CH 27.1

Seeing his solemn expression, Zhu Shuangshuang immediately said, “Then you should go quickly!”

Everyone had their own privacy and needed their own private space. They didn’t want to disturb Ning Su, so they didn’t ask anything and just accompanied him to see him off.

Zhu Shuangshuang said, “I’ll see you tomorrow then. I promised to bring you a big bag of candy, buns, and milk.”

Ning Su readily agreed.

Zhu Shuangshuang said, “I was actually thinking of going to see some houses with you, but I heard that we can buy a small single apartment with just one clearance of a dungeon. The housing prices on the base are very cheap.”

Ning Su: “...”

Chen Qing said, “You can’t say that. If you want to buy a small house with ten years of salary in the real world, it takes several decades for one person to accumulate that amount. But for a newly opened dungeon, more than half of the players can’t get out.”

“That’s true,” Zhu Shuangshuang sighed, “those big shots who have cleared many dungeons must live in super villas, right? Like Shi Tianzhu, who is at that level, she should have a mansion.”

Chen Qing laughed and said, “She lives in a palace.”

Ning Su and Zhu Shuangshuang looked at her in surprise at the same time.

Chen Qing said, “The game hall is the center of the base, and the closer you are to the game hall, the higher the housing prices. As the richest guild in the base, the Yinhua Guild is located in the palace next to the game hall. It is said that Shi Tianzhu’s study has a curved elevator that leads directly to the game hall, which makes it easy for her to enter a dungeon at any time.”

Zhu Shuangshuang, who could only afford a small apartment of 30-40 square meters on the outskirts of the base, was stunned.

Not to mention Ning Su, who was going to sleep in a bridge cave.

When they left the restaurant, the sun had already set on the base.

Ning Su said goodbye to them, holding the child, and bathing in the orange sunset, walking through the strange crowd.

In the game base, not only the people coming and going were strange, but even the buildings had a magical color.

There were towering skyscrapers in modern society, as well as houses with unique features such as magic houses, garden mansions, haunted houses, and seaweed houses.

Passing by the game hall, Ning Su saw the palace that Chen Qing had mentioned and stopped to look at it for a few seconds.

This palace was not the luxurious and ostentatious type that was expected.

Within the walls, there were several low-key and retro Gothic-style row villas, with an extremely high and large building in the middle, topped with three towering Yinhua Guild emblem spires that looked like a palace.

It was probably for this reason that people in the game base call it the Yinhua Palace.

The child also raised his head from Ning Su’s neck and pointed to the palace.

“Do you want to live there?” Ning Su said, “Dream on, let’s go sleep in the bridge hole.”

“When we have candy tomorrow, we will choose a beautiful and comfortable instance to live in.” Ning Su muttered as he carried the child towards the bridge.

The child lightly licked Ning Su’s neck.

“Why do you always lick my neck? Did you learn it from Snowball?” Ning Su said, “But you’re a human. Humans should walk upright. Humans shouldn’t lick other people, licking is only done by dogs.”

The child looked up at him, eyes blinking without a break.

“You don’t like to talk. This won’t do. You can clearly speak.” Ning Su realized something was wrong.

The child was his laborer, but he also had to educate him. Going to school and everything was quite troublesome.

What a loss.

Ning Su looked down at the child, and the child immediately hugged Ning Su’s neck tightly, burying his head in his neck and not looking at him.

The bridge that everyone talked about where one was able to spend the night on was located south of the game base.

It spans on the wide river surface, and below the bridge deck, above the river, there were caves where people could sleep.

Because they arrived early, they occupied a fairly large bridge arch.

The center position of the arch provided an extremely good view.

Ning Su was completely satisfied.

He looked at the rippling river scene under the sunset and thought it would be nice to settle down here if there were a bed and blankets.

The adult and child sat closely together on the edge of the central bridge arch, swinging their legs lightly underneath.

They watched quietly until the river surface went from glittering gold to sparkling with countless stars, and they didn’t feel bored, but rather quite happy.

After nightfall, the child placed the only bottle of milk that had been in his arms all along on Ning Su’s hands.

Ning Su, without any intention of respecting the elderly and love the young, took a sip.

The little guy was still quite thoughtful.

“Gui Sheng,” Ning Su called him.

The child immediately looked up at him.

Ning Su said, “Did Snowball really bully you? Ah, I wish I had beaten him up for you earlier.”

