An hour later, Jiang Huan and the lieutenant returned to the villa. In the lobby on the ground floor, three people, including Yao Wuque, were bustling between the kitchen and the dining table. Zhong Yin, on the other hand, sat directly opposite Shen Shanwu, staring at him without blinking, her dedication reaching an exaggerated level.
As soon as Jiang Huan entered the door, Zhong Yin immediately stood at attention and shouted to the captain, followed by three more voices from the kitchen. Jiang Huan untied his cloak and handed it to the people around him, took off his mask, and nodded to the rest of the team, “Let’s eat.”
After saying this, he noticed Shen Shanwu sitting motionless in his chair, and it seemed like he thought the other person might be sulking. So Jiang Huan walked over slowly, bent down, and softened his voice, “Come and eat with us.”
Shen Shanwu grumpily shook his left hand slightly, causing the metal handcuffs to clink and rattle with the movement. “How do you expect me to eat?”
Jiang Huan lowered his gaze and noticed Shen Shanwu’s wrist, reddened from the tight restraints. His expression suddenly grew stern, and he straightened up, speaking with slight anger, “Yao Wuque, Zhong Yin! Is this how you complete your missions?”
Yao Wuque, who was serving the dishes, felt a grave sense of impending trouble. He muttered through gritted teeth about the young brat learning to complain, then handed the dishes to a nearby teammate. He and Zhong Yin, who had already taken her seat at the table, approached Jiang Huan to confess, “Captain, this kid is too slippery. If we didn’t restrain him like this, he would have run away…”
“Are you two adults unable to keep an eye on one child?”
“But this is his turf, after all. As the saying goes, it’s hard for a strong dragon to crush a local snake1a powerful person also had difficulties suppressing forces entrenched in their local area.…”
“They didn’t even give me a glass of water.” Shen Shanwu added fuel to the fire. Yao Wuque’s eyes widened, and he scolded the little bastard in his heart for not saying that he wanted to drink water. If he did, would their team still skimp on a glass of water?
Seeing Jiang Huan’s expression darken, Zhong Yin quickly stepped on Yao Wuque’s shoe and even ground it in. “Captain, we’re sorry.”
“Then hurry up and unlock him!”
While grimacing in pain, Yao Wuque crouched down to remove Shen Shanwu’s handcuffs, feeling aggrieved. Jiang Huan stood nearby, watching with an expressionless face, and said, “Don’t treat him like this in the future. And stop calling him ‘this kid’; he has a name.”
“Captain, he said himself that he doesn’t have a name!”
“But I’ve given him one,” Jiang Huan said sternly. He turned to Shen Shanwu, trying to soften his expression and tone, but his habitual sternness made it difficult to change abruptly. “From now on, your name will be Jiang Tong.”
He paused and added a conciliatory note to ease the tension, “Is that alright?”
This person genuinely wanted to be his father, but Shen Shanwu sincerely didn’t want an additional father—especially one who was ten years younger than him. He couldn’t afford the shame.
“Jiang… Captain,” Shen Shanwu deliberated over his words. What should he say to dispel Jiang Huan’s idea of being his father? It’s best to throw him directly onto the street to fend for himself.
No matter how stormy Shen Shanwu’s inner feelings were, the other members of the Shanhai Unit had witnessed the captain’s attitude and began to consider their own responses. The female team member responsible for cooking immediately took the lead in playing along, clapping her hands and saying, “Welcome, Jiang Tong!”
The male teammate who had been cooking with her quickly followed suit, “Welcome, little Jiang Tong!”
Although they didn’t understand why the captain was placing such importance on this suddenly appearing child, they figured the captain must have his reasons. As subordinates, it was enough for them to welcome him.
The lieutenant, who had witnessed the entire process of capturing Shen Shanwu, found the situation both amusing and exasperating. On the way back to the residence with the captain, he suggested that they should at least verify the boy’s background. They needed to confirm whether his parents were truly deceased, to avoid forcibly taking someone who might just be a rebellious teenager running away from home, leaving his anxious parents in distress.
