Chapter5

The second Zhou Lingxin heard that voice, the voice of her greedy step-father, she nearly burst out in anger. The things which had happened in the past couple of hours had already taken a heavy toll on her, and this was the one thing that she did not want to have happening right now. She absolutely couldn't stand the man's tone of voice nor his attitude.

What a good "so you survived, huh"! The man was essentially implying that he had expected her to be dead, and it was a surprise to him that she was still alive and kicking. Furthermore, judging by his demeanour, it seemed like he cared nothing about her survival. An offspring's survival was something than any father had to consider, but this man, he was the inheritor of an empty title. Some father he was.

Still, he was the last bit of family that she had left. Even though she had hated him from her earlier days, she never disrespected him. At most, she would just try her best to avoid contact and not seem too energetic while interacting with him. This much was understandable, since he was a man that her mother just brought home and married without ever considering her feelings about the matter. She would tolerate him, but she would not go out of her way to spend time with him.

Besides, Zhou Lingxin's judgement of her father, Yuan Kai, wasn't one that could be considered decent. In fact, it was perhaps the opposite of decent. Zhou Lingxin had no love for this man precisely because of his selfishness and shamelessness. He would spare no effort to get the things he wanted, and he would not hesitate to go to the lowest of lows to accomplish his needs.

Even from when he had first entered the family, when Zhou Lingxin was but 10, he had all kinds of schemes and ploys hidden under his sleeves. His only goal was to rob the mother and daughter dry, and over the years, this goal had never changed. He would put on a loving expression whenever Zhou Yin, Zhou Lingxin's mother, was around, but whenever she wasn't looking, it would warp back into that same calculative and snake-like visage.

He would make all kinds of verbal vows, sing all types of praiseful poetry, and offer no end of overbearing flattery, but when all was said and done, he was just a man with a goal. The words he uttered meant nothing to him, and all that mattered was the duo's money.

Now that the fish creatures from under the lake had started to run rampant in the area, however, and wreaked havoc in the entire village, former fortune held by the villagers no longer meant a thing. Now, people only cared about their lives, so only a fool would still care about vain things like money. Yuan Kai was also the same. What a joke, he needed to have his life to enjoy the money he earned.

As such, he could drop his act of playing the filial husband, and he no longer had a reason to play the role of Zhou Lingxin's father.

Zhou Lingxin also somewhat understood this, which was exactly why she was shocked when the man called out to her. He should want nothing to do with her now that money meant nothing, so why did he still take the initiative to talk to her? On normal days they never said a word to each other or engaged in things like active conversation. So, all things considered, what exactly was going on?

Why exactly was Yuan Kai emphasizing his role as her father right now? She could only blanky wonder and grit her teeth while staring his way.

"Why that look? We're family aren't we?" he asked, a smile on his face. Suddenly, he grabbed her arm and started dragging her to the backyard.

She put up a minor struggle, but couldn't successfully resist as he was much stronger and bigger. Slowly, she gave up her struggle, as she didn't think that he would try to do anything harmful to her in broad daylight, surrounded by so many people.

As he dragged her out to the backyard, he signalled a man who was standing around a big pile of what looked like food.

"Hey, this is my daughter here. She hasn't eaten yet and has just returned," he said, his voice sounding perfectly normal.

The man standing guard near the rations looked at her before nodding, signalling for her to come over. She complied, since she was after all very hungry after the events of the previous night, and he took out a marker as she approached, leaving a mark on her arm that would perhaps take days to erase.

As he finished, he turned around and picked out two steamed buns which had undoubtedly now gone cold. As she stretched out her hand to receive them, another hand came streaking out from the side.

It was her step-father. He took both of the buns. Ignoring this, the man who was standing guard gestured at them to back off and leave. He seemed to not care about where the buns ended up. His job was only to distribute rations and to make sure that no one person got more rations than they were allowed. As for what happened to those rations after they were handed over, it was not of his concern.

As her father turned around and left, Zhou Lingxin stood there in a daze, before finally registering what had just happened. She rushed after her step-father and grabbed him by his arm, bringing him to a stop.

