HLnovel Chapter 414 "Infecting the World" - Male Mother (25)
Chapter 414 "Infecting the World" - Male Mother (25)
Lu Liruan originally wanted to say, since we can't stay at home today, why don't we go out and wander around the streets again?
However, considering Liao Tingyuan's injuries, he immediately gave up.
Alright, he needs to rest properly today...
"Did you hear what the child's mother said just now?" Lu Liruan felt that the child's mother was very wary and irritable.
Although it's perfectly normal for her not to let her child talk to her.
But Lu Liruan felt that the way she looked at her was full of excessive wariness.
Especially the hostility she felt when she first looked at them was something Lu Liruan found rather inexplicable.
It's as if I'm about to do something hurtful.
"Actually, they didn't say much. They basically just repeated what you just heard."
The two walked outside the residential area. Without the shade of the trees, the bright but somewhat scorching morning sun shone directly on them.
Lu Liruan was about to walk to the side of the road to find a place to shade herself when she saw Liao Tingyuan take out a parasol from the canvas bag he was carrying.
She naturally stretched out her arms and beckoned to Lu Liruan, "Come a little closer."
"Oh!" Lu Liruan skipped over.
Liao Tingyuan was tall, and the shadow of his umbrella completely shielded the two of them.
Lu Liruan originally wanted to take over and help, but then she thought that with her height, she might end up covering Liao Tingyuan's head.
While it's true that one should be considerate and perceptive, sometimes it's unnecessary to be overly perceptive.
These are very practical life experiences that Lu Liruan has summarized over the years.
"She must be talking to the child's maternal grandmother on the phone." Lu Liruan heard the child's mother call out "Mom" to the person on the other end of the phone.
“I just heard the child say that his mother has been arguing with his father, and his father hasn’t come home for several days. I asked him if he knew where his father went, and the child said he didn’t know.” Lu Liruan slowly summarized the information she had gathered from the two of them.
“You said…” Lu Liruan suddenly made a connection.
"If what we're seeing is someone who's already dead, then is the father this child is talking about, who hasn't come home for days,...?"
Liao Tingyuan frowned slightly: "You mean, the child's father might be one of the two 'people' who appeared at the door?"
Lu Liruan shook her head: "I don't know. It could just be a fight between the couple. It's understandable that Dad doesn't want to come home."
Lu Liruan pondered, "What I'm more concerned about are those two sentences the child's mother said. Yesterday, that 'person' kept repeating them."
Lu Liruan patted the back of Liao Tingyuan's hand holding the umbrella: "For example, the two of us are often together now. When we describe something, how you describe it will inevitably lead me to quote your words when I describe it to a third person, even without realizing it myself."
Lu Liruan gestured: "Or, to use something similar to you, to describe a thing... Although I hear those two sentences quite often, I still care about them."
Liao Tingyuan nodded, agreeing with Lu Liruan's analysis.
Lu Liruan has a very keen intuition about certain things.
Liao Tingyuan never ignored what Lu Liruan said just because it was the first time she had encountered such a situation.
"Actually, you're still bothered by what that child mentioned about the lost kitten, aren't you?" Liao Tingyuan said softly after her analysis.
Lu Liruan nodded, realizing that her thoughts couldn't be hidden from Liao Tingyuan.
Lu Liruan actually felt that it was a bit far-fetched.
These few things seem completely unrelated.
But in the past few days, Lu Liruan had only heard about cats from this little child.
I subconsciously connected them together.
Lu Liruan didn't have any evidence, and since Liao Tingyuan had said it, she didn't deny it.
"What do you mean by 'kitten'? Why did the kitten disappear a few days later?" Lu Liruan asked, puzzled.
Liao Tingyuan shook his head: "I don't know. Let's look for clues again tonight after we get that key."
He didn't interrupt Lu Liruan's train of thought, nor did he offer his own opinions, not wanting Lu Liruan to be influenced by him.
After having breakfast, the two strolled around the commercial street, which was very close to their neighborhood. Lu Liruan looked around aimlessly.
“You said…” she began slowly.
"Hmm?" Liao Tingyuan was very patient, so he accompanied her on her shopping trip.
"Let's buy something."
"What do you want to buy?" Liao Tingyuan asked.
