Call Me Daddy

Originally, a power that was meant to connect with animals had become a tool for slaughter.

While hunting rare animals, she could also kill members of other poaching teams who clashed with her, doing so without changing her expression. The number of lives lost at her hands was countless.

The outcome was predictable. As the government became increasingly adept at handling the anomaly, these dark forces were eradicated one by one.

Due to her unique abilities, Su Su wasn’t sentenced to death, but her fate was hardly better than death.

She was sentenced to life imprisonment in a state-owned breeding farm, confined in an iron cage at the center of the farm. Her role was to calm the emotions of the poultry and livestock. Besides eating and daily bodily functions, she was never allowed to leave that cage for the rest of her life.

The original owner also faced a dismal end.

Without Su Su, the relatives who had once flattered him scattered. He had been pampered by his exceptionally talented daughter, and without her, he was left without even the means to barely survive.

When his former sister-in-law, Kong Yao, learned of it, she rushed from her hometown to give him several hard slaps and looked at him with a mixture of hatred and unfamiliarity.

She felt she had never really understood this brother-in-law. She had previously thought he was too influenced by his mother and lacked independence, but she never realized he was such a cold and indifferent man.

Kong Yao regretted not taking Su Su with her when she left. Had she known the original owner would be such a father, she would have taken Su Su with her.

But it was too late to dwell on such things.

In the end, the original owner died in the old family home, with the portraits of the grandmother and elder brother still hanging on the wall.

No one came to collect his body. As it decayed and rotted, it remained curled up, lying beneath those two portraits.

***

Su Aobai, upon entering this body, would naturally not allow such a thing to happen.

However, the emotional turmoil from his previous life had left a significant impact on him. Even though the emotions of each world faded after he left, Su Aobai still found it difficult to muster the energy.

He had saved the grandmother not only because he wanted her to live but also because he believed that as long as she was alive, he, as a “mama’s boy,” could comfortably avoid responsibilities and adjust his mood without violating his persona.

He had thought the grandmother was tough and brave. Even after the anomaly, she had managed to keep the family adapting to the new world. He didn’t expect that the surviving grandmother would bring him such a “surprise”!

As Su Aobai carefully unbuckled his seatbelt, opened the car door, and prepared to get out and rescue the grandmother from the back seat, he pondered her abilities.

Beast control?

It didn’t seem like it. Beast control abilities were more about calming agitated animals.

Yet, these animals became even more frantic upon seeing his mother, as if they had taken stimulants.

In the original owner’s memories, he had never seen such a power.

Deng Caihua was truly the bravest woman in the village. Before her son could rescue her, she came to her senses first. Looking at the chickens, ducks, and geese that kept rubbing against her, she opened the car door and shooed all the birds that had flown in through the window out.

“Go away, go away! Who spilled the heat tonic and fed these little pests? All of them are coming to harass me!”

Deng Caihua grabbed the fattest hen from her arms and was about to throw it to the ground. However, the next second, the old hen clucked, and a round, warm object appeared behind its plump rear.

Deng Caihua immediately realized that the hen had laid an egg in her arms.

“Cluck, cluck.”

After laying the egg, the hen that had first occupied her arms looked up at her and clucked a couple of times, as if it were proud.

Deng Caihua’s scolding paused. She put the egg into her pocket and then ruthlessly tossed the hen into the pile of chickens and ducks.

“Cai Hua, stand still!”

Not far away, Fan Xiajuan, who had been running after her fat chickens and was now out of breath, finally saw that the few plump chickens tied with red ribbons had stopped running. She sighed in relief.

She didn’t know why the little pests had stopped running around Deng Caihua, but not running was a good thing. She had been afraid that Deng Caihua’s loud voice would scare her precious chickens away. If that happened, catching them again would be difficult.

Other villagers who had come along had similar reactions, shouting from a distance for Deng Caihua to stay still.

At this point, Deng Caihua began to realize what was happening. The chickens, ducks, and geese from the village seemed to have run away for some unknown reason, and now the villagers were catching the runaway birds right next to her.

The villagers quickly caught up with the birds. Learning from previous mistakes, they shouted for people passing by to go home and fetch ropes and bags.

