Mrs. He’s jaw dropped, and for a moment, she nearly forgot how to speak.
’What did that pushover He Shuping just say?’
’That damn woman told her to go kill herself right now?’
’She couldn’t have heard that right!’
Mrs. He stood stunned for a full ten seconds before her stalled voice finally returned. She slapped her thighs and burst into tears. "Everyone, come look! Look at this unfilial daughter I raised! She actually told her own mother to die! What an inhuman creature!"
Two scrawny, middle-aged women immediately ran up to support and comfort her. They turned to He Shuping, smiled, and said, "Ma’am, you can’t be so cruel to your own mother, now can you?"
Xie Ning watched their performance with cold eyes.
These two were among the several "little tails" who had been following them.
In the apocalypse, there were no good Samaritans, only people driven by self-interest.
But Mrs. He didn’t understand this. She simply assumed that anyone who came to help her was a genuinely good person. Grabbing the two middle-aged women’s hands, she began to wail and lament.
"You have to judge for me! This unfilial daughter ran off with her husband’s family and ignored whether her own family lived or died. Now she’s well-off, but she isn’t even willing to let a grain of sand slip through her fingers for us. She completely disregards the lives of her own younger siblings and their children!"
"The day we fled from the Song Family Pavilion, her sister-in-law was eaten alive by a horde of zombies! Such a huge tragedy happened to our family, but she never once asked about it, from beginning to end!"
"Is there any justice in this world? There’s no justice! This unfilial daughter is trying to drive her own mother to her death!"
He Shuping clenched her fists so tightly her whole body trembled with rage.
Seeing the old woman getting snot and tears all over their hands, the two middle-aged women could only struggle to hide the deep disgust in their eyes.
The two looked at He Shuping and said with placating smiles, "Ma’am, she’s your own mother, after all. You can’t just abandon your basic conscience."
"That’s right. Look at you all. You just spent over one hundred fifty thousand points in the mall, buying so much food, drink, and supplies. Since you’re so well-off, it wouldn’t hurt to help out your maternal family, right?"
"One hundred fifty thousand points?" Old Mrs. He gasped, her eyes fixing on He Shuping with venom. She shrieked, "So it’s you, He Shuping! Spending points so extravagantly on yourself, yet completely unwilling to lift a finger to help your brother and sister!"
"If my ancestors in the He family are watching from heaven, why don’t they send down a bolt of lightning to strike you dead!"
"If anyone should be struck by lightning, it should be your worthless, idle second daughter and third son!" He Shuping suddenly exploded with a roar. "What, do they have no hands or feet? Are they incapable of taking care of themselves?"
"Before the apocalypse, you leeched off me. Haven’t you had enough?"
"Now that things are like this, who has it easy? They have hands and feet, so why don’t they work hard themselves instead of just staring at me, trying to suck me dry every single day?"
Mrs. He’s eyes widened. She stared in shock at her eldest daughter’s sudden outburst, as if seeing her for the first time. Her lips trembled as she stammered, "You-you’re so well-off, so what’s wrong with helping your brother and sister, huh?"
"If I help them, who will help me?" He Shuping roared hysterically. "Before the apocalypse, you were constantly asking me for money to support my brother and sister, leaving me with no savings as an adult! When my husband got sick and we couldn’t make that month’s mortgage payment, I asked to borrow some from you. And what did you do?"
"Hah, haha!" He Shuping sneered. "In the end, it was my parents-in-law who gave us money to get through it. It was my son who gave up all his scholarship money!"
"Mom, I can say with a clear conscience that I, He Shuping, have already paid back everything I owed in this life." The woman’s eyes were red as she suppressed her trembling. "I don’t owe the He family anything, and I hope you won’t disturb our family’s peaceful life again."
"Grandma!"
"Grandma!"
He Xiaobao and Ren Dabao hugged the old woman and burst into loud wails. The one old woman and two small children cried so dramatically it was as if the sky itself were changing color, moving all who heard.
"I, He Shuping, can only do as much as my abilities allow. In this godforsaken world, my husband and I are just ordinary people. It’s already a blessing that we have enough to eat and drink. I can’t even fully support my own son, and you want me to be responsible for my siblings’ entire families? On what grounds? Because in your eyes, I’ve always been the gullible fool you can take advantage of?"
"Ma’am," the two middle-aged women said with awkward laughs, wanting to say more.
"Shut up!" He Shuping roared at them. "Who do you think you are? This is the He family’s business; we don’t need you to meddle. What do you two-faced outsiders know? You only see what’s right in front of you. You see this old woman crying and making a scene, so you feel sorry for her. But what about all the suffering and injustice I’ve been through? You don’t know shit!"
"Hey now, ma’am, listen to you." The two middle-aged women were put on the spot by her tirade, and their expressions turned sour.
"We don’t mean any harm; we were just trying to mediate. A harmonious family is a prosperous one. You’re all relatives, is it really necessary to make such a scene?"
"Look how well-off you are, spending one hundred fifty thousand points on supplies at once. Just like your mom said, if you just let a little slip through your fingers, it would be enough to support your siblings."
"Yeah, that’s right," the crowd chimed in, criticizing her from all sides. Some, green with envy, added in sarcastic tones, "It’s true what they say: the richer they are, the stingier they get. Abandoning her own mother... she’s completely inhuman."
Song You’ai was furious. "Looks to me like you’re all a bunch of pig-headed idiots who can’t understand plain language!"
The crowd instantly erupted into an uproar. "Hey, why are you insulting us?"
"Oh, so people from the villa district are so high and mighty, are they? Looking down on us common folk." A few men shouted as they rushed forward, trying to get close to Song You’ai and the others to take advantage of the chaos.
Xie Ning gave a cold laugh, pulled out her gun, and fired a bullet at the man’s feet.
After a crisp CLANG, everyone screamed "AHHH!" and scrambled backward, their faces pale as they stared at the dark muzzle of the gun in Xie Ning’s hand.
"Come on, keep coming." Xie Ning aimed the gun at the man who had been shouting the loudest and beckoned with her finger. "Come."
The man was all bluster. "Wh-what are you doing? You can’t just use knives, guns, or superpowers in the base. Are you trying to violate the base’s regulations?"
"Regulations?" Xie Ning sneered, her gaze icy as she stared at him. "Let me tell you what the base’s regulations are."
With the speed of a thunderclap, the young woman rushed in front of the man and landed a vicious punch on his face, sending him flying to land heavily on the ground.
"The strong *are* the regulations!"
She flicked her wrist, aiming at two other furious-looking men. "Go on. Keep making trouble. Come on."
But who would dare step forward now? Everyone’s face was pale, and they all backed away.
Even the two middle-aged women who had been comforting Old Mrs. He scurried away, covering their heads and disappearing into the crowd, not daring to show their faces again.
"Get up, old woman." Xie Ning pointed the gun at Old Mrs. He, a smile playing on her lips. "Keep acting, and I’ll blow your two grandsons’ brains out."
Terrified, Ren Dabao and He Xiaobao shrank into the old woman’s arms, their crying coming to an abrupt halt.