With two short beeps, the flying vehicle’s control system was unlocked. Han Yanyan tightened the belt around Ding Yao’s back, grabbed the control handle, and pulled. The flying vehicle soared into the sky.
Han Yanyan didn’t leave immediately. Instead, she flew the vehicle in circles above the mountaintop while skillfully prying open the panel beneath the dashboard to reveal the wires inside. She stabilized the vehicle, used her fingers to fiddle with a few wires, and finally found the one she was looking for. With a quick snap, she tore it apart. The severed end sparked briefly, and then the vehicle’s alarm sounded: “Positioning system offline.”
Now, Dean and his father couldn't track the vehicle’s location through their connected smart brain.
Only after this did Han Yanyan choose a direction and drove the flying vehicle away.
“Let’s find a place to hide first,” she said to Ding Yao. “By the time they realize I’m missing and notice the vehicle is gone, they’ll think I’ve escaped. If they look seriously, they might find my shuttle, but the exchange of the shuttle for the flying vehicle would be worth it.”
But soon, she grew worried again and sighed, “We need to figure out how to find food. With just this little bit of rice, it’s not enough for both of us for very long. We can’t go back to Xingdun Town anymore, so we’ll have to trade elsewhere in the future.”
Ding Yao leaned in her arms, his gaze serious. After experiencing the apocalypse and now facing hunger, safety was the least of his concerns—getting something to eat was paramount.
This planet was sparsely populated, with vast mountains hiding countless mines beneath them. In the distance, some strange “mountains” twinkled and reflected light, but upon closer inspection, they turned out to be heaps of garbage, ranging from tiny scraps of paper to abandoned spaceships, everything could be found.
The one who gave birth to Ding Yao had also been just another part of this "garbage," cruelly abandoned by an unknown spaceship, dying only after giving birth.
“小遥，别怕。” Han Yanyan said as she piloted the vehicle. She freed one hand to pat the little head nestled in her embrace. “妈妈不会让你饿肚子的。” (Mom won’t let you go hungry.)
Ding Yao was too tired to comment on her constant self-reference as ‘Mom’.
They were quite lucky, though. Han Yanyan parked the vehicle at a garbage hill two hours away. She got up and crawled into the back compartment to open the storage box, realizing it was filled with bags of nutrient liquid.
It seemed this father and son had just finished shopping and made a beeline to catch her. Han Yanyan smirked, “Looks like they’ve sent us food.”
Regardless, at least they wouldn’t go hungry for the time being.
Han Yanyan tore open a bag of nutrient liquid and offered it to Ding Yao. “小遥，尝尝这个，比米饭还营养呢。” (Xiao Yao, try this, it’s more nutritious than rice.)
Ding Yao bit into it eagerly and began to gulp it down. Just as he consumed less than a third, Han Yanyan forcibly took it away. “That’s an adult portion,” she said. “You can’t drink that much; I bled from my nose when I drank too much at your age.”
She finished the remaining half of the bag, and neither were hungry anymore.
“Now that it’s still daylight, we need to find a place to stay.” She took Ding Yao outside for him to relieve himself. Once he was done, she held him up and shook him a little, then quickly returned to the vehicle, shutting the door behind her. “It’s chilly outside; won’t you take a nap in the car? Mommy will go find somewhere safe for us to spend the night."
She patted him gently, tightened his clothes, stroked his thin face, packed a nutrient liquid into her bag, then swiftly exited the vehicle and closed the door behind her. The vehicle had an air conditioning system to keep it warm. As soon as she stepped out, a cold breeze hit her, making her shiver.
After sneezing, Han Yanyan hugged her arms and stepped into the “mountain.”
Ding Yao pressed himself against the car window, watching Han Yanyan’s slim figure disappear into the garbage mountain. An indescribable feeling suddenly welled up within him.
Rationally, he knew Han Yanyan would not abandon him. Even if she did, she wouldn’t leave the vehicle behind. This planet was vast and sparsely populated, and the distance from one settlement to another was too far for anyone to traverse on foot. Han Yanyan simply wasn’t at the point of having to abandon him.
But… as Ding Yao watched her figure vanish, an unexplainable sadness tugged at him.
From the moment Han Yanyan picked him up, they had never been apart. She fed him, and cleaned up after him. They slept on the same bed, her even breathing being his best lullaby. No matter where she went, he was always with her—even during her baths, she’d put him aside to play.
This was the first time Ding Yao saw her figure disappear so far away. A feeling of unease began to gnaw at his heart.
He understood well enough that this unease stemmed from his own weakness.
He lay on the window for a while, trying to overcome that discomforting emotion. Eventually, he decided to take a nap. A ten-month-old baby, having just eaten, found it extremely easy to fall asleep. He lay down, and within three minutes, he was fast asleep.
