The World Turned into Zombies, So I Went Back to the Countryside to Farm 35p2

Chapter 35p2: Hope

Jiang Zao was lying in bed. She was already angry, and her stomach started to rumble. She tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

Just as she closed her eyes, there was a knock on the door. Jiang Zao pulled the quilt over her head, intending to ignore it.

Wen Zhao spoke up. “It’s me. You haven’t eaten all day. Aren’t you hungry? If you don’t eat, I’ll take it away.”

Wen Zhao knocked a few times with no response. Just as she deliberately turned to leave, the door opened with a whoosh from the inside.

Jiang Zao reached out to take the bowl from her hand, but Wen Zhao dodged it. “Won’t you invite me in to sit?”

Jiang Zao was in no mood to waste time with her.

“If you have something to say, say it. If you have something to fart, fart it. If you have nothing to do, get out.”

Wen Zhao just looked at the red mark on her side profile.

“No… I just wanted to ask if it still hurts.”

Jiang Zao lowered her eyes. After a long while, she moved aside from the door. Wen Zhao came in and placed the food on her desk.

It was the same as usual, sweet potato congee and pickled cucumber, but there was an extra boiled egg in the enamel bowl.

“Grandma Jiang boiled it. She said it’s the last egg in the house.”

Jiang Zao remembered that every time she fell and got hurt or was bullied by her classmates at school and came back with a bruised face, Jiang Wuni would also boil two eggs, one for her to eat, and the other to roll on her face to reduce the swelling while scolding, “You good-for-nothing! Why don’t you fight back?!”

Jiang Zao tapped the egg on the side of the bowl twice and peeled it bit by bit, muttering, “Eggs are so precious now. How can they be used to roll on the face?”

Wen Zhao leaned against the desk, looking down through the hazy night. It was snowing lightly again outside. Jiang Wuni and Li Mi were laying down plastic film on the vegetable patch under the faint light of a camping lamp.

“Grandma Jiang… she still cares about you. I’m also to blame for today. I didn’t expect the zombie to be hiding in the coffin.”

Jiang Zao took a bite of the egg. “Don’t mention it. If she hadn’t gone there, there wouldn’t have been so much trouble. If it weren’t for you, she would have been a meal for the zombies. And she says she cares about me. I haven’t forgotten that she went to that stupid temple fair and became a free cook for the temple, and she didn’t even attend my high school graduation ceremony. Everyone else had their parents with them…”

“She clearly knew that she was my last relative.”

On that coming-of-age ceremony, Jiang Zao had even prepared a letter to read to Jiang Wuni. Looking at the empty seat in front of her, she had torn the envelope to shreds and thrown it into the trash can.

From then on, Jiang Zao never called her for any occasion that required the presence of an elder.

Wen Zhao sat down on the edge of the bed, leaned forward, her legs stretched out long, and looked at her with the same gentle gaze.

“We’ve been to school and read books. Grandma Jiang hasn’t. In her long and barren life, this might be the only way she can relieve her loneliness. When some things can’t be explained by science, faith is the last salvation. People still need a little hope to live.”

Jiang Zao’s eating slowed down. She looked at Jiang Wuni, who was working in the field below, and her lips gradually tightened.

“Alright.” Wen Zhao stood up, took out a bottle of safflower oil from her pocket, and placed it on the table.

“I knew you would eat the egg. Safflower oil, remember to apply it to your face. Your hair hasn’t grown back yet. If your face is swollen too, won’t you be even uglier?”

Jiang Zao picked up the bottle of safflower oil and bared her teeth at her departing back. “A dog’s mouth can’t spit out ivory.”

The snow was getting heavier.

Jiang Wuni’s knees, which were kneeling on the ground, were a little sore. She looked up and saw that Li Mi’s little face was also red from the north wind.

“Little Mi, it’s too cold. This is the last row. Grandma will do it herself.”

The snowflakes fell into her collar. Li Mi shivered, stood up, looked at Jiang Wuni, put down her work, and ran into the house.

Jiang Wuni continued to lay down the plastic film, but she was suddenly warmed by something around her neck. A pair of warm little hands wrapped around her.

Li Mi tied the rabbit fur scarf she had knitted for her around Jiang Wuni’s neck. “Grandma, you won’t be cold with the scarf on.”

A little bit of moisture suddenly welled up in Jiang Wuni’s long-gloomy, cloudy eyes. The grandmother and granddaughter looked at each other and smiled.

