Chapter 25 - Father And Son

Wearing a white T-shirt, a fair-skinned youth leaned on the sofa as his own son fed him apples with beaming smiles.

Upon reaching the age that he had, Nie Boyuan had naturally seen many aspects of society. When he saw this scene, his heart went ‘badump’ for a moment, and he sensed that something was amiss.

However, even though Nie Boyuan felt that something wasn’t right, he wouldn’t condemn his own son because of this. He went in, wanting to see how his son will introduce this youth to him.

But when he entered, Nie Yi acted as if he hadn’t seen him, feeding Qi Jingchen apples as if he was minding his own business. Instead, it was Shao Zhenglan and Ping Shengchao who hurriedly stood up, calling out ‘Uncle’. The two bodyguards, Qi Yaoyao and Jiang Huai stood up as well.

Ping Shengchao noticed that Nie Boyuan’s expression wasn’t quite right, and he made a face at Nie Yi. But Nie Yi didn’t even look at him, continuing to ignore Nie Boyuan. Qi Jingchen was even calmer as if letting someone’s son feed him in front of the said father was exceedingly ordinary.

Before, Nie Boyuan was constantly worried about Nie Yi’s safety, so when he suddenly learned that Nie Yi arrived at the B city secure base, he was overjoyed. But he never imagined that, just as he got home, he would meet this sort of situation, and his original happiness promptly disappeared without a trace.

“Xiao Yi, who’s this?” Nie Boyuan asked with a cold face.

“The person I like.” Nie Yi finally gave Nie Boyuan a look, but his gaze returned to Qi Jingchen very quickly, exceptionally tender.

When Nie Boyuan heard Nie Yi’s words, his face darkened. “What nonsense are you saying?!”

Even though it was the apocalypse now, he and his son hadn’t had real contact for no more than a month only. How could he not have known that his own son had turned out to like men?

“Boyuan’s back? It’s time to eat. If there’s anything to discuss, you can talk about it after a meal. I don’t even know if Nie Yi was able to eat a hot meal while he was on the way here.” Auntie Liu promptly walked out of the kitchen. She also had a faint sense that Nie Yi was a little strange, but only thought of it as Nie Yi being angry.

She had raised Nie Yi since young, so even though Nie Yi was now twenty-five, he was still very young in her eyes, and also... Nie Boyuan’s way of handling certain matters over the past few days had also angered her.

Nie Yi had probably heard something from outside, right? Now he should be making some noise!

Nie Boyuan recalled the hardship his son had endured outside, surrounded by zombies for more than twenty days, and coldly snorted, but didn’t continue to reprimand him, going to sit at the table.

This villa table could be expanded. Although they had many people, they could all sit down when they separated the table into two tables for six. It was just that taking food from the dishes was inconvenient, so Auntie Liu had every dish divided into four plates, with cold dishes on both tables.

It was the apocalypse; even though Nie Boyuan was the chief of the secure base, his family couldn’t eat and drink as much as they wanted. The variety of dishes also wasn’t much; therefore, there were four dishes on the table in total, potato sauteed with capsicum, tomato and egg soup, as well as bacon and braised chicken.

Fortunately, Auntie Liu had considered the large number of people, so each dish had an ample amount, and it didn’t look to be little even when they were served in separate plates.

It was evident that this braised chicken wasn’t made with their family’s brine, and was from a vacuum package, and Qi Jingchen didn’t like most bacon either... Once Nie Yi sat at the table, he gave Qi Jingchen some julienned potatoes. “Try it, see how the flavor is.”

Qi Jingchen took his chopsticks and picked up a strip to try, then nodded. “It’s fine.”

Nie Yi promptly took the dish of julienned potatoes in front of him and put it before Qi Jingchen, then scooped a spoonful of tomato and egg soup for Qi Jingchen. “What about this?”

Qi Jingchen then tried that spoonful, then said, “Still okay.”

Right now, he didn’t want to eat many things. Previously, he only had boiled vegetables, but in fact, it wasn’t that he couldn’t eat the slightest bit of salt; at most, he just felt that if there was salt, it would’ve been better without it.

