Abnormal survival in the end times

Chapter 312 Extra: Kang Erbao, Lao Sheng, Ren Bin
"Brother Xingyu, try this. The scroll is filled with strawberry jam. It's sweet and sour and very delicious. It's something I just learned from Sister Huanyan."

Before Lao Sheng could speak, Kang Erbao couldn't help but shout, "Lan Jing, I told you to just call him Lao Sheng. You keep calling him Xingyu-ge, it made me think you were calling someone else."

I got goosebumps.

The main problem is that Lao Sheng's rough and unrefined appearance doesn't match his artistic name at all; it just sounds awkward.

Because it was Lao Sheng and Kang Erbao who helped them avenge their parents that night, and later when they arrived in Yunxi Village, it was also the two of them who helped them find a house and settle down, so naturally, the Ning siblings were closer to them.

Because both siblings possess wood-type abilities, they not only had no worries about food and drink after arriving in Yunxi Village, but also had plenty to spare.

So, in her spare time, Lan Jing would learn to cook and make desserts from Song Huanyan. Although she wasn't particularly talented in these areas, she studied very diligently. And whenever she learned a new dish or dessert, she would make it and invite Lao Sheng and Kang Erbao over to eat.

At first, when she heard others call him Lao Sheng, she also called him Brother Lao Sheng. But after learning Lao Sheng's full name, she felt that calling him Brother Xingyu sounded better.

In the heart of a seventeen or eighteen-year-old girl, the person who rescued her and her brother from the wolf's den has no name and is not worthy of being called.

Anyway, if she thinks it sounds nice, then call her that.

"Brother Erbao, your name is Erbao, so do you have an older brother named Dabao?"

Lan Jing felt that it was meaningless to hear Erbao mention Xingyu's name, since a person's name is not something they decide themselves, but rather given by their parents.

So I quickly changed the subject and asked about the origin of Kang Erbao's name.

To be honest, his name sounds too much like a nickname, but it is indeed his formal name.

Kang Erbao, with a sweet and sour painting in his mouth, turned to look at Lan Jing. He had an older brother named Dabao.

No one had asked him this question in a long time, and Kang Erbao was momentarily stunned.

Seeing this, Lan Jing realized she had asked something she shouldn't have, and quickly said, "I was just asking casually, Brother Erbao. You don't have to say if it's inconvenient to talk about it."

"It's not really inconvenient, it's just that so much time has passed that I can't remember this person."

Kang Erbao tried hard to recall, but still couldn't remember what the older brother named Dabao looked like.

He shook his head and said to Lan Ning and Lan Jing, who were looking at him, "When I was born, everyone called me Erbao (Second Treasure). I do have an older brother named Dabao (Big Treasure), but unfortunately, before we could give me a proper name, my parents divorced. My mother came from the mountains and met my father while working in the city. He was a local and came from a well-off family, but my grandmother disapproved of my mother and always opposed their relationship. The two secretly got married and soon had my brother. When he was three, I was born. Unfortunately, neither of us could persuade that old woman to compromise. When my mother was in confinement after giving birth to me, she finally couldn't take it anymore because the old woman took my father to a blind date. Ironically, my father agreed."

While my mother was in postpartum confinement, she consulted a lawyer and won the house and as much of the property as possible for herself. Since I was still a month old, the house was awarded to her. But she didn't actually want me; she didn't want either my brother or me because she believed we were both children of the Kang family and should naturally stay with my father. Most importantly, it would be difficult for her to remarry while she had a child. However, she also knew in her heart that without me, she wouldn't have been awarded so much property.

So, out of desperation, she took me. Later, she gave my maternal grandparents some money and then left me with her parents. When registering my birth, she was too lazy to think of a proper name, so she just wrote "Kang Erbao" on it. Although I was awarded to her, she still made me take my father's surname.

Time is a wonderful thing. In the past, when I thought about these things, I always felt resentful, resenting that old woman who was his grandmother, resenting his parents, resenting the injustice of God, and resenting everything.

But now.
He found that bringing these things up again left him feeling nothing, as if he were talking about someone else's affairs. He couldn't even remember what his mother looked like anymore. After all, he hadn't seen her since he was ten years old.

According to my grandparents, she remarried a long time ago.

Fortunately, the monthly child support was substantial, so his maternal grandparents didn't mistreat him. However, for people in the mountains, raising children is simply about ensuring they don't go hungry; wanting something better, or better education or anything else, is impossible.

