Ning Su turned around and saw Pang Yang, Yun Xiangning, and a strange little girl.
The little girl was wearing a gray-green shirt and a somewhat short checkered pants, thin as a stick, with no flesh on her face.
Eyes devoid of much luster, gazing blankly in a certain direction.
Ning Su followed her line of sight and saw Manman, who was beating her flower head.
In the instance of <Flower Servant>, the first sacred flower they found in the Dark Swamp grew with human heads just like this.
At that time, the two children stared at the sacred flower in the late night, holding wooden hammers to strike those heads because they thought the flowers were sick, and flowers shouldn’t grow such heads.
Now, they guarded the flower growing in their home even more strictly.
Before, it was like hitting moles hard and sending them back, but this time, they were all driven away.
The little girl wore a delicate white dress, as light as clouds, her freshly washed hair silky and jet black. A red amber-like flower earring gleamed with a crimson light beside her right ear, its petals tucked behind her ear.
Her delicate face hinted at divinity and arrogance. But when she looked up, there was a terrifying sight of severed heads behind her.
She appeared calm and composed, as if she could handle any number of heads that came her way.
Suddenly, the severed heads on the ground by the door opened their bloodied mouths wide and jumped up, attempting to bite people.
The smallest, skinny girl was the first to be attacked.
Amid Yun Xiangning’s frightened screams, Manman’s hand, holding the skeletal arm, suddenly stretched out, grabbing the head about to touch the little girl’s face, and threw it back to the ground.
The little girl looked even more dazed, not knowing if she was scared.
Several small skeletons appeared in the yard and picked up all the heads scattered around into a bamboo basket.
Ning Su asked, “You’re not scared, are you?”
Yun Xiangning rubbed the little girl’s head and asked her, “Qingqing, are you okay?”
The little girl lowered her head and, after a while, whispered, “I’m fine.”
Yun Xiangning, not reassured, touched her face and hands, asking two or three times to make sure she was really fine before feeling relieved.
She explained to Ning Su, embarrassedly, “This is my daughter, named Yun Qing, with congenital heart disease.”
She wasn’t lying to them; she did indeed have a poor little daughter.
Hearing that she had a heart condition, Ning Su was afraid of scaring her and immediately called out to Gui Sheng, “Take these heads away.”
Gui Sheng: “Got it!”
The young boy hoisted a bamboo basket several times larger than himself and moved it to a distant place.
Ning Su, afraid of leaving any psychological shadow on the little girl, reassured them, “Don’t be afraid. These are not real human heads. They are ‘fruits’ grown by a plant, just resembling human heads.”
In the instance of <Flower Servant>, there were real human heads, but not those grown by this skill weapon.
These were formed by plant tissues in the shape of human faces, just extremely lifelike and eerie.
Gui Sheng: “Huh?”
He took out a human head, perhaps to comfort the little girl, and twisted it to both sides.
Snap.
A crisp and melodious voice, seemingly accompanied by the sound of fruit juice flowing.
Gui Sheng held up the bloody halves in his small grayish-white hands, showing them, “These are not real human heads!”
Ning Su: “...”
Pang Yang: “...”
If it were a little girl with a louder voice, she might have already been scared to tears.
Gui Sheng seemed to realize he had done something wrong.
He silently placed the head he had broken back onto the Dark Swamp flower, and miraculously, it began to adhere to the plant again.
Manman: “Little brother Gui Sheng.”
Gui Sheng: “Huh?”
Manman: “You installed it wrong. The eyes you just put on are yours.”
Yun Xiangning: “...”
Pang Yang: “............”
Pang Yang tightly hugged his head, fingers scratching his scalp.
What kind of family were you guys?
Why was it even scarier at home than in the dungeon world?
After several people finally sat down under the umbrella in the small courtyard, the atmosphere was very silent.
As the first visitors to the house, Ning Su served them fruits and drinks.
In the past, Ning Su was very hesitant to spend, but now, with the earnings from the two instances plus what Manman made, they had also entered the ranks of a comfortable middle-class family with a million points. Ning Su didn’t hold back at all. Today, he even brought out all the newly bought fresh fruit varieties.
The main reason was that these two people brought a lot of things.
Gui Sheng stood behind Ning Su’s chair as if he had done something wrong, quietly grabbing the hem of his clothes and glancing at them.
Manman sat on the chair next to Ning Su, playing with the skull head in her arms.
Pang Yang said, “Sister Yun wants to thank you. She didn’t know where you lived, so I asked the head steward to bring her here.”
Yun Xiangning replied, “Ning Su, thank you.”
Ning Su said, “I’ve said it before. You don’t need to thank me. I’m not helping you out of kindness.”
On the ship, Ning Su had already mentioned that it wasn’t for her. She might have understood what Ning Su meant, so today she specially brought her daughter to thank him.
Ning Su glanced at the little girl, who was staring at Manman again.
Ning Su said to Manman and Gui Sheng, “Take the little girl to play.”
Gui Sheng, feeling guilty, immediately stood up. “Hmm!”
Manman also jumped off the chair and said to Yun Qing, “Let’s go.”
Yun Xiangning was somewhat worried; her daughter was always locked up in that dim little room and didn’t like playing with others.
She was surprised to see her daughter stand up, her eyes slightly brightening in her withered face, carefully watching Manman.
After the three children left, Pang Yang said, “Sister Yun, you’ve been through a lot.”
At that time, they all had opinions about her on the ship. Seeing this little girl now, he felt complicated.
