These fresh goods are quite tempting!
An Nuan smiled and said, "We'll tell you later. Let's eat first. It won't be good if it gets cold."
An Nuan didn't intend to keep it a secret anyway.
The core members of the community all knew about her and Fu Yunting's relationship, and many of the ordinary members did too.
An Nuan also feared that there might be dissenters within the community. Therefore, the ten-person team assembled by Nanmen Ying held a very unique and sensitive position within the community.
Lao Niao picked up the food bucket, covered the food he wanted to eat, mixed it around, and then scooped it into his mouth with a spoon.
"Boss, watch your table manners. The ladies are watching!"
"I'm just showing the ladies what a real man looks like!"
"Boss, you're spilling."
"Don't spout nonsense, my kidneys are fine, I won't spill!"
"No, I mean you spilled on your mouth, it's all over your clothes!"
Lao Niao looked down and saw that his chest was covered in food, and there was even a small piece of truffle.
He picked it up and popped it into his mouth. After a two-second pause, he continued to devour his meal.
He ate and drank to his heart's content, leaning back on the swing like a fallen log, watching a group of children playing boisterously.
Lao Niao took a swig of beer and hummed a tune from an opera.
An Nuan spread out a picnic mat on the lawn, peeled some oranges, and placed them on a small stove to roast.
"Little Nuan sister, I want to eat roasted bananas."
"You'll have to wait a bit longer, five minutes. Come back when they're hot!"
"Then can I have oranges?"
"Sure, you can have whatever you want! But the oranges will take ten minutes. Come find me after you finish playing hide-and-seek!"
The children scattered, happily going off to play.
Lao Niao let out a long sigh, then straightened his head and said, "Innocence is a crime when one possesses treasure; a tall tree catches the wind."
An Nuan turned her head and smiled, "I know. Wen Jing has been very busy lately, which made me feel something was wrong."
"But we can't suffer our own people."
"Our community's dispatched personnel are less about scavenging for supplies and more about giving them something to do, as well as training their adaptability and combat effectiveness."
"Most of the supplies are provided by Fu Yunting and me."
"If we people were to compete for food with those outside the community, they wouldn't even be able to maintain their current standard of living."
"Shangdi has abandoned this place, so why should I care about the whole world?"
An Nuan flipped the banana, threaded it onto a bamboo skewer, and placed it on a net bag to heat it up further. She asked Lan Mi to help distribute it to the children.
An Nuan then cut a few more bananas and placed them on the stove.
Lao Niao said, "While that may be true, people are inherently greedy."
"We're all ordinary people, so why can you support others but not them?"
"Why are some Tier 2 individuals living well in the community, while some Tier 4 individuals are suffering outside?"
An Nuan admitted that what Lao Niao said made a lot of sense.
But was there fairness in the world?
They say that school years are the fairest time in life, yet some children could play the piano at three years old, while others were still waiting at home for adults to feed them porridge at three.
There had never been fairness in the world.
Not in times of peace, and certainly not in the apocalypse.
"Timing, geography, and human relations; they didn't apply for entry at the best time, can they blame me?"
"You used to be in the arms dealing business, so you must have dealt with the wealthy circles a lot. Business opportunities, timing, and luck, which one is dispensable?"
"They missed their chance, and that's that. I'm not their parents, there's no reason for me to indulge them."
"If they have the ability, they should form their own base, grow strong, and make others envious. Constantly fixating on others, what kind of people are they?"
"In any case, my stance is that if others don't provoke me, I won't easily provoke them. Even if we resent each other, as long as we don't interfere, it's fine to live quietly like this."
"If someone is foolish enough to attack me, then I can only fight back."
An Nuan placed the roasted oranges in a small basket and had someone distribute them to the children.
She handed two to Lao Niao and Fu Yunting.
Fu Yunting ate sparingly, breaking off two pieces and putting them in his mouth, then feeding the rest to Xiao Yu.
Lao Niao ate a slice and instinctively furrowed his brow.
He hadn't expected it to be so sweet, better than those grown in the mountains.
He ate two more and patted his stomach contentedly.
"Daughter, I'm only reminding you out of kindness, as Xiao Leilei's partner. People have lost their humanity now, and there are no legal constraints. Talking to them about morality is like playing the lute to a cow. What will you do if they gather and attack you?"
Lao Niao was speaking to An Nuan.
But Fu Yunting lowered his gaze and fell silent.
An Nuan noticed but didn't say anything, smiling at Lao Niao, "Aren't you here? If they attack me, will you not care? You are my man's uncle, how can you bear to not care about us?"
"You... Hahaha, well said! I am your uncle. If anyone dares to touch you, I'll blast them to smithereens! Lao Wai, you all remember, if anyone has ill intentions towards my niece, blast them directly!"
Lao Wai's mouth was full of fruit, making him unable to speak, so he quickly gave him an "okay" gesture.
An Nuan looked at the flames and said softly:
"It's survival of the fittest. It's already generous of me not to plunder them, and they dare to attack me..."
"Whoever dares to come, I will take their life. If a hundred come, I will kill a hundred. A thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand... Whoever touches my people, I will kill them, until they dare not act rashly anymore."
There was no morality or sentiment to speak of, nor was it about profit, but simply about stance and the way of life.
Fu Yunting let out a gentle sigh.
The stone weighing on his heart was lifted.
He had been afraid that An Nuan would find him too bloody.
Fu Yunting smiled and squeezed next to her, "Do you want to eat cherries? I'll buy some and we can eat them after washing."
"Okay, I'll try roasting some cherries for you? I heard people online say it's fun to eat them this way!"
Emmm...
Fu Yunting reluctantly agreed.
After eating two, his eyes lit up.
"Hey, why do these taste like mangosteens!"
"You don't say?"
An Nuan ate one.
Damn, this didn't taste like mangosteen at all. It had the smell of a cardboard box that had been left in a damp basement for a while.
"Excuse me, Xiao Leilei, how did you get the taste of mangosteen?"
Fu Yunting ate several more one after another.
Not only did he taste mangosteen, but also tomatoes, cherries, and sugarcane.
Although it was absurd, Fu Yunting was happy.
It didn't matter if his taste was confused, as long as he had taste!
He ate a small handful, each bite bringing a different surprise.
An Nuan was also happy to see this and quickly helped him roast a box of cherries.
"I've noticed that the bigger and plumper the fruit, the more you taste cherries and mangosteen. The slightly less good ones taste like tomatoes, all sour and sweet, but the ones that are even worse actually taste like pure sweet sugarcane. Why is that?"
Fu Yunting thought for a moment and smiled, "Perhaps, sugarcane isn't very valuable."