As long as these things didn’t have a bunch of seasoning in it or were left out for too long, they still could go into his mouth.

Nie Yi then brought that bowl of soup over as well, placing it in front of Qi Jingchen.

Auntie Liu had separated the dishes into quite a few plates, so everyone only ate what was in front of them. Nie Boyuan was sitting beside Nie Yi, so according to reason, he should’ve eaten from these two dishes, but in the end, Nie Yi brought all of them over to Qi Jingchen...

This sort of behavior was considered incredibly rude; Nie Boyuan never would’ve expected that Nie Yi, who had been educated very well since childhood, would actually do this. For a moment, his face had darkened entirely, and he coughed twice.

Nie Yi acted as if he didn’t hear it, picking up a piece of bacon and gorging himself on it, but didn’t forget to say to Ping Shengchao and the rest, “Eat more, come on.”

Even though Ping Shengchao and the rest also felt that Nie Yi’s behavior wasn’t right, they were used to listening to Nie Yi’s words. After Nie Yi said this, they didn’t refute and obediently began to gobble down the food.

While on the road, making rice was relatively troublesome, and cooking up dishes was even harder. They haven’t had a regular meal for a long time, and they ate every dish with relish.

Especially for Shao Zhenglan. Her family circumstances were good, and she had eaten all sorts of good food back then, till exotic delicacies became just a type of flavor in her mouth. But now, she felt that the deliciousness of bacon matched with white rice, and she hated that she couldn’t swallow her tongue as well. Suffice to say, she could continue eating another three more bowls of rice.

Qi Yaoyao was more or less the same as her. Previously, she was very picky, and she didn’t like to eat flavorless things like potatoes. But now, she felt that the potatoes in front of her were simply made in heaven.

Out of everyone here, Nie Boyuan was the only one who couldn’t eat anymore. He coughed to let Nie Yi notice his situation and apologize, but in the end, Nie Yi had actually cared only for eating his own food and conveniently take some dishes for the man next to him!

“Nie Yi, what do you mean by this?!” Nie Boyuan angrily said.

Nie Yi had already stuffed a bowl of rice into his stomach at lightning speed. At this time, he picked up some braised chicken and shoved it into his mouth, then said, “No real any meaning.”

“You brought this sort of plaything-”

Bang. Nie Yi slapped the table, cutting off Nie Boyuan. “Nie Boyuan, don’t speak thoughtlessly.”

“What did you just call me?” Nie Boyuan’s expression immediately changed. “You bastard.”

“Old fool.” Nie Yi smiled, suddenly recalling matters from his past life.

Before the apocalypse, even though he had some plans and started a small company, he was still just twenty-five. In truth, Nie Yi was very scared when the apocalypse occurred in his last life. He could only persevere by thinking of protecting Yan Zhe and going to B city to see his family. His group of people finally arrived at B city’s secure base on the sixteenth day of their apocalypse.

His past life wasn’t too different from this time. After he arrived at the secure base, he was recognized by someone and sent to Nie Boyuan’s villa. But some aspects weren’t the same.

At that time, he had a deep respect for his father. After learning that his mother and grandparents had died, he was deeply grieving and placed Nie Boyuan as his most important person. Because he was worried Nie Boyuan couldn’t accept it, he was even more afraid to speak of the matters about himself and Yan Zhe.

He stayed in this villa, then joined the secure base’s governmental ability team. At the same time, he also met the leader of the ability user team, Yu Shuo.

Yu Shuo’s parents managed an entertainment company, and he was originally a male celebrity before the apocalypse. Before the apocalypse, he was already very famous and later awakened to the formidable thunder ability. He was asked to help in many matters concerning the publicity of the secure base, so when Nie Yi entered the ability user team, Yu Shuo had already become the most well-known ability user in the base.

Nie Yi wasn’t as insolent as he was now; on the contrary, he was precisely the opposite. Having once lived in the barracks, it made him possess a strong team spirit, and he worshipped the strong ability users as well.

