“Is it her?” Zhang Chenze whispered, “The ‘leader’ from many years ago that Baihu mentioned?”
“Who can say for sure…” Yun Yao shook her head helplessly. “Even though she’s still alive, it’s a matter of ‘dead men tell no tales’…”
Lin Qin felt like she had stumbled upon a clue and looked up at the shop assistant. “Excuse me, do you have any food here?”
“Food…” The female shop assistant froze for a long moment before extending her filthy fingers. She cupped one hand and used the other to mimic chopsticks, pretending to scoop something into her mouth. “You mean… this kind of food?”
“Yes…” Lin Qin found the scene eerily familiar.
When Qixia had previously asked if there was any “needle and thread” here, her first reaction had also been to mimic sewing motions with her hands.
It seemed like this was how she clung to the last shreds of her rationality.
“We don’t have much food in the store…” The shop assistant shook her head regretfully. “Supplies come in very small amounts… Even I haven’t eaten in a long time…”
Meanwhile, Tiantian and Li Xiangling were scanning the convenience store. They soon spotted a few cans on the shelves that looked relatively fresh.
“There are some cans here,” Tiantian said. “Why don’t you eat them yourself?”
Hearing the word “cans,” Lin Qin turned to look. She distinctly remembered the shelves being completely empty the last time she was here.
Had supplies really been replenished after more than twenty days?
“I can’t eat them…” The shop assistant waved her hand. “Even if I wanted to, I’d have to buy them… but I can’t afford them…”
Lin Qin pondered for a moment. There were two crucial questions she needed to clarify now.
“If you never eat anything from the store… how long has it been since you last ate?” Lin Qin asked.
“How long… since…” The shop assistant blinked her dull, yellowish eyes before finally recalling something. “The last time I ate… it was a pot of stewed piglets… It was delicious…”
“At least twenty-four days,” Lin Qin blurted out.
Would a normal person look like this after not eating for twenty-four days?
No… if you thought about it too deeply, it was terrifying.
Had this shop assistant gone even longer than twenty-four days without eating?
After a brief moment of consideration, the answer became clear.
“I think Baihu was telling the truth…” Lin Qin whispered to the others. “This girl’s body must have been enhanced… She has the physical resilience of a ‘Di-level’… That’s why she’s been able to survive this long on her own energy reserves…”
Yun Yao also took another look at the shop assistant. Her skeletal frame suggested that her body had been consuming its own energy for an extended period.
“If your deduction is correct…” Yun Yao’s expression darkened. “That means she won’t last much longer… Her muscle and fat levels are critically low. If she doesn’t get nutrients soon, she’ll likely collapse into a corpse that can never stand again.”
Lin Qin nodded, then turned back to the shop assistant. “In that case… who exactly is supplying you with ‘goods’?”
“Goods?”
Lin Qin pointed at the shelves. “Where do those cans come from? Does someone actually deliver supplies to this place?”
“Oh…” The shop assistant raised her eyebrows, her forehead wrinkles pronounced due to her withered skin. “The ‘delivery man’… He brings me some cans periodically… But I can’t touch them… They belong to the store… I can’t afford them…”
“Delivery man…?”
Yun Yao picked up a can and examined it, quickly noticing something odd.
She knew these cans all too well.
“What does this ‘delivery man’ look like?”
“He…” The shop assistant thought for a moment, then placed a hand over one eye. “He wears… a golden…”
“Glasses,” Yun Yao supplied.
“Yes… glasses. He wears a clean shirt… smiles a lot, and his smile is really nice…” The shop assistant unconsciously smiled as she spoke. “His voice is gentle when he talks… and he smells really good…”
As she described him, a clear image formed in everyone’s minds.
“Chu Tianqiu.” Yun Yao and Lin Qin said the name simultaneously.
Chu… Tianqiu?
Upon hearing the name, the shop assistant’s expression slowly changed. It seemed “Chu Tianqiu” left a deeper impression on her than “Qiao Yun.”
“Who… is Chu Tianqiu?” Her cracked lips trembled as if stirring long-dormant memories.
Yun Yao didn’t answer. Instead, she furrowed her brow and looked at Lin Qin.
A strange thought began to take shape in her mind.
“Lin Qin… what does ‘piglets’ mean?” Yun Yao asked.
Lin Qin briefly recounted what had happened the first time they came here—how this woman had cooked her own child and tried to feed it to them. She had completely lost her mind.
Hearing this, Yun Yao silently lowered her head.
Her eyes flickered rapidly, as though a single clue had just tied all the inconsistencies together.
“Wait…” Yun Yao murmured. “It wasn’t because of Qixia…”
“What…?”
“I was mistaken…” Yun Yao said, her voice distant. “I thought Chu Tianqiu went completely insane… because he saw Qixia twenty days ago…”
“Wasn’t it?” Lin Qin countered.
“What if there’s another possibility…” Yun Yao turned back, her expression filled with dread. “What if it was because of this girl?”
“What…?”
“Or rather…” Yun Yao took a deep breath to steady herself. “Because of that child?”
Those few words made everyone frown.
“Yun Yao…” Lin Qin interrupted. “Isn’t that assumption too bold? Are you saying that child was Chu Tianqiu’s…?”
“Yes…” Yun Yao nodded. “Just as this girl said, the person she saw most often was Chu Tianqiu. For some reason, they had a relationship. And when he learned his child had died horribly… he lost his mind…?”
Zhang Chenze couldn’t help but interject. “That’s… too absurd. I’ve met Chu Tianqiu too. Though I don’t know him well, I have a basic understanding of his character. Yes, he’s completely insane, but how could he possibly have a child with this woman…? He… from what I remember, he wasn’t that kind of savage person…”
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