.”
“Oh…” Chen Huizhen’s eyes darted around, then she continued, “But who knows when the relocation notice will actually come out. School starts tomorrow, doesn’t it? You still haven’t settled your tuition yet, right?”
“It’s almost all gathered already. If it’s still not enough, I can borrow a bit from friends. The school also has dormitories—once the house is demolished, I can apply to live on campus. Auntie, don’t worry. I definitely won’t cause you any trouble.”
Chen Huizhen’s expression stiffened even more. She frowned and jabbed her husband hard in the side.
His uncle shifted uncomfortably and said somewhat embarrassedly, “Little Zhe, you see, my little grandson is almost old enough for school now. We want to send the child to a better public elementary school, and we’ve set our sights on the Primary School Affiliated with No. 1 High School. But the child’s household registration isn’t over there, and we’re at our wits’ end. We wanted to ask if it would be possible to register the child’s Household Registration at your grandfather’s house.”
What his uncle said was exactly the same as in his previous life. It was certainly Auntie who had coached him on these words and then pushed him to speak up. After all, the one with a blood relationship to both Su Ruizhe and Grandpa Su was Uncle Su Qiming. If he were the one to ask, Su Ruizhe would be more likely to accept.
“But the house is about to be demolished, isn’t it?”
“That’s fine—Household Registration can still be registered there! At least let the child get signed up first…” Chen Huizhen hurriedly chimed in.
“Well…” Su Ruizhe put on a troubled expression, stringing the couple along for a good while before finally agreeing. “All right, then.”
A genuine smile immediately appeared on Chen Huizhen’s face. She repeatedly praised Su Ruizhe for being sensible, and brought up again the matter of him moving in with them. After Su Ruizhe refused once more, she didn’t insist any further—after all, her objective had already been achieved.
Su Ruizhe agreed that once she had prepared the child’s paperwork, she could come find him. If he wasn’t around, she could continue using the old method of slipping him a note with the time and place, and he would definitely show up on time.
After that, Su Ruizhe left their home.
He simply didn’t want to waste time getting entangled with their family. As long as the final 300,000 yuan from the demolition ended up in his own hands, he didn’t mind the entire family of his uncle registering their Household Registration at the old house. In any case, the apocalypse would arrive soon—no matter how much money one had, it would all become useless.
As for information about the apocalypse, he would absolutely not reveal even a shred of it to them. He wanted to see for himself just how long his uncle’s family could survive in the apocalypse this time, without him—and without any superpowers.
Thank you for reading 🙂 I hope you all liked my translations. If you enjoyed my work, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi 😉
