Chang turned to the one-armed woman, saying, "Zhizhi, I'll leave him to you. Please make sure he doesn't escape from the bar. Today was a long day for both of us, so when you're done, you should get some rest. By the way, Jing didn't go out today, did she?"

"Nope, I locked her in her room," Zhizhi replied.

"Great..." Chang nodded. "Thinking about Jing four years ago, she was so cute and quiet back then. But when the p.u.b.erty hit, she changed..."

Chang opened a door that lead to a suite, shaking his head. The layout of the bar was designed for both living and operating the business. He took out a chain of keys and picked one of them to unlock the room in front of him. The person who sat inside the room was a teen girl, her hair bleached to platinum blonde.

"I'm back," Chang said to the girl sitting on the bed cross-legged. Her fingers were busy with typing on the keyboard, the pale light reflecting on her pupils.

"I know. I knew you're back before you even came into the bar."

The girl glanced at Chang, rolling her round eyes.

"Can you dye your hair back to black tomorrow? And wear more clothes, can you?" Chang stood in front of the girl, staring at her pink gauze dress. A stream of blue rose in his heart, his brows tying together. "You should wear decent clothes that suit your age. Can't you at least wear something casual at home? Or at least change into a pajama or something that covers your skin?"

"I don't care what you think, you aren't even my dad."

The girl kept tapping on the keyboard.

"I'm your brother!" The girl's att.i.tude finally irritated Chang, but he took a deep breath instead, repressing the growing rage that swept across his mind. "Are you still mad at me interfering with your relations.h.i.+p?"

"Oh yeah!" The girl put aside the computer upon hearing Chang bringing up the topic. She changed her posture to lean on the bed's board more comfortably. "Who are you to interfere my life?"

"I'm your brother!" Chang exclaimed again. "And it doesn't really even matter who I am to interfere with your relations.h.i.+p. You just can't date that guy! He is merely a ruffian fooling around on the street. He' a human disaster that has been hurting girls over these blocks! If you were to find him again, I promise you, I'll shoot him in the face."

"Whatever, you can shoot as many people as you like. Do I look like I give a sh*t about it?"

The girl rolled her eyes again, pouring scorn on his threat.

"Then why are you dating him? Is there something wrong with your mind?" The rage was lit up completely with the girl's careless att.i.tude. He pointed his finger at her. "Look at you! What have you become? With all this heavy make-up, what do you want with it? And your hair! You're the same as those hipsters back in 2000. Jing, what do you want? Can't you just be more mature after the bad days we'd gone through?"

"So, you like mature types?"

The girl leaned aside, making a seductive posture upon hearing Chang.

"Can you just listen to my words?" Chang pulled her ankle so that her posture was adjusted. "Jing, return to the normal you, please."

"I'm perfectly normal, the one who is strange is you. You can't even face your own feelings." Suddenly, the girl was peaved by Chang's request. She kicked at his stomach with great force, then stood up on the bed, overlooking Chang. "What has gone wrong with me? Why are you nagging about all this bullsh*t everyday after coming back? Do you even care about me?

"Did I even ask you for anything? Why are you restricting me so much? Just tell me you're disgusted by me or something, what are you doing all this for? Are you trying to forsake me?" Jing curled her lips. "I think your life will be pretty much the same without me! Now that you've evolved even more, your nose is more sensitive than Zhizhi's, and I just became useless since you're capable of resolving any kind of difficulties. I know that I'm no longer useful to you. You can say it if you want me to leave!"

"Go ahead!" Chang shouted. "Go ahead and live your own life then!"

"Right, right! Finally you say it!" The girl burst into tears when Chang yelled. "You really want to drive me out from here!"

"F*ck! We can't talk on this, we'll never come to an agreement." Her crying eased his anger, but he was even more troubled now. "Whatever, you can do whatever you want to. But I'm telling you, if you don't get back into normal clothes and remove all that make-up as well as agree to stop dating that guy, you won't get out of this room."

"I can be 'normal' in your sense, I can dump him as well. However," the girl spoke while sobbing, "you have to be normal as well. We'll share the same bed as how we always did back in the days, and you'll take me around wherever you go. Otherwise, don't expect me to change!"

"How can we... You're sixteen now! You're almost an adult, how can we share the same bed again?" His headache came with Jing's repeated request. "Have you seen any sixteen-year-old girl sharing s bed with her dad?"

"You aren't my dad, and I don't even know who my father is!"

"Indeed I'm not your dad, but I'm your brother! Alright, alright, I don't care about what you want to be but you won't leave this room tomorrow either."

Chang banged the door closed as he left, and immediately, a vase smashed on the other side.