So when Kang Erbao was seventeen, he found another way out for himself: to join the army!
When they first joined the army, their squad leader said he was aggressive and needed to be disciplined.

He wasn't wrong; he was indeed very aggressive back then and found fault with everything. Fortunately, he was physically strong, and the military leaders valued his talent, which is why they didn't expel him from the army despite his repeated mistakes.

Later, he was even chosen by the leader to join his team. After that, Zhang Shaoda became their class monitor and often disciplined him.

Lan Jing never expected that her casual question would uncover such a tragic backstory.

She said apologetically, "I'm sorry, Erbao, I didn't know you..."

"It's nothing," Kang Erbao waved his hand dismissively, even in the mood to joke, "Although my name has the character 'Bao' in it, I'm not a treasure, I'm a blade of grass, a tenacious little blade of grass, haha, isn't that nice?"

We've been brothers for years, so who doesn't know the other's background?

Old Sheng recalled Kang Erbao's indignation when he first heard him talk about his background, and seeing his calm demeanor now, he patted him on the shoulder with satisfaction, "Child, you've finally grown up."

"Get the hell out of here."

Kang Erbao brushed his hand away, rolled his eyes, and said, "The only thing you're better off than me is having nice grandparents."

He choked up before he could finish his sentence, because the other man's grandparents were not someone to be described with just the word "something." Although they both grew up without their parents, Lao Sheng and he were worlds apart; Lao Sheng had no shortage of love.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have been raised to be so carefree and overconfident.

Unfortunately, his grandparents passed away when the apocalypse came, which is a great regret in his heart.

Lan Jing looked puzzled. What did he mean by saying that Xingyu was only better off than him because he had a good pair of grandparents?

Could it be that his parents also...
Old Sheng noticed the confusion on Lan Jing's face and said nonchalantly, "They got divorced, and later each had their own families. Because I grew up with my grandparents, I didn't have much of a relationship with my parents, so I didn't feel anything when they divorced. We just saw each other once a month and were always polite to each other, and they would give me pocket money and buy me things, which I thought was pretty good. So I never resented them growing up, and I was even quite pleased with myself for having enough pocket money."

However, when the apocalypse and danger came, the first thing Lao Sheng thought of was his grandparents. Even after his grandparents passed away, he never thought of going to find his parents or checking on them.

Anyway, everyone has their own home, so it's none of his business.

He was very open-minded about this. Although he wasn't like Kang Erbao who couldn't remember what his parents looked like, he could remember them, but he didn't feel anything about it.

Lan Jing felt bad for bringing up a topic she shouldn't have, so after the meal she packed a lot of delicious food for the two of them to take away.

She was only seventeen or eighteen years old, and she liked to eat snacks. She also learned to make quite a few from Song Huanyan. Although the taste wasn't very authentic, to be honest, it was already good enough to be able to eat them. Who would ask for more?
Lao Sheng also happens to like snacks; he's the kind of person who always seems to have something in his mouth, and the snacks Lan Jing gave him perfectly satisfied that need. But as a grown man, he couldn't keep taking advantage of a young girl, even though Lan Jing had given him the snacks willingly.

So, as compensation, when he encountered something that a girl needed while on a mission, he would pack it in his backpack and bring it back to Lan Jing.

He often helped her harvest rice, wheat, or vegetables, and over time, the two became even closer.

Later on, every time Lao Sheng came to his house, Lan Ning felt like a third wheel. He didn't know when his sister and Lao Sheng started to develop feelings for each other, but by the time he realized it, the way they looked at each other was so intense.

At first, Lan Ning thought her younger sister liked Kang Erbao, after all, he was slightly more refined-looking than Lao Shengbai. But then again, they had nothing to do with being refined.

In general, such matters require mutual interest from both parties. Although Kang Erbao often came to their house and helped them with chores from time to time, he treated them purely as his siblings and had no romantic feelings for Lan Jing whatsoever.

Perhaps due to his family background, Kang Erbao himself has no intention of finding a partner or getting married.

Dr. Su's daughter, Su Yixuan, would return to her mother's hometown to visit her grandmother every winter and summer vacation before the apocalypse. It was a very old town where almost every household had a loom and a silk loom.

She was very interested in it, so every time she went back, she would pester her grandmother to teach her how to knit.

In order to be self-sufficient, Yunxi Village not only grows cotton and makes its own cotton clothes and quilts, but also catches a few mutated silkworms for breeding. For this purpose, Professor Leng specially studied mutated mulberry trees and even set aside a forest for breeding.