The naïve Pang Yang said sincerely, “Sister Yun, actually, I used to look down on people who had children on the base. I thought they were only doing it for the system rewards, extremely irresponsible towards their children. You’re not like that, are you?”
Ning Su asked, “Rewards?”
Pang Yang said, “There are rewards for giving birth on the base, a reward of 300,000 points, which is a huge sum.”
Ning Su had completed several instances and found it not difficult to earn a dozen or twenty thousand points each time. That was because he had entered newly opened instances, with particularly high point rewards.
For instances that had been opened many times, the point rewards were at most tens of thousands, even for high-level instances, and the risk was still very high.
Therefore, some people on the base gave birth for point rewards.
Women were not subject to the once-every-seven-days limit from six months of pregnancy to one month after giving birth.
It’s just that the child suffered for it.
Pang Yang: “Children must enter the instance once they reach the age of six.”
In Pang Yang’s view, such parents were too selfish and disrespectful of life. They were essentially trading their own lives for points and the lives of their children.
Most people think that they might not live until their child turned six anyway, so they didn’t care what happened after the child turned six.
Some women in the base even kept having children to avoid the entering instances and to earn points.
There were many orphans on the base.
Ning Su was stunned for a moment, and immediately realized the bitterness and evil in it.
Yun Xiangning said, “I didn’t want a child. That man forced me. You also know that after being pregnant for three months, abortions are not allowed.”
Pang Yang: “I can see that you truly love your child.”
“I don’t want Qingqing to suffer. She not only has a heart condition, but she’s also five years old and about to turn six and enter an instance.” Yun Xiangning almost cried, “What can I do? Should I kill her myself?”
“Which parent can bear to watch their child struggle in a terrifying world like hell?”
Ning Su pursed his lips.
When they left, Ning Su stood at the door to see them off.
The five-year-old Yun Qing was so thin that she looked like she was only three or four years old.
The little girl took a few steps, turned her head, and looked at Manman.
Ning Su asked the two children, “Did you have fun?”
Gui Sheng said, “Qingqing doesn’t speak. She just watches my sister.”
He said sensitively, “She really likes my sister!”
Manman didn’t quite understand. “Mom, it’s the first time she’s seen me. Why does she like me?”
Ning Su squatted down and looked at the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. “Because my daughter is amazing and beautiful.”
The little girl, whose fairy tales revolve around tiny skeletons, might also become the carefree and bright sunshine in the eyes of another frail little girl.
Gui Sheng: “Amazing, beautiful!”
The little girl’s face tensed for a moment, but then she smiled happily. When she smiled, the eerie feeling about her diminished greatly, making her seem like a simple and normal little girl.
Ning Su said, “You don’t have any friends on the base. If you think she’s nice, you can be friends with her and play together.”
Thinking about the matter of the two children having friends, he then pondered the issue of the children going to school.
Not knowing if there was a school at the base, Ning Su thought that he would ask Chen Tian and Chen Qing when he went to return the tricycle the next day.
The trio, one adult and two children, placed the heads back onto the Dark Swamp flower and squatted in the courtyard, studying the flower intently.
In the evening, Ning Changfeng brought barbecue and joined them, spending some time together studying the flower.
In the end, their conclusion was that this Dark Swamp flower was a glutton, especially fond of eating flesh and blood.
Ning Su: “...”
In an instant, he didn’t want it anymore.
Ning Changfeng: “It’s perfectly normal. Skills weapons in each world are linked to that world’s characteristics. There were already many flower attendants and people buried in the Dark Swamp. Additionally, those sacred flowers nurtured within the bodies of the flower attendants, aren’t they growing by feeding on the blood of the flower attendants?”
Ning Su: “You’re right, but what use do I have for it?”
Ning Changfeng: “To guard the door and watch over the house.”
Ning Su: “...”
Ning Changfeng comforted him, “It’s very powerful that it eats flesh and blood. Humans have flesh and blood, and many monsters in dungeons also have flesh and blood. Do you understand?”
If it were someone from the Yongming Guild, it might be considered a treasure.
Ning Su understood.
That’s it then. It would be treated as the gatekeeper every time they entered an instance in the future.
Or, when there’s a need during the guild competition, he could give it to Shi Tianzhu.
Ning Changfeng: “Let’s eat first. I brought a lot of barbecue and beer.”
Ning Changfeng brought a thermos, and as he opened it slightly, the fragrance made Ning Su unable to think of anything else.
Ning Su: “Ah, okay!”
Ning Changfeng negotiated with him. “Son, I’ll call my friend Ling Xiao to join us for dinner.”
Ning Su scratched his chin. “Sure.”
Ning Changfeng wanted to invite Ling Xiao with a selfish motive. “Son, you see, he’s my only friend, and Ling Xiao doesn’t know many people at the base. He’s not one to talk much, has a sharp tongue, and, uh, can I tell him that you’re my son?”
Ning Su: “...”
Ning Changfeng: “I can’t hold it in anymore. I always want to share this news with someone. You don’t want Shi Tianzhu to know, so I can’t tell anyone else. He’s the only one I can tell.”
Who could understand the heart of an old father who had lost such a lovely son for over twenty years, yet could not share it with anyone?
Ning Su: “...Okay.”
Ning Changfeng patted Ning Su’s shoulder, very happy. “You don’t have to call me Dad. You can call him uncle first and let him enjoy this joy on my behalf.”
Ning Su: “...”
Thanks for the update!! 🤣🤣🤣
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