HSB Chapter 20

Chapter 20

It had to be said that when Julius saw his face destroyed like this, he had a mental breakdown.

His handsome face he used his superb artistic skills to bring to life on the wall ranked up there with the best of them!

Yet, he had turned into this ghastly figure. The weird look on his precious daughter’s face practically had “I think this is what you look like” written all over it. It was insufferable!

How did the drawing on the wall become like this?

Julius was too flustered to explain it to his precious daughter. He gritted his teeth and said, “Is this your doing?”

That’s right, he yelled at the System.

Julius’s intuition told him that the useless system did it. Otherwise, how could it explain that his handsome face turned into the face of a blind and scarred man?

The System flat-out denied it, [No.]

Julius didn’t believe it. “If it wasn’t you, who was it?”

The System said, unhurriedly: [The wardrobe and the wall are close to each other. When you moved the wardrobe, the cabinet rubbed against the wall, coincidentally destroying your face. It has nothing to do with me. It was all you. You can’t blame me.]

Of course, it wouldn’t say that it had tinkered with it.

Julius’s rising anger suddenly seemed to be splashed with cold water, catching himself thinking that it wasn’t impossible.

He was still a little doubtful. “Really? ”

The System replied, [Of course. Besides, why would I scratch out your face?]

True.

Even if the System scratched his face, Julius could always find a chance to draw another picture, but without the NR projector, he couldn’t use the LUX screen to draw on the wall. 

No, he had to get his hands on the NR device as soon as possible to leave a good impression of himself in front of his baby girl. 

 Bambi was still staring at the portrait, trying to memorize what Julius looked like. After seeing what Julius looked like, the little girl decided that this mister didn’t come out to meet her probably because he didn’t look good. 

Just like the lady she met with her grandfather before.

……

She was an ordinary middle-aged woman.

 Bambi had such a deep impression of this lady that even after a year had passed, she still remembered her. 

Hugh traveled with Bambi. When they would occasionally pass by some bases, Hugh would trade with the base in exchange for supplies. It was at a small base that Bambi met this lady. 

Ordinary people went to the bases to seek refuge and to get a place to live, but it didn’t mean that they would live well. Even … besides not being eaten by zombies, ordinary people were worse off than even the refugees before the apocalypse. 

With the advent of the apocalypse, the hierarchical class became more and more obvious. The weak were dependent on the strong, and the strong bullied the weak, which had become the new apocalypse law.

The middle-aged woman had no skills, only a son who also had no powers, and in order to protect her ungrown son, she was willing to exchange her body for supplies to ensure that she and her son survived at the base.

Her son did not understand her and hated her. He was gloomy like a rat in the gutter. The woman was not only tormented by the men outside but when she returned to her small residence, she was also beaten and scolded by her son.

When Hugh took Bambi to exchange supplies at this small base, she met this woman who liked Bambi very much and gave Bambi a small bag of cookies. She gently touched Bambi’s head, smiled, and said, “Little baby, you must grow up safely.” ”

 Bambi thought the lady smiled nicely and had a pleasant voice.

When leaving the base, she coincidentally encountered the woman’s son being bullied by several men. The woman fought to protect her son but was pushed away by her son in disgust and cursed at by him.

Her son’s voice was so loud and unpleasant to hear. Before Bambi could hear what he was shouting, her grandfather covered her ears and wouldn’t let her hear it.

She saw that boy’s terrifyingly distorted face, just like that of those monsters.

Instead of beating the bad men who bullied him, he went to beat his mother who protected him.

 Bambi thought it was strange and turned to her grandfather.

Her grandpa’s face was twisted in a dark look, and she judged that her grandpa was angry.

Then her grandpa drove away those bad men. The older boy scolded Grandpa for being nosy, and Grandpa beat up the boy.  Bambi watched from the sidelines and felt that Grandpa did the right thing. She didn’t like the older boy. 

Remembering that the older lady gave her cookies, she should help her stand up.

But when Bambi came to the lady’s side, the lady wouldn’t let her help her up. She tried to hide away and said to her, “Don’t look at me. Go! Go away!” 

 Bambi was carried away from the base by Hugh. She was puzzled. “Grandpa, why didn’t that lady let me see her.” ”

Hugh sighed, his rough palm slid over her head, and said, “Because the lady thinks she doesn’t look good and she doesn’t want to scare Bambi, so she doesn’t want you to see her.” ”

 Bambi didn’t understand it completely.

Now that the invisible mister refused to come out, paired with the portrait of his face, Bambi confirmed that the mister didn’t want to scare her because he didn’t look good.

Grandpa said that if you asked others for help, and they refused, then you must understand that you could no longer make such a request of them.

Although she really wanted to thank the mister in person, since the mister was unwilling to come out and meet her, she couldn’t force it.

The wardrobe was moved back to block the ugly face.

Julius decided to redraw his face once he got his hands on the NR equipment so that his baby girl knew that her father was not ugly at all.

After moving the wardrobe, Julius heard his baby girl raise her little face to the wardrobe as if he was standing there, and said seriously, “Mister, thank you for buying these things for Bambi.”

Julius muttered, “Why doesn’t my baby girl call me daddy?”

He didn’t want to be some unrelated mister.

He was daddy!

