Early the next morning, Suo Tian didn’t head out right away.
Instead, after the middle-aged man and his group arrived, he signaled them to go deal with and clean up the mess from the night before.
The bearded man looked puzzled, clearly wanting to ask more, but the middle-aged man shot him a glare that shut him up.
They were gone for quite a while before returning.
All they said to Suo Tian was, “Boss, it’s taken care of.”
Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, the bearded man added, “Captain Gao somehow got wind of it. He brought people over before we finished cleaning up. They took everything from the second-floor room.”
Suo Tian simply waved it off. “No matter. If he wants to handle it, all the better.”
After saying a few more words to me, he stood up and left with the middle-aged man and the bearded man.
I watched as their car drove off into the distance.
Uncle Gazi came out from the kitchen, still picking vegetables in his hands, and walked to the doorway.
He asked me, “Hey, girl… what’s Xiao Tian been busy with lately? Feels like he doesn’t even have a moment to breathe.”
Hearing that, I glanced back at the others in the house.
Making sure no one was watching us, I lowered my voice and replied, “There’s big trouble at headquarters.”
“Big trouble?” Uncle Gazi leaned closer, his tone turning tense. “What kind of trouble?”
I looked at him before answering, “Outside the city walls… it’s completely surrounded by walkers.”
“What?!” His voice shot up. I quickly gestured for him to keep it down.
Realizing it, he glanced back at the others in the house, then cleared his throat and asked more quietly, “Aren’t there a lot of troops here? Can’t they just clear them out?”
I sighed. “If it were just one, two, or even a few hundred, would they still be this busy every day?”
“Then… how many are there?”
I thought for a moment and lowered my voice even further.
“Too many to count. Tens of thousands… maybe even over a hundred thousand. They’re everywhere—covering the mountains and fields. Especially beneath the city walls, they’re packed so densely they’re practically piled on top of each other.”
…
Uncle Gazi frowned.
Since he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, his reaction wasn’t as intense as expected.
After thinking for a while, he said worriedly, “That… that’s a serious problem.”
“You can say that again,” I sighed.
Noticing the others in the room beginning to look our way, I gave Uncle Gazi a look and added quietly, “Don’t tell everyone yet. Let’s get the food ready first—if we keep talking, they’ll start asking questions.”
…
Over the next few days, Dad came to talk to me once.
It was mostly about Xiao Hu.
As usual, he needed a medical checkup, but since I wasn’t the one taking him this time, Dad came personally.
Although everyone already knew about Xiao Hu, Dad didn’t seem willing to discuss it with others.
He just took me up to the rooftop and briefly went over the recent results.
Overall, there were no major issues.
Aside from still being slightly malnourished, everything else was normal.
I had thought he would bring up the matter of Xiao Hu being taken into isolation in the future, but instead I learned that due to internal issues, Xiao Hu wouldn’t be sent into isolation anytime soon.
Dad seemed very disappointed, but I was actually relieved.
It wasn’t that I didn’t hope research on Xiao Hu might lead to some kind of life-saving cure.
But sending him in would mean his fate was uncertain… and I simply couldn’t bear it.
The day after Dad left, Suo Tian had to go on another long trip.
I ended up acting like one of those women sending their husbands off on business trips, clinging to him and giving a long list of reminders.
Even though it felt a bit out of place for someone like Suo Tian, it was probably just instinct—when you care about someone, you can’t help but fuss.
After Suo Tian left, the atmosphere at headquarters suddenly grew tense.
This tension wasn’t limited to the internal staff—it extended to all of us residents as well.
Even people living in the villa district were taken away in batches.
No one knew exactly why.
Some of those taken were brought back… but others were never returned.
It wasn’t until Yangyang, Shen Feng, Zhou Wen, Taozi, and Jundi from our house were also taken away that we truly realized something was seriously wrong.
But at the time, we had no idea who to turn to.
Within a few hours after they were taken, I couldn’t hold back and went to ask Dad about it.
After listening, he simply told me to go back and wait for news, saying that as long as we behaved ourselves, they would be sent back soon.
From his expression, it seemed he knew what was going on behind the scenes—he just didn’t want to say it.
I couldn’t press him, so I returned home uneasily.
At noon, Uncle Gazi only prepared some food for me.
The others were all frowning, with no appetite at all.
