My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 126
by Little PandaSole Relative
With Chen Jie as a cautionary tale, although everyone harbored grievances about Mu Ning selling water for an exorbitant amount of crystal cores, not a single person dared to make a scene in front of her. After nursing their resentment for a few days, they finally turned their attention to Zhou Zhilong. They had assumed that, with his status as her fiancé, he could easily reason with Mu Ning. Who would have thought he wouldn’t even try?
How could this be? What were they supposed to do about water in the future? They couldn’t actually buy it at such ridiculous prices, could they?
No sooner had Zhou Zhilong finished speaking than another esper retorted in dissatisfaction, “Young Master Zhou, that’s not right! It’s not that we’re trying to push you into the line of fire, but that woman is your fiancée! If you don’t step forward, how could it ever be our turn?”
“Me, step forward? You’ve certainly got it all worked out, haven’t you!” Zhou Zhilong sneered. “No matter what, I’m Mu Ning’s fiancé. At a time like this, shouldn’t I be standing on my fiancée’s side instead? After all, we aren’t married yet! This engagement can still be called off. You’re trying your hardest to drive a wedge between us… what exactly are you planning?”
As Zhou Zhilong’s final word fell, all the espers shivered involuntarily. His expression warned everyone present that he was not someone they should provoke right now.
Only then did they remember that, although the man before them acted like a close brother under normal circumstances, he was no saint beneath the surface. A ruthless man who could smile at you one second and stab you in the back the next was truly terrifying.
Since they couldn’t get Zhou Zhilong to persuade Mu Ning to provide water for free, and they weren’t willing to pay her exorbitant rates, Zhou Zhilong ultimately relented under their humble pleas. He agreed that they would only pay her the standard baseline price of Ning’an Base for water, while he covered the difference out of his own pocket.
Although shelling out such a massive sum of crystal cores made Zhou Zhilong deeply unhappy, he consoled himself with the fact that there was less than a week left of their journey. Once they endured this stretch and returned to Ning’an Base, and once Mu Ning married him, wouldn’t her esper abilities and crystal cores all be his anyway?
A beauty in his arms, her abilities secured, and a mountain of crystal cores to boot… Suddenly, Zhou Zhilong completely approved of Mu Ning’s extortionate water rates! After all, the more crystal cores she racked up now, the more would eventually belong to him!!!
With Zhou Zhilong’s guarantee and his subsidizing of the crystal cores, the espers stopped their clamoring. However, despite his financial backing, everyone still conserved water as much as possible on the road. To minimize how often they had to buy water from Mu Ning, they consciously searched shops in abandoned towns along the way to A City, hoping to scavenge clean drinking water. Dragging their feet like this, they finally made it back to Ning’an Base, five days later than scheduled.
Like any other survivor base, any newcomers entering the base had to register and undergo quarantine. Ning’an Base also had a regulation requiring them to hand over a set amount of crystal cores or supplies as an entry fee.
However, the Zhou and Mu families held considerable sway in Ning’an Base now. Combined with the fact that Mu Ning was a highly coveted 6th-order water-wood dual-system esper, the base administrators couldn’t welcome them fast enough. They bypassed the registration, quarantine, and resource-submission processes entirely, ushering the group straight through.
Sitting by the vehicle window, Mu Ning watched the scenery of Ning’an Base pass by with cold eyes. Beside her, Zhou Zhilong droned on and on about how exceptional and advanced the base was. Judging by the overall atmosphere and environment, she could indeed tell it was far superior to Nanhai Base, but… it didn’t give her any sense of coming home.
This hollow feeling persisted, even when she finally faced the family she hadn’t seen in nearly three years.
Her mother didn’t bother to ask how she had survived the past three years of the apocalypse. Instead, the woman did nothing but complain about how disobedient she had been, running off to S City to study on her own, and scolded her for not returning to A City once she unlocked her esper abilities, choosing instead to stay in some small base way down south.
The endless nagging buzzed in Mu Ning’s ears, and when they saw she remained entirely expressionless, her cold face showing no reaction, her father and eldest brother joined in on the berating. Finally, amidst a sharp “Since you’re so capable, why did you even bother coming back? Why didn’t you just die out there?” Mu Ning raised her cold gaze to look at her so-called family. “Weren’t you the ones who sought me out to come back?” she retorted icily.
“You…”
Mu Ning’s sudden outburst and her frigid, bone-chilling glare startled the three mid-tirade. But after a brief pause, her father, Mu Chengzhi, barked furiously, “You unfilial wretch1! If we hadn’t sent for you, you really wouldn’t have come back, would you?! Huh?! You didn’t come home for three years. What’s wrong with your parents lecturing you a bit? Look at your eyes! Do you really think that just because you have an esper ability, your wings have grown strong enough for you to fly away? If you’re so tough, get the hell out right now! Why did you cling to Xiao Zhou to crawl back to Ning’an Base?”
The moment Mu Chengzhi finished speaking, Mu Ning turned to leave without a second thought. Zhou Zhilong, who had been watching the drama unfold, was startled and scrambled forward to grab her. But at a freezing warning glare from Mu Ning, he awkwardly withdrew his hand and resorted to pacifying her with honeyed words. Zhou Zhilong’s persuasion was nothing more than claiming her family still cared about her deeply, they just didn’t know how to express it in words. He parroted the old adage that beating is affection and scolding is love2—that they simply cared too much about her, which was why in their agitation, they had spoken so carelessly.
After placating Mu Ning, Zhou Zhilong turned to soothe the Mu family, explaining that she actually cared a great deal about them. He pointed out that the moment she heard Grandfather Mu’s eightieth birthday was approaching, she had journeyed back to Ning’an Base without a moment’s hesitation, completely disregarding how long and perilous the road was.
These excuses smoothed the Mu family’s ruffled feathers. Mu Chengzhi cast a sideways glance at Mu Ning, his tone softening slightly. “At least you still have some consideration for your grandfather. It seems your grandfather didn’t dote on you in vain when you were small…”
Before he could finish, Mu Ning interrupted him callously, “Where is Grandmother?”
“You…” Cut off once more, Mu Chengzhi’s temper flared again. “So your eyes only see your grandmother?!”
Bullshit! If it weren’t for her grandmother, she would never have followed Zhou Zhilong back to this Mu family she had detested since childhood. Mu Ning let out a contemptuous snort, looked down at the floor, and said nothing more.
When these people spoke of caring for her and loving her, they didn’t show even a shred of shame. Since her childhood, Grandmother had been the only one who was ever genuinely good to her! Even when she secretly changed her university preferences back then so she could flee A City, she had only done so with Grandmother’s support! It was fair to say that throughout her long absence from the Mu family, Grandmother was the only person she ever worried about.
During the first few days of the apocalypse, Mu Ning had actually wavered over whether she should return to see if Grandmother was in danger. But considering the Mu family’s power in A City, and comparing it to Ren Muhui’s vulnerable state of being completely alone, she had ultimately made a beeline for H City.
In fact, things had played out exactly as she anticipated. Given the Mu family’s status in A City, although there had been a brief period of chaos, they quickly leveraged their abundant supplies to establish a decent foothold in the early days of the apocalypse. Later, they used their powerful connections to integrate themselves into the newly built Ning’an Base. Mu Ning knew that even though her grandfather and grandmother had never shared a deep bond, with the Mu family’s obsession with saving face, they would never abandon Grandmother in front of outsiders.
What she had failed to foresee, however, was…
“You heartless wretch! If you really cared so much about your grandmother, why didn’t you rush back at the start of the apocalypse? Maybe then you could have seen with your own eyes how your precious grandmother turned into a zombie…”
Mu Chengzhi despised her disregard for him. So his tone when speaking to her was filled with sharp sarcasm, laced with a trace of schadenfreude. He wanted nothing more than to see this unfilial daughter crumble in despair and agony upon learning her dearest grandmother had become a zombie. What he never expected, however, was that his daughter would actually use force against him!!!
Crack!
A slender, barb-covered vine whipped violently against the floor right at Mu Chengzhi’s feet. Tiny fragments of stone sprayed from the marble floor instantly as the slab right by his feet was split cleanly in half.
“Say that again. What happened to Grandmother?!”
“You… you scoundrel…” Treated like this by his own daughter, Mu Chengzhi instinctively opened his mouth to berate her. But the moment his eyes met Mu Ning’s murder-filled gaze, his throat tightened, and he shrank back, his words turning into: “Your grandmother simply went to sleep at the start of the apocalypse, and when she woke up, she had turned into a zombie! If your grandfather hadn’t run fast back then, we wouldn’t even be celebrating his eightieth birthday now…”
“Is he telling the truth?” Mu Ning did not fully believe Mu Chengzhi. She lashed out with her whip once more and whirled to glare at her eldest brother, Mu Xiao. In her eyes, her selfish parents were entirely capable of throwing Grandmother to the wolves to save their own skins when danger struck. She needed to verify whether Grandmother had truly turned in her sleep, or if she had been bitten and infected.
As Mu Ning’s eldest brother, Mu Xiao was naturally furious to be threatened by his sister in this manner. But he was merely a 4th-order physical mutation esper. Confronted with the terrifying coercive pressure of her 6th-order aura, he could only yield in resentful submission.
“Dad is telling the truth. When the apocalypse hit, our whole family was still at the Old Family Home. You know how it is there, right? Out in the suburbs, barely anyone around. That day, it was just us and the servants. The servants usually stayed on the ground floor, so even if they turned, they just tore each other apart downstairs. Although Grandmother and Grandfather didn’t share a room, their bedrooms weren’t far apart. The moment Grandmother turned into a zombie, she charged straight for Grandfather’s room…”
Mu Ning believed Mu Xiao’s explanation slightly more. If Grandmother had truly turned into a zombie in her sleep without any pain, perhaps that was a decent ending for her in this apocalyptic world.
Yet, at the thought of her once-gentle grandmother transforming into a savage, mindless, man-eating zombie, Mu Ning still could not suppress the deep sorrow in her heart. And in her grief, her resentment toward the remaining members of the Mu family burned even hotter.
Footnotes
- In Chinese culture, being called unfilial (buxiao) carries severe moral weight, as filial piety is a foundational Confucian virtue demanding absolute respect, obedience, and care for one's parents and ancestors.
- A traditional Chinese colloquial saying, 'da shi qin, ma shi ai' (literally 'to strike is affection, to scold is love'), which is often used to rationalize harsh or abusive behavior from parents or romantic partners.
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