How to Raise a Baby in an Apocalypse - Chapter 223

No one knows how much time has passed when Little Mint, covered in blood, slowly walks into the children’s playground.

Anran, sitting on the ground, is stunned. She looks up at Little Mint—she moves freely, her clothes are intact. That means the blood isn’t hers. But if she has been bitten by a zombie…

Her heart clenches. The sight of a zombie bite has left a deep psychological scar on her.

Little Mint stops in front of her, lifting her bloodstained palm. Dark red and black streaks cover her skin, and nestled in her palm is a round crystal core, about the size of a marble.

But it isn’t the usual clear crystal. It’s gold.

Anran frowns, staring at the golden core before looking up at Little Mint in confusion. Her face is devoid of emotion—no sadness, no pain. Her voice is eerily calm.

“I dug this out of the brain of that very powerful zombie,” she says.

Then, without another word, she places the golden core in Anran’s hand and turns away, continuing her search for more crystal cores.

Anran remains seated in the children’s playground, staring at the heavy golden crystal in her palm. It doesn’t look like a typical core—it resembles a copper bead. She doesn’t dare absorb it recklessly and decides to observe it for now.

In the days that follow, Heng Heng cries for his mother every time he wakes up. He fights fiercely, rejecting Yun Tao completely.

Anran avoids Heng Heng as much as possible. She can’t bear to face his questions, nor does she have the courage to tell him the truth about Liu Yuan.

She notices, however, that Yun Tao treats Heng Heng as if he were his own child. No matter how much the boy cries, screams, or resists, Yun Tao never leaves his side. He holds Heng Heng all day and all night, comforting him tirelessly. He has no time to kill zombies anymore.

So Anran takes on more responsibility. She becomes the main force against the zombie horde, fighting them back and defending the others.

Fortunately, the bronze-skinned, iron-boned zombie is dead. Without it, the zombies outside the mall are no match for Anran’s flower wall.

When Heng Heng finally cries himself to exhaustion, Anran carries Doll out of the children’s playground. She takes Little Mint to the lily field on the first floor, searching for crystal cores.

Liu Yuan’s sacrifice has been painful, but it has also triggered something in Yun Tao. His power has taken a massive leap forward—at least twice as strong as before.

Anran thinks back to the gas station. At the time, the Green Dragon tattooed man’s power ability had been at Level 2. Now, Yun Tao is likely at Level 3.

But what about her?

How does her strange ability over plants and flowers fit into the classification of power users?

And then there’s the issue of zombie bites.

Anran has been bitten twice, yet she remains uninfected. Liu Yuan has also survived her first bite. But why has the bronze-skinned, iron-boned zombie’s bite been fatal to her?

Does this mean that, in the early days of the outbreak, zombies weren’t yet venomous? Has the virus grown stronger over time?

When Liu Yuan was bitten by an ordinary zombie the first time, her body fought off the infection—possibly because she was a power user. At the time, she suffered from a fever.

Wasn’t that fever a sign that her body had produced antibodies to resist the virus?

But the second time, when she was bitten by the stronger zombie, it was like injecting a surge of poison straight into her system—like enemy reinforcements arriving in the middle of a battle her body was already losing.

And just like that, she collapses.

That must be it.

Anran doesn’t have experience surviving in an apocalypse. All she can do is analyze and adapt.

One thing is clear: from now on, she will avoid all contact with zombies. If she ever gets bitten once, she will make sure she is never bitten a second time.

Because these are lessons written in blood.