Bai Delan looked at his currently unconscious wife Ye Linger resting in his arms and although he could feel that she was suffering from a high fever he couldn’t help but feel grateful to life in general.
He looked at his son who was currently in the process of guarding the giant pagoda in front of their house and said in a somewhat choked voice, “Zemin, thank you.”
Bai Zemin looked at his father with a frown and said with some discomfort in his voice, “Thank you?”
His father was thanking him because Bai Zemin had brought back his own mother? If that was the case then Bai Delan probably needed a good beating.
However, Bai Delan shook his head and said in a serious voice, “I am thanking you for being my son.”
Bai Zemin was taken by surprise this time and for a few seconds, he didn’t know what to say.
“It’s supposed to be the duty of a husband and a father to protect his wife and children, that’s how it should be.” Bai Delan smiled with some bitterness but there was also a bit of pride and a lot of gratitude as he spoke slowly amidst the constant explosions.
“But, I couldn’t do anything to look for you and protect you while this whole mess was blowing up. I could barely protect your mother and sister. But you, Zemin… You were not only resolute and brave but also able to walk across an entire large district, fight against millions of monstrous creatures, all for the sake of finding us… Even though I don’t want to admit it, I know in my heart that my self back then had given up a little on you, and I thought you were already dead or had turned into a zombie.”
Bai Zemin looked at his father serenely and gave him a few seconds to catch his breath.
Bai Delan stroked his wife’s hair and looked at her affectionately despite her misaligned appearance, “Maybe it was at that time that I should have realized that you were destined to be someone really great, but maybe my yearning for a normal family didn’t let me see it. But, now I finally understand that having a normal family is impossible in this world unless you want to live in constant fear of losing everything the next day.”
Bai Delan could still remember how this morning he and his wife were having breakfast together before he headed off to work. In a matter of hours, what had started out as a normal day had turned into a new hell and the woman who had been with him for most of his life was almost leaving him forever.
No, Bai Delan had in fact lost his wife. It was his son who had brought her back.
“It was you who found us, it was you who solved Meng Qi’s worries and fear when that little brat surnamed Sun wouldn’t stop harassing her, it was you who stabilized everything around here, and now you even restored your mother’s humanity.” Bai Delan had tears running down his face as he said with lingering fear, “That’s why. Thank you for being my son… and I’m sorry for being such an incompetent father. I really did and do my best, but a little firefly can only shine this much no matter how hard it tries in contrast with the sun.”
After a moment of silence, Bai Zemin suddenly said, “Old man, does that mean you are finally ready to step aside and obediently accept that the new man of the house is this daddy?”
Meng Qi had barely sighed in relief now that her mother had been turned human again and didn’t even have time to feel pride in her chest when she heard her brother’s words. She gawked at him, feeling quite speechless.
Their father was clearly depressed and felt worthless as he believed he was not doing his duty as a father and husband, but instead of offering words that would lift his spirits, Bai Zemin was simply kicking him in the stomach.
However, Meng Qi clearly did not know how men’s mentality worked in such cases.
“Brat, dream on.” Bai Delan snorted before letting out a short laugh. He wiped the tears from his eyes and shook his head, “It seems that even if evolution helps regain youth it still can’t do anything about your mind.”
Before Bai Zemin could say anything else, Bai Delan waved a hand and said with his eyes fixed on his wife, “Go and do your business. If it’s you, you surely can fix this mess. As for me… Well, I know the strength of a Third Order soul evolver might be needed, but-“
“You stay here and take care of Mom and Meng Qi.” Bai Zemin interrupted, “We’ll take care of the rest.”
We?
Bai Delan didn’t understand what his son meant by “we” if he even wanted Meng Qi to stay behind, and it was just then that four flashes of white light shot out from Bai Zemin’s chest.
In just a blink of an eye, the four flashes of light turned into four people and Bai Delan immediately recognized them as Shangguan Bing Xue, Shangguan Xinyue, Evangeline, and Wu Yijun.
“This…” Bai Delan was shocked but only for a second as he soon smiled and shook his head without saying anything else. Every second he spent together with his son, Bai Delan realized more and more how amazing Bai Zemin was.
“Big brother, dad can take care of mom perfectly well with his strength. I want to go fight too.” Meng Qi took a step forward and said firmly.
“But-“
“No buts. I’m 18 now, and in the eyes of the law I’m an adult.” Meng Qi snorted, interrupting his older brother’s next words.
The corner of Bai Zemin’s mouth twitched and he muttered to himself, “Little brat, are you forgetting that the law is determined by me?”
In the end, however, Bai Zemin agreed.
“Bing Xue, Aunt Xinyue, would you two please take care of the south gate of the base?”
Shangguan Bing Xue and Shangguan Xinyue did not stop to nod but immediately shot off into the distance at full speed. Now that the Earth had evolved, moving through the sky using monstrous Strength no longer seemed to be possible, but with Shangguan Xinyue using the air gusts to her advantage, it wasn’t particularly challenging.