The snowflakes that were falling from the sky suddenly stopped. Li Mi looked up. “Big Sister Wen!”

Wen Zhao put the umbrella in Jiang Wuni’s hand and helped her up. “Grandma, let me do the rest.”

Jiang Zao stood upstairs. She had already picked up the umbrella that was leaning against the wall, but she gently put it back down.

After that, no one tacitly mentioned this matter again. Jiang Wuni no longer knelt in the center of the main hall to pray every day. The food that used to appear on the altar at every mealtime also disappeared.

The only thing that remained unchanged was the blood pressure medication and warm water that were placed by Jiang Wuni’s pillow three times a day.

The long winter had finally arrived.

Everyone had their own things to do, except for Jiang Wuni.

Jiang Zao and Wen Zhao were responsible for going up the mountain every day to chop firewood for heating and to hunt for food. Li Mi had to learn martial arts from Wen Zhao, practice archery with her Big Sister Jiang, and also study cultural lessons.

Even the kitchen work that Jiang Wuni was good at and had been doing her whole life was taken over by the little Li Mi for the most part.

In the long winter, there were no entertainment activities. She could only sit under the eaves, day after day, tending to her balls of yarn. Her life and her spirit were like the gradually withering rapeseed in the vegetable patch. Even with careful care, it was of no use.

Jiang Zao made this decision on a snowy evening: she would eliminate all the zombies in the village at once.

The roasted sweet potatoes on the stove were crackling.

Wen Zhao’s conical hat was still stained with blood. They had encountered zombies in the forest when they were chopping firewood on the mountain today.

Jiang Wuni silently turned the roasted sweet potatoes with a fire poker.

“Logically speaking, zombies shouldn’t appear on the mountain, unless…” Wen Zhao frowned.

The two of them exchanged a look, and Jiang Zao continued, “Unless there is no more food in the village, and they are forced to go up the mountain to find food, just like… us.”

Humans still had a choice. For zombies, eating living things was their only survival instinct.

The food chain was originally interlinked. If the zombies ate the few prey in the mountains in winter, they would have nothing to eat.

When one species threatens the living space of another, it can only be eliminated.

Moreover.

Jiang Zao looked at Jiang Wuni, who was just silently turning the roasted sweet potatoes with a fire poker. She had been depressed for too long and was too lazy to even take care of the land.

No one understood this state of Jiang Wuni better than her. It was the same when she had failed the postgraduate entrance examination and had been laid off.

Wen Zhao’s words from last time echoed in her mind for a long time.

She thought, it was time to give Jiang Wuni some hope.

A little hope to live on.

“I won’t hide it from you all. Our food is being consumed faster than we thought. Calculated at an intake of 400 grams of rice per person per day, a thousand pounds of rice can only last for 4 to 6 months.”

Wen Zhao knew that her calculation was actually conservative. An intake of 400 grams of rice per day could at most produce 600 calories, which was only enough to maintain the minimum consumption of an adult.

If they were to do physical labor and go up the mountain to hunt, this amount of food would definitely not be enough, not to mention that Li Mi was still growing, and Kele’s appetite was not small, almost catching up to a young adult.

“It’s winter. Those zombies are all hiding. Even if we can sneak into other villagers’ houses to collect supplies, there’s no guarantee that we won’t run into them.”

It was not scary to encounter zombies openly, but it was scary to run into the kind that had hidden in the coffin and ambushed Jiang Wuni last time. It was impossible to guard against.

“And the zombies are competing with us for prey. We haven’t hunted a single pheasant or wild boar for more than ten days.”

Li Mi glanced at the rabbit hutch in the corner of the main hall. It had been moved indoors from outside since the weather turned cold. One night, the temperature had dropped sharply, and seven or eight of the newborn rabbits had frozen to death. Since then, the fire in the main hall was not extinguished at night and burned all night.

Not to mention humans, even rabbits had a hard time finding grass in the winter. A litter of rabbits was all skin and bones.

“So, I’m going to eliminate all the zombies in the village and turn the entire Yuanxi Village into our safe zone. In this safe zone, we can go out, hunt, go up the mountain, play, and farm as we please…”

The raging fire in the stove seemed to have also spread to Jiang Zao’s eyes. She said word by word.

“I’ve had enough of this life of hiding. Most importantly, if we do nothing this winter—”

“Then there will be no hope for next spring.”

The fire poker in Jiang Wuni’s hand fell to the ground with a clang.