When Meng Chao turned his head around, he saw a woman in her thirties with a rather curvaceous figure.
She had a smiling baby face. If it were not for the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and lips, she would have looked like a female university student who had just graduated. At that moment, she held a rather heavy wooden box in her arms, and she wore a Blue Home armband on her arm.
When she saw Meng Chao staring at her armband, Xiao Fanghua's face turned red. She explained in slight embarrassment, "Leader Meng, I'm really sorry. I haven't come to the Broken Star Club for a few months. It's because I'm too busy with work. Last time, when the fog descended, a group of monsters charged into a school in the east of the city and destroyed the entire campus. Many of the teachers sacrificed their lives to protect the students who stayed in the school.
"Over the past few months, I've been attending classes at my school in the south of the city during the day, and at night, I've come here with a few colleagues to help the children organize study classes. I really can't find time to come to the Broken Star Club. Honestly, I have quite a few questions regarding cultivation that I'd like to ask you!
"As for this —"
She swung the armband on her arm. "My husband is a member of Blue Home, and since he's here for an event today, I came to help him."
"It's okay, Teacher Xiao."
"You don't have to explain these things. It's the same for the Broken Star Club and Blue Home. In any case, it's fine as long as we can help.
"Also, don't keep calling me Club Leader Meng. Everyone in the Broken Star Club developed together. I didn't actually do anything. This isn't the Broken Star Club. You're older than me, and you're a teacher. Just call me Young Meng or Meng Chao."
"How can we do that?"
Xiao Fanghua held back her laughter and said, "Don't you call me 'Teacher Xiao' too?"
Meng Chao thought about it and readily accepted her advice. "Big Sis Xiao!"
"Then … Then I won't hold back, Meng Chao."
Xiao Fanghua grinned and took two steps forward. "Speaking of which, I've been thinking about going to the Broken Star Club to look for you over the past few days. Meng Chao, I have an academic question that I'd like to ask you."
"Oh?"
"Big Sis Xiao, please go ahead," Meng Chao said.
"I'm pregnant, just three months."
Xiao Fanghua's face turned red, and she whispered, "Can I continue practicing the Ultimate Style?"
"Really? Congratulations, this is a good thing!"
Meng Chao thought, 'It's no wonder why I feel that Ms. Xiao has become rounder compared to a few months ago.'
He was genuinely happy for Xiao Fanghua.
But when he thought about it, if Ms. Xiao was pregnant, wouldn't the child be Zhao Feixuan's blood descendant, one of the future ten great lost people in Dragon City?
When he thought of this, he couldn't help but have a strange expression.
To hide it, Meng Chao coughed dryly and snatched the wooden chest from Xiao Fanghua's hands.
It was rather heavy, so Meng Chao asked curiously, "What's this?"
"These are some teaching tools for the children, such as guns and monster models," Meng Chao said.
"Meng Chao, I'll do it myself. It's been three months, so it's fine."
"It doesn't matter. We only distribute canned food and drinking water here anyway. I won't be of much use. I might as well go and see the children in the class with Sister Xiao."
While Meng Chao walked, he said, "So, you didn't come to the Broken Star Club because you're pregnant?"
Xiao Fanghua's face turned red. "Honestly, I'm not that precious. It's just that this is the first time my husband has become a father. When he heard that I was pregnant, he was so happy that he didn't know what was going on. He treated me like a candy doll and was afraid that I would shatter if I fell on the ground and melt if he held me in his mouth. Forget about the Ultimate Style, he even wanted me to quit my job as a teacher so that I could stay at home and take care of the baby.
"I argued with him a few times. The women in Dragon City aren't as fragile as the women on Earth. Even when they face the roars of monsters, they still give birth to children, and when they're born, they don't even lose half a finger.
"After much persuasion, he finally agreed to let me go to work as usual and organize the class. But I had to take a step back and set aside the Ultimate Style for the time being.
"Now, it's already been three months. The doctor said that the baby is strong and stable, so it won't be a problem for him to go through basic training. I can't care about him so much. Meng Chao, the Ultimate Style cultivates 1,024 branch meridians. It's a neutral and peaceful martial art, so it should be fine for the baby, right?"
"This …"
He thought about it and said, "Big Sis Xiao, don't be in a hurry to go back to high-intensity cultivation. I'll go back and ask my teacher. Before you, we've never run into the problem of pregnant women practicing the Ultimate Style. Even though the Ultimate Style is relatively gentle, we still need to use bioelectricity to stimulate our spirit meridians. We don't know whether we need to adjust the strength of the stimulation and the formula of the gene medicine when the baby's vitality magnetic field overlaps with the mother's vitality magnetic field."
As they walked and chatted, they gradually reached the depths of the settlement.