The captain had initially nodded in silence, indicating his agreement. However, upon arrival, he had already decided on a name, as if he had “No matter what the child’s situation is, I’m taking him” written on his face.
As the applause in the villa grew increasingly uniform, even Yao Wuque reluctantly uttered a perfunctory welcome. Shen Shanwu felt increasingly despairing. How did he end up encountering such a “good thing” as being forcibly adopted on the street? The street urchins2beggars from other areas were probably crying with envy.
“The food’s gotten cold; let’s eat together,” the lieutenant said. He decided to take some team members to investigate the boy’s background in the afternoon.
The team members’ friendliness towards Shen Shanwu effectively quelled Jiang Huan’s earlier anger. He symbolically assigned a punishment of 200 push-ups to Yao Wuque and Zhong Yin, then turned around, removed his gloves, and took Shen Shanwu’s hand, which was hanging by his side.
“Come with me.”
“…” Shen Shanwu also struggled symbolically, and before he could break away, he was led away. He couldn’t childishly break his wrists with Jiang Huan here.
Some team members had already opened the chair for Shen Shanwu intimately, and a soft cushion was specially placed on the chair surface. It seemed that they were afraid that Shen Shanwu’s short hands wouldn’t reach the table. The girl in charge of cooking obviously heard his complaint that there was no water to drink, so she scooped a bowl of soup first, and handed it to Shen Shanwu in a peaceful manner, “Come on, Brother Jiang Tong, try your sister’s craftsmanship.”
“…” To be honest, Shen Shanwu hadn’t sat down at a table and eaten with a large group of people like this for a long, long time. There were only nine mutants in the country, scattered across various regions with their own affairs. The last time they all gathered was due to a new mutant appearing in the high-altitude western region, which had been several years ago…
Although ordinary people classified mutants as a type of zombie, mutants themselves still considered themselves human. As humans, they were inherently social creatures. Who would enjoy wandering alone in the wilderness, isolated and solitary?
He took the bowl with a hint of emotion and glanced inside. The bland clear soup contained two pieces of tofu and two pieces of green vegetables, with a few specks of oil, and the meat was almost invisible. “…”
Looking up and surveying the entire table, the feast was a sea of green: shredded cabbage, zucchini, and cabbage, with the occasional dish of creamy yellow king oyster mushrooms. In the middle, there was a plate of bright red shrimp—small but still meat—numbering exactly nine, clearly purchased per head.
His bowl also lacked rice and contained only two sweet potatoes and a bowl of mushy millet porridge. Shen Shanwu’s momentary emotional touch was gone, replaced by a loss of appetite.
Mutants could eat, but they didn’t actually need to. Like zombies, they could survive on sunlight alone. Food became more of a hobby for them; they ate only if they found it enjoyable. Over time, Shen Shanwu had developed a very picky palate.
Although he wasn’t a master chef and couldn’t make exquisite dishes, for a meat lover like him, a plump and juicy wild rabbit, no matter how it was cooked, was always preferable to plain water vegetables.
However, Shen Shanwu also understood that, for humans, a meal of non-radiated vegetarian dishes like this could be considered quite high-quality nationwide.
The room was filled with young and strong adults, all of whom could eat a lot. Especially Yao Wuque, who was still in his teenage years, seemed to have a voracious appetite as he devoured the vegetables and three sweet potatoes with eyes gleaming.
Shen Shanwu slowly sipped his soup, his jet-black eyes continuously scanning the surroundings. There were nine people at the table besides him, and everyone ate rapidly in silence. This seemed to be a habit formed from long-term readiness for battle.
Jiang Huan’s dining posture remained the most elegant at the round table, just as it had been in his childhood. Influenced by his mother, this young master exuded an innate sense of nobility in every movement, as if he were not eating sweet potatoes but truffles, and drinking not tofu soup but wine.