The shattering sound caused Chang's headache to become more severe; his temples ached in a rhythm. He could do nothing for the situation, so he returned to his own room with a heavy sigh.

When he entered his own room, Zhizhi knocked on the door before coming in.

"What's wrong? You argued with Jing again?" she asked, sitting down next to him.

"Life is too peaceful for her now, and she is causing trouble to get my attention. Look at her makeup and everything, she isn't Jing anymore." Chang inhaled deeply to release the stress put on his mind. "She used to be a good sister to me, and she is a girl with strong mentality. What changed her?"

"I think she has her own desires." Zhizhi made a lopsided smile. "Did you not feel her affection to you?"

"I knew about it since a long time ago, and I do like her, in the way of a brother." Chang pressed on his temple, attempting to reduce the pain. "The most important thing is that, if I were to fall in love with her, the relations.h.i.+p will constantly remind me of incest. And this notion keeps me away from her."

"Then why are you interfering with her relations.h.i.+ps with other guys though? You should let her go."

Zhizhi laughed wholeheartedly.

"I'm just easily triggered when I see that guy; he's a pure ruffian. I'll be fine if she finds someone that treats her well, as long as the guy isn't a gangster... Ugh! I should stop talking about this, it's making me angrier." Chang picked up his gun on the table, saying, "I need some air."

"You aren't going to find that guy, are you?"

"We'll see."

Chang shut the door as he left. Zhizhi didn't stop him neither with action nor verbally. She smiled to his back and removed her jacket. She fell onto the soft bed, closing her eyes.

Chang wandered around on the street at midnight, aimlessly roaming among the buildings that were constructed in new era style.

Most of these buildings were reconstructed from the buildings from four years ago, but the appearance was greatly different. The architecture lost its vividness as they all were in different shades of gray. All the cuboids in the city had some sort of add-ons on them, transforming establishments to what they called the post-apocalypticism style.

The city was free of wild plants but for fields saved for cultivation. The crops grown there were of all shapes and colors that hadn't been seen before the apocalypse. The residents in downtown areas even began to have nightlife since most of the threats—except for the sewage, which remained unexplored—were eliminated.

Four years ago, the purge of plants made urban greenery go extinct. Those insects and animals who lurked within lost their homes. To survive, they fled into the jungle for a new place to stay.

Now, humans had regained autonomy of this land.

After undergoing four years of development, the social structure had completely rebuilt as well.

The currency system survived but the currency itself had changed. Without economic, the society couldn't prosper. Bartering was strictly forbidden even though it was practiced for a few months, so money was still the value symbol for trade.

　　政.治體制仍舊是城邦制,正規軍一直在研究所的控制之下,和研究所結合成了一個新興的集.權政府,而目前政府的首腦人物被推上臺面的是一個叫做"謝航"的人,他似乎在一把抓着整個城市的軍.政大權.

The political structure remained city-state, and the military was controlled by the reseach inst.i.tute. The power was centralized in the inst.i.tute instead of a formal government. And the person who played as a puppet on the surface was a man called "Hang Xie". He seemed to the head of the military.

However, what was disguised beneath was the fact that except for Hang, the other man who was on the top of the heriarchy, was the person who had his head portrait printed on the money bills - Qing Shui Li.

Drunk men and women were tottering and staggering home on the street of Zhengzhou state.

If seemed like drinking became the sole entertainment for everyone after the apocalypse—as long as they still had a few bills in their pockets, as long as they wouldn't starve.

In this new world, planning ahead was no longer a habit. Mortgage, education, marriage, all of them became less important. Living in the moment was the trend that everyone chased. After all, urban life and disipline was still not a solid guarantee for living through the apocalypse.

The pressure of surviving was the driving force for getting drunk. This way, those who survived opened their hearts to talk over their lost loved ones.

Chang was the same, he always talked about his parents and grandma when he was drunk.

Four years was neither long nor short, yet Qing Shui no longer sent him news about his family anymore. Those who pa.s.sed away became history, and Chang lost a big part in his heart that took away his smile.

"Sweetheart, do you need some service?" While Chang was cheris.h.i.+ng the memory of the deceased, a woman came up to him. "I'm only asking for 70 State Yuan, which is the price for one kilogram of Crystal Pea. How is it? It isn't expensive, right?"

"It's not, but I'm not in that mood." Chang edged away from the woman to keep on walking. But his s.h.i.+rt was pulled from behind. "Please, life is hard for as single women... If I can't earn anything today, I will run out of food tomorrow."

"Well then, would you mind having a talk with me while we walk?"

Chang took out a hundred State Yuan bill and handed it to the woman.