Once they reached Deng Caihua, they efficiently tied up the poultry, ignoring their desperate cries, and stuffed them into bags, preparing to take them away.

***

Seeing that the situation was resolved, Su Aobai, like the original owner before him, stood silently by the grandmother’s side.

“What’s going on?” Deng Caihua asked in confusion.

In the past, there had been a funny incident in the village where a man, not very successful on the stove, secretly followed a small ad on a telephone pole and sought out a so-called “urologist,” who prescribed some heat tonic.

The medicine had just been brewed when his wife heard their daughter yelling in the yard, saying that the geese at home were pecking at her. The little girl was crying loudly, and the man, forgetting about the heat tonic, hurried outside to drive away the troublesome geese.

Unbeknownst to him, because the door was left open, the bowl of medicated water on the table was drunk by their large yellow dog.

Good heavens, who knew how many different kinds of heat tonics had been added? All day long, the village could hear the howling of the large yellow dog and the whining of countless small female dogs.

Not only that, but whenever the large yellow dog saw a person, it would cling to their legs, nudge against them, and wag its tail.

This led Deng Caihua, upon seeing the scene, to instinctively think that someone had mixed heat tonic with water and that their own pets had consumed it.

But with so many households around, it seemed unlikely that each family had bought heat tonic, and so coincidentally, all their chickens, ducks, and geese had consumed it.

“Enough of that. These pests are rebelling.”

Fan Xiajuan, struggling, had tied up the escaped chickens, including their wings and legs. By the time she was done, she had worked up a light sweat.

Wiping her forehead, she said, “Cai Hua, have you just been discharged?”

Relieved, Fan Xiajuan and the others finally realized that Deng Caihua was standing in front of them, just discharged from the hospital.

After expressing their concern, the villagers who had come to fix their own chicken and duck pens reminded Deng Caihua to take good care of her poultry and then hurried off, leaving behind a mess of chicken, duck, and goose feathers from when they had rushed to get into the car.

“What a strange occurrence.” Deng Caihua muttered. Could all the chickens, ducks, and geese really escape home?

They had been raised from a young age, and when she called them with their food bowl in the yard, they would gather around. How could they possibly escape? But the scene she had just witnessed was indeed as strange as they had described.

Deng Caihua briefly thought about the birds outside the hospital window and the dog she had encountered when being discharged, but she didn’t dwell on it.

“Hurry, hurry, let’s go home and check.”

She was still worried about her chickens and ducks; her precious pets she had raised to nourish herself. She hoped they hadn’t become malnourished or lost while she was away.

“Those people left so quickly. If their animals were so noisy, they’d better not have made a mess in the car. I borrowed it from someone else, so I’ll have to ask them for cleaning money. They can’t just run away and escape responsibility.”

Chickens, ducks, and geese leave messes wherever they go, and there’s no stopping their waste. Since it was a borrowed car, it had to be returned clean.

The old lady muttered as she opened the car door, only to be stunned by the sight before her.

***

There was no sign of mess, but there were several steaming eggs, some of which were covered with a bit of droppings. It seemed that the chickens, ducks, and geese that had just flown into the car had laid their eggs inside.

Kong Yao had just recovered from the shock of the incident when she saw her mother-in-law’s face change instantly. The transformation was quicker than a Sichuan opera face-changing act.

“I wondered why I kept seeing magpies chirping at my window these days. It turns out this good fortune was waiting for me. Er Bai, hurry, hurry, let’s go home. I’m going to steam these goose eggs for you.”

The old lady’s eyes sparkled as she stared at the goose eggs, which were much larger than ordinary chicken or duck eggs.

Goose eggs were a rare treat; it was hard to find a genuine large goose egg for 20 or 30 yuan. Now, there were three of them lying in the back seat of her car, not to mention the scattered chicken and duck eggs. Altogether, they were worth at least 100 yuan.

Aside from the eggs, the car contained only some feathers and easily washable footprints from the poultry. The sofa covers and mats that got dirty were nothing; just needed a wash.