The child looked at him blankly, with eyes as bright as the stars in the sky and as clear as the water in the river below.

His little head rested against Ning Su’s body, and he whispered, “Bullied.”

It was like he was complaining to his parents.

Finally, there was someone he could complain to.

Gui Sheng had been in the small warehouse at the slaughterhouse since he could remember.

His memories started very early, much earlier than normal humans. He even vaguely remembered Snowball biting his neck and throwing him out of the coffin.

His neck was bitten off, and his head fell off soon after.

The unconscious child didn’t know what had happened. It took a while for him to follow his instincts and hold his head back in place.

But he knew fear, and under its drive, he hid in a place where no one could find him.

Later, that place was occupied by Snowball.

He then hid in the corner of the small warehouse, surviving on human nails and hair, and occasionally, the butcher at the slaughterhouse would give him a piece of meat.

He had no friends.

He stood at the warehouse door, waiting for little beastmen about his age to pass by or come in.

He learned from them how to crawl on the ground and imitated their every move in the warehouse.

When he learned enough, he crawled carefully and eagerly into their midst.

What he received was not recognition, but strange looks.

Those emotionless eyes. Others couldn’t tell the difference in their gaze, but they were all born in his world, and he could tell.

He was different from them.

He was an anomaly.

He crawled back alone to the small warehouse and never came out again.

He watched them catch and fight each other, saw Snowball wearing a red veil came out, and saw people came and went at the slaughterhouse, all from the warehouse door.

Finally, one day, he saw a person who looked at him differently and smelled particularly good.

He said to him, ‘You’re human. Why are you crawling on the ground?‘

He said, ‘Why are you so cute?’

He sucked on his fingers, feeling an incredible sense of comfort and satisfaction in his body, as if all the missing fetal nutrition from birth had been replenished.

The child rubbed his head against Ning Su’s arm and said, “I like it.”

Thinking about how Ning Su said he spoke too little, he raised his little head and said in a cool, crisp voice, “Cute?”

Ning Su: “...”

If you’re not good at something, why do you keep using your cuteness on him?

Ning Su didn’t say anything, but his eyes expressed it all.

The child who was already sitting next to him moved closer and leaned his head against Ning Su’s body, saying, “Happy.”

Ning Su was also quite happy. This kind of life was much better than when he was in the apocalypse.

Until the system reminded him that he had received a message from Chen Tian.

Chen Tian: [You...in the bridge cave?]

Ning Su: “...”

He pretended he wasn’t there, pretended he didn’t see the message, and was about to lie down in the bridge cave after pushing the child down.

Chen Tian: [Our club is in the small building by the river. My office is a river-view room, and my desk faces the base bridge.]

Ning Su: “...”

Three minutes later, Chen Tian and Chen Qing rowed over to pick up the two big shots in the bridge cave.

Chen Qing looked up at him in surprise and confusion, “Don’t you have at least 100,000 points? Why are you sleeping here?”

Ning Su took a glance at the child next to him, who was hanging his head low, and remained silent.

It seemed like they understood each other.

Chen Tian said, “As someone who has passed the new instance, you can easily earn a lot of points by selling information. If you sell a map of the instance, you could earn up to 100,000 points.”

Ning Su asked, “Isn’t the map supposed to be kept by your club?”

“It’s collected by the five of us, and each of us has the right to handle it. We keep our own, and you can sell yours.”

Chen Tian said, “Let’s go. Our club may be small, but we have rooms.”

They couldn’t just let their savior sleep under a bridge.

However, Ning Su looked at the beautiful and wide river under the moonlight, the lush small forest by the river, and enjoyed the soft and comfortable breeze of late spring night. And did not want to leave.

“Can you just give us a bed?”

Chen Tian hesitated, but couldn’t refuse Ning Su. He asked if they could show them to his beloved bridge cave, and Chen Qing brought them bedding, pillows, paper, pens, a flashlight, and a small lamp.

After Ning Su turned the bridge cave into a warm and cozy nest, they hesitantly left.

Ning Su and the child comfortably snuggled in the bedding, writing and drawing by the light of the moon and the warm yellow light of the lamp.

The person in the adjacent cave poked their head out when Chen Tian and Chen Qing left and said, “Brother, do you know the president of the Mutual Aid Guild, Chen Tian?”