Jiang Huan seemed to notice Shen Shanwu’s gaze. He looked up and saw that Shen Shanwu had barely touched the millet porridge and sweet potatoes in front of him, only managing to drink half of the soup.
He furrowed his brow slightly and asked, “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you eating?”
Shen Shanwu didn’t know how to respond. After all, ordinary people might not even have the concept of “not to their taste” anymore. In the harsh conditions of the apocalypse, who would dare to be picky about food?
“I don’t want to eat it,” Shen Shanwu pushed the rice porridge forward, “I think that little brother isn’t full yet. Give it to him.”
Yao Wuque was delighted and reached out to take it, but Zhong Yin slapped his hand with her chopsticks, causing him to cry out in pain. “What are you doing? He said it’s for me!”
“Let you eat shit, will you eat it or not?”
“You—are you even a girl? How can you say such things?!”
Except for the pair of clowns bickering, the rest of the people present looked at each other. Acquiescing that Shen Shanwu was doing it, deliberately looking for trouble for the captain. But this kid was really spineless, because he refused to be adopted by the captain. He could bear to keep his mouth shut in the face of such a sumptuous meal.
Jiang Huan pondered for a moment, then picked up the largest shrimp from the central dish and placed it on Shen Shanwu’s plate. “Eat up. There’s no need to make things difficult for yourself over something like this.”
The cooking girl gladly followed suit and also gave Shen Shanwu the shrimp clip that belonged to her, “That’s right, the little brother can grow taller by eating more.”
“Xiaowen, you really are…” The lieutenant shook his head and handed the shrimp on the plate to the cooking girl, Xiaowen. “It’s rare to eat meat once, but you know how to spoil the kid. The captain and I gave these two shrimps as a welcome gift to Jiang Tong. The others ate them one by one.”
You want to buy me with two shrimp? Without humans overfishing, we mutants can just fish in the river for this thing.
But seeing Yao Wuque sucking the shrimp head squeaking and refusing to let the shrimp shell go, for them, this was indeed a rare thing.
Shen Shanwu returned the lieutenant’s shrimp, but the one that belonged to Jiang Huan was shelled and put in his mouth. At any rate, he had raised this guy for two years, and eating one of his shrimp was nothing.
Seeing Shen Shanwu finally moving his chopsticks, Jiang Huan’s eyes gradually calmed down. He gave Shen Shanwu a loofah with chopsticks, “Eat more vegetables.”
Shen Shanwu, eating his porridge without much taste, noticed Jiang Huan trying to add vegetables to his bowl. He quickly moved the bowl to the side and said, “I hate cucumbers the most.”
As soon as these words came out, the people at the dinner table suddenly looked different. Yao Wuque’s face was what most people thought: This kid is so difficult to manage, I really want to beat him up. Why did Captain, who wanted to adopt, find such a guy?
The lieutenant was in another category: How could a child who grew up in an outer district be so picky? His identity is very problematic.
Jiang Huan was the most special kind. In a moment of astonishment, he never realized that he had murmured, “…you also don’t like cucumbers?”
The mutant’s hearing was superb, and no one else noticed Jiang Huan’s whisper, but Shen Shanwu felt that the word ’also’ was used very delicately. He hurriedly finished the soup and porridge, jumped off the stool, and said, “I want to go to the toilet!”
Jiang Huan quietly stared at the cucumbers in his bowl, his eyes devoid of any light, deep and contemplative. The kind-hearted Xiao Wen promptly stood up to take on a motherly role. “The bathroom? Follow me.”
The two of them took two steps one after the other, and Jiang Huan’s gloomy voice suddenly came from behind them, “Zhang Xiaowen, lock the toilet window with another lock.”
Shen Shanwu: “…”
The author has something to say:
353translated to ‘sanwu’ which is a play in Shen Shanwu’s name: Strong-twisted cucumbers are not sweet.
Huan4a character from Jiang Huan’s name: Who wants cucumber to be sweet?
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