Chapter 42
Guanguan and big brother lived on the second floor of the villa. If you pushed open the window, you could see the flower corridor and the lawn outside.
After locking the door, Wei Cheng took Guanguan straight into the safe house.
The little black dog came trotting over. It did not bark wildly; instead, its chubby little paw scratched at big brother’s pant leg.
Wei Cheng rubbed the dog’s head and whispered, “Don’t worry. Guanguan is fine. He just fell asleep from playing too hard.”
Only then did Little Apricot relax. It hopped into its dog bed and curled up into a pitch-black little fluffy ball.
Back upstairs, Guanguan suddenly woke up instead.
He lay in his brother’s arms rubbing his eyes and asked in a soft baby voice, “Big brother, did Guanguan eat beef noodle soup?”
Wei Cheng took off Guanguan’s little cherry sweater and lied to him gently, “You did.”
“How many bowls?”
“Three bowls.”
Guanguan’s eyes were barely open. He let out a cute puff of breath. “That’s exactly how amazing!”
Wei Cheng pulled two new sets of pajamas out of the wardrobe.
A big dinosaur and a little baby dinosaur—chosen by Guanguan himself.
Wei Cheng said, “Let’s take a bath before we sleep.”
The little chubby child, bare-bottomed, rolled around on the bed. “Big brother, baby isn’t dirty today.”
Guanguan actually loved bubble baths, so the fact that he was trying to avoid one today probably meant he had gotten tired out playing in the children’s playground.
“But baby got very sweaty today.” Wei Cheng scooped up the heavy little ball on the spot, tucked him under one arm, and headed for the bathroom. “After your bath, I’ll tell you a story. We won’t study Chinese characters tonight, okay?”
No child liked studying, and Guanguan was no exception.
He immediately stopped struggling and happily waggled his little pig-feet, feet with no visible ankles. “Big brother, that’s not right, baby still wants to go to kindergarten.”
Wei Cheng laughed. This child’s eyebrows were practically flying up into the sky with pride.
He opened the little tub and let in hot water. The moment Guanguan sat down, water splashed everywhere.
Wei Cheng wiped his face. “This tub needs replacing.”
“Is the tub broken?” Guanguan hugged several little yellow ducks against his round belly.
“It’s too small.” Wei Cheng patted the backrest of the tub. “Come on, lean here. Big brother will wash your hair first. You smell like a little puppy.”
Guanguan raised his wet little face, his eyes round and bright. “It’s Little Apricot smell!”
Downstairs, the little dog had excellent hearing and actually barked in response.
Wei Cheng called out toward the bathroom door, “Be good, Little Apricot. Big brother will wash you tomorrow.”
The puppy barked excitedly twice more.
Guanguan’s new little curls had started growing in. Since children sweat a lot when they play, and Wei Cheng was worried Guanguan would get itchy, he washed him especially carefully.
Before long, the bathwater was full of snowy white foam flowers, and Guanguan happily reached out again and again to grab them.
This child treated blow-drying his hair like torture every single time, so Wei Cheng thought for a moment, then smoothed his wet hair back until it became a tiny slicked-back hairstyle.
“Guanguan, you’re very handsome.”
The moment he heard that, Guanguan forgot all about the foam flowers and the little yellow ducks. Slapping at the water, he cried urgently, “Mirror, mirror, show the mirror!”
Wei Cheng handed him the little round mirror.
In the mirror was a child with rosy, round cheeks and full little face-meat, long curved lashes, and yet topped with a sleek, wet, handsome little slicked-back style. One little strand had even fallen over his brow.
Then with a plop, a drop of drool landed on the mirror.
Wei Cheng held back a laugh. “How come you drool when looking at yourself?”
Guanguan wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “The baby in the mirror is too handsome!”
“Then from now on, every time big brother washes your hair, I’ll style it like this? Now we need to dry your hair.”
“Yes, yes!”
The innocent child clutched the mirror and would not let go.
