Chapter 874 - 494: Embers of the Long Night (Part 3)

Liu Yu scratched his head. "Xiaoya is very kind, and she takes care of the other kids too..."

"But her studying is just so-so, right?"

Xiaoba bluntly pierced through Liu Yu’s attempt to cover up.

"Strictly speaking, when it comes to things related to combat, history, and science, her level of acceptance is not high—at least much slower than Chengcheng." Liu Yu let out a helpless sigh.

The train’s school mainly teaches three core subjects.

Combat covers evolutionary knowledge, identifying dangers like zombies, Evolution Beasts, and the environment, military theory, and a whole mess of other content. Of course, with kids we don’t go that deep—the most is teaching them to recognize danger, so they don’t end up in danger without realizing it, or treat firearms like toys and point them at their companions and so on.

History bundles together most of the humanities content from the old days, including some identity recognition, social relations, cultural inheritance, etc. But Liu Yu has always been pessimistic about this part. On the train there simply isn’t an environment for them to understand abstract things like "law" and "morality". These concepts can only be repeated out of his and Lu Yu’s mouths.

Humans are very realistic. Whatever they don’t need, they gradually clear out of their minds. No matter how meaningful it is, it will never be more important than survival itself.

If civilization hadn’t been resumed on the train, Liu Yu himself would’ve almost forgotten he once was a modern person.

Building order is hard, but collapse is very easy.

Xiaoba froze. Just three subjects, and she doesn’t do well in any of them—doesn’t that make her a total academic loser?

Before he could keep asking, the kids poured out of the classroom one after another. Xiaoya led her two little brothers at the back, head drooping as if she was lost in thought. The moment she saw Xiaoba, she happily lifted her head.

"Master Eight!"

Chengcheng and another little boy followed suit, shouting "Master Eight, Master Eight," and the rest of the kids didn’t know what was going on, but they chirped along like little birds.

At that title, the boy’s brows tightened slightly. The budding angles of his face turned cold in an instant; in the blink of an eye, the sunny neighbor kid became a steel fortress.

An intangible taste of metal and gunpowder spread out, immediately scaring the little girl so much she didn’t dare make a sound.

A dignified Tier Three Evolver—no matter how he reins in his aura, the killing intent and dominance are already carved into his bones. Not just Xiaoya; even Liu Yu beside them felt his guts clench when he saw Xiaoba’s frown.

"Why are you calling me that?"

The little sprout on top of Xiaoya’s head trembled, perfectly showing her inner panic. "I heard everyone else call you that..."

Feeling the Fear from Xiaoya and the kids, Xiaoba quickly relaxed his brows and crouched down. "Don’t mind other people. However you used to call me, just keep calling me that in the future."

Xiaoya tested it out. "Brother Xiaoba?"

"Mm."

Xiaoba immediately gave her a bright, sunny smile as encouragement.

But the Fear in Xiaoya’s eyes didn’t fully fade. The despair and shadow Su Huan left in her are just too deep. She’s too little to understand why adults suddenly change faces; she can only sense that they’re angry. That kind of unstable emotion terrifies her and makes her instinctively want to shrink back into her own burrow.

Yet Xiaoba didn’t let her sink into panic alone. Just as her head dropped, he scooped her up, wiped away her aggrieved tears, and comforted her gently. "The elders call me Master Eight because they’re teasing me. My peers call me Master Eight because they’re joking with me. Now even you kids want to bully your brother?"

At those words, Xiaoya snapped out of her own grievance right away. She can’t stand seeing others wronged. Her tears hadn’t even been fully wiped away when she clung tightly to Xiaoba. "No, no, Xiaoya would never bully Brother Xiaoba. Xiaoya likes Brother Xiaoba the most..."

"Oh really? I remember you said last time the one you liked most was Aunt Yu."

"I like you all. Xiaoya likes everyone."

"That means the ’most’ you just said was a lie. Your brother is so heartbroken."

Holding Xiaoya, Xiaoba smiled with squinted eyes at Liu Yu from where she couldn’t see.

As for Chengcheng and the other little boy, Zhengzheng, plus He Jie’s kid Xiaoxiao, they just stared dumbly for a long time, having no idea what had happened. All they knew was that big sis had cried and now she was anxious again.

Their little brains weren’t at the stage where they could grasp such complicated stuff. They’d already forgotten why they were calling him Master Eight just now and had moved on to looking forward to tonight’s dinner.

With Xiaoya snuggling against him, Xiaoba headed toward He Jie’s place.

Because her belly had started to show, and with the train captain’s departure weighing on her mind, Yu Yue kept forcing herself to hold up, but Xiaoba and the others still quietly took over the few tasks she had left. Though Xiaoba is decent at soothing kids, his cooking is frankly mediocre.

The rear dining car mostly caters to Evolvers, and those evolutionary materials aren’t kid-friendly at all. As for Sister Wan Xing’s cooking... better not. Xiaoba doesn’t even want to recall the days when the two of them depended on each other to survive.

That really was a dark stretch of time.

So the job of cooking for the kids ended up on Han Qin.

After dropping the kids off, Xiaoba politely declined Han Qin’s invitation to stay for dinner. He’s already reached the level Su Huan was at back then; ordinary food can hardly replenish his Energy consumption. Rather than waste time, it’s better to find a place rich in Energy and lie there for a while.

When Xiaoba entered the war-readiness room, there was still a faint scorched heat hanging in the air. A handsome, masculine officer stood to the side, tidying his uniform in front of the Mirror.

The Armed Train’s uniforms are basically a set of green combat fatigues, with no difference between officers and soldiers. The only special thing lies with the weapons: every officer will buy himself a Ming Lion as a sidearm. This habit started with Lu Xiao and slowly evolved into standard issue for officers.