"What?" he asked, looking at her in disdain, "Need something?"

Clenching her teeth, Zhou Lingxin tried her best to get the following words out.

"The buns. They aren't yours."

Hearing her reply, Yaun Kai's expression morphed into one of mockery.

"Oh? And what are you going to do about that?"

Zhou Lingxin was speechless at his cold reply. She had never expected him to be so shameless as to go after her food and not give her a scrap in return.

"You… if you do this, the rest of the villagers won't stay idle. This is unfair!"

Zhou Lingxin let out a cackle of laughter, briefly attracting the eyes of everyone else that came to this area to getting food.

"Unfair? Look around, girl. Do you think any of these people here have time to seek justice for you? Hmm, do they all really look that jobless? What do you think is more important for them now? Protecting their own lives, or making enemies by getting their noses into internal disputes within a family? Heh, you've only grown in appearance, but not in intelligence."

Saying these words, Yuan Kai arrogantly flicked his sleeves and left. Zhou Lingxin wanted to prove him wrong, so she looked around at the bystanders, to see if they would do anything or speak up for her. Unfortunately, everyone avoided eye contact, not bothering to look her way. Of course, there were also a few that pitied her, but this was all. They would not go out of their way to help her. It simply wasn't worth the trouble.

Zhou Lingxin was hungry. She really wanted something to eat. Perhaps before seeing some food, she would've been all right. After seeing the huge pile collected up in the Mayor's Mansion, however, her appetite was awakened, and the need for food which her body had previously suppressed due to all the action was finally released.

Seeing the mark on her hand which the guard had applied, and remembering it also present on her father's arm, she understood what it was used for.

It was to ensure villagers didn't go back to get multiple rations at once. With this rationale, it would be impossible to ask that guard for some more food, since she had already had her fill for the moment.

Thinking this, she thought it would be worthwhile to go back home and to see if there was still food left there. The only problem with this was that she was unsure if there were still some fish creatures lurking about. She saw the majority of them fleeing on her way to the mansion, but she could never be certain.

Furthermore, she had no weapons on her, since her pan was broken and she had dropped the heavy stick earlier while fleeing from the mutated fish creature. She decided to head back in the same direction as before, so that she could perhaps retrieve her weapon.

As she made her way over, her eyes scanned the perimeter, and the sight wasn't pleasant to say the least. She hadn't been looking earlier and so she couldn't fully absorb her surroundings.

There were numerous half-eaten dead bodies of the murdered humans and beaten down, mushed creatures laying everywhere. Red and blooded was dyed into the earth and the pavement, and spilled guts or desecrated pieces of limbs weren't an uncommon sight. The amount of little insects that had been attracted by the nasty, overpowering smell weren't few in number either. This scene was a stark contrast to what she had once remembered the back area of the mayor's mansion to look like.

If it were a normal day, she would've puked her eyes out. Today however, there was no substance in her stomach to puke. She was far to hungry for this.

Upon reaching her destination, she quickly spotted both her pan and the stick that she had lost earlier. She also saw the mangled corpse of the woman, whom she had indirectly sent to her death earlier, but quickly erased any thoughts of guilt that sprang up. It was either her life or the woman's. Her decision was not the wrong one. It was the right choice to flee. At least this was what she told herself, as she walked towards her pan.

Upon picking it up, she paused and inspected it. It had an obvious dent on it. She turned around and then proceed to look at the wooden stick that both she and the mutated monster had been using earlier. It was perfectly fine. Her memories of her trading a blow with it and having her pan knocked out of her hand flashed by in her head and she instantly realized that her pan was not the ideal weapon.

It wasn't heavy enough to deal with those superior creatures, not even capable of scratching them, and wasn't really much of an ideal weapon. She looked at the pan which had been her reliable weapon and saved her life on quite a few occasions, before tossing it to the side and picking up the stick. Now was not the time to be sentimental.

The stick was still as heavy as she remembered it to be, but there would be no problem if she held it with both her hands.

To try and test the weapon out, and adapt to the usage along with how powerful it was, she looked around for something to hit. At first, she found some little fish creature corpses, and she didn't hesitate to walk right up to it.

