From Apocalypse Boss to Farmer: My Vegetables Make Me Stronger!-Chapter 181 - 172: Just to Live

Gu Xi thought for a moment, told Shen Yue to head back first, and then went to find Li Ming.

"Xiaoxi." Li Ming opened the door. He had recovered some of his health recently. Although he still looked old, his complexion was much better, and he had even gained a little weight.

Gu Xi closed the door behind her and pushed his wheelchair into the room. "Wei Heng’s matter has been resolved."

Gu Xi had already discussed this with Li Ming on the way to the Superpower Union Building.

Sitting in his wheelchair, Li Ming nodded. "That’s good."

To be honest, he wasn’t worried about Wei Heng.

After all, given their current situation, the Chen sisters were more afraid of death than anyone.

Gu Xi lowered her head slightly, silent for a moment before speaking. "Chen Lu said that you had Xiao Yu deliver something a few days ago..."

Li Ming’s hands, resting on his legs, curled slightly. Then, he nodded. "Yes, that’s right."

Gu Xi moved to stand in front of him and crouched down to meet his gaze. "Ming, I need to know. What was it?"

Not "want to know," but "need to know."

The shift in wording made Gu Xi’s attitude clear.

Li Ming sighed. "Xiaoxi, it’s not a good thing..."

"But it has something to do with me, doesn’t it?" Gu Xi looked into his eyes, interrupting him calmly.

Li Ming looked back at her. ’After so many years, some things just can’t be hidden forever.’

After a long moment, he nodded.

"What is it?" Gu Xi asked.

But Li Ming wheeled himself around her, heading toward the floor-to-ceiling window.

He pulled open the curtains and looked out. After a long while, he finally spoke. "Xiaoxi, that year, the apocalypse suddenly broke out, and the whole world changed..."

On the day the apocalypse began, in the midst of the chaos, a young Li Ming was pushed out of a car by his own uncle’s family.

The shivering little boy hid and scurried through a city filled with monsters, until finally, in a patch of ruins, he faintly heard a baby crying.

He followed the sound and found the mangled corpse of a woman and, beside her, a newborn baby girl.

The baby girl was covered in blood and filth, her umbilical cord still uncut, but her cries were shockingly loud.

Anyone could tell she was a very healthy child.

’But what good was that?’

The world had changed. Man-eating monsters were everywhere. He wouldn’t survive, and this newborn baby girl had even less of a chance.

The young boy stood a short distance away, watching calmly for a moment before turning to leave, his heart cold.

But soon, he stumbled back.

It wasn’t because he’d had a change of heart. It was because he realized that while man-eating monsters roamed all around, for some unknown reason, they all gave this specific area a wide berth.

Having lived under someone else’s roof and experienced the harsh realities of life from a young age, Li Ming was a very precocious and intelligent child.

He searched the surrounding area and quickly zeroed in on the baby girl.

Besides him, she was the only living thing there.

Li Ming walked toward the baby girl, lost in thought.

The baby lay beside the corpse with her eyes closed, her cries sporadic.

Li Ming squatted beside her like that, watching her for a whole night.

In the darkness, the roars of monsters echoed from all directions, and the stench of blood and decay enveloped the entire city.

The young boy shivered, hugging himself until the sky began to lighten. He stood up, moved his stiff and numb limbs, and looked up at the monsters roaming in the distance, monsters that never came any closer.

Gradually, the look in the boy’s eyes changed. He had finally made up his mind.

The next moment, the boy threw himself down next to the corpse, viciously bit through the baby’s umbilical cord, wrapped her in his own filthy jacket, and picked her up with trembling hands.

At that moment, the sun finally broke through the clouds, shining on the baby’s blood-streaked face. The little infant opened her eyes and unclenched her tiny, tight fists.

A small, brown, pea-sized pebble appeared before Li Ming’s eyes.

At first, he just thought it was a small stone she had accidentally picked up off the ground while crying by herself the day before.

But Li Ming soon discovered something was wrong.

The city was full of man-eating monsters, and... people more terrifying than monsters. He carried the baby girl, hiding here and there, and the food he could find was extremely limited.

