On the Rearing of Zombies and Children - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I didn’t know how long it would take for Liang Que to fully turn into a zombie.

When I went to see him the next morning, his face had turned a sickly shade of green from hunger.

I brought a bowl of cooked noodles and asked him, “Do you want to eat people, or do you want to eat noodles?”

He lunged forward instantly, a green glint in his eyes that startled me so much I nearly dropped the bowl.

He hurriedly reached out a hand and snatched the noodles from me.

He raised a chopstick-full to his mouth, but just as he was about to take a bite, he suddenly stopped.

He asked me, “Have you eaten?”

I nodded. “I just had a bowl of noodles.”

He asked again, “What about Liang Xiaodou?”

I nodded again. “He had a bowl of noodles and a poached egg.”

He picked up the poached egg from his bowl and looked at me. “Come here. Open your mouth.”

I shook my head. “You eat it. You shouldn’t have to be a hungry ghost.”

He insisted on holding up the poached egg. “There isn’t much food left at home. If you starve to death, there’ll be no one to look after Liang Xiaodou. He can’t even chew through a soft bit of tofu.”

I thought about it and realized he was right, so I took a bite of his poached egg.

I had never realized a poached egg could taste so good.

I narrowed my eyes in satisfaction. “This tastes even better than the egg noodles from our old cafeteria.”

He remembered those days too. Between mouthfuls, he started bringing up my embarrassing history. “They just didn’t give you enough noodles. You always had to eat two bowls.”

“And you were too embarrassed to buy them yourself, so you always made me go. Once you’d finished them on the sly, you’d point at the empty bowls and put on an act, shouting, ‘Liang Que, how can you eat so much?'”

I felt a bit self-conscious. “Well, didn’t I give you a bite of my poached egg every single time?”

He swallowed his noodles, refusing to let it go. “Let’s be reasonable here. You’d snatch my poached egg away and then only give me back a single-”

He stopped abruptly, staring down at another poached egg hidden at the bottom of his bowl.

A family of three, one poached egg each.

This time, I hadn’t just given him a bite; I had given him a whole one.

When Liang Que looked up again, his eyes were rimmed with red.

“Yanyan,” he choked out my name. “If I leave, remember to find yourself a husband who’s actually capable. Don’t be like me-going out once and getting chewed up like a piece of tofu by a zombie…”