The old lady was beaming with joy, feeling she had struck it rich. She had to get rid of the “evidence” before those people realized it. And the best way to deal with it was to eat it all.

Under normal circumstances, Kong Yao would never allow the old lady to take such a small advantage, but since the old lady had just recovered from illness, it didn’t seem so bad to eat their eggs, considering what she had just gone through.

She regarded the recent events as just an accident.

****

“Grandma!”

As the car turned into the small road outside the old house, two children ran out of the long building.

The boy, slightly older and about 8 or 9 years old, was Su Yuan, Kong Yao and Su Yiqing’s son, nicknamed Yuan Yuan.

True to his name, he was a cute little boy with a round face and looked very adorable. At that moment, he was holding his younger sister Su Su’s hand, happily running out from the neighbor’s house. Since Kong Yao was taking Su Aobai to the hospital to pick up the old lady, she had left the two children in the care of the neighbors.

The two children had been eagerly waiting and watching for any signs outside. When they heard the car coming, they knew their parents were bringing grandma home.

Su Yuan was fulfilling his role as an older brother. Despite his own impatience, he made sure to keep pace with his little sister, who was running with her short legs while he walked briskly.

“Grandma, Su Su missed you so much, really, really missed you.”

The little girl clung to her grandmother’s leg like a little octopus, sticking close to her. Despite Su Aobai taking her to the hospital every day to talk to her grandmother, the little girl still felt like she hadn’t seen her grandmother in a long, long time.

Su Yuan, now aware of his role as an older sibling and not one to show such childish affection, stood on the other side of the old lady. He held her hand and said seriously, “Grandma’, your back home now. You need to eat and sleep properly and not get sick.”

He had often been scolded by his mother when he was ill because he was picky with food and didn’t sleep properly.

“Good, good, good.”

Deng Caihua smiled happily at her two adorable grandchildren, feeling her heart melt at their cuteness.

The two children were still so young. How could she bear to die? She had to live for many more years to see them grow up, start families, and achieve success.

As she led the children into the courtyard, she glanced subconsciously at her chicken and duck pen.

The five hens and three ducks she kept were all calmly staying within the fenced area, showing no sign of the frantic behavior others had described, no attempt to escape.

As soon as she entered the yard, the chickens and ducks, which had been lying quietly in the shady corner, all stood up. They hurriedly squeezed their way to the fence, chirping and quacking excitedly at her.

Deng Caihua attributed this excitement to the fact that during her absence, the chickens and ducks must have been poorly fed and were eagerly waiting for her to come and feed them.

It turned out that it was those people’s chickens and ducks that were problematic.

Deng Caihua thought silently to herself.

But if the problems with those chickens and ducks were just about laying eggs near her, she felt that such problematic chickens and ducks could be of more use.

Wait a minute, could the eggs laid by these problematic chickens and ducks be dumb?

Would eating such eggs make me less intelligent?

Could I give these eggs to my precious grandchildren?

The old lady hesitated for a moment.

***

August 13, 2027, 21:23:47 P.M.

The world fell into darkness.

The power went out, the water was cut off, and countless accidents occurred as a result of the power and water outages.

At the first sign of trouble, everyone instinctively dialed emergency and police numbers, but strangely, all signals seemed to disappear with the power outage.

Initially, those who hadn’t yet gone to sleep thought it was a localized issue. Unable to access the internet, they went to the nearest police stations for help. As time ticked by, and the sun rose, more and more people woke up.

With signals, electricity, and water still out, people who relied on the internet for information found themselves cut off from both data and Wi-Fi, feeling like blind people with their eyes open, trapped in a state of unknown panic.

Some ran to police stations, others to government offices. Students were unsure whether to go to school, adults didn’t know if they should go to work. It wasn’t until the afternoon that word-of-mouth finally spread some news.

This wasn’t a localized incident; the entire world was simultaneously experiencing this strange situation.

Satellites were all out of contact, and all power generation equipment was mysteriously inoperative. The power outage led to water and work stoppages, and only a few water plants and factories with dual-circuit systems continued to operate using diesel generators. However, even these companies quickly ceased operations in the face of the bizarre situation.

The anomaly had arrived at the designated time!