"Mom, where are the debt collectors?" big brother Ye Ying asked. "How did we end up back in our beds? Did you and Dad move us?"
"No, it was your older sister who drove them off. Didn’t you see the wounds on her face?"
"Big sis, does it hurt?"
The young little sister, still a caring little treasure, took Ye Nai’s hand and gently blew on the red marks on her knuckles.
"It doesn’t, I’m used to fighting."
"Big sis is so aweso!"
The two younger brothers leaned in, looking at their big sister with admiration in their eyes.
"So many of them, and big sister drove them all away by herself?"
"That’s right, they too have their weak points. First, they didn’t expect to fight back desperately, and second, the lending company is mainly after the money. I’m not afraid to die, but they don’t want to accompany to the grave. In the end, they just left a few harsh words and fled."
"Will they co back?" The three younger siblings looked at their big sister with wide eyes.
"What do you think? With principal and interest it’s 210,000, who wouldn’t want it?"
"That’s true."
"It’s a good thing big sis got here quickly. I was scared to death last night."
"Yeah, so scary."
"This ti you were lucky; they still prioritize money. Once they stop worrying about the money and start escalating their thods, it will beco even harder to pay them back."
"If not money, then what? Our house?"
"What value does a house like ours have? What’s valuable are you three. So gangs like to take boys in puberty to train as thugs, while girls are preferred by pedophiles. Pedophiles, huh, everyone has their favorite type, and so people just love prepubescent little girls."
Ye Nai repeated to the three of them what she had said to her little sister before.
"...What?!"
"Then what about Mom and Dad?"
"Their organs and bones can be sold for so money."
The three younger siblings shivered, feeling a cold draft on their backs even at ho.
"This world is so terrifying."
"Huh, there are perverts everywhere in this world, unleashing their power at will, causing deep harm and leaving people unable to guard against them. To obtain their perfect prey, they disguise themselves as normal people. You think you’ve t a new friend in a safe place, but who can guarantee that person is a true friend?"
"How can normal people even distinguish such perverts?"
"That’s right, it’s tough to distinguish them. That’s why perverts keep getting away with it ti and again. Once an incident happens, no clues for tracing them can be found. They also know how to evade the police. Their preferred thod is to lure the person away, making their target follow them willingly. If everything is done voluntarily, who could predict that once you leave, you’d vanish from the world with no trace left?"
"Big sis—" the little sister hugged Ye Nai’s thigh tightly. "This is too scary. From now on, after school, I’ll just go straight ho and not think about going out to play. I don’t want to encounter a pervert."
" too, too!"
The twin brothers expressed their agreent.
"Telling is pointless; I can’t stay at ho. You need to make sure Mom and Dad don’t do anything foolish to ensure the safety of our ho. The lending companies are basically entangled with gang forces, and the debt collectors are actually the gang’s enforcers. Each one of them is a tough fighter. This ti they left because I was more ruthless than them, but what if there is a next ti? What if next ti a truly ruthless one cos? Who will save you then?"
The three younger siblings looked at each other, and through their expressions, they made a resolution.
"Don’t worry, big sis, we will keep an eye on Mom and Dad. If there’s any ergency, we’ll call you."
"You must do as you say."
"Definitely!"
The younger brothers and sister had been thoroughly frightened, and now, thinking back, they couldn’t help but feel weak in the knees and shiver. No one wanted to go through that again, so they had to keep an eye on their unreliable parents to prevent any more foolish actions.
"Good, I hope I don’t receive a call from you guys reporting any trouble."
Ye Nai patted each of them to comfort them. She looked up to see their dad coming out and nudged her older brother, Ye Yong.
"Dad’s finished, you should go take your shower."
"Hmm."
With a two-bedroom apartnt for so many people, they had to take turns using the bathroom. Ye Nai felt an increasing urgency to settle the household issues and return to the danger zone.
The large apartnt she rented every month for a few thousand yuan, although she couldn’t stay there for many days a month, was her most comfortable private realm whenever she was ho.
The family took turns washing up and eating stead buns, then cleaned the house. Ye Nai sat motionless on the balcony, only lifting her foot when her younger sister swept up to it with a broom. Otherwise, she was engrossed in playing Bubble Dragon; aside from the sound of her handheld ga console, the only other noises in the house were her mother giving cleaning instructions and even her father, who couldn’t slack off from chores either.
After the three youngest finished their tasks, they gathered around their big sister, eagerly watching her play the ga. They had never had such sophisticated toys in their household before.
Handheld gaming consoles with entertainnt purposes were luxury items, mainly because of the raw material issue. With limited chipmaking materials available, military chips got the priority. As a result, consur products were put at the bottom of the list, which naturally led to higher prices. Before the Otherworld invasion, a handheld console plus a ga card might cost only a few thousand yuan; now, it might cost over ten thousand yuan and still might not perform as well as the pre-invasion gas.
That’s why classic simple gas like Bubble Dragon and Block Building, which consud fewer resources, still remained vigorous in terms of Life Force.
"Big sis, after you finish this level, can I have a turn playing?"
Ye Yong, the older brother, couldn’t help but ask.
"I want to as well."
" too."
The second brother and younger sister couldn’t resist chiming in as well.
"OK, take turns. If the ga dies, the next person gets a turn."
When Ye Nai finished the level she was on, she handed the console to her older brother. The three siblings imdiately crowded together, chattering and bickering about where to shoot the next bubble. Accidentally, a finger touched the screen, causing a bubble to land in the wrong spot, which imdiately led to an argunt.
"Hmm? Stop fighting," Ye Nai, who had shifted to playing on her phone, didn’t even lift her head as issued a warning.
"Big sis, look what he did; he made lose!" the older brother imdiately tattled.
"You get one chance at a revival. If the ga dies, you can keep playing one more ti. If you lose then, we switch players. The sa goes for everyone else. If your hand slips, you wait an extra turn."
"Alright, we won’t touch it randomly anymore," the younger brother and sister obediently put their hands behind their backs.
"Hmm~" The older brother was pleased.
The three youngsters stopped making a fuss, so Ye Nai continued looking at her phone.
She had just received a ssage on her phone stating that two male captains would co to her house pretending to be from the rental company to collect rent. Following her instructions, one of them was the burly Captain Niu, and the other was Captain Xiao Ni, creating an image that suggested strength followed by subtlety.
After about ten minutes, the two captains had ssaged Ye Nai to inform her that they had arrived at the bottom of her apartnt building and were waiting for the elevator.
Ye Nai put away her phone, stood up, and stretched as if she were tired from playing.
The younger siblings were engrossed in the ga, not looking up at all.
Her mom was busy in the kitchen preparing lunch, and her dad was scrolling through short videos on his phone on the couch. It seed like a cozy family scene.
Ye Nai walked towards the kitchen to check what her mom was cooking for lunch. She had bought a few pounds of live shrimp at the supermarket and was wondering if they’d have so for lunch.
Unfortunately, the two dishes prepared were both vegetables, plus so leftovers from the day before. The live shrimp were still in the kitchen sink.
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