How to Raise a Baby in an Apocalypse - Chapter 209

Liu Yuan crouches in front of Anran and Yun Tao, holding Heng Heng with her uninjured arm.

Heng Heng sits close to Liu Yuan, clinging to her silently.

As Liu Yuan finally registers the pain in her arm, she frowns. Examining the wound—a small chunk of flesh torn away—she speaks with some concern.

“It hurts a lot… but I don’t know if I’ll get infected with some zombie virus from this bite.”

“I’ve been bitten. It’s fine.” Anran speaks casually as she stuffs another biscuit into her mouth. Then, carefully, she crawls two steps toward the escalator.

Liu Yuan grabs her from behind. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for crystal cores. It’s fine.”

Still trembling, Anran turns back to glance at Liu Yuan before continuing on her hands and knees. When she reaches the escalator, where lilies bloom densely, she takes a deep breath and settles herself among the flowers to rest.

She looks like someone suffering from extreme hunger or low blood sugar. Liu Yuan had given her an entire box of children’s biscuits, but the deep hunger inside her isn’t just physical. Her powers have been overdrawn—food alone can’t replenish them. She needs crystal cores.

After a brief rest, Anran searches through the flowers around her, picks out a few small crystal cores, and quickly absorbs them.

Slowly, strength returns to her limbs. Carefully, she stands up from the escalator and leans against the guardrail to observe the situation below.

The flowers on the first floor have completely withered. Without Anran’s power to sustain them, they are just ordinary plants—unable to stop the zombies. The undead trample them underfoot, crushing their fragile petals with ease.

Now, the first-floor lobby is flooded with zombies pouring in from Gate No. 1. The underground supermarket entrance is blocked by a pile of cars, some tilted up, some down, but not side to side. Zombies aren’t great climbers, so only a few manage to crawl over the wreckage. This means Gate No. 1 is the main point of entry for the horde.

With more zombies gathering, they naturally find their way toward the escalator. Among them, some have a sharper sense of smell. Like bloodhounds, they sniff the air, wandering toward the floral scent and leading their companions up the escalator.

Exhausted, Anran slumps against the escalator. Digging through the bones, she fishes out a few crystal cores and slides down two steps. Then, she uses her power to grow a lily at the base of the escalator.

Her plan is simple—cut off the zombies’ path first, then grow a towering flower wall on the escalator to completely block their access to the second floor.

As she moves downward, she continues collecting crystal cores along the way.

Below, the lilies at the escalator’s entrance have long been trampled into pulp by the horde. But as Anran channels her power, they slowly sprout anew. Their stems grow, and just as a white flower blossoms, a scent-sensitive zombie clambers onto the escalator, crawling toward her.

The moment it steps onto the newly-formed lily, the flower’s tendrils wrap around its foot—devouring it within seconds.

The zombie doesn’t even register the pain. It howls twice, calling for its companions, before being completely consumed.

More zombies follow, stepping over the remains of the first, their decayed hands reaching for the escalator.

Seeing them climb higher and higher, Anran instinctively steps back.

But her powers are drained once again. These small crystal cores are barely enough to sustain her.

Her legs give out.

She stumbles, her foot catching on a tangle of lily stems.

Then, she falls—collapsing onto the escalator.

Author’s Note: 

This book has received a lot of criticism lately, but I truly feel I’ve made progress. In my past works, many readers focused on how the protagonist’s worldview was flawed. But with this book, those criticisms have finally disappeared.

So please trust me—I will only continue to improve with each story. Really.