"Let's buy some things we can use tonight. We can't keep having to struggle like yesterday, can we?" Lu Liruan said, still shaken.
"So what do you want to buy?" Liao Tingyuan wasn't actually that worried. Last night, he was protecting Lu Liruan and was caught off guard. If he faced that thing again today, Liao Tingyuan wouldn't panic.
The biggest uncertainty last night was whether the second thing that arrived would attack them together with the thing with the knife.
Now that it's confirmed that this isn't the case, and that they're in a relationship of mutual destruction, Liao Tingyuan has even less to fear.
But he saw that Lu Liruan looked anxious to find a way to protect herself.
He didn't say anything, but let Lu Liruan run around like a restless rabbit, with a hint of a smile in his expression.
Lu Liruan was engrossed in her own thoughts and did not notice.
He had originally let Lu Liruan do whatever she wanted, like a mother watching her child develop practical skills.
Until Lu Liruan entered a hardware store.
Liao Tingyuan closed his umbrella outside and entered two seconds later than Lu Liruan. He then heard Lu Liruan ask, "Hello, do you sell chainsaws here?"
Liao Tingyuan: ?
The boss had clearly never been asked this question before. He paused for two seconds, then asked, "What...what chainsaw?"
Lu Liruan looked serious and gestured with her hand: "About this long, a chainsaw! The one that makes a sound when you pull it!"
She felt her description was inaccurate: "Have you seen 'Saw'? Boss, 'Saw'!" As Lu Liruan spoke, she unconsciously made the classic pose of holding a chainsaw from the movie.
boss:……
Liao Tingyuan felt that regardless of whether the boss had seen Saw or not, he must be feeling quite terrified right now.
"What do you want to do with it?" the boss asked instinctively.
“I…” Lu Liruan paused for a moment, then said in a perfunctory manner, “What else can a chainsaw do? Just saw some things, simple sawing, boss.”
boss:……
It doesn't look like something that's simply being sawed.
When some people lie, they look very guilty, and Lu Liruan is one of them.
Perhaps, because she was thinking about what she was going to saw, Liao Tingyuan felt that, in addition to feeling guilty, she was even a little murderous.
Fortunately, she has this childlike face.
This slightly tempered the murderous aura.
Liao Tingyuan couldn't even imagine what the boss's reaction would be if a burly man stood here and said the same thing to him.
Even though he wasn't a burly man, Liao Tingyuan could feel that his boss's gaze had moved past Lu Liruan and was now sweeping over him.
He forced a smile.
He wanted to make amends for Lu Liruan, but his mind went blank for a moment, and he couldn't think of anything else in the house that would require a chainsaw.
It's like the giant chainsaw from Saw.
"No," the boss replied firmly.
"If you don't have the large size, do you have the small size?" Lu Liruan persisted, oblivious to the atmosphere, and continued to press for an answer.
"No, not at all!" the boss continued to shake his head.
Just as Liao Tingyuan was about to interrupt, he heard Lu Liruan continue speaking:
"Do you have an electric drill?"
Liao Tingyuan: ...
boss:……
"Forget it, we don't need all that for our home renovation! Let's go!" Liao Tingyuan gave up talking to the boss and spoke to Lu Liruan.
Then, before Lu Liruan could speak, he hooked her arm around the back of her neck and pulled her out of the hardware store.
"Tsk." He sighed. "Why did you buy all that?"
Lu Liruan said matter-of-factly, "When the enemy only has cold weapons, we use mechanical equipment..."
"It won't escalate to the point of a brawl!" Liao Tingyuan wanted to laugh again, but he also felt that Lu Liruan was getting a little too used to it.
"They don't sell that kind of thing here." Liao Tingyuan found it more and more amusing, and he squatted down by the roadside, laughing out loud.
Lu Liruan was taken aback; it seemed to be the first time she had ever seen Liao Tingyuan so cheerful.
He is always gentle and mild-mannered, neither impatient nor angry, nor particularly happy. His temperament is very stable, but at the same time, he seems a bit too bland and rigid.
"What are you laughing at?" Lu Liruan pursed her lips and squatted down beside him. "I was worried about you..."
"Thank you, thank you for your concern." Liao Tingyuan coughed twice, answered Lu Liruan softly for a couple of minutes, and then started to smile again.