Back then, Li Ming was already starving. When he finally found something to eat, of course he had to take care of himself first.

To put it bluntly, back then, Gu Xi was nothing more than a tool to ward off monsters in Li Ming’s eyes.

Only after Li Ming finished eating did he remember the baby next to him.

He turned his head and saw the little baby girl he had found sucking on the small stone in her hand...

In that instant, Li Ming felt a surge of panic, mixed with guilt.

He instinctively tried to take the small stone from the baby’s hand, but discovered... he was frozen in place.

After a good while, not until the baby let go of the stone with her mouth, did Li Ming regain control of his body.

Later, this happened several more times.

Li Ming discovered that the child he’d found didn’t seem to need food. ’Could she survive just by gnawing on a stone?’

Even though he was young, Li Ming—who had already completed senior kindergarten and was just one diploma short of graduating—quickly realized that this stone must be an extraordinary treasure.

Such a treasure in the hands of a baby who knew nothing was, naturally, a waste of a priceless object.

When the baby wasn’t looking, Li Ming took the stone and eagerly put it in his mouth—but after just one bite, he was in excruciating pain for days, nearly turning into one of those man-eating monsters himself.

He didn’t even know how he had survived it. When he woke up, the baby girl was still by his side, and a mysterious power had appeared inside his body.

Later, Li Ming secretly went out to gather information and learned that people outside called someone like him a Superpower user.

Having finished his story, Li Ming turned back to Gu Xi and said bluntly, "Xiaoxi, you see, I’m not actually a good person. At first, I only kept you with me to... survive."

Gu Xi frowned, cutting him off. "Ming, then how did the Chen sisters find out about the little stone?"

An innocent man gets into trouble for his wealth. With Li Ming’s caution, he would never have willingly leaked this information.

After all, this was the first time she herself had ever heard Li Ming speak of it.

Li Ming fell into his memories. "Back then, I had been wandering the city with you in my arms for over a month when I ran into the Chen sisters..."

Li Ming, of course, understood the danger of a child carrying a gold brick in a time of chaos.

From the very beginning, he had kept the matter of the small stone under tight wraps.

At first, he wanted to keep the treasure for himself. Later, he accidentally overheard the Chen sisters talking and learned that they were searching for "apocalypse babies" born on the day the apocalypse began... ’Could this be related to how the apocalypse started?’

By that time, Li Ming had grown attached to Gu Xi while raising her, which made him even more afraid to let anyone else know about this.

This continued until Gu Xi was three years old, when she was chosen by the Chen sisters, who wanted to turn her into the base’s living weapon.

After three years in the apocalypse, relying on each other to survive, the child he had found had long since become Li Ming’s spiritual pillar, his reason for living.

Li Ming wanted to get his sister back. When he broke into the laboratory late at night, he encountered a Spiritual Skill user and was unfortunately hit by it...

Although he quickly came to his senses and didn’t reveal the existence of the little stone, the Chen sisters managed to guess from the few scraps of information he let slip that Gu Xi must have been carrying something when she was born.

And at that time, in order to get Gu Xi back, Li Ming decided to play along, telling them a mix of truths and lies...

Gu Xi frowned slightly. "So, that thing... I really brought it with me from the womb?"

Li Ming was taken aback. ’I thought Xiaoxi would be upset about why I hid the stone from her back then. I didn’t expect... I really underestimated her.’

He thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head. "Actually, I’m not sure either. When I first found you, you were clutching it in your hand..."

At the time, the Chen sisters were pressuring him relentlessly. He had a flash of inspiration and remembered a story his kindergarten teacher had told them... so he concocted that half-true story and managed to fool the Chen sisters.

Of course, they had searched for it in private, more than once, but they never found anything.

After all, who would pay any attention to an insignificant little stone lying on the ground?

Because they could never find the object, the Chen sisters didn’t dare to completely fall out with Li Ming.

Later on, Gu Xi’s superpower grew stronger and stronger, and Li Ming’s Spiritual Skill also far surpassed that of other users at his level. The value the two of them demonstrated forced the Chen sisters to treat them with caution.

And so, this unconfirmed matter was left unresolved.