One limited-edition slicked-back Guanguan bought Wei Cheng three whole minutes of very fast hair-drying.
Wei Cheng wrapped the child in a pink little elephant blanket and tucked him into bed. “Sleep now. Big brother is going to shower, and then I’ll tell you a story.”
Guanguan could barely keep his eyes open. Even so, one little hand still clutched the mirror tightly. “Big brother is tired. Tell Guanguan a story tomorrow.”
Wei Cheng smiled and rubbed the child’s soft, bouncy cheek. “Big brother isn’t tired.”
But by the time he finished showering and cleaned up the bathroom, soft little snores were already coming from the bed.
He put the mirror away and sat there without any desire to sleep, still thinking about the matter of building a base.
He and Guanguan were too young.
Location, teammates, whether or not to accept survivors, threats and challenges from other bases, and most importantly—the secret of the wiggle car. Every one of those things needed careful thought.
He pulled up Guanguan’s personal information panel, and his gaze landed on the line:
[Contract Companions: No Data Yet]
If they were called contract companions, then the system should have its own set of contract rules.
He checked the mission board again. There were no new tasks.
They had only just completed the mission “Find the human in Highland Shelter who is about to become a zombie.” A new mission should still take some time to appear.
—
The first thing Guanguan did after waking up in the morning was take the little dog out for a walk.
Now that they had a wide courtyard and high walls, one little child and one little dog could run wild to their hearts’ content.
Shen Zheng brought breakfast back for the children and then went to work.
Even though he had begun to develop certain thoughts about Highland Shelter, a monk for a day still had to strike the bell for a day. For survival’s sake, he still had to do all the work that prioritized the big leader’s interests above all else.
Guanguan and the little dog came running back in a game of chase. Wei Cheng waved at him. “Guanguan, wash your hands. The milk is warmed up.”
Then, speaking to the little black dog, he added, “Your goat milk is ready too.”
Guanguan did not want to wash his hands, so he just held onto his brother’s hand and gulped the milk straight down.
Wei Cheng laughed helplessly and wiped his mouth with a tissue. “Lazy Guanguan.”
“Big brother, Guanguan is going to play now!”
“Wait a second.” Wei Cheng glanced at the clock on the wall. “You haven’t studied today’s Chinese characters and math yet. Do you want to play first, or study first?”
Guanguan planted his hands on his hips and thought for a moment. “Study!”
Wei Cheng took Guanguan upstairs and then thought of something. “Right, we still haven’t spun our surprise wheel.”
Guanguan sat on the chair clapping his hands. “What does big brother want?”
Wei Cheng set down the books and suddenly had an idea. “How about this time we do a blind draw?”
Since Guanguan had that wish-fulfilling lucky buff, they had always been able to draw exactly what they wanted. This time, maybe they should try blindly and see what kind of surprise they got.
He opened the system panel, and the silver-pink glowing big wheel instantly appeared.
Guanguan tapped the wheel.
Before long, the pointer stopped.
[Congratulations! The little house owner has ridiculously good luck and has drawn one exquisite 180-square-meter home!]
[Notice: Current safe house area is 250 square meters. When the safe house area upgrades to 500 square meters, the exquisite home (180 square meters) will move in automatically!]
One hundred and eighty square meters!
Their current cozy little home was only seventy square meters!
And they had just directly drawn a big house?
That really was an unexpected delight.
Though right now, as only two children, they did not actually need such a large home.
Later, when they were older and needed to stockpile huge amounts of supplies, they could buy more shelves to expand the safe house’s footprint and make the exquisite home officially move in.
Guanguan put his book over his face and crunched on a crispy little biscuit. “Big brother, when can we live in the big house?”
“We still have to wait a little longer.”
An hour later, Guanguan had successfully learned ten Chinese characters and two little beginner math concepts.
He hopped down from the chair. “Big brother, Guanguan is going to play now!”
Wei Cheng gathered up the books. “Go ahead.”
Just then, there was movement outside the front gate.
