The bald man hesitated, his boots shifting in the dirt as he weighed his options. The Imperial Capital was already a dangerous place, a labyrinth of power where one could easily stumble upon someone they couldn't afford to mess with. Now that this woman had witnessed their actions, he knew he couldn't just make a move. Even if he tried, he likely wouldn't win. He wondered if this was where his life ended today. He could gamble, but the consequences were something he simply couldn't bear. If something went wrong, there would be no coming back.
Jing Shu shook the frail bundle in her hand, the movement rattling the small figure. "Forget it. From what I have seen of the Yunzhou Medicinal Herb Association's so-called medical ethics, you people don't care about human lives. Since that's the case, I will take this one off your hands. As for how you explain it later, that's your problem."
She turned and walked away without waiting for a reply, the stiff little bundle dangling from her hand as she moved through the shadows.
"What do we do now, boss? She just walked off with the kid," someone muttered, the voice barely a whisper in the quiet night.
The bald man's frustration boiled over. "Hey! Miss! At least tell us your name! We need something to report!" He didn't actually care about the girl's life; he just needed a plausible story to cover himself when the inspectors arrived.
"You are not worthy," Jing Shu said flatly. She turned her head and raised her fist slightly. It was a silent warning that if they asked again, she will really beat them up.
She vanished into the darkness with the motionless child in hand, leaving the group frozen in place like statues. After a long silence, one of the men finally spoke. "Boss, so... we just let her go?"
The bald man kicked him hard, his heavy boot connecting with a dull thud. "What else can we do? You want to chase her? Go on, try it! Damn it!" He kicked the man a few more times to vent his anger before wiping the blood off his face and spitting on the ground. "We are leaving. We will just report her dead."
Whatever happened with the Yunzhou Medicinal Herb Association after that, Jing Shu didn't know. Acting on impulse, she had taken the child, or whatever the girl had become, away from the chaos. All she had thought at the time was that if this girl stayed in those men's hands, she would be doomed.
Jing Shu had seen enough death in her life to last a hundred years. She had collected more corpses than she could count and had seen people die in all kinds of ways. Her heart had grown numb to it all over time. But there was one thing she still couldn't turn away from: children.
"So what now? What am I supposed to do with you? Oh right, what is your name?" Jing Shu asked, gently shaking the little lump in her hand. The child, curled tightly into a ball, didn't respond. She had fallen asleep, her jaw no longer tight and her teeth no longer baring like they were before. Covered in a thick layer of mud and filth, the small, frail thing looked pitifully fragile in the dim light.
"Let's call you Wanzi," Jing Shu murmured.
"Alright, I will take you back to Wu City first." She decided to bring the child home and think about what to do later. A thought flashed across her mind; this kid might actually help her confirm a theory she had been turning over in her head.
"Maybe I should let you meet Hao Yunlai. You will both absorbed crimson energy, so maybe you will understand each other," Jing Shu said softly to herself, her voice barely a breath in the night air.
There's an old saying that only by defeating something can you make it submit. Perhaps that's why Wanzi stayed obediently by her side as they traveled. But the moment anyone else came close, the child bared her teeth and growled like a cornered animal. Jing Shu sighed. No one else could deal with this mess, so she had to do it herself.
She grabbed a basin of warm water and gave Wanzi a bath, scrubbing away the layers of grime until she could see the girl's pale skin. Once she was clean, Jing Shu wrapped her in a big, warm coat. The girl looked much better without the mud masking her features.
Wanzi still couldn't speak. Her intelligence seemed to be about the same as a five-year-old's, though her movements were strange. She moved with a low, crouching gait that was almost like an ape's, though not quite. Her strength, however, was shocking. It was far greater than any adult's, and she was incredibly quick. This explained how she had managed to escape from a dozen grown men.
The girl's appetite was tiny, much like a cat's, and she was remarkably picky. Jing Shu tried giving her a homemade egg burger, but the girl refused to eat it. Instead, she went after Xiao Dou's eggs.
"Really? Raw eggs? That's what you want?" Jing Shu muttered as she watched the girl. "Is this some kind of beast instinct after regression?"
Cooked food should have been fine. No creature in history rejected cooked meat. Or did ancient apes only eat bananas? Jing Shu wondered where she was supposed to get bananas in the middle of the apocalypse. She had some stored in her Cube Space, but she couldn't take them out without risking discovery. Even if Wanzi wasn't that smart, Jing Shu couldn't risk exposing her secret.
She tried several other foods, but Wanzi refused them all. Honestly, only Jing Shu could afford to offer such a variety of rare supplies. Anyone else would have just let the child starve.
In the end, the biggest surprise was that Wanzi actually liked sausages. She munched on them happily, just like a kitten with a treat. After eating two, she was full. Jing Shu felt a small sting of regret. Those sausages were apocalypse-era delicacies that had long since disappeared from the world. She only sliced them up for instant noodles or hotpot on rare occasions. Every sausage eaten was one less that she would ever have.
"Fine, whatever," Jing Shu sighed, letting the thought go.
She didn't think much more about Wanzi's behavior, but something unexpected happened. The kid, who was wary and hostile toward every other human, got along perfectly with Xiao Dou. Maybe, in Wanzi's eyes, Xiao Dou was her own kind.
"Cluck cluck cluck!"
Like a protective hen guarding her chick, Xiao Dou stood in front of Wanzi. The chicken's plump, towering body was even bigger than Wanzi's crouched form. Whenever they walked, Wanzi always followed right behind the bird. It was as if Xiao Dou was silently saying that if there's danger, she will handle it first.
And so, Jing Shu left Wanzi in Xiao Dou's care. Letting a chicken babysit a human child sounded absurd, but somehow, it actually worked.
Jing Shu handed most of her follow-up work to Wang Danai while she got back to her busy schedule. There were competition rewards to collect, the sale price of the Bodhi to finalize, and plans to open a new pharmaceutical factory in the capital. She pushed all of it aside for the moment. The competition had gone too smoothly, and Wu City's team would leave the capital in three days. That was all the time she had to finish her plans.
First on the list was fulfilling her agreement with Jun Bao. Together with Song Bin, she headed to the Biotech Research Lab to sign the contract. She hadn't expected much, but what she found still shocked her. When she heard the words "research lab," she had pictured something like Qian Duoduo's private lab: high-tech, futuristic, and neatly equipped with the latest technology.
But Jun Bao's lab turned out to be a renovated, abandoned cave located outside the capital. And it wasn't just any cave. A huge, reeking biogas pit blocked the entrance, the smell of it thick and suffocating. She wondered why there was even a biogas pit in front of the cave in the first place.
"Careful, Miss Jing, the road is rough here," Song Bin said with an awkward smile. Heaven help him, he wondered what kind of hellish job Young Master Jun had given him this time. Calling it a rough road was a joke. There was no road at all. He hated coming to this deathtrap more than anything, especially having to wade through that pit, which was basically a swamp of filth.
Everyone here was insane.
But he couldn't refuse the order, so he just kept smiling and muttered to himself, "Come on, you have got this, let's go."
They used a special transport to cross the foul swamp. Faint light flickered from inside the damp cave. Fully armed, Jing Shu stood at the highest point of the transport, frowning as she looked down at the entrance.
"What the hell is this place? This is supposed to be a lab?"
Song Bin laughed weakly, almost crying as he began to explain.
===
Jing Shu gave her name 丸子 (wánzi). This means "ball" or "sphere," but it's most commonly used for food items like meatball, fishball, or a sticky rice ball.