Tents were connected to other tents, and each tent often had more than three to five residents. Because there was no place to dry, they could only dry clothes, bedsheets, and washed bandages on the path between the tents. From time to time, the two of them had to walk through the clothes with their heads lowered. It was as if they had entered a complicated maze.
The citizens living in the tents were not in a good state of mind.
When the fog descended, most of them were subjected to large-scale mental attacks from monsters. In a daze, they saw really terrifying scenes, and many of their mental strength indices plummeted to the point where they were about to break down.
Even after many days of recovery, many people's eyes were still bloodshot. Some of them looked panicked and lost, as if they were stuck in the nightmare of that night and could not free themselves from it.
Besides, the environment here was terrible. The air was rotten, and many people were highly nervous. Their negative emotions spread like a virus.
Meng Chao looked through the gaps in the tents and saw quite a number of families that were similar to each other.
Most of the women held the few items they had managed to save from their old homes. Their expressions were blank as they mumbled to themselves, as if they were reminiscing about the good times in the past.
The men were like fighting cocks with bombs tied to them. The slightest bit of friction would turn into a bloody conflict.
Most of the time, people did not really hate each other. They were just venting their despair because they did not know when they could live in a new house and return to a normal life.
"The citizens here aren't in a good state of mind," Meng Chao whispered to Xiao Fanghua.
While they were walking, they saw three fights between the citizens. Meng Chao whispered to Xiao Fanghua.
"No matter who it was, they wouldn't have been able to recover."
Xiao Fanghua smiled wanly. "With the help of the Survival Committee, the Supernatural Tower, and many public welfare organizations, the citizens have finally settled down. If they don't crave for taste, they can still guarantee that they can synthesize food and recycle drinking water. Their basic survival isn't a problem.
"But humans aren't people who can be satisfied with just surviving.
"When many of the citizens fled in a hurry, they didn't bring anything with them. All their valuables were left in their homes, and they were burned or corroded by the monsters.
"Many of the neighborhoods and factories were badly damaged, so they lost their jobs.
"The Survival Committee did arrange for people to clear the ruins or go outside the city to level the land, dig ditches, or develop Dragon City, but it's more efficient to use large runic symbol machines or the army to complete these tasks." If we let the citizens do it, it'll just be a form of work. How much salary can we give them? They'll just be giving their families a few more nutritious cans of food or drinking water that needs to be recycled a few times. "
Meng Chao nodded and sighed.
"In truth, the adults can still get over it. After this period of time, they can go out and search for jobs. The key is the children."
Xiao Fanghua never left her old profession. "Many of the children who lost their homes are in their teens, and it's their first golden cultivation period. If they don't build their foundation now, it'll be very difficult for them to awaken to supernatural abilities in the future.
"There are dozens of students in the third year of middle school in the class we set up. They'll be taking their high school examinations next year.
"They're in normal schools, and their teachers aren't very good. The cultivation machines are also old and not new. Every year, there are only a handful of students who can get into First High School, Second High School, and Construction High.
"But now, the school and all the cultivation machines have been destroyed. Many of the teachers died in the fog.
"Even though the higher-ups have mobilized a group of teachers to the settlement to build a temporary school, the teaching space and cultivation facilities aren't up to expectations.
"Besides, pests appear in the settlement. Viruses wreak havoc every few days, and zombies run amok. We have to carry out a full disinfection, and we can't ensure that the children can study normally during the day.
"We can only give them supplementary lessons at night. They're all good students, and it'll be a pity if we waste them like this."
As Xiao Fanghua spoke, she led Meng Chao into a huge double-layered tent.
It was different from the other tents. There was no stench of trash fermenting in this place. There was only a faint fragrance of chalk dust and ink mixed together.
Dozens of children who were neither old nor young were meditating in the tent.
Their earnest expressions gave off a calm and steady feeling, which formed a stark contrast to their parents' panicked and frustrated expressions. It separated the inside and outside of the tent into two different worlds.
Meng Chao looked around and noticed that the class might have been small, but it had everything. There were two blackboards at the front and back. The one at the front was filled with the secrets of the Nine Great Stances, along with the most basic runic symbol studies and spirit energy studies. The one at the back had a blackboard with rows of skyscrapers covered in flowers and plants. There were also colorful smiling faces.
There were four words on it.
[Our Home.]
Meng Chao felt warmth in his heart.
No matter how difficult the current situation was.
As long as the children were filled with hope.
Dragon City would always have a future.
Xiao Fanghua and Meng Chao placed the teaching tools in a corner and massaged their waists gently. Then, they looked around and frowned a little. She asked a girl with a ponytail who stood at the front, "Class rep, where's Li Jue?"
"Li Jue was called home by his father just now," the class rep said timidly.
"His father … doesn't seem to want him to train in the class."
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