Chapter 62
Guanguan woke up.
Wearing a little one-piece bear pajama suit, he lifted his head and looked around.
Rubbing his eyes, he wriggled downward bit by bit, burrowing a little nest into the soft, light flower-patterned quilt.
The dark blanket cave let in a tiny bit of light.
Inside, Guanguan happily kicked his little feet.
A secret base!
Baby had discovered a game even more fun than the slide!
When Wei Cheng came over from the stairs, he saw that there was now a little tent on the bed.
The round arc of the quilt tent looked exactly like Little Chubby Guanguan’s shape.
He cleared his throat and deliberately said in a worried voice, “Huh? Where did my Guanguan go?”
The little tent, which had just been wriggling all over the place, immediately went still. Only one plump, snow-white little piggy foot was sticking out from the edge of the quilt.
“Where’s Guanguan?”
Looking at the quilt, Wei Cheng smiled. “Is he brushing his teeth?”
A giggling voice came from inside the blanket. “Not brushing teeth!”
“Then is he hiding? Let Brother look for him…”
Wei Cheng flipped through a few books on the shelf and tugged at the curtains several times, but refused to touch the quilt.
A few seconds later, Guanguan couldn’t hold back anymore. He threw off the quilt and popped out, his little face flushed red as he laughed. “Your Guanguan is right here!”
Wei Cheng turned around and pretended to be shocked. “How is my Guanguan here? How could he be hiding under the blanket?”
The child, with his wild fluffy curls, covered his mouth and laughed secretly. “Guanguan hid, and Brother didn’t even notice!”
He bounced up on the bed, holding up one corner of the quilt, his rosy little face lifted proudly. “This is Guanguan’s new house! Brother, come be a guest!”
Wei Cheng smiled. “All right, I’ll come be a guest.”
He kicked off his slippers and climbed onto the bed, and Guanguan immediately covered both himself and Brother with the quilt.
Then he noticed there was a brighter patch of light on Brother’s side and said, “Brother, fix Guanguan’s house wall!”
Holding back laughter, Wei Cheng tugged the quilt down a little on his side. Most of the light disappeared, and the wall was fixed.
The two children hid under the quilt with a little gap left open, so it wasn’t stuffy or hot.
Guanguan asked in a tiny voice, “Brother, is Guanguan’s house nice?”
Wei Cheng lowered his voice too. “It’s nice. Very warm, very comfortable, and the walls can even be repaired by hand. It’s simply wonderful.”
Guanguan got praised again, slammed his little hand down grandly, and bestowed a great favor. “If Brother likes it, then from now on this is Brother’s house too!”
“Guanguan is very generous.” Wei Cheng smiled again. “I heard Uncle Shen made meat-and-egg burgers. Some are covered in ketchup, and some are covered in beef sauce and sweet bean sauce. Which sauce does Guanguan want?”
Guanguan opened his mouth wide and wiped at the corner of it with the back of his hand. “Brother, come visit our house again tomorrow. Right now let’s go eat delicious egg burgers!”
Wei Cheng asked, “Can Brother open the door, then?”
Guanguan impatiently kicked the little flower quilt flying. “Open!”
“You’ve got quite a bit of force.” Wei Cheng picked up the quilt before it could slide to the floor, then spread out his arms. “Come on, let’s go wash up. In a little while, Brother has a surprise for you and Little Apricot.”
Guanguan flew at him and clung tightly to his arm like a little tree sloth. “What is a surprise?”
Carrying the child toward the bathroom, Wei Cheng said, “Something that will make Guanguan especially happy.”
Guanguan swung his little feet, his big eyes clear and bright. “Baby is surprised every day!”
Because Guanguan was happy every day!
After washing up, Wei Cheng brought Guanguan and Little Apricot to Uncle Shen’s wooden cabin.
“Guanguan, Chengcheng, you’re here? Your egg burgers are almost done!”
Guanguan bounced into the kitchen and hugged Uncle Shen’s leg. “Uncle worked hard!”
“Hahaha, not hard at all.” Shen Zheng laughed while brushing sauce onto the burgers.
Yi Qi, who was pouring milk, said, “What about me?”
Guanguan immediately used what he had just learned. “Uncle Yi has surprises every day!”
“Has surprises every day? That’s a pretty good blessing.” Yi Qi rubbed Guanguan’s little curls. “All right, there’s oil smoke in here. You and Brother go play at the table first.”
“Okay!”
But the moment Guanguan came back, he heard Little Black barking nonstop at the narrow laundry room beside the dining table.
He grabbed one of the little dog’s floppy ears. “Little Apricot, don’t bark!”
Wei Cheng said, “There seems to be something inside that’s got Little Apricot’s attention.”
Guanguan lifted his little claw. “It must be a super yummy bone!”
“Should we go take a look?”
Wei Cheng held Guanguan’s hand and, with his other hand, held onto Little Apricot’s leash. “Little Apricot, Brother specially put your leash on today, so no matter what you see in a little while, you’re not allowed to charge over.”
The little black dog was very clever and understood people well. It tilted its head slightly, its dark eyes seeming to say that Dog understood.
Wei Cheng opened the door, and immediately a tiny little whining sound came from inside.
It wasn’t until some soft little “thing” crawled onto Guanguan’s shoe that he realized what it was.
His eyes widened, and his tiny little face lit up with delight. “It’s a new puppy!”
The freshly washed puppy had had most of its fur trimmed, but it was still easy to see that the fur along its back was an even silver-gray.
Its face was symmetrically marked, with a pure black nose and clear doggy eyes like blue-green sapphires.
According to Uncle Yi, this little dog, which didn’t even look much bigger than a kitten, was already over a month old. Luckily it had no external injuries; it was just starving and weak. Right now it was far too weak and thin to do deworming or vaccinations, so they could only observe it for a while first.
Guanguan didn’t dare move at all, his little face flushed red. “Brother, this puppy is so pretty!”
The little gray puppy was very weak. After crawling onto Guanguan’s shoe, it stopped moving and only lifted its eyes slightly to look at the little black dog being held back.
Wei Cheng found it interesting. Usually lively and combative, Little Black neither bit nor pounced this time. It just stared blankly at the gray puppy.
The two little dogs gazed at each other from afar, as if they had known each other in a past life.
Still worried that Little Apricot might attack the little border collie, Wei Cheng tugged the black puppy behind him a bit and said, “This is a little border collie puppy, not even two months old yet. Uncle Yi says when it comes to dogs, a dog is a dog, but a border collie is a border collie. It’ll be especially smart when it grows up.”
Guanguan folded his hands and asked expectantly, “Smarter than Guanguan?”
Wei Cheng thought about it and answered honestly, “Depends on how old Guanguan is. Some grown border collies are about as smart as an eight-year-old child.”
Yesterday Uncle Yi had given a whole bunch of examples of how clever border collies were.
“Guanguan is only four!” Guanguan gasped, then carefully bent down to look at the weak little gray puppy. “Hello, Puppy Brother!”
Wei Cheng couldn’t help laughing. “You’re already calling him brother?”
Before long, Director Wang also arrived with Mingming and Xiaotiao.
The little gray puppy seemed a little afraid of people. Trembling, it climbed down from Guanguan’s shoe and slowly made its way back to its warm little nest, curling itself up into a little gray ball.
The two children were so shocked by the puppy that they couldn’t help speaking loudly. Guanguan, being sensible, said, “Xiaotiao, the puppy is scared. Let’s eat first!”
Wang Xiaotiao lowered his voice. “Okay!”
The three children went hand in hand toward the table. Wei Cheng was just about to lead Little Apricot away, but to his surprise, the black puppy planted its legs wide, raised its butt, and let out a soft bark toward the little gray ball.
The little gray ball trembled, but didn’t answer.
Wei Cheng gently closed the door, then tugged on Little Black’s leash again, only to find it didn’t want to move.
The little black dog gave Brother a soft bark and wagged its tail desperately toward the laundry room door.
After thinking for a moment, Wei Cheng said, “Little Gray is very weak right now. Uncle Yi still has to examine it. Once it gets better, then you two can play together.”
Little Apricot seemed to understand. It followed Brother reluctantly, looking back every step of the way.
Wei Cheng laughed too and gently rubbed the puppy’s head. “I never thought our little baby Apricot would like this little dog friend so much. Then in the future, you and Little Gray should stay by Guanguan’s side and grow up together with him.”
After seeing Director Wang bring the children over to eat, Wei Cheng, Shen Zheng, and Yi Qi took their guns and supplies and headed to a small wooden cabin at the edge of the ranch.
The sky had cleared, but the pasture was still a little slippery.
They didn’t know how that family of three was doing. Had they turned into zombies, or tried anything else?
As they got close to the cabin, they heard quiet rustling voices from inside.
Shen Zheng knocked on the door. “Mr. Chen? Good morning.”
A voice quickly answered from inside the wooden door. “Big brother? None of us turned into zombies. We’re all fine! Wife, Mingming, say something.”
Li Rui and Chen Xiaoming each said a few words.
Wei Cheng and Yi Qi exchanged a glance, then Shen Zheng unlocked the door and let the family of three come out.
Last night, the rain and darkness had made it impossible for them to clearly see the layout of the ranch.
Now the moment they stepped out of the cabin, they saw the steel wall up on the grassy slope, solid as a fortress.
From where they stood, all they could see was the wall.
Chen Fangshun blinked. “That is…”
Yi Qi handed him the car keys and a backpack. “These are your car keys. We took the puppy. There are five jin of coarse rice, ten packs of instant noodles, and ten bottles of mineral water in here. Take them and go.”
Actually, both he and Shen Zheng had been curious since yesterday. Full-Belly Farm wouldn’t casually accept survivors, but it should at least consider people with children. So why had Chengcheng never loosened up at all about keeping this family of three?
Chen Fangshun lowered his head and took the things, but Li Rui gritted her teeth and said, “Big brothers, could you let us stay here for a few days? Drifting around with no place to settle is too hard. If we keep wandering outside with our child, sooner or later we’ll be bitten to death by zombies. We absolutely won’t go near where you live, and we won’t touch your supplies. Could you make an exception and let us stay here just for the winter…”
She gently pushed Chen Xiaoming on the shoulder. The thin little boy dropped to his knees and kowtowed hard. “Uncles, please, let us stay here. Please. I’m only seven this year. I really want to live…”
When the child raised his head, his sallow little face was stuck with dirty blades of grass.
Even knowing the words had been taught by the adults, Shen Zheng and Yi Qi still couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.
Wei Cheng looked at Chen Fangshun. “What do you think?”
Chen Fangshun hadn’t expected a child to ask him a question. He sighed. “I… I still hope we can stay.”
Wei Cheng’s face remained expressionless. “But that’s not what you said yesterday.”
“Well, that was just because…” Chen Fangshun clenched his fists and sighed again.
Naturally, if they wanted to stay, then of course yesterday they had to say they would leave the next day.
But after tasting safety and peace, wasn’t it only human nature to become attached to it?
Wei Cheng said, “You can stay.”
The moment those words came out, Chen Fangshun and Li Rui both stared in shock.
“But only for two months.”
Wei Cheng pointed at the steel pipes and lumber stacked beneath the wooden cabin. “During that time, you’ll help repair and build the ranch fence. We’ll provide enough supplies to keep your family of three alive. But after two months, if you still won’t leave…”
With practiced ease, he pulled out his handgun and aimed it at Chen Xiaoming’s head. The boy screamed in terror, “Mom! Dad!”
Chen Fangshun and Li Rui were scared stiff. No one would have believed such a young child could actually be carrying a gun.
Wei Cheng’s eyes were cold. “In two months, whoever tries to sell a sob story gets a bullet through the head.”
Chen Fangshun and Li Rui turned deathly pale, but still agreed to everything.
They once again took away the family’s car keys and knives.
On the way back to the core zone, Shen Zheng hesitated, then asked, “Chengcheng, if you don’t trust them, why let them stay?”
“Do you remember Red Hair from the roadside motel?”
Shen Zheng and Yi Qi both nodded.
Wei Cheng fell silent for a moment, then said, “That man died in Wuqing City. His father won’t let it go.”
“But I don’t regret killing him.”
He said coldly, “If Red Hair hadn’t died, maybe we would already have been tracked down. And if he’d lived, even more innocent people would have suffered because of him. Doing something to eliminate a scourge every once in a while isn’t a bad thing. The ranch fence has to be finished as soon as possible, and we need manpower…”
“Just because I don’t trust them doesn’t mean we can’t use them.”
No matter what, they were worth 3000 Twist Coins. That could buy a lot of equipment.
If they finished repairing the base quickly, they could also unlock half of the firearms section.
Who knew what kind of heavyweight weapons would be in there?
Amazing as always