He had a lot of admiration towards Yu Shuo, and when his own father had recognized Yu Shuo as his adoptive son, he only felt happy. But when a month passed, he began to sense that something wasn’t right.

On the surface, Yu Shuo seemed to always be very friendly and warm to him, but he had an odd feeling that Yu Shuo did not like him. Later, some things had happened, which had confirmed this feeling.

Yu Shuo was powerful, and he was even an actor before the apocalypse. This caused many ability users to like him very much, and he was also incredibly good at acting. He made a few actions, designed a few scenes, then had those people think that Nie Yi, the son of the secure base’s chief, took advantage of his position to bully people, and wanted to snatch Yu Shuo’s position as the team leader.

He truly did have ambition, and truly liked to climb up, wanting to become the leader, but so what about it? It’s not like he did anything wrong to Yu Shuo! This position of team leader- shouldn’t it depend on one’s ability?

Nie Yi had met a lot of people in his past 25 years, but with his family background, he hadn’t really met someone who would secretly trip him up. His grandfather had even repeatedly educated him that he must not act dishonestly, so he didn’t expect to encounter such a situation. What’s more, the apocalypse was here! In Nie Yi’s opinion, in the face of the apocalypse, everyone should be united. How could he have thought that there were actually people who would still use underhanded methods at such a time? In the end, he had naturally suffered no small amount of losses.

After he had suffered losses, he had initially intended to take it as a painful lesson, then properly guard against Yu Shuo. But unexpectedly, Nie Boyuan had ordered him to not target Yu Shuo. It was also at this time when he learned something from other people— Yu Shuo was also the child of Nie Boyuan.

He unexpectedly has a half-brother who is even older than him!

Nie Yi had always felt that he had a blissful family but never thought that such a matter had occurred. He immediately became outraged and still went to bother Yu Shuo.

At that time, both he and Yu Shuo were like most of the ability users; neither of them was particularly good at using their ability. Even though Yu Shuo’s ability was stronger than his, but Yu Shuo’s real combat experience wasn’t comparable to his, and was unlike him, who had previously learned many skills when he was in the army... After it came to close combat and he daren’t use his thunder ability, Yu Shuo could only receive a beating.

However, Yu Shuo’s circumstances gave him no small amount of supporters. After he finished beating up Yu Shuo, he was then given a beating by the people on Yu Shuo’s side. Those people had even used their ability, thus beating him till he had severe injuries.

Ever since then, the animosity between the two of them became public.

After that, Nie Yi had learned more about the matters about Yu Shuo and his mother, Yu Qingqing, from Auntie Liu and other people.

Yu Shuo’s mother, Yu Qingqing, was once lovers with Nie Boyuan. The two of them dated, but Nie Yi’s grandfather disapproved of Nie Boyuan marrying Yu Qingying, believing that Yu Qingqing’s temperament was bad.

Yu Qingqing really had a bad temperament. Her family circumstances weren’t good, but she was abnormally proud and arrogant, and her self-esteem was also abnormally strong. When she was with Nie Boyuan, not only would she never concede in the slightest, what she hated the most was other people looking down on her.

When she visited the Nie family and noticed that the eyes of the Nie family were somewhat odd, her face became cold. After she received the Nie family’s opposition, she had a quarrel with Nie Boyuan, then insisted on breaking up.

Nie Boyuan was the eldest young master. He had always coaxed Yu Qingqing, but at that time, he had already endured quite a lot for his parents to accept Yu Qingying. Then Yu Qingqing had thrown a tantrum with him, and he had also gotten angry, and unexpectedly didn’t coax Yu Qingqing like before.

Just by chance, Nie Boyuan’s younger, female cousin had returned from overseas. Nie Boyuan had accompanied her to go shopping and was seen by Yu Qingqing. Yu Qingqing had only regarded it as Nie Boyuan betraying her, then immediately married another man who was courting her.

Nie Boyuan had originally wanted to persuade his parents but never imagined that, after not meeting for a time, Yu Qingqing had married someone and even had a child. He was extremely disappointed, then later married Nie Yi’s mother.

