Chapter 7 - 6: Rusty’s Scheme

Sev was enjoying the delicious wild yam paste when she suddenly noticed that, apart from Rose, the other three children had stopped eating. Their eyes were wide with terror.

"Why did you stop eating?" she blurted out instinctively. Forgetting to keep up her wicked persona, her tone came out unusually gentle.

That only terrified the three boys even more!

Rusty’s mind was racing. He knew it. Seventeen was still their wicked adoptive mother. Her rare display of tolerance and kindness today was just a ploy to poison them without anyone noticing! Compared to the ten Nutrition Blocks each of them received every month, the wild yams she had brought back were far more delicious and filling.

In the Ninth Security Zone, if an adopted orphan died, the authorities would simply stop issuing their Nutrition Blocks and send someone to perform a token inspection of the corpse. As long as there were no obvious signs of fatal abuse, the matter would be dropped. If the four of them were poisoned to death tomorrow, absolutely no one would care.

Rusty began to wonder if he should take his siblings and flee from their wicked adoptive mother. Escaping the house would be easy enough, but where would they go once they were out?

There were very few families willing to adopt orphans to begin with. Some adoptive parents only did it because they feared loneliness, while others just wanted someone to bury their bodies after they died. Finding adoptive parents who acted out of genuine kindness and actually loved children was exceedingly rare. Furthermore, since they were already registered under Seventeen, no one was going to forcefully seize custody from her just to adopt them.

Rusty cursed his young age. If only he were eighteen, he could seize custody of his siblings from Seventeen himself.

"What, have you never eaten anything this good before? Are you frozen with joy? Hurry up and finish, then clean this place up and go to bed! I’ve been working all day, and I’m exhausted!" Seeing their silence, Sev finally remembered to keep up her persona and scolded them coldly.

The three boys immediately shrank back like frightened quails, lowering their heads and wolfing down their food. Despite their suspicions, they couldn’t resist the sheer pleasure of a delicious meal. They ate until their bellies were round and even licked their bowls clean.

After dinner, Firestone and Zephyr collected the dishes, Rose wiped down the table with a rag, and Rusty stood on a stool by the sink to wash up.

Sev observed them in silence. Her heart ached for them, but she kept her expression completely neutral. The children were pitiful, yes, but she couldn’t let her persona slip.

While Rusty washed the dishes, Firestone and Zephyr didn’t sit idle. They added water to the pot, heated it, and scooped it into Sev’s personal washbasin. Then they extinguished the fire and used the pot’s residual heat to take the chill off a basin of cold water for themselves. They let Rose wash her face and feet first, followed by Zephyr, then Firestone, and finally Rusty.

Watching all of this, Sev felt a heavy lump form in her throat. It wasn’t because they were unhygienic, nor was it because the original owner used the exact same basin for both her face and her feet. She wondered why these four sweet, loving, and well-behaved children had to endure such a miserable life.

Remembering the root cause of all this, she couldn’t help but resent the author of the original novel. Just to ensure the future villains developed antisocial personalities, the author had ruthlessly tortured these poor little children! Placing them in a post-apocalyptic wasteland setting was one thing, but giving them a wicked adoptive mother who drained them dry and abused them for ten solid years was entirely another!

She told herself, "Forget it. I can’t think about this. Whenever I do, I want to grab some dynamite and blow this damn world to pieces!"

She paused. "Wait. No, no, how am I also becoming antisocial?"

Sev took a few deep breaths to steady herself. Suppressing her disgust, she used the same basin the original owner had used for her feet to hurriedly wash her own face, and then she soaked her feet. Only then did she return to her room, shut the door, and get into bed. Outside her door, the three boys exchanged meaningful glances.

As for little Rose, she was only four years old and far too sheltered by her brothers. The thought that their adoptive mother might poison them had never even crossed her mind.

Returning to their own room, the four children climbed onto their single bed, squeezing tightly against one another. Rose soon fell fast asleep, leaving the three boys to whisper among themselves.

"You guys need to keep a close eye on that wicked woman tomorrow," Rusty said, his expression grave. "Pay special attention to whether she sneaks any poisonous mushrooms into the pot."

"Don’t worry, Rusty," Firestone said. "I won’t even blink."

"Should we just poison her first?" Zephyr asked.

"Idiot! You think I haven’t thought about killing her?" Rusty retorted. "If she dies and no one else is willing to adopt us, we’ll probably get shipped off to a laboratory."

Rusty had been five years old when his biological mother passed away, so he remembered quite a lot from back then. He had been sent to a temporary shelter to await adoption. During that time, he had befriended two other orphans in similar situations. Despite only knowing each other for two months, they became close friends.

Eventually, they were all adopted by different families, but they managed to keep in touch. They would occasionally sneak out to meet up whenever their adoptive parents went scavenging.

One of those friends had been adopted by a couple who only took him in, and he lived a relatively happy life. The other friend, however, had it much worse than Rusty. His adoptive father was a single man who loved to dish out abuse. Compared to Seventeen, that man was far more brutal, often beating his adopted son black and blue.

After a while, Rusty stopped seeing that boy altogether. According to their mutual friend, the boy had run away from his adoptive father and returned to the temporary shelter, only to be shipped off to some underground laboratory. The friend only knew this because his own adoptive father happened to work as a security guard at that shelter.

According to the guard, the underground laboratory treated human beings like guinea pigs. They conducted various tests, trialed dangerous drugs, and even harvested the subjects’ organs to sell to the wealthy. It was an absolute nightmare!

Had he not heard those horror stories, Rusty would have dragged his siblings back to the shelter ages ago.

Firestone and Zephyr fell into a heavy silence upon hearing this.

Finally, Zephyr spoke up. "Is there really no other way, Rusty? What if we got our hands on a poison that wouldn’t kill her, but just left her paralyzed in bed?"

"That won’t work!" Firestone argued. "If she’s paralyzed, who’s going to scavenge for supplies out in the wasteland?"

"This won’t work, that won’t work! Are we just supposed to sit back and wait for her to poison us?" Zephyr grumbled, puffing his cheeks.

"For now, we just have to keep a close eye on her. Or maybe I can find a way to toss out all those poisonous mushrooms. I hear real poison is expensive; there’s no way that wicked woman would be willing to spend her money on it." Rusty had finally thought of a viable plan.

"You’re so smart, Rusty!" Zephyr looked at him with stars in his eyes.

"Yeah, we’ll follow your lead!" Firestone chimed in.

Having finally reached a consensus, the three boys drifted off to sleep with peace of mind.

Meanwhile, Sev lay in her bed, tossing and turning. Everything that had happened today was simply too absurd. She needed time to process it all.

At the same time, she needed to plan for the future. If she really couldn’t return to her own world, she would have to shoulder the heavy burden of raising these four children. More importantly, while they were still young, she needed to completely correct their twisted moral compasses. She wasn’t expecting them to grow up to be righteous saints with bleeding hearts. She just wanted them to stop leaning toward becoming antisocial menaces.