Apocalypse Chapter 19: Mountain Orchard

Chapter 19: Mountain Orchard

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

The dirt on his body was like paint, no matter how many times Jiang Rong washed with shower gel, he couldn’t get rid of it. In the end, he had to use his wood elemental ability to wander around his skin before finally getting rid of the annoying dirt. After he finished washing up, the unpleasant smell in the study hadn’t dissipated. It spread to the living room, making the child cover his nose and the dog roll his eyes.

After some thought, Jiang Rong decided to open the windows for ventilation. As for him and his son, they could take a walk outside. By the time they returned, the smell in the house would probably be gone.

Jiang Rong’s proposal was agreed upon by Jiang Xiaoheng. “Dad, didn’t Grandma and Grandpa say their hometown is not far from our house? I haven’t been to their house yet. Shall we go and take a look?”

Thinking of the Chu family still struggling to get home, Jiang Rong’s eyes dimmed slightly. He nodded slightly, “Okay, get ready. Dad will take you to Uncle Chu’s home.”

The sun outside was scorching hot, but Jiang Xiaoheng had no sense of protection. He wanted to rush into the yard with his bare arms. Jiang Rong grabbed his son’s arm, “Come back, put on some clothes.”

Jiang Xiaoheng’s chubby face became even rounder, and his big eyes were full of complaints. “Dad, it’s so hot outside…”

Jiang Rong skillfully put on sun-protective clothing for his son and explained gently, “The sun is very fierce. If you don’t wear clothes, your skin will get sunburned. Look at this outfit, isn’t it light? It’s protecting your body and blocking harmful things. Feel it, does Dad speak the truth?”

Jiang Xiaoheng touched the cool sleeves on his arms and then smiled in surprise, “Really, Dad, it’s cool and comfortable to touch.”

Jiang Rong bent down to tie his son’s shoelaces. “Yes.” 

There were many mosquitoes in the mountains, and he didn’t want any part of his son’s skin exposed to the air. Suddenly his face was lightly touched by his son. Jiang Rong raised his eyebrows in surprise, “What’s wrong?”

Jiang Xiaoheng blinked as if he had discovered a secret, and lowered his voice, “Dad, your face is even smoother than my clothes, it feels so comfortable to touch.”

Jiang Rong: ???

Before Jiang Xiaoheng could finish, he earnestly said, “Dad, you seem to have gotten whiter.”

Jiang Rong smiled and put a sun hat on his son’s head, “You’ll get whiter if you don’t sunbathe. Remember, a man should have a tan to look healthy.”

After thinking for a moment, Jiang Xiaoheng grabbed the brim of his yellow duck sun hat with both hands and looked up at Jiang Rong with determination. “Then Dad, I want to sunbathe too. I want to become a man too.”

Jiang Rong suppressed him mercilessly, “You don’t need to rush, you’re still a baby, you need to take care of your skin.” 

Children’s skin is delicate, if it gets sunburned, it will be difficult to recover in the future.

Jiang Xiaoheng was a little dissatisfied. He flexed his arms like two tender lotus roots and said to Jiang Rong, “Dad, look at my muscles. I’m already a little man!”

Jiang Rong: …

Blame it on the videos he played in the gym recently, his son had memorized several muscle-building exercises. Seeing that Jiang Xiaoheng was not giving up, Jiang Rong quickly changed the subject, “By the way, son, do you want to eat ice cream?”

Ice cream was Jiang Xiaoheng’s favorite. As soon as he heard this, he reached out to Jiang Rong, “Yes, yes! I want to eat vanilla flavor.”

Jiang Rong took the opportunity, “Okay, but you have to promise Dad to wear a sun hat when you go out.”

With ice cream in hand, who cared about a sun hat? Soon, Jiang Xiaoheng happily licked his popsicle as he walked along the mountain path.

However, Jiang Rong was not so relaxed. He held Lele’s leash with one hand and his son’s hand with the other. In addition, he had a sharp dagger tied to his thigh and a menacing gun behind him. Nowadays, there were many wild beasts in the mountains. If he entered the forest without any precautions, he might lose his life.

Just as the father and son reached the top of the field, Jiang Xiaoheng suddenly saw a wild boar carcass lying across the road. His footsteps slowed down, and he slowly hid behind Jiang Rong.

Seeing his son’s reaction, Jiang Rong’s eyes softened. Of course, he could clear the bones on the road when his son wasn’t paying attention, but he could clean them once or twice, but he couldn’t do it continuously.

His son needed to live in the apocalypse, sooner or later, he had to get used to the corpses of various animals… and humans.

Feeling his son’s suddenly tightened hand, Jiang Rong comforted him, “Son, are you scared?”

After Jiang Xiaoheng nodded and then shook his head, he looked at Jiang Rong’s gentle eyes and said softly, “A little scared, but it’s okay.”

After a pause, he looked at the wild boar bones that had been gnawed by ants, “Dad, what were they when they were alive?”

Jiang Rong said softly, “They were wild boars.”

Jiang Xiaoheng pondered for a moment, then raised his innocent face and asked, “Did the piggy die because it didn’t wear clothes or a sun hat and got sunburned by the sun?”

This question stumped Jiang Rong. He chuckled and prepared to dodge it, “Yes, that’s why Xiaoheng must remember to protect yourself from the sun when going out.”

Jiang Xiaoheng looked down at his sun-protective clothing and mumbled, “Xiaoheng must wear clothes properly, can’t learn from the piggy.”

The mountain path they walked on was only three feet wide. In the undeveloped years, this mountain path was an important passage connecting several villages in the mountains. When he was young, he and Chu Qiang would run along this path several times a day. Later, with the cement road, fewer people walked the mountain path.

