Chapter 10 - 9: Explaining the Old Era

"Mom, what is an egg? And what’s a hen?" the little girl, Rose, asked as she suddenly leaned in closer.

"Uh, well!" Sev felt a bit stifled.

She had spoken too quickly, completely forgetting that poultry no longer existed in this post-apocalyptic wasteland.

When the world had plunged into a state of high radiation, less than one in a hundred surface-dwelling fowls survived. The ones that did had all mutated.

Naturally, mutated poultry wouldn’t obediently sit in their coops waiting to starve. Most fled into the jungles, becoming today’s Mutant Beasts.

It was perfectly normal for children like Rusty, born twenty years after the Great War, to have never heard of hens and eggs.

Thinking about how so much of human heritage had been severed by an apocalyptic war, Sev couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow.

With this in mind, she decided to educate the four little ones on some basic pre-apocalypse knowledge.

As she sliced the wild yams into strips, she slowly began, "Over twenty years ago, here on Planet Veridia, everyone lived a life of abundance.

"They never lacked food or clothing, and they had a rich variety of entertainment...

"Then, a great war broke out..."

"So, before the war, people raised a lot of chickens? Everyone could eat meat every day, and they had eggs and milk?" Rusty trembled all over with excitement.

Although he hadn’t known about hens and eggs before, he had heard that the Hunting Squad could kill Mutant Beasts in the wild and eat their meat.

Rumor had it that meat was delicious. Unfortunately, back when his parents were alive, they were nothing more than paupers in the Ninth Security Zone. Just filling their stomachs was a struggle, let alone eating meat.

Now, this bad woman was telling him that before the war, everyone had meat to eat.

At that moment, Rusty felt that God was terribly unfair. Why hadn’t he been born before the war?

Even if he had died in the conflict, at least every day of his life leading up to his death would have been happy and blissful.

There would have been endless meat, eggs, and milk. Sometimes, if it expired or went bad, people would just throw it away.

They had televisions to watch and an internet to communicate with anyone from any corner of the globe.

Such a life was something he couldn’t even dream of.

In truth, his parents must have known all this too, but they deliberately avoided the subject and hid it from him. They had never spoken of it.

Perhaps they were afraid that knowing these things would only make their children sadder. After all, that era was destroyed, and no one had the power to go back to the past, did they?

The other adults in the Security Zone probably shared this sentiment. Everyone unanimously avoided mentioning the beautiful days of the past.

They did it just to numb their hearts, ensuring they wouldn’t break down over the beauty they had lost.

Among the four children, Rusty was the oldest and the most sensitive. Sev’s words impacted him the most.

He recalled how the bad woman used to always mutter about how the planet they lived on belonged to The Rosaline Element. She had also claimed that one day, people would be able to board a Zephyr and travel to Solara, the heart of this galaxy.

She had said that Solara was called Rosaline Prime, a place where no one worried about food or drink, and where people could lounge in bed and enjoy life every single day.

Back then, he had assumed the bad woman was speaking nonsense. But today, hearing her detail the bygone era with such vividness, it didn’t sound like she was making it up at all.

At this moment, Rusty’s heart swelled with intense excitement.

Ever since his parents died, he had found life incredibly hard. There was only pain and no joy; being alive was no different from being dead.

Later, after being adopted by the bad woman, he was beaten and scolded every day and often went hungry. He felt even more strongly that perhaps death would be a relief.

It wasn’t until she successively adopted his three younger siblings that he felt he had to stay alive to ensure the three little ones weren’t bullied too miserably by the bad woman.

But now, his life finally had a new purpose.

He was going to fight to survive. When he grew up, he would take his younger siblings with him, board a Zephyr, and travel to the distant Rosaline Prime.

He would lead them to a happy life, where they could be well-fed and warmly dressed every day, with plenty of entertainment to enjoy.

Sev had no idea that her casual history lesson had planted a seed deep within the young boy’s heart.

When this seed grew into a towering tree, he would take the entire world by storm.

Sev mashed and diluted both of the Mutated Lemon Fruits, then sprinkled the juice over the freshly cut wild yam strips.

Afterward, she directed the four little ones to help her start the roasting process.

Though the children were young, they had developed deft hands from constantly doing chores.

With their help, it only took them a single morning to roast over a hundred pounds of wild yam strips.

Looking at the shrunken yam strips, Rusty’s little brows knitted tightly. Although they smelled much sweeter, their volume had visibly decreased by more than half.

"Are you sure we won’t lose money selling them like this?" he asked, laden with worry.

"Don’t worry! I’ll sell them for over ten times the price!" Sev laughed.

By now, she had completely forgotten about maintaining her cruel persona. Of course, the four little ones hadn’t noticed either.

After all, their eyes and minds were solely focused on the roasted yams. Each of them harbored the eager expectation that this would bring a hefty sum of income to the family.

Sev weighed the batch on their home scale and found that the dried, roasted wild yams were only a third of their original weight.

However, they tasted incredibly sweet, crisp, and delicious, boasting a rich lemon aroma. The level of tastiness far exceeded the yam paste she had cooked the day before.

Yielding a total of thirty pounds, she packed ten pounds into an ordinary backpack and locked the remaining twenty pounds inside the cupboard.

Naturally, she didn’t forget to reward each child with a small bowlful.

Seeing their adoptive mother act so generously today, the four little ones instantly felt that their hard work had paid off!

Watching her back as she walked out the door, Zephyr asked with a vigilant look, "Big brother, is that lemon water really not poisonous?"

"Definitely not. She’s taking it out to sell, so how could she dare poison it?" Rusty replied.

"I kept an eye on her the whole time. She didn’t put any poisonous mushrooms in," Firestone hurriedly added.

Rose, unable to hold back any longer, picked up a strip and stuffed it into her mouth. CRUNCH, CRUNCH. The chewing sounds immediately made her three older brothers drool.

"Whatever, let’s just eat!" The second brother, Firestone, had always been impulsive. He couldn’t resist and started eating alongside her.

If yesterday’s meal had been an earthly delicacy, then today’s was a taste of Heaven!

The four little ones shed tears of joy, crying and praising as they ate, "It’s so good! It’s so delicious! Even if we die right now, it would be worth it!"