Dominion's End

V2C8: The Many Tales of the Town

Dominion's End Volume 2: Aberrant City

Original novel in Chinese by: 御 我 (Yu Wo)

Chapter 8: The Many Tales of the Town—translated by Elkin

As I drove, I kept turning to look at the passenger seat. A three year-old kid was wearing a seat belt, head slumped to one side in slumber and lips in a slight pout. He was super adorable. It was hard to believe that this was Dàgē, the Dàgē who had become the Ice Emperor!

Enough! Even though on the inside, I was a thirty five year-old woman who had never had kids before, it was no excuse to gawk at the child all the time. I needed to find a map, not play around with children!

Jin Feng had given me a map of Zhongguan City and the surrounding suburbs, but what I needed was a map of a wider region. Otherwise, if I could drive to Luo'an City just by knowing that it was in the east, I'd start suspecting whether I was actually a GPS instead.

Originally, Dàgē had probably left some maps behind. The basement hadn't been completely empty. There had been a few boxes left there, with supplies probably meant for me. Unfortunately, the ice tornado had been brutal and had wiped the whole house off the map, to say nothing of what it could do to a few boxes. There wasn't even a speck of dust left of them.

So my current mission is to locate a map and food. I glanced again at Xiaotian. And hunt for crystals to feed the child, too.

I'd already reached the edge of the map, so I didn't know which road to take anymore. My only option was to continue heading east. However, this was risky, not to mention the skies were darkening. We were better off looking for somewhere to stay the night.

Soon, I saw a sign pointing to a "Fuli Town." After a moment's thought, I decided to head over for a look. Towns were quite good resting stops because they were safer than cities, but they were also guaranteed to have aberrants that I could hunt for crystals. Further, they'd have some supplies as well as the map that I wanted.

Suddenly, a dark silhouette flashed by in front of me. I frowned, already realizing that it was a woman holding onto a child.

I spun the wheel to one side, bashing aside an abandoned car in the next lane. Then, I drove around it and headed off, throwing a quick glance at the rearview mirror afterwards.

The woman behind us was absolutely furious, yelling and swearing so loudly that I could still hear her from a distance. But then a few others rushed out to slap her, before glaring angrily after me.

Hmph, do you think I'm an idiot? That distance was perfectly calculated, close enough that I can see it's a woman and a kid, but far enough that I can brake in time and not really crash into them. If there aren't people lying in ambush, waiting to rob us the moment I stopped the car, my name isn't Jiang Shuyu!

"Mommy?"

I looked over at the seat next to me. Jiang Xiaotian was rubbing his eyes, looking confused. My abrupt yanking on the steering wheel had woken him up, but he didn't cry or look scared. Even though he had lost his memory and shrank in size, the Ice Emperor really wasn't your ordinary kid. This was great! After all, bringing a three year-old child along for a ride in the apocalypse really was no joke. The moment a child starts wailing, shit hits the fan, and the apocalypse has no lack of things that could scare a child to tears.

"We'll be stopping soon. Are you hungry?"

Jiang Xiaotian hesitated, looking at the hipflask, and said, "Yes."

You've probably been hungry all this time, right? Cold sweat beaded on my forehead. There was no way I could fill this child's belly. This was just the start of the apocalypse, so I had to risk my life to get even a tier one crystal. But even tier one crystals would probably do no more than take the edge off his hunger.