Chapter 27 - 26: The Whole Family Wants to Protect Rose

Rusty and Zephyr finished their hundred-milliliter glasses of milk at the same time. Both of their faces flushed red, and they looked dizzy, as if they were drunk.

Sev concluded that their tolerance for the milk was about the same as hers. Going by the principle of majority rule, she figured this was the normal reaction an ordinary person would have after drinking mutated milk. Therefore, in their family, Rose and Firestone were the outliers.

Rose likely belonged to the category of people who awakened their Abilities early. If it weren’t for their poor family background and malnutrition, she probably would have awakened even sooner. As for Firestone, it felt like he was on par with Silvy, the Mutant Beast cub. For them, the mutated milk was purely nutritional supplementation.

Having roughly determined the different effects the mutated milk had on each person, Sev started to worry. Ordering a month’s supply of mutated milk all at once—and at a quantity of five hundred milliliters per person per day—was truly irrational. She felt that seeing the mutated milk was like how certain women back on Azure saw beautiful clothes, bags, and jewelry; she simply couldn’t control her urge to buy it. Now, it was obvious she had ordered way too much.

Returning it was probably out of the question. Skinny had already come to her door to install the milk box and had even given her a discount. If she backed out now, he would definitely make her cough up more money. Fresh milk usually only had a shelf life of two to three days. Furthermore, she had ordered three liters a day. If they didn’t finish today’s batch, there would be a never-ending stream of milk delivered tomorrow and the day after.

So, she had to find another way to preserve the excess mutated milk long-term. In her memory, there were two methods for long-term milk preservation: making cheese or making milk powder. The process of making milk powder was quite complex, making it time-consuming and laborious for an ordinary family to actually pull off. That left only one option—homemade cheese.

Making cheese was simple. She had learned how during the summer vacation of her first year in high school. At that time, Miss Lynn in her village had raised two dairy cows and delivered milk to the food factory in town every day. Later, the food factory went bankrupt, and her milk became unsellable. Miss Lynn had been so anxious that she got blisters on the corners of her mouth. She had spent a lot of money buying those two cows, only for her sales channel to be cut off before she even broke even.

Sev had searched online for a long time and ultimately found that making homemade cheese was the best solution. She had specifically looked up a home cheese-making recipe on a short-video app. After repeatedly practicing a few times, she finally succeeded. She taught this method to Miss Lynn for free. After all, Miss Lynn had taken good care of her growing up; every time she made dumplings at home, she would bring some over for Sev and her grandfather. Of course, whenever they caught small game like wild hares or pheasants, they would also give some to Miss Lynn. The affection between villagers was built up through this kind of reciprocal exchange.

Making cheese required lemon juice or white vinegar, but right now, she had neither. At this thought, her gaze fell once again upon the small Mutated Lemon Tree seedling beside the bed in the bedroom. It couldn’t really be called a small seedling anymore.

When Rose was awakening her Ability, it must have absorbed the Wood Ability radiating from the girl’s body. It had shot up from a little over a foot tall to over a meter, even blooming with twenty or thirty flowers. After that, Sev’s attention had been entirely focused on Rose, terrified that some uncontrollable accident might occur during her awakening. Naturally, she had neglected the Mutated Lemon Tree.

Now, she realized that those flowers had already withered, and mung bean-sized green fruits had actually formed at their ends. This completely exceeded her understanding. She thought fruit would only form through normal pollination, like insect or artificial pollination. But this tree was indoors, with no insects and no artificial pollination. How on earth did these fruits form?

Regardless of how they formed, as long as they could ripen quickly, she would have concentrated lemon juice. Then, her cheese-making endeavor would be a success.

Sev looked back at the sleeping little girl. After awakening her Ability, the most obvious change was that her skin had become fair and radiant. She had always been pretty, like an exquisite Eurasian doll. Now that her skin was better, she was so beautiful that it stirred feelings of tender affection. She couldn’t help but worry. Such a beautiful little darling who had also awakened a Wood Ability—could she, a useless ordinary human adoptive mother, really protect her?

No, she needed to speed up her money-making and forge stronger connections. Only with the dual backing of money and power could she protect her from being bullied. But as of right now, the only person she knew who held any semblance of power was Doctor Jenkins. It seemed she would have to find a way to curry favor with him first.

While Sev was plagued with worry, the three boys were feeling the exact same way. They were hiding in a corner of the yard, holding a secret little meeting.

"Big Brother, I’m too useless. I drank more than our sister, but I still didn’t awaken an Ability," Firestone said dejectedly.

These words hit Rusty and Zephyr right where it hurt. Weren’t they in the exact same boat? Aside from feeling a little dizzy, they didn’t feel anything else at all.

"Oh, right. I heard that if a slum child under eight awakens an Ability, they can go to the safe zone’s official registry. Then they’ll give the parents a massive bonus. I heard it’s one hundred thousand points," Zephyr hurriedly said, changing the subject.

"Really? That’s great! Let’s go find that woman right now. Once our sister wakes up, we’ll have her take her to register!" Firestone immediately grew excited.

"But I heard that slum children who awaken Abilities aren’t allowed to stay with their adoptive parents. The officials take them away to train them together. Our sister is still so little. What if she gets bullied over there? And if she leaves, we might never see her again," Rusty said, his little brows furrowed tightly.

"Huh? No, no way! I don’t want to be separated from her! We have to keep this a secret. We can’t tell anyone!" Firestone cried in alarm.

"But what if the bad woman wants to hand her over for money? That’s one hundred thousand points!" Rusty said.

"Big Brother, are we really just going to watch her get taken away? BOOHOO!" Zephyr couldn’t help but start crying.

"Unless... we can afford a house in The Gilded Ward. I heard that when children from The Gilded Ward awaken Abilities, they get to stay in their own homes and don’t have to be separated from their families. But they also don’t get to claim the one hundred thousand-point bonus," Rusty explained.

Ever since he learned about the existence of Abilities, Rusty had carefully investigated all the related information. At the time, he had thought that if he could awaken an Ability before he turned eight, he could earn the hundred-thousand-point bonus for his adoptive mother. Maybe, for the sake of those one hundred thousand points, she would treat his younger siblings a little better.

"But our family is so poor. Even though that bad woman just made some money, it definitely isn’t enough to buy a house in The Gilded Ward," Firestone said.

"Forget it. Let’s just wait and see," Rusty sighed.