With this freak combination of factors, they broke up. After that, they didn’t have any intersections in life, up until the arrival of the apocalypse.

Yu Qingqing was very capable. Before the apocalypse, she started an entertainment company, and her life was pretty good. She also hated Nie Boyuan, so she never thought of telling Nie Boyuan about the matter of Yu Shuo being his son. But after the apocalypse happened, it wasn’t the same.

Yu Shuo’s ability was extremely strong, and he had fallen into a coma for two entire days before he awakened. His fever didn’t abate, and Yu Qingqing was frightened, so she went to Nie Boyuan.

Nie Boyuan suddenly learned that Yu Shuo was actually his son. If nothing else, he definitely had to take care of him more. Even to the extent that he often treated Yu Shuo far better than Nie Yi, because he felt that he owed Yu Shuo.

If feelings really had to be said, perhaps Nie Boyuan had deeper feelings for Nie Yi as he had watched him grow up. But some people were just like this; if their own child had a conflict with other children, they would only blame their own child.

In Nie Boyuan’s opinion, Nie Yi was his family’s child, and even though Yu Shuo was also his son, he wasn’t close to himself at all. He was more or less the child of another family... In short, when the two of them had a conflict, the one Nie Boyuan would scold was definitely Nie Yi.

At this time, Yu Shuo had also told Nie Boyuan about Nie Yi liking Yan Zhe, thus causing Nie Boyuan to be even more angry, going so far as to want to cut off all relations with Nie Yi.

Nie Yi had also gotten angry, then had a real falling out with Nie Boyuan...

After that, Nie Yi and Yu Shuo’s struggle became more and more terrible. After Yu Shuo was beaten by him, he upgraded his military force with all his might. For a time, Yu Shuo became even stronger than Nie Yi, but Nie Yi had soon awakened to his water ability.

The strength of the two of them was on par, but Yu Shuo had more ability users as his subordinates, so Nie Yi often couldn’t beat him. Fortunately, Nie Yi’s skills weren’t bad, so his own battle squadron’s development was also pretty good.

Later, Yu Shuo had somehow gotten to know Yan Zhe, encouraged Yan Zhe to betray him, and nearly made him lose his life.

Even later, both Yu Shuo and Yan Zhe were killed by him and Qi Jingchen. Nie Boyuan then firmly believed that he had become a great devil, and purposely made an arrangement intending to capture him, and even wanted to kill Qi Jingchen...

At that time, he still had the feelings of a father and son for Nie Boyuan, but never thought that because of this small bit of sentiment, he was nearly killed due to Nie Boyuan placing justice above family relations.

Then Nie Boyuan died. He died, as dead as a doornail, by Nie Yi’s hands.

Those were all matters of his past life. Even though Nie Yi knew that Nie Boyuan hadn’t done anything at the moment and that the appearance of this illegitimate child, Yu Shuo, couldn’t entirely be blamed on Nie Boyuan, he didn’t intend to have filial piety with Nie Boyuan. He was even less willing to be sent under Yu Shuo’s command by Nie Boyuan.

The ability users working for the government had all worked for the government due to Yu Shuo’s appeal. Among them, many were very worshipful of Yu Shuo or were simply Yu Shuo’s fans. If Nie Yi went against him, he wouldn’t get any benefits.

Furthermore... To be frank, during the apocalypse, it was still the army’s troops that had better prospects.

historical

He liked men, hated Yu Shuo, and Qi Jingchen was even a dark ability user... In any case, he’ll have a fallout with Nie Boyuan sooner or later, so he might as well just cleanly break it off in the beginning, so everyone can go their own way.

Nie Yi had thought a lot, but at this time, Nie Boyuan had already blown his top. His own son had actually called him ‘old fool’.

Nie Boyuan extended his arm, wanting to give Nie Yi a slap.

This scene had frightened everyone present. Qi Yaoyao held her rice bowl but didn’t dare to continue to eat— even though she would have small tempers, she would never scold her parents.

