Chapter 21 - 20: Keeping a Pet is the Best Therapy

The mushroom soup was so delicious they could have swallowed their own tongues. Nearby, Sev Steele reminded Doctor Jenkins to try the dried wild yam.

He opened the vacuum-sealed bag. The four kids all stared at him in unison, their eyes filled with pure agony.

Doctor Jenkins ignored their burning gazes, picked up a piece, and stuffed it into his mouth. Soon, the continuous CRUNCH CRUNCH of chewing echoed.

"Delicious! Crispy and sweet, it makes you want more. I just can’t stop. Sev, do you have any more of this? Let me take some when I leave."

Doctor Jenkins was full of praise, completely lacking the self-awareness of a guest. This made the four kids even angrier.

Sev didn’t mind at all. She smiled generously and said, "Alright, I’ll pack two bags for you to take back."

"Two bags isn’t enough. I want at least five!" Doctor Jenkins pushed his luck.

"Alright, five bags it is!" Sev nodded with a smile.

The four kids were so heartbroken they almost cried. Not only did he hog an entire bag to himself, but he also wanted to take five more when he left! The dried wild yam was hand-packaged by their adoptive mother, weighing exactly one pound per bag. Yesterday, she had taken ten pounds to sell and brought back over three thousand points. At this rate, their family was suffering a massive loss!

A thought suddenly flashed through Rusty’s mind. Could this Mr. Jenkins be their mother’s new lover? From the gossip he’d overheard in the safe zone, he knew that once a man and a woman hooked up, they were more than willing to shower each other with supplies. Women in the safe zone were allowed to marry at sixteen. Their adoptive mother was only twenty-one—very young and still unmarried. It was completely normal for her to find a man. But her taste was terrible. How did she end up with such a scoundrel? People in the safe zone always brought their own ingredients when eating at someone else’s house, as food was the most precious commodity here. Yet, not only had this man shown up empty-handed to freeload, he even demanded leftovers to go!

Sev took in all the children’s subtle expressions, but with the guest still present, it wasn’t a good time to explain. She could only pretend not to notice.

While the family was passionately digging into their meal, a faint SQUEAK SQUEAK suddenly came from Sev’s bedroom. It was very weak, but she managed to catch it.

Sev hurriedly stood up and entered the bedroom. She saw that Silvy was awake, staring at her pitifully with a pair of beady black eyes.

"What’s wrong, little one?" she asked softly.

"It’s hungry," Doctor Jenkins said from behind her.

"Hungry? Oh, right. It hasn’t had any milk since it was born. It’s about time it got hungry." Sev frowned. There was absolutely no milk at home, let alone any food suitable for a newborn. What was she going to use to fill the little guy’s stomach?

Doctor Jenkins saw through her thoughts and said, "It’s a Mutant Beast cub. You can go to the trading hall and buy mutant cow’s milk to feed it. Ordinary ingredients aren’t of much use to it; they can only guarantee it won’t starve to death."

Then, he took a pack of biscuits out from his Space Button and handed it to her.

"This is what I use to stave off hunger when staying up late. You can soak it in the mushroom soup, and it will become soft and mushy.

"Feed this to it first. Tomorrow, you can go buy some mutant cow’s milk for it to drink."

Seeing the exquisitely packaged bag of biscuits, the four kids’ eyes widened in shock. They had never seen such a thing before. It looked like a High Level item at first glance. So, this Mr. Jenkins was actually quite generous, not just a scoundrel who only knew how to freeload!

Doctor Jenkins had absolutely no idea that a casually offered pack of biscuits would completely reverse his image in the hearts of the four kids.

Tearing open the packaging revealed coin-sized biscuits. Sev glanced at Silvy’s cat-sized body, placed four biscuits into her own bowl, and poured a large spoonful of mushroom soup over them.

Soon, the biscuits became loose and mushy, and a milky aroma mixed with the scent of wheat permeated the air. The four kids couldn’t help but sniff deeply, marveling at how wonderful it smelled. It certainly lived up to being a High Level item!

Sev, however, felt a stormy wave of shock in her heart. She had originally thought that crops could no longer be grown in this wasteland. She never expected something like biscuits to still exist! This meant that the higher-ups of the safe zone could eat normal wheat or grains. From this, it could be deduced that there must be small-scale crop cultivation in the safe zone. In that case, as long as she earned enough points, wouldn’t she be able to live a normal person’s life?

This realization filled her with renewed strength. Heaven knew how desperate she had been when she first transmigrated and saw from the original owner’s memories that she survived on wild vegetables every day! In the past, when reading wasteland novels, she had only thought it was interesting that the characters went out to forage for wild vegetables daily. But living here for real, she realized what kind of torture it was to eat wild vegetables day in and day out. An Azure foodie like her simply couldn’t endure day after day of bland, watery soups. If there was grain, there must also be vegetable oil. With these basic ingredients, she could create an infinite variety of delicacies!

Silvy was probably starving. It wasn’t picky at all. As Sev fed it with a small spoon, it obediently ate bite by bite, its little mouth SMACKING as it sucked the food in before GULPING it down. It polished off the four small biscuits and the half bowl of mushroom soup entirely, still looking as if it hadn’t had enough, its little mouth opening and closing.

After waiting for a good while, it finally realized the food was gone. Only then did it obediently shut its mouth, staring at Sev with those beady black eyes, looking somewhat aggrieved. Sev didn’t know if the little guy could see her clearly. After all, a newborn Baby’s vision was definitely weak.

"Be good, Silvy. You’re still a little Baby; you can’t eat too much at once, or you’ll get stuffed," Sev said, gently stroking its tiny head.

Sev had come back late today, and on top of that, she had brought back a freeloading guest. As soon as she entered the house, she had headed straight for the bedroom, put down the sleeping Silvy, closed the door, and gone to the kitchen. Without her permission, the children never dared to trespass into her bedroom. Therefore, they hadn’t discovered Silvy’s existence until now.

Only at this moment did they realize that their adoptive mother had brought back a little cub.

Some Ability users in the safe zone had also bound Contracted Beasts. The kids had seen them from afar before; those Contracted Beasts all looked fierce and were relatively large. This was their first time seeing such a small cub. Although it broke their hearts that Silvy had eaten those precious biscuits, they only felt curiosity toward it, not dislike.

The little guy hadn’t had a bath since it was born. Plus, having been delivered via C-section by an amateur like Sev using a rather blunt dagger, it looked a bit dirty. Due to the mutation, it was about the size of a kitten. The newborn cub wasn’t exactly pretty; its skin was rosy, covered with a layer of silvery-gray soft fur resembling peach fuzz.

Even so, the children surrounded it with great interest. Their little hands raised and then lowered—they really wanted to pet it, but didn’t quite dare to actually touch it. Watching from the side, Sev couldn’t help but find it amusing. But the cub was just born after all, and it wasn’t good for too many people to touch it due to hygiene concerns, so she didn’t give them the go-ahead.

Looking at the children gathered around Silvy, Sev noticed that their eyes seemed to hold a liveliness that wasn’t usually there—curiosity, affection, and the protective desire to care for something smaller and weaker. She had originally been wondering what she could do to help them completely shake off the psychological trauma left by their vicious former adoptive mother.

Now she knew: raising a small pet might just be the best way to heal them.