I was anxious too and didn’t feel hungry, but my belly had already started to show a little.
Uncle Gazi said the first three months were especially important.
I hadn’t been careful before, so now I absolutely had to eat properly every meal and take good care of myself.
I forced myself to eat lunch without tasting it.
After that, we sat in the living room, and every few minutes, one of us would get up and run to the door to check outside.
Finally, after a whole day of tension, just as night was about to fall, they were brought back.
When we asked what they had been taken for, they couldn’t explain it either.
They said they were asked some strange questions, then locked in a room for the entire day without being given any food, and then simply released.
No matter what, the fact that they returned safely was enough to put us at ease.
This tense atmosphere lasted for quite a long time.
Even after half a month, people were still occasionally being taken away from the villa district.
You had to understand—those who lived in this villa area were mostly core members.
In the old days, this would’ve been like a gathering place for high-ranking officials in the capital.
The fact that people could come and go here, taking others away as if it were their own home, showed just how serious the situation was.
The conditions in the outer residential areas were probably even worse.
What was even stranger was that Zhou Wen and the others’ plan to officially join the team had been put on hold.
They had gone back to their training grounds to ask about it, but the only response they got was to keep waiting.
And so, our family could only keep the doors tightly shut every day, constantly watching what was happening outside.
Suspecting that there might be internal unrest, we even started assigning night watch duty, just in case something unexpected happened.
It might have seemed overly cautious, but after everything that had happened, we simply didn’t dare take any risks.
Even an old woman could turn out to be someone capable of cutting open a living person’s abdomen.
Who knew if someone might break in under the cover of night?
In the darkness, people could kill—or set fires—and with no one around to stop them, anything was possible.
So even if it felt excessive, we preferred to err on the side of caution to ensure everyone’s safety.
Since we were inside the house, we didn’t need to stay on high alert like before when we were outside.
We only needed two people to stay in the living room at night to watch the front door and the door leading to the backyard.
When it came time to assign shifts, with Han Xue and the others egging me on—and with everyone’s support—we ended up forcefully placing Shen Feng and Xu Shu together on one of the night watch shifts.
Standing nearby, I understood what Shen Feng was thinking and couldn’t help but laugh a little.
He kept shooting me pleading looks for help, but all I could do was shrug helplessly, indicating there was nothing I could do.
Deep down, I still felt that, given Xu Shu’s personal charm, as long as she had more chances to be alone with Shen Feng, the two of them had a pretty good chance of ending up together.
As things outside grew tense, Chen Pu also settled down a lot.
He stayed with us every day and no longer shut himself away in his room like before.
Most of the time, he remained in the living room playing cards with Yangyang and the others, or helping Uncle Gazi tend the small vegetable patch in the backyard.
Otherwise, he would help Lili take care of the two kids.
In short, he was completely different from before—almost like the person we first met.
Although I found this reassuring, as the baby in my belly grew day by day, I became increasingly aware of how important the child was.
So, to be honest, I couldn’t fully trust Chen Pu.
After all, once bitten by a snake, you fear the rope for ten years.
He had poisoned us before.
Even though it hadn’t harmed me in the end, he had done it.
So in daily life, even though I acted as if nothing was wrong and didn’t seem to care, I would never drink any tea he had touched.
If he entered the kitchen while food was being prepared, I would follow him in and watch his every move, making sure nothing dangerous was added to the food.
Every mother wants to protect her child completely.
Even though I hadn’t yet met little Suo Tian, that bond of blood was already there.
I would never take any risks with him again.
Sometimes, when I had nothing to do and went up to the rooftop alone, I would think back to everything that happened when I first became pregnant.
Just recalling those events made me break out in cold sweat, filled with lingering fear, silently blaming myself for being so careless back then.
Amid everyone’s anxiety, that wave of people being taken away—something that had affected nearly every household—finally came to an end.
Gradually, the streets that had been empty for so long began to grow lively again.
We kept our doors shut for a few more days, and only when things outside truly seemed to ease did we finally open them.
But… before we could enjoy a few peaceful days, the weather turned colder.
With the arrival of the cold wind…
Rumors of ghosts haunting the villa district at midnight began to spread from house to house.
— The end of the Chapter–
TL note : Join Patreon to support the translation and to read up to 50 chapters of the release :
https://www.patreon.com/DeCakraWnloverz
