Uncle, Will You Come Back?
“Mr. Xiao Yi, we originally should have given you something to thank you for everything, but now we have nothing left, so I’m truly sorry… And I can’t ask you to stay in our villa either. My husband just passed away, and it’s just me and my daughter now—we have to be cautious… Sorry…”
The woman stood up with the gun in hand, her face full of apologetic honesty as she spoke to Xiao Yi.
From her words and demeanor, it was clear she still harbored deep vigilance and distance toward him.
Xiao Yi could understand. After all, to them, he was a total stranger, a man they knew nothing about.
And Katherine’s husband had only just died.
Inviting a man into their home so soon would be wildly inappropriate.
But at least now, Katherine felt guilty toward him—and there seemed to be a faint spark of fondness.
It’s not the right time yet.
Xiao Yi realized Katherine loved her husband deeply and was deeply conservative. Winning over this mother and daughter in short order wouldn’t be simple.
At the very least, he couldn’t rush it.
But Xiao Yi had all the time in the world to slowly claim their hearts.
He knew exactly what the woman before him needed!
This mother-daughter pair, as long as they wanted to survive, would inevitably fall right into his palm!
Now, it wasn’t him begging for their acceptance—it was them who would end up needing him!
“Mrs. Katherine, I completely understand your grief and your caution toward me. In the apocalypse, a little wariness is only smart.”
Xiao Yi smiled faintly and nodded, the picture of gentlemanly grace—utterly harmless, impossible not to like. “I’m out of food myself, so I need to head out and scavenge. I won’t impose on you any longer. Your husband was brave, truly… but outside is dangerous. Unless you have no choice, I’d stay put if I were you.”
With that, Xiao Yi turned and left without a backward glance.
It was getting late. For safety’s sake, he needed to make it back to the manor during the sun’s fiercest hours. Waiting there was a prize of the highest caliber.
“Uncle!”
Jessica Alba, kneeling and sobbing uncontrollably over her father’s corpse, suddenly shot to her feet in panic. She grabbed Xiao Yi’s sleeve, her big, watery eyes blinking up at him with heartbreaking vulnerability, brimming with desperate hope. “Uncle… will you come back to see… see us?”
She was just a girl, innocent and unscarred by the world. Jessica held no suspicion toward Xiao Yi anymore—instead, gratitude had blossomed into the first threads of dependence.
It was human nature, perhaps. When the sole man a woman could rely on was gone, she’d instinctively seek a replacement.
The young Jessica clearly felt something for him already.
“Well…” Xiao Yi feigned hesitation for a moment, then offered an apologetic smile. “It’s way too dangerous out there. I don’t venture out often. But if I happen to pass by again, I might stop in. And if I score enough food, I could bring some for you girls.”
He glanced at the nearby tree trunk, stripped bare of bark, and sighed with a shake of his head.
Then he ruffled Jessica’s hair gently and strode off without looking back.
Xiao Yi knew full well: playing it cool right now would build their trust faster. It would drive home that he owed them nothing—no food, no favors.
So when he showed up again, laden with supplies at their lowest point, their gratitude—and dependence—would run even deeper.
A peck of rice earns enmity; a bushel breeds hate.
Too much kindness, too much eagerness, and people get suspicious… or entitled.
Xiao Yi, who’d scrapped his way through a decade-plus in his past life’s cutthroat society, knew that lesson cold.
“Xiao…”
Katherine watched him go, her clenched lip trembling open. She reached out in anxious impulse, words on the tip of her tongue—but her husband’s corpse lay right there before her. She bit them back, swallowing hard.
“Jessica, grab a shovel from inside. We’ll bury your father. Let him rest in peace.”
Tears streamed down Katherine’s face as she gazed at her husband, eyes squeezing shut in agony. They spilled from the corners anyway, unchecked.
“I’m sorry, Mark. For our daughter’s sake, I have to keep going… I’m so sorry…”