“Is it her?” Zhang Chenze asked quietly. “The ‘Leader’ from many years ago that Baihu mentioned?”

“Who could know…” Yun Yao shook her head. “Although she’s still alive, this is ultimately a case with ‘no one alive to testify’…”

After hearing this, Lin Qin felt she had found some clue, so she raised her head and asked the clerk, “Hello, do you have any food here?”

“Food…” After hearing this, the female clerk was stunned for a long time, then extended her dirty fingers. She cupped one hand and used the other hand like chopsticks, making motions toward her mouth twice. “You mean this kind of eating?”

“Yes…” Lin Qin felt this scene seemed familiar.

Back then, when Qi Xia had asked her if there was a “needle and thread,” her first reaction was also to use her hands to simulate the motion of threading a needle.

She seemed to be using this method to preserve a small amount of her rationality.

“Our store has very little food…” The female clerk shook her head somewhat regretfully. “Food only comes in small amounts each time… Even I haven’t eaten for a very long time…”

At this moment, Tiantian and Li Xiangling were looking around the convenience store. They quickly discovered several cans on the shelves. These cans looked quite new.

Tiantian spoke up. “There are several cans here. Why don’t you eat them yourself?”

Upon hearing the word “cans,” Lin Qin turned her head to look. She remembered that when she came here last time, the shelves had clearly been completely empty.

Now, after more than twenty days had passed, goods had actually been restocked?

“I can’t eat them…” The clerk waved her hand. “If we store clerks want to eat, we also need to buy. But I can’t afford it…”

Lin Qin thought for a moment, knowing there were now two important questions that needed to be clarified.

“Since you never eat things from the store… how long has it been since you’ve eaten?” Lin Qin asked.

“How long… since…” The clerk’s dry, yellow eyes blinked for a long time before she finally remembered something. “The last time I ate… I ate a pot of soup stewed with a piglet… it was very delicious…”

“At least twenty-four days,” Lin Qin blurted out.

Would a normal person look like this after twenty-four days without eating?

No… this matter was terrifying upon deeper thought.

Could this clerk have not eaten for even longer than twenty-four days?

After brief contemplation, this matter already had an answer.

“I feel what ‘Baihu’ said isn’t false…” Lin Qin turned her head to say quietly to the group. “This girl’s body is absolutely enhanced… She has ‘Earth-level’ physical capabilities… That’s why she can survive until now relying on the energy within her body…”

Yun Yao also re-examined the female clerk before her. Her figure was now no different from a skeleton, which indicated that for a very long period, her body had been consuming its own energy.

“If it’s truly as you’ve deduced…” Yun Yao’s expression became grave. “This means she won’t live much longer… It looks like the muscle and fat content in her body is already extremely low. If we don’t find a way to make her ingest nutrition, she’ll probably soon become a corpse that can never stand up again.”

After hearing this, Lin Qin nodded, then asked the female clerk again, “If that’s the case… who exactly is providing you with ‘goods’?”

“‘Goods’?”

Lin Qin extended her hand and pointed at the shelves not far away. “Where did your cans come from? