Chapter 2752 - Zhou Xiuyun
No matter how cold and mature Tang Ka and Chu Zhiyun pretended to be, they were teenagers anyway, and they could barely resist this dirty woman who happened to be a mother.
"Who… Who are you?"
After a long stun, Chu Zhiyun took a deep breath and tried to remain cold and calm. "Who else is inside? Only your daughter?"
"Yes, just me and my daughter, nobody else. We've been hungry for a long time. I could hold it back, but my daughter couldn't anymore, so I came out to look for some food for her."
The woman raised her hands pitifully. "Please spare us! Please spare my daughter!"
She staggered to the back of the cold room.
Holding their storm bolters and their daggers, Tang Ka and Chu Zhiyun stared at her and pressed close.
The frozen seafood in the stinky cold room had already turned into dirty and repulsive fluids. No wonder the child was crying out aloud.
Hearing her mother's voice, a little girl who was three years old at most crawled out from the back of a pile of frozen meat and laughed.
The girl looked entirely different from her mother. She could almost be called adorable even though she had spent quite a few days in a cold and damp cold room. The girl couldn't talk much yet, and she did not know what kind of danger she was in. She simply crawled to her mother on all fours in delight.
The middle-aged woman hugged and kissed her daughter. Her tears ran out, but unwilling to scare the child, she tried to put on a smile and whispered to her daughter, "Good girl, it's fine. I've found food for you. We'll have food soon. Be a good girl. Don't cry…"
"Mom…"
The girl stared at Tang Ka and Chu Zhiyun, her eyes bulging. She did not know the dangers of the human world yet, and she only felt that their clothes were pretty. "Flower! Flower!"
"Help my daughter!"
The middle-aged woman begged again, "Please!"
Tang Ka and Chu Zhiyun both took a deep breath, trying to calm themselves down.
"Who are you exactly? Why are you hiding here? How long have you been hiding? What have you seen?"
Tang Ka waved his dagger at the woman and pretended to be scary. "Tell us everything!"
The little girl, however, was interested in the glittering toy. She giggled and reached her hand for the dagger.
Tang Ka immediately blushed. He laid the dagger down at a loss and did not know where he should put his hands.
Thankfully, the middle-aged woman did not notice Tang Ka's panic, and she confessed her identity dutifully.
She said that her name was Zhou Xiuyun and her daughter's name was Tiantian. Her husband was an officer in the garrison of the Thick Soil Sector, and she had come here with her husband.
Zhou Xiuyun was a woman with a lot of misfortunes. She was born in a family of Immortal Cultivators from a remote world of the Imperium of True Human Beings, but her spiritual root was not awakened. Also, her family went bankrupt as she grew up, making it impossible for her to find a suitable husband. She had married twice, but both her husbands were killed as they struggled to make a living.
But thankfully, the Immortal Cultivators were not superstitious. Also, although her spiritual root was not awakened, she still had her family genes, and there was still a good chance that her children could become Immortal Cultivators. Therefore, she soon married a third husband.
Her third husband was not a bad person, but his family was not very powerful enough, and he couldn't be promoted despite the great contributions he made. He served in local troops for a dozen years but was still blocked by the glass ceiling.
As it happened, the expedition army announced that it wanted more soldiers, and the Sector Master of Zhou Xiuyun's hometown established a half business and half colonization troop ambitiously, intending to share the results of victory. Experienced officers were in demand, so Zhou Xiuyun's husband signed up for it.
Those officers were likely to spend the rest of their lives in the frontline, so most of the officers moved their whole families to the frontline. While the officers stayed in the military bases, their families became the citizens in the towns of civilians like New Joy City.
Tang Ka and Chu Zhiyun knew what happened next without her telling them.
When the Covenant Alliance attacked, the garrison of the Tick Soil Sector barely put up any resistance. New Joy City was occupied three days later, and most civilians were captured and taken away.
However, the city was too huge, and there were too many buildings and sewers. It was not really surprising that some survivors escaped.
Zhou Xiuyun told Tang Ka and Chu Zhiyun that she was an employee of this supermarket. When she heard explosions from the suburb, she hurried to find her daughter and tried to flee.
At that time, most civilians were trying to escape from the city, and the roads were completely jam-packed. Besides, Zhou Xiuyun broke her leg by accident on her way of escape. In a panic, she returned to the supermarket that she was most familiar with and hid in the cold room.
She had taken a lot of food from the shelves to the cold room, but in her panic, she forgot to bring water. Besides, it was impossible to dissolve formula and supplementary food with cold water. The child was also falling sick because of the terrible environment in the cold room. So, after a few days, she couldn't hold it back anymore and decided to take her chances to go out for heaters and medicines. Then, she ran into Tang Ka and Chu Zhiyun.
Tang Ka and Chu Zhiyun were both suspicious after hearing what she said.
"Even if we're willing to let go of you, where can you go when this city has already been surrounded? Do you want to hide in this cold room forever?" asked Chu Zhiyun coldly, narrowing her eyes.
"No, no. I was planning to escape from the city after my leg has recovered."
Zhou Xiuyun rolled her pants and showed them her leg injury. There was indeed the sign of a bone fracture, but it had been mostly healed thanks to the gels and cell stimulator on her leg.
Zhou Xiuyun told Tang Ka and Chu Zhiyun that the Imperium built an enormous shelter outside of the city for emergencies and that the shelter contained enough resources for people to hide inside for decades.
She should've gone to the shelter a long time ago, but partly because she was crippled and partly because she didn't know what was going on outside, she had postponed the operation.
"I'm telling you the truth! You can check this out if you don't believe me!"
As she talked, Zhou Xiuyun took out a piece of delicate magic equipment that looked like a compass. "I have a map! A map that leads the way to the shelter!"
Tang Ka and Chu Zhiyun looked at each other. Tang Ka took the compass and examined it for a moment, but he didn't know how to open it.
"Ah, it can't be opened without my fingerprint. Only the fingerprints of the officer's family members can open it."
As Zhou Xiuyun spoke, she pressed the back of the compass with her middle finger. Immediately, a 3D light beam rose from the compass and displayed a detailed map of the town, where their location, as well as the optimal route to the shelter, had been marked.
A zigzagging red line would lead them out of this town to somewhere in the unoccupied area.
It was not very close, but not too far away either. One could reach the destination on foot as long as they had enough preparations.
If they could find a vehicle, it would be even easier. They could reach the destination within a day.
"What do we do?"
Tang Ka asked Chu Zhiyun in a low voice while Chu Zhiyun was staring at the glittering shelter on the map deep in thought.
"Monitor, aren't we supposed to… report this to the mentors?"
Seeing that Chu Zhiyun was silent, Tang Ka ventured to ask again.
"No!"
Zhou Xiuyun raised her voice in panic. "Please let us go! We're just civilians! We don't know anything! We don't know anything!"
"Mom! Mom!"
The cute baby grew nervous and burst into tears again when she saw that her mother was terrified and helpless.
With mysterious light flashing in her eyes, Chu Zhiyun gazed at the wailing child.
"How odd."
Chu Zhiyun suddenly said to Tang Ka, "The children in the Covenant Alliance seem to have forgotten how to cry a long time ago."
"Huh?"
Tang Ka was confused. "Monitor, what are you talking about?"
"Give me the map."
Biting her lips, Chu Zhiyun said, "Let them stay in the cold room and give them the heaters and the medicines."
"Well…"
Tang Ka hesitated. "I don't think it's the standard procedure of pursuing. What if we're discovered?"
"Cut the crap. It has occurred to me that you're growing more and more disobedient."
Narrowing her eyes, Chu Zhiyun glared at Tang Ka dangerously. "What is the matter with you?"