Guanguan looked out the window and cheered, “Uncle Shen is back!”
Wei Cheng took Guanguan downstairs, only to see that Shen Zheng had not come alone.
Shen Zheng looked very pleased. Smiling, he said, “Guanguan, Chengcheng, this is Uncle’s good friend. His surname is Yi. You can call him Uncle Yi.”
Guanguan looked at the crew-cut, somewhat fierce-looking man in front of him and said obediently, “Hello, one uncle.”
“Haha, isn’t Guanguan adorable?” Shen Zheng bumped Yi Qi’s shoulder.
Yi Qi’s lips moved slightly, and then he looked toward the older child standing beside the little ball of baby fat.
Wei Cheng also looked at Yi Qi, and memories from his previous life surged up.
The moment he had seen Shen Zheng for the first time, he had remembered that he had met this man in his previous life.
Shen Zheng was kind-hearted and a genuinely good person, but that was also his weakness.
The first and last time Wei Cheng had seen Shen Zheng in his previous life, Shen Zheng had been under attack by a group of survivors he had just rescued. If Yi Qi had not shown up in time, Shen Zheng would have died at the hands of those greedy survivors.
Wei Cheng had crossed paths with Yi Qi because both of them had been sent by their respective bases on a mission to search for medical supplies. They served different bases, but since both were the type to be ruthless and laconic, and though there was an age gap between them, they still got along reasonably well.
The last time Wei Cheng ever heard news of Yi Qi was that he and his friend had both died in the struggle between Highland Shelter and another base.
That friend had probably been Shen Zheng.
As he was thinking that, Yi Qi had already walked over to Guanguan. “Open your mouth.”
Guanguan’s eyes darted around. “Uncle, Guanguan’s mouth isn’t pretty.”
Shen Zheng said, “Guanguan, Uncle Yi knows a little about this. Be good and listen.”
Guanguan grabbed big brother’s hand tightly, shut his eyes, and opened his mouth.
“Tongue coating normal. Under-eyes normal. Neck mobility normal… Hold out your hand.”
Guanguan obediently stretched out his hand.
After checking Guanguan’s pulse, Yi Qi stood up. “Very healthy.”
Wei Cheng voiced his doubt. “Then why is my little brother a bit short and a bit heavy?”
Yi Qi looked at him. “Every child develops differently. As for him—just raise him like a little meat pig. When he grows up, he definitely won’t end up much shorter than you.”
Wei Cheng looked at Guanguan, who had just been labeled a little meat pig and was still grinning stupidly. Frowning slightly, he said, “Uncle Yi, are you really a doctor?”
Yi Qi put his hands in his pockets and lifted a brow. “Does a veterinarian not count as a doctor?”
Wei Cheng: “…”
That old bastard—back in his previous life, when he bandaged him up, he had lied and claimed he was a top-level expert from a major hospital!
Still, veterinarian or not, maybe later he could get him to help vaccinate Little Apricot.
Guanguan came trotting over to Shen Zheng and secretly glanced at the fierce-looking man. “Uncle, is one uncle going to live with us too?”
Shen Zheng shook his head. “Highland Shelter doesn’t allow hunters to live in the managers’ district. Uncle Yi just returned safely from a mission this morning, and I thought I’d bring him to meet you two.”
The four of them ate lunch together. Perhaps because Yi Qi was present, Guanguan sat properly, ate properly, and even finished his vegetables without anyone having to coax him.
—
The days were so peaceful it was a little unsettling.
As of today, Wei Cheng and Guanguan had spent a full month in Highland Shelter.
A new group of survivors had arrived at the shelter a few days ago, which had allowed some older managers to move up into the hot spring villa district. Shen Zheng had voluntarily refused that “promotion” and stayed in the white villas instead. Because of the shortage of managers, the leaders had promoted some of the base’s hunters into management.
One of them was Qiao Dasheng.
When his family moved in, they had deliberately made a huge fuss about it, as if afraid Wei Cheng and Guanguan might somehow fail to hear.
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