Upon reaching, there was a bit of fear in her eyes as she saw the thing's body, but she calmed herself by remembering that it was dead and could do nothing to her.

With this, she hauled the stick of the ground, arching her shoulders while doing so, and brought the stick as high as she could above her head. As soon as it made a nearly perpendicular angle with her line of sight, she brought it down in a destructive motion, aiming it at the fish creature's torso.

Splat!

The creature was like clay under the oppressive might of Zhou Lingxin's stick. There was not the least bit of resistance at all. One second it the body was whole, the next second it was paste. This weapon was indeed terrifying, numerous times more deadlier than the pan she had been using earlier.

With the pain, she needed to hit the head to get the best results. And even then, it was not something she could accomplish with a single hit. Now however, she had hit the torso, which was one of the more sturdier parts of the body. Even then, all it took was a single swing to shatter it.

The drawback though was that this action took much more strength than simply using a pan, since the stick was innumerably many more times heavier. It wasn't something that she could just wave around freely, so she needed to be careful in the future while using it.

After being satisfied with the results, she then looked over for something else to smash. A bigger, bulkier and powerful corpse caught her eye. It was precisely one of the two corpses that the old man had finished off earlier.

Seeing this creature caused her to shiver. Even when dead, the aura it emitted was not something that an ordinary fragile person could withstand. This creature and others of its kind were insurmountable existences to her. If she were to ever encounter one on her own, there was essentially no hope for survival. But, since it was dead, and since she wanted to test out just how strong exactly her stick weapon was, she mastered her fears.

She slowly walked over to the creature. As she hovered over the corpse, she once again rose her stick up and swung it down vertically with all of her power. The result of course wasn't as obvious or as flashy as the last time, and her technique could definitely use a lot of improvement, but the results were still shockingly pleasing nonetheless.

Though the creature didn't explode to mush, it's chest cavity had actually caved in a bit. This was a result Zhou Lingxin could be proud of, considering the vast difference in strength between her and the monster.

This weapon was indeed unable to be understood by normal logic. It was clearly a wooden stick, but it seemed as though even iron wouldn't be a match for it. There was clearly something strange with this.

As she rose the stick over her shoulders and bashed the creature many more times again for practice, its body finally gave way and split apart. Out of the lower half of the corpse she saw a small red sphere.

She bent down and picked it up. She automatically realized that it was similar to the one she had picked off one of the smaller creature earlier, so she decided to check to make sure.

Pulling the other sphere out from inside her pocket, she noticed the following differences. The recently obtained sphere was a slightly darker and bigger red. It was also a little heavier and seemed more dense. Although she had no idea how it could be used, she stored it in her pocket for later. Perhaps she could use it as a projectile.

With her business here now complete, she could get back to the task at hand.

She had to find herself some food or risk starving.

Dragging her stick along with her, she made a slow walk through the village. Her house was near the Mayor's Mansion, so all she had to do was re-trace her steps and make a slight detour in the end.

Eventually, she reached what was once her home, which she'd spent her entire life in. Now, the place was almost unrecognizable. The fish things had actually done quite a bit of damage, despite their miniscule size. There was not one door or window that was still properly fixed. Some of the walls had holes in them, and the once grey building paint was now all sorts of red and blue, turning into some purplish shade.

Entering the building, she clutched her stick tightly. The first fish that she had slain, was in the same spot that she had left it. As for the other ones, they were nowhere in sight. Perhaps they had already fled away to the lakes like the other ones.

Anyway, this was a great fortune for Zhou Lingxin, since she didn't want to see or deal with these creatures anymore. As she entered her kitchen, her mother's corpse entered her field of vision.

Even though the girl had already accepted the fact that she was now and orphan, seeing her mother's destroyed and barely recognizable corpse stirred a plethora of emotions within her. This new reality was indeed harsh.

She thought she should at least give her mother a proper burial. As she approached the body with slow steps, something that was hidden in a dark shadow of the weirdly lit kitchen finally moved. And in a second, it was on her, bringing her down in a brutal manner.

"Gliiiiiiiiikkk!"