This time he even laughed so hard that he buried his head in his arms and knees, his back trembling slightly.
Lu Liruan was puzzled, but she couldn't help but laugh along. The two ignored the stares of passersby and each occupied a section of the roadside.
Now the two of them are like two mushrooms planted by the roadside.
"I'm really worried about you!" Lu Liruan was speechless at his laughter and awkwardly repeated herself.
"I know, I know, thank you Ruan Ruan." Liao Tingyuan's voice was gentle and soft, and you could tell that he was indeed very happy.
Although she didn't know why, Lu Liruan inexplicably felt that making him happy made her happy too.
Otherwise, Liao Tingyuan's life as a corporate slave would be like a stagnant pool.
Even though it was pretty and gentle, it was a bit too rigid. Now it seems to have suddenly come alive.
The two stayed by the roadside for a while. Liao Tingyuan didn't mind, but Lu Liruan felt hot.
The two ended up at a cat cafe.
When Lu Liruan watched all the cats circling around Liao Tingyuan as if they were inhaling catnip, she became a little defensive.
"Why?"
Liao Tingyuan picked up a kitten that was pawing at his shoulder and trying to climb onto his head, and handed it to Lu Liruan so that the flustered Lu Liruan could pet it.
“Maybe… the little animals like me.” Liao Tingyuan blinked, as if teasing Lu Liruan.
Lu Liruan pouted, thinking to herself: This is true.
Lu Liruan even thought that if she were a small animal, she might also be willing to stay by Liao Tingyuan's side.
He seems like he can take good care of children and small animals.
Finally, Lu Liruan used the cat treats she bought to attract the kittens to her side.
Liao Tingyuan stroked the kitten lying lazily on his knee, which was almost asleep with its eyes closed, while watching Lu Liruan wander around, flirting with almost every kitten in the cat cafe.
There were two kittens sitting at the highest point of the cat tree. She hopped on her tiptoes and skipped around to look at them, just like a big rabbit.
The little girl and the kitten both seemed soft and fluffy, Liao Tingyuan thought to himself.
Lu Liruan had no idea what image she had in Liao Tingyuan's mind.
They stayed there until after 4 p.m. before going out for dinner.
Looking at the cat fur covering their heads, the two of them burst into laughter.
Liao Tingyuan was wearing black pants, which made him stand out even more. His hair was also being pulled wildly by the kitten that had finally managed to climb onto his shoulder.
This was the first time Lu Liruan had seen him so unkempt and somewhat disheveled...
When she got back outside the residential area, Lu Liruan suddenly slapped her forehead as if she remembered something, and ran to a pharmacy that was still open.
Liao Tingyuan was a little confused: "Are you feeling unwell? There's a first-aid kit at home..." He followed Lu Liruan inside.
But Lu Liruan went straight to the shelf of supplements and health products, took two boxes of blood-tonifying oral liquid, and went to the front to pay.
Liao Tingyuan didn't react for a moment until he came out of the pharmacy and saw Lu Liruan shove a bag containing the blood-tonifying oral supplement into his hand: "Go back and drink it for two courses of treatment according to the instructions!"
Now that it's getting dark, Lu Liruan saw that Liao Tingyuan's face was deathly pale under the streetlights.
Although he seems to be like this all the time...
But at this moment, Lu Liruan still felt that it must be related to the blood loss caused by the injury last night. Yes! It must be related.
"actually……"
"Remember to drink it on time! You know I don't have much money."
"Okay." Liao Tingyuan patted her head.
As Lu Liruan walked into the residential area, her steps became heavier and heavier.
Although Liao Tingyuan said he had a solution, Lu Liruan was still worried. When she stood downstairs in the apartment building, she could still faintly smell that nauseating odor.
He sighed deeply: "You're not kidding me, are you? Is there really a way? Actually, we should still buy a chainsaw... We can saw one off a time, and two off a pair. I don't believe his bones are harder than a chainsaw!"
Liao Tingyuan: ...
"I'm not kidding you. Never mind, let's stay downstairs a little longer, there's still some time."
He looked at Lu Liruan's wrinkled little face, which was covered in soot, raised his wrist to take a look, and said softly.