Chapter 23 Narrow-minded
When Chang held Jing’s onto hand and was about to leave, someone grabbed his s.h.i.+rt tightly.
“Where are you going?” It was the dead brother’s father who gripped Chang’s clothes and yelled, “How dare you leave without giving us an explanation?”
“I gave a clear explanation already; it was none of my business.” Chang tried to get rid of the hand on his clothes and raised his voice so that the crowd could hear him. “I’ve made everything very clear. We went to the bathroom together and when he was using the urinal, a monster with tentacles attacked him from the sewer. I hope I’ve made my point now, so stop making things difficult for me.”
“Why weren’t you attacked then?” the father questioned.
“I don’t know; why don’t you ask the monster yourself?” Chang was provoked by this question. “I didn’t ask it to attack your son, nor I am its father!”
Chang didn’t emphasize “father” deliberately when he spoke, but the word had obviously caused pain to the man who just witnessed the death of his son.
Without a doubt, the dispute heated up pretty quickly.
The family had just lost their own beloved son, but there was no one they could vent their anger on, so all the dissatisfaction and anger from their hearts was pushed to Chang. Also, because Chang felt that there was no room for compromise between him and the family, he no longer held himself back and started arguing, too. All of a sudden, their dispute had gathered a crowd of spectators; it seemed like everyone was getting involved in meaningless conflict.
There was no sign of stopping until someone from the military showed up.
Two soldiers dismissed the crowd as they received orders from the squad leader to bring Chang and the father to an office.
“Okay, tell me what happened.” A captain-like soldier sat behind the desk, looked at them and knocked on the desk.
“He set my son up! He made my son die!” The father complained to the captain and tried to address the injustice of what happened. His face was distorted with hatred and grief.
However, seeing the father’s face irritated Chang even more. Even before the apocalypse, he had hated these kinds of people who distorted the truth to act in their own interests; they were greedy and had no conscience. These people became even more despicable after the apocalypse; within a day, they had ignited Chang’s anger more than three times.
However, Chang was a relatively reasonable person, and although his was very irritated, he still managed to suppressed his emotions. “Captain, it’s very simple. I went to the bathroom with his son, and he was attacked while I wasn’t. This man didn’t have anyone to blame for his son’s death, so he insisted that I caused his son to die as an excuse to calm himself down.”
“You can inspect the bathroom yourself if you would like to know the truth. You’ll reach the same conclusion as mine. His son was killed by the monster, and there’s evidence of it from the blood and flesh at the scene. Obviously, I don’t have power to control a monster; I was lucky that I didn’t get attacked because I didn’t go up to the urinal at the same time as his son did. This is exactly what happened, and if I knew that there was a monster waiting, I wouldn’t have even dared to go into the bathroom.”
“I agree,” the captain nodded after he heard Chang’s explanation, so his questions were no longer focused on the argument between the two. Instead, he asked questions he was truly concerned about, “The monster was able to attack a human from the sewer?”
“Yes,” Chang nodded.
“Send someone to inform the soldiers in other departments. Tell them how the monster attacks; also, notify the civilians to be more careful.” The captain stood up as he gave the command to his subordinates.
He seemed shrewd and smart, and he knew exactly what to do under the current circ.u.mstances.
Therefore, he nodded to Chang and the father when he walked past them. The captain didn’t explain anything, nor did he take notice of the father’s pleading. He left the room without looking back.
“I’m sorry, in this situation and circ.u.mstance…” Chang gave a mocking smile to the father after the captain left. There was a hint of irony in his words, “Such trifling matters don’t deserve the captain’s attention.”
Chang turned away without hesitation as he spoke – since he had offended the father, he didn’t mind offending him to the very end.
When Chang returned to his room from the office, Jing and others were waiting for him nervously with worry written all over their faces.
“How did it go?” Pangzi asked first as soon as he saw Chang. “Did the soldiers do anything to you?”
“No. To be honest, the military is already busy enough trying to solve the problems of food shortages and communication with the central military, so they didn’t care about such a small issue,” Chang shrugged. “Plus, anyone with a discerning eye could easily tell that the death of his son was none of my business.”
“Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!” Pangzi sat back to his bed after he learned Chang was safe. “His own son was attacked by a monster, but he deliberately accused you of killing his son. I really don’t understand how he can do this.”
“There are many of these type of people. Eventually, everyone will encounter one in their life.” Chang sighed.
“Still, you shouldn’t just continue offending them.” Lin, who didn’t speak for a while, argued softly, “We won’t get much peace as long as we continue to live with them.”
“That’s might not necessarily be the case.” Chang added, “In their little and narrow minds, I’ve already completely offended them the moment their son died. How we treat them afterwards doesn’t matter anymore.”
“How do you know?” Lin ignored Chang’s explanation and continued to ask.
“I know these kinds of people all too well.” Qing shui gave a similar answer, and then brought up another topic. “We should be aware of what they do later, but right now it isn’t a good time to discuss this.”
“Yeah, I thought so,” Pangzi nodded. “Food; the food problem is the most critical issue at this moment.”
“Has all our food perished?” Chang dismissed all the irritations when he heard the word “food.”
“They aren’t edible anymore.” Jing wiped a barely noticeable tear drop on her face, then took out several bags of food and bread from the backpack.