When he woke up, the outside world was dimmer than before. He sat up and peeked through the gap in the front seat to check the dashboard. The timer showed he had been asleep for over an hour.
But Han Yanyan had still not returned.
Somehow, Ding Yao’s heart felt heavy. Slipping down from the seat, he staggered toward the storage box, opening it to see it was still full of nutritional liquids. A little relieved, he thought to himself, Han Yanyan would never abandon these; she wouldn’t leave him behind.
He climbed back up to the seat, leaning against it and staring outside as the light faded.
She truly would not abandon him, but… what if she didn’t come back?
There could be many scenarios in which Han Yanyan didn’t return. She might be lost; that was the best case. She might have been captured; given her looks, just a little bad luck could lead to tragedy. The worst possible outcome was her death.
Outside were not only humans but wild beasts as well.
When they went out harvesting rice, they hadn’t worn coats; she only had a handheld laser gun, and she hadn’t even brought a dagger…
As the sky darkened, Ding Yao experienced the most tormenting period of his life in both his pasts.
Worse than the mental anguish was the urgent need to relieve himself.
But when Han Yanyan left, she only left the air conditioning system on, shutting down all the other circuits. The car doors wouldn’t automatically open; they had to be opened manually. Ding Yao couldn’t manage to open it. He could only hold it in.
Just when Ding Yao felt he could no longer restrain himself and was about to slide down the seat to pull down his pants, suddenly, the door flew open, and a cold wind rushed in. Ding Yao shivered, not having time to pull his pants down, he lost control and wet himself.
The door shut again, shielding him from the cold wind.
Han Yanyan, shivering and rubbing her hands together, puffed out her breath, “Mommy’s back, Xiao Yao, did you… did you wet your pants?” Her voice suddenly rose.
Ding Yao wished she would just stay outside.
He was now a large baby, well past the stage of helplessness with bodily functions. Months ago, he had learned to hum to notify Han Yanyan when he needed to relieve himself, so he hadn't wet the bed or his pants for a long time. Yet today…
“How terrible! It’s so cold outside! You need to get those off quickly!” Han Yanyan fretted, and without giving him a chance to protest, she pulled down his pants, wringing them out and dousing part of the liquid on the floor of the vehicle.
She tossed Ding Yao into her backpack, “Stay there and don’t catch a cold.” Spinning around, she dug through the piles of things she had just brought inside, rags and torn clothes, all picked up from the garbage mountain.
“They’re all for warmth, but they’ve gotten too cold. Don’t worry, Xiao Yao, Mommy will warm them up for you.” Han Yanyan spoke, pulling out suitable garments, cranking up the air conditioning to blow warm air onto them.
Once she had bundled Ding Yao up snugly in the warm rags and torn clothes, she picked him up to re-place him into her backpack. Yet Ding Yao suddenly reached out and clutched her shoulder, nuzzling his head against her neck.
“烟…” he murmured.
Han Yanyan heard him clearly. A slight smile crept onto her lips, but she pretended not to understand and patted his back. “What’s wrong, Xiao Yao? Mommy knows, you’re scared, aren’t you? It’s all Mommy’s fault for being late. Don’t be afraid, Mommy has found a place for us to stay. We’re going to our new home now.”
She stuffed Ding Yao back into her backpack and shouldered him forward, activating the flying vehicle and ascending. Throughout this process, Ding Yao was unusually quiet and compliant.
As Han Yanyan piloted the vehicle, a flash of scorn flickered in her eyes.
Whether you were Ding Yao or Duke Klin, you have never known what it feels like to be a weakling. Allowing a woman to lie beneath you, or having a woman suffer torment for your life is nothing significant to you, is it?
So today, in this world, are you afraid?
When I don’t show up and don’t come back, the weak little you, are you afraid?
With her memories guiding her, Han Yanyan soon piloted the vehicle to its destination.
This planet, for years, had been littered with garbage by unscrupulous spaceships. In many places, garbage piled high as skyscrapers. Han Yanyan descended in altitude, maneuvering through the gaps between those enormous heaps
, finally landing at the bottom of a waste mountain.
It turned out that beneath this “mountain” lay a spaceship. While this ship wasn’t large, it was a civilian vessel, a third of its body missing, evidently suffering from bombardment, unable to endure, and was now scrapped. But the remaining two-thirds remained intact.
Han Yanyan parked the vehicle in a gap beneath the garbage mountain, packed some of half an amount of nutrient liquid into her bag, grabbed a light from the vehicle, then carried Ding Yao into the ship.
The sky had dimmed, and there were many obstructions outside, leaving the interior of the ship pitch black.