“Be good, eat up.” Qi Jingchen gave Qi Yaoyao a look.

Qi Yaoyao didn’t know why, but she subconsciously began to shove rice into her mouth. When Qi Jingchen saw this, he continued to leisurely eat the food before him.

And at this time, Nie Yi had caught Nie Boyuan’s hand.

Actually, Nie Yi had been beaten by Nie Boyuan very often, even at this age. But now, he didn’t want to be hit anymore.

“You unfilial son! Get out of here!” Nie Boyuan cursed.

“‘Kay, I’ll leave at once. Anyway, you still have another son, so you wouldn’t lack one without me,” Nie Yi said, then looked at the door with a faint smile.

Yu Shuo just happened to walk in from outside.

Nie Yi wasn’t the slightest bit surprised by this. Yu Shuo had always been unable to bear seeing their familial love, so he had likely rushed over after hearing the news.

Nie Yi could casually find an opportunity to kill Yan Zhe while they were outside the base, but killing Yu Shuo wasn’t that easy. After all, Yu Shuo was now the ability user hero set up by the secure base. However, even if he couldn’t kill Yu Shuo, he didn’t intend to feign civility with Yu Shuo.

He glanced at Yu Shuo, but didn’t greet him, merely saying to Ping Shengchao and the rest, “Are you full? If you are, then let’s go.”

“Yes.” When Ping Shengchao and the others heard Nie Yi’s last sentence, they finally understood why Nie Yi would quarrel with Nie Boyuan, and hurriedly stood up.

Nie Yi smiled, abruptly picked Qi Jingchen up, and walked out with large steps.

Just as Yu Shuo walked in, he happened to hear what Nie Yi said, but his expression didn’t change; instead, he said, “Nie Yi, could it be that you heard some rumors? Things aren’t as you think-”

He eagerly looked at Nie Yi, but Nie Yi didn’t pay attention to him at all, and soon exited the villa.

Seeing Nie Yi walk off without a second thought, Yu Shuo lowered his eyelids and concealed the resentment in his eyes. When he lifted his head again, nothing could be seen. He looked at Nie Boyuan, and with a face filled with regret, he said, “Dad, I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t have spoken thoughtlessly in the first place!” Nie Boyuan said. Coincidentally, Yu Shuo had said that he was Nie Boyuan’s son outside just two days ago.

Nie Yi was very slow in arriving at the secure base. Nie Boyuan had thought that he had encountered a mishap and treated Yu Shuo even better for the past few days. He had also agreed to let Yu Shuo call him dad, and even when Yu Shuo had accidentally said that he was Nie Boyuan’s son outside, he didn’t blame him. Who would’ve thought that just as that happened, Nie Yi had unexpectedly returned?

When Nie Boyuan recalled Nie Yi’s words and actions just now, he was somewhat upset, and thus spoke to Yu Shuo with a harsh tone.

Hatred flashed by Yu Shuo’s eyes, and he quickly said, “Uncle Nie, I’m sorry to have troubled you. In the future, I definitely won’t be like this.” As he spoke, he headed out.

Yu Shuo suddenly changed his form of address and wanted to leave, and almost immediately, it made Nie Boyuan recall the temper of Yu Qingqing, Yu Shuo’s mother. He quickly chased after him and softened his tone. “Xiao Shuo, it’s Dad who was wrong. I was angry at Nie Yi, I actually didn’t think that...” Nie Yi’s anger was understandable, but his behavior was truly too excessive; moreover, he actually walked out while carrying that man!

Yu Shuo still didn’t speak, so Nie Boyuan continued, “Xiao Shuo, Dad didn’t mean to be angry at you. In the end, it was Dad who had wronged you.”

Thinking of the many years that he had never done his duty as a father, according to what Yu Shuo said, the man Yu Qingqing had later married didn’t treat him well. This was why Nie Boyuan couldn’t be strong-willed when it came to Yu Shuo.

Auntie Liu came out of the kitchen and speedily put away the food on the table, simply uncaring of the fact that Nie Boyuan didn’t get to eat a single bit.