After solemnly thanking Julius, Bambi finally couldn’t help but land her eyes on the sausage in her hand, which smelled delicious and kept tempting her. 

“Mister, can I eat it? ”

Of course, Daddy bought it for you.

Julius deliberately took the sausage from Bambi’s hand and shoved it back, indicating with his gestures that it was hers.

“Thank you, Mister. ”

 Bambi tore open the packaging and her eyes instantly shone brightly.

The sausage was about 4 inches long and had a jelly-like pink surface. She took a small bite of it.

It’s meat!

The little girl jumped up happily.

She had never eaten such delicious meat. It was even better than the roasted rabbit meat she had before. The little girl was so happy that she completely forgot about the invisible mister as she turned around and ran towards the stairs.

Grandpa gave her all the delicious things, so she wanted to share with her grandpa too.

“Grandpa, the invisible mister gave me this meat. It’s delicious. I’m putting it here.” The little girl put the remaining two-thirds of the sausages in the empty bowl at the entrance of the opening and then skipped back home happily. 

Julius watched his baby girl was reluctant to take an extra bite and gave it to Hugh instead. This show of filial piety made his heart stuffy. 

On the one hand, Julius felt that Hugh really taught the little girl well.

On the one hand, Julius felt that the little girl shouldn’t always be thinking of others; she should think more about herself.

Yet only one sausage could be bought every day, so Julius had to give up on that idea.

Then the little girl did something that moved Julius.

“Mister, Mr. Ivan made the apple you gave me into fried apple slices. It was very tasty. You try it.” Bambi climbed onto the dining chair and lifted the lid covering the bowl containing the sliced apple. She didn’t know where the mister was, so she had to stare in one direction at random. 

Ah!

His baby girl was showing filial piety to him too! 

Julius’s subtle jealousy of Hugh was instantly driven away by Bambi’s touching gesture, leaving him only feeling touched and overjoyed by his daughter.

Who said that nothing good came out of playing games?

This feeling of inner satisfaction couldn’t be explained in words.

Before today, Julius was still a bad guy in the heart of his baby girl, but now his baby girl paid filial piety to him. Their relationship had progressed in leaps and bounds.

Julius quickly poked the screen, trying to pick up the apple slices, so as to tell his baby girl that he was “eating”, but he couldn’t catch a single slice of apple from the bowl at all!

“…”

 Bambi waited for a while and noticed that there wasn’t any movement from the apple slices. She subconsciously bit her finger.

There was still the wonderful aftertaste of the sausage in her mouth.

 Bambi instantly understood that the invisible mister she couldn’t see must have a lot of tasty foods to be able to give her so many of them. The apple slices were touched which could only mean that the mister didn’t like apples.

She remembered the pain of eating food she didn’t like to eat, and quickly closed the lid so as not to trouble the mister.

Then Bambi looked at the two other things on the table: the baby formula and organic mineral water. There were words written on it but Bambi couldn’t read. However, she could read pictures. 

The baby formula was illustrated with a baby on it, and the packaging looked the same as the cans of baby formula she used to eat before. She immediately understood that it was milk that her grandfather had brewed for her before.

As for organic mineral water, it looked like ordinary mineral water, and Bambi recognized it. 

 Bambi pushed the can of baby formula and she could tell, from the portion, that there was a lot of it.

Where did the invisible mister find the milk from?

Baby formula supplies were hard to find. Hugh had to spend a long time to find some every time. It was hard to come by and had to be exchanged for crystals. 

 Bambi already had a vague concept of “money” at that time, and felt it was really expensive for Hugh to raise her, so she told her grandfather she didn’t want to drink baby formula anymore. Hugh smiled and tried to scare her. “Bambi, if you don’t drink milk, you won’t grow tall.”

After that, Bambi didn’t dare to think about not drinking baby formula, that was, until Hugh could not find any more baby formula supplies.

So in Bambi’s mind, baby formula was a very precious thing, just as precious as meat. 

However, she had just eaten the best meat in her five years of life, and now there was a brand new can of baby formula. The little girl was happy but suddenly felt uneasy in her heart.

That kind of uneasiness came from being unable to pay back for the things she got.

At the same time, she was suspicious.

Why was the invisible mister able to find these things? And why was he so nice to her?

Thinking about this, Bambi’s eyelids began to grow heavy. Children fell asleep easily, plus she just had a high fever, nor could she hear the invisible mister speak, making it feel like she was the only person in the quiet room, so she fell asleep on the table. 

Julius was still struggling with the fried apple slices at this time. When he saw his baby girl close the lid, he feared his daughter’s disappointment so he was determined to pick up the apple slices no matter what.

And then…

There was no then.

His finger was sore from poking at the screen, yet he still hadn’t picked up a single slice, pissing him off to the point he wanted to shut down the game and stop playing.

It wasn’t until the System’s exasperated reminder that Bambi was sound asleep that Julius remembered his baby girl. Right now he couldn’t enter the bedroom so he had to drag Bambi over to the sofa. 

Being able to pinch Bambi between his fingers gave Julius some comfort. 

At least he could still pinch his baby girl between his fingers, so he wasn’t completely crippled.

Looking at the cute little face of his baby girl, Julius decided that he wouldn’t log into the game until he got his hands on the NR equipment!