The road was paved with fine stones, and the weeds and vines almost blocked the way. If it weren’t for the mutant ants chasing the wild boar passing through here, Jiang Rong wouldn’t even be able to see where the original road was.

If it were him before, seeing such a road condition would definitely be a headache. But now, these vines couldn’t trouble Jiang Rong. Just as Jiang Rong was about to end their lives, he suddenly had a strange idea: since his wood elemental ability affected plants, could he control them to grow according to his will?

With this in mind, Jiang Rong lightly released a bit of his ability between his fingers. His ability landed on the nearest vine to him, and the leaves of the vine that absorbed his ability suddenly became shiny from a withered state, and the vine visibly became thicker.

The creeping ivy clinging to the vines was truly annoying. Jiang Rong couldn’t bear it any longer and directly drained their vitality. With Jiang Rong’s help, the vines soon won the victory in this survival struggle. A large number of vines stretched along the mountain path, and before long, “handrails” woven from vines appeared on both sides of the path, with a pathway in the middle that could accommodate two people.

Jiang Xiaoheng widened his eyes and stared blankly at the vine pathway that appeared out of nowhere, with drops dripping from his ice cream. Jiang Rong reminded him, “Son, your ice cream melted.”

Only then did Jiang Xiaoheng come to his senses. He didn’t care about licking his ice cream anymore and gestured to his dad, “Dad! How did you do that? You’re amazing! I saw you point at the grass a few times, and they turned into walls. Dad, can you do it again?”

Jiang Rong didn’t intend to hide his abilities from his son. If he wanted his son to live well, he had to make him realize the difference between ordinary people and mutants as soon as possible.

He squatted down to tidy up his son’s clothes, “Because Dad is a mutant. Do you remember a few days ago when Dad had a high fever? After that, Dad awakened his wood elemental ability.”

Jiang Xiaoheng tilted his head, trying to understand Jiang Rong’s words, “Dad, what’s a mutant?”

Jiang Rong held his son’s hand and walked slowly into the mountains, explaining what mutants were as they walked. Jiang Xiaoheng seemed to understand vaguely, but he firmly believed in one thing: his dad was very powerful, even more so than the superheroes on TV.

Not only did the vine pathway not block the wind coming from the mountains, but walking in it also brought bursts of coolness. Jiang Rong was very satisfied with this mountain path. He planned to take a walk in the mountains when he had time, using vines as barriers where people walked. If there were mutant animals attacking, the vines could also resist for a while.

The vine pathway stretched for hundreds of meters, penetrating the eastern mountain. At the end of the path was a small stone stream. Under the scorching sun, the water in the stream had dried up, revealing patches of uneven cobblestones and animal bones on the dried riverbed.

Looking at the stream full of bones, Jiang Rong sighed lightly. Jiang Xiaoheng was obviously frightened by the bones all over the riverbed. He couldn’t help but stick close to Jiang Rong, as if wanting to hug his dad’s thigh.

Jiang Rong looked at the winding riverbed with a complex expression, his voice full of nostalgia, “Dad used to catch fish and shrimp with your Uncle Chu in this stream when Dad was young…”

At that time, the mountains were green and the air was fresh, with no terrifying mutant plants and animals, nor so-called mutants. There were birds singing and flowers blooming in the mountains, and children’s carefree laughter. But all of this came to a halt with the arrival of the Great Crisis, and could never be returned to again.

The wind blew from the mountains, carrying a foul odor and unbearable heat. After staying by the stone stream for a while, Jiang Rong picked up his son and walked to the other side.

The vegetation on the opposite mountain was sparse, with some distance between each tree. Before the Great Crisis, this was an orchard. Many of the carefully cultivated fruit trees did not survive the catastrophe. At this moment, their leaves were withered and curled, and the unripe fruits hung sadly on the branches.

However, some fruit trees became more vibrant after the crisis. For example, Jiang Xiaoheng keenly saw some tall trees not far away, with red fruits hanging on them. Regardless of the heat and danger, Jiang Xiaoheng pulled his dad’s hand and walked towards the tree, “Dad, Dad, look, there are fruits over there.”

Jiang Rong looked over and saw several lush waxberry trees growing on the gentle slope. June was the season when waxberries ripened, and the branches of the waxberry trees were full of red waxberries. Some of the waxberries near the top of the tree had turned black and were ready to be picked.

This was an unexpected joy. In his previous life, he didn’t notice this waxberry tree when he discovered this orchard.

Jiang Rong patted his son’s head gently, “You and Lele stay here and don’t move. Dad will pick some waxberries for you.”

The waxberry tree was quite tall, and to pick the waxberries on the crown, one had to climb the tree. This was no problem for Jiang Rong, who had developed skills to obtain food in his previous life.

Jiang Rong climbed up the trunk a few times and quickly picked a small handful of dark red waxberries. At this moment, Lele called out a few times, and Jiang Xiaoheng also followed suit, “Dad—”

Thinking that his son was getting impatient, he responded, “Almost there, almost there, I’ll be right there.”

As he slid down the trunk, he saw two middle-aged people appear beside his son. One held a firewood knife, and the other held a bamboo pole. From their attire, these two were obviously the owners of the orchard.

Jiang Xiaoheng stood between the two with an embarrassed expression, “Dad…”

At this moment, Lele barked a few times. Jiang Rong followed the sound and saw a fierce large wolf dog sitting beside Lele. This dog was obviously a mutant, with a body as strong as a young calf. At this moment, its big paw was pressing down on Lele’s head, preventing him from moving, while silly Lele was wagging his tail, looking aggrieved.

Jiang Rong was speechless.

 

 

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