“Yijun, can you use your skills to quell the anxiety and fear of the survivors who weren’t crushed by the sudden gravitational increase in the world?”
Wu Yijun nodded with a serious expression, “Leave it to me.”
While it was true that many had died, those survivors who had worked and eaten enough mutant beast meat had much stronger bodies than a normal human. Even if they had suffered some broken bones or had difficulty with their mobility, they had at least managed to preserve their lives.
“Evangeline, dear adult little sister, support Yijun please.”
Soon, the three women departed for the base to follow Bai Zemin’s orders. Of course, before leaving Meng Qi did not forget to glare at him with flames in her eyes.
Bai Delan took Ye Linger to the house, and just as Bai Zemin was about to leave he got astonished when he felt a very powerful aura coming out from the backyard.<sub> </sub>
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Bai Delan appeared at the door again with Ye Linger in his arms and said with a chuckle, “Take that little thing with you. She’s been waiting for you.”
Little thing? Bai Zemin’s eyes flashed at the sight of a ten-foot snow-white large dog stomping through the air as if walking on solid ground.
“Little Snow!”
“Awooo!”
Bai Zemin had no time to be surprised by the fact that his family dog howled like a wolf instead of barking like a dog.
“Little Snow, you’ve evolved to Third Order? Impressive!” Bai Zemin stroked the big animal’s white fur with a happy smile.
Little Snow lowered her head and closed her eyes in pleasure as she wagged her fluffy tail from side to side.
“Little Snow, can you go help Meng Qi? I need to do something important right now. I’ll give you as many pats as you want later.”
However, Little Snow did not obey as usual. In fact, the big giant dog lay down on the ground and signaled Bai Zemin with her head as if she was asking him to ride on her back.
Bai Zemin could have refused but that would have wasted too much time as he could sense the stubbornness of the animal before him, therefore and without further delay, he jumped on her back.
He was not ready for what happened next.
“Little Snow, I need to go high in the sky to the midpoint of the base-“
Swooooosh!
Bai Zemin had to shut his mouth abruptly to avoid biting his tongue, because using Agility surprisingly above his current natural Agility without the use of Overlap Regeneration, Little Snow shot out like white lightning into the sky.
Laser beams flew from the base to the outside from where all kinds of insects and mutant beasts were relentlessly arriving. Soul evolvers were fighting with their lives on the line to stop the advance of tens of thousands of zombies and prevent them from spreading. At least three mana tornadoes were spinning dangerously close to the north gate.
Bai Zemin watched all this from the clouds feeling awe and disbelief in his heart at the terrifying speed Little Snow had just displayed.
“Looks like now you’ll be able to follow me and be my mount,” Bai Zemin stroked the animal’s fur, getting a purr from her.
Bai Zemin hadn’t spent much time with his pet as although Little Snow was strong she was not particularly useful on the battlefields Bai Zemin needed to fight. However, it was different now.
If Little Snow could move this fast, fly through the sky, and her Stamina was high… Then she could be the perfect mount for him, getting him to his destination faster and helping him save Stamina and Mana for when it was time to fight.
“Alright… Let’s finish with this.” Bai Zemin looked at the chaos hitting his base and with a cold expression extended his right hand towards the sky.
Soon, two huge spheres, a blood red one on the left and a deep blue one on the right, began to grow larger and larger 50 meters above his head with him and Little Snow as their center.
* * *
Fire Sorrow looked at the big blue planet with awe, joy, nostalgia, sadness, and also with a bit of confusion.
“This is definitely Earth… But, it looks very different too…” Fire Sorrow was puzzled at the sight of multiple landmasses as her home was a single far larger landmass instead of several separate smaller ones.
“I guess that’s normal… It has been millions of years. A lot can change in that much time.” She took a deep breath and was a little glad to sense that there was a lot of intelligent life evolving.
She didn’t know how long her old home had been evolving, but there was something Fire Sorrow didn’t understand.
“Third Stage? And just recently evolved out of that?” She frowned slightly.
The Earth she knew was a Higher World, not a Lower World in its Third Stage.
“Oh?” Fire Sorrow soon realized something and quickly pulled out a small, extremely old book. There were several maps there, and after looking at the main map and comparing it to the continents of the world in front of her, Fire Sorrow’s eyes sparkled, “I see… The continents split up but it really is still my world after all.”
With her heart racing at a thousand beats per minute, Fire Sorrow turned her eyes towards a certain part of the Asian Continent and murmured with some apprehension, “If I’m not mistaken… it should be over there.”
Soon, her alluring body swayed and an instant later her silhouette vanished from its previous position.
What was Fire Sorrow going to find? She didn’t know.
In fact, Fire Sorrow didn’t even know what she was looking for and was aware that she only wanted to have false hopes about an impossible.
However, for someone who had lived so long without feeling strong emotions, it was hard to restrain herself once her heart began to beat that fast.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
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