“小遥，别怕，这里什么都没有，很安全的。” (Xiao Yao, don’t be afraid, it’s very safe here.) Han Yanyan reassured as she walked inside. “I found two ships; this one’s relatively new, the other is too broken. We’ll stay here first, and see if those two have left in a few days. Then we’ll go back for our things.”
“Hopefully, they won’t discover the energy ore I hid.” She paused and murmured to herself.
Ding Yao had seen her organize those energy ores. On this planet, those ores were hard currency, and they had been her entire savings from living like a mouse in the mines for so many years.
While she talked, Han Yanyan moved to one side of the wall and said to Ding Yao, “小遥，妈妈给你变个戏法，你好好看着啊。” (Xiao Yao, Mommy is going to show you a trick, watch closely.)
After saying that, she fiddled with the control panel on the wall. Suddenly, a light illuminated from above. The lamps turned on one after another.
“See? Isn’t Mommy great? I was just fiddling with this circuit, and it took so much time.” She said.
She took Ding Yao to find a cabin— a bedroom that surprisingly had a double bed, looking quite homely.
“This must've been a private flying ship.” Han Yanyan lowered Ding Yao onto the bed. “I guess the owner ran into space pirates. Those bastards destroyed the ship, looted it, and then just dumped it here. How tragic... Ah! Be careful!”
Han Yanyan suddenly grabbed Ding Yao, stopping him from moving about.
On the bed lay a pile of torn clothes. Han Yanyan, dressed in her thin clothing, knew that her first priority wasn’t finding a hiding place but clothing.
One hand supported Ding Yao while the other pulled out a dagger from beneath the clothes.
“Though it’s already dull, be careful not to hurt yourself.” She said as she tossed the dagger onto the floor. It was a weapon she had picked up casually.
Letting go of Ding Yao, she rummaged through the pile of tattered clothing, finding several pieces that were completely unwearable. She gathered a few metal plates and made a fire pit on the cabin floor, tossing in the rags and using her lighter to ignite it. Warmth began to spread through the room.
“The life support system's main device is gone; the air conditioning system can’t be used. We can only warm ourselves up this way.” She remarked.
This ship was in relatively good condition—at least the bed had not collapsed because it was framed in metal. However, some things in the room had fallen apart. Han Yanyan looked closer and recognized that it seemed like a sofa. It was made of wood, and now that wood had shattered, providing her with kindling.
The fire in the pit quickly grew strong, driving the chill out of the room.
Han Yanyan held Ding Yao beside the warmth, drying the wet pants with metal plates.
“Are you hungry?” she inquired.
After a long silence, Ding Yao replied, “Hungry.”
Han Yanyan took out a bag of nutrient liquid, tore it open, and fed Ding Yao a third while drinking the remaining two-thirds herself. For Ding Yao, a third was enough to fill him, but a whole bag was an adult's portion, and Han Yanyan clearly needed more energy than just two-thirds.
She tried her utmost to conserve supplies, while Ding Yao gazed at her, silently yearning.
That night, when they went to sleep, Han Yanyan spread the larger rags across the bed. She also picked up a blanket, which they could use as covers for the two of them.
These rags once lay outside, exposed to the wind and rain. Especially with the strong winds on this planet, regardless of their previous odors, the breezes had washed them clean. Now, they only bore one smell—of dirt.
Ding Yao curled up, lying on the earthy-smelling bed. Han Yanyan lay behind him. They had always shared meals, sleep, and travels together.
Han Yanyan added enough firewood, and the fire burned brightly, casting an orange glow on his face as he quietly listened to her softly mumbling.
“Let’s hide for a few days, then go back and check.”
“We still need to find more clothes and blankets, and water.”
“Let’s endure today, and tomorrow we must find a water source.”
“It would be best to find a heater, and also see if we can find some weapons.”
“I wonder how much longer this ship's energy supply will hold out. The main energy block is gone, and the energy slots are empty. Those people took everything.”
“I don’t know if the kitchen is still intact; it would be good to have a pot.”
All sorts of trivial, troublesome tasks lie ahead, each requiring attention, but every single one was closely related to their survival.
Ding Yao listened intently, and as his eyelids began to feel heavy, he rolled back, snuggling into Han Yanyan’s embrace.
Han Yanyan’s murmuring came to a halt. After a while, her gentle arms encircled him, holding his small body.
“Don’t be afraid, Xiao Yao, don’t be afraid. Mommy is here.”
Her voice was as gentle as that of a real mother.
Were you afraid?
Was he afraid?
Ding Yao stared at the flickering orange flames and finally admitted it. When he waited alone in the vehicle for her, he had truly felt fear.
Fear that she wouldn’t return.
Fear that something bad had happened to her, that she might die outside.
So this is what “fear” felt like. Ding Yao reflected carefully; it seemed he had never been afraid of anything in his past life.
Why, in this life, did he feel fear?