As for looms and silk looms, that's even easier; they're available at the Pengcheng Museum.

Because it was an agricultural city before the apocalypse, cotton cultivation accounted for a large part of it, and many years ago, Pengcheng Weaving Factory was famous throughout the country.

To commemorate this history, the museum later acquired ten complete looms for future generations to visit and learn from.

Suzhou is the most famous place for silk, but in order to improve its weaving skills, the textile factory went to Suzhou to purchase silk looms and learn how to extract silk from silkworm cocoons.

Therefore, museums in Shenzhen also have silk looms.

Unfortunately, while these two machines exist, very few people know how to use them.

This fully demonstrates the saying that having an elder in the family is like having a treasure. Besides Grandma Bai, another old lady in Yunxi Village who is about the same age as her can also do this.

The two elderly women were prepared for the young people to be completely clueless and that they would have to teach them from scratch, but they did not expect that Dr. Su's daughter would actually know how.

Even more unexpectedly, Ren Bin could do it too!
Apart from Lao Sheng and Jiang Minglang, who weren't too surprised, everyone else stared at him in shock—a tall, burly man.

Noticing everyone's gaze, Ren Bin scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly, "Well... it's a family tradition, everyone in my family knows how to do it, so I just learned a little bit too."

"Alright, brother, stop being modest. When you were knitting this sweater for me, you said you only learned the basics, but look at this pattern, can you knit something like that with just basic skills?"

The sweater that Ren Bin supposedly knitted for Lao Sheng was actually knitted for himself, but Lao Sheng took it and wore it.

He used to be busy with demanding training in the army, so he didn't have time to knit. Now, as long as he's not on duty or on missions, he has plenty of free time to use.

With nothing to do, he saw Su Yixuan sitting at the entrance of the clinic knitting a scarf, and he couldn't resist the urge to knit himself.

He couldn't stand watching Su Yixuan knit several rows.

He stepped forward, snatched the knitting needles from her, and before she could react, quickly unraveled the scarf she had already knitted. Then, with lightning speed, he threaded the needles and knitted the scarf to the length Su Yixuan had just knitted.

After a moment of stunned silence, Su Yixuan looked down at the scarf that had been put back into her hand. The stitches were delicate and neat, and the two diamond patterns were as clear as snowflakes. It was a pattern that she could never achieve by knitting with either knitting needles.

"It's just a scarf, it's so simple, couldn't you have knitted it a little more neatly? It's all crooked and uneven, how can you wear it?"

Su Yixuan was still lost in the beautiful patterns when she heard a slightly disdainful voice coming from above her.

She looked up, blinked, and said innocently, "I only know how to knit with a crisscross pattern, not with a regular pattern."

Ren Bin:
Is this a pattern? It's just a simple design.

That afternoon, Su Yixuan dragged him around and taught him how to knit a scarf. Whether Su Yixuan learned it or not, he knitted a complete scarf for her. After finishing the edge, he even left a row of tassels, which amazed Su Yixuan.

In any case, among the people she knew, no one was as good at knitting scarves and sweaters as Ren Bin.

With nothing else to do, and since Aunt Bai had collected a lot of yarn before, Su Yixuan pestered Ren Bin to teach her how to knit a sweater.

When Lao Sheng and Kang Erbao returned home after playing cards that evening, they saw a tall, burly man sitting cross-legged on the living room sofa, knitting. Lao Sheng jumped up with a roar and raised his leg to kick Ren Bin, yelling, "Damn it, who the hell are you? How dare you possess my buddy!"

Finally, the sweater he believed to have been knitted by the person who had possessed him was put on him.

I have to say, it's actually quite warm.

When knitting a sweater, this guy said he only knew the basics, but the final product was beyond what the word "basic" could describe.

Su Yixuan and Lao Sheng shared the same opinion; neither of them believed that what Ren Bin described as "superficial" was truly just superficial.

However, one of them thought Ren Bin was being modest, while the other was certain that this bastard was faking it!

Just as Lao Sheng and Lan Jing developed feelings for each other over time, Ren Bin and Su Yixuan also met through knitting and fell in love while weaving and processing silkworm cocoons and silk every day.

Dr. Su and his wife were very satisfied with their son-in-law, Ren Bin. He was capable, honest, and kind-hearted. What was rare was that he was also skillful with his hands, and he and their daughter were very compatible, and he didn't look down on her because she was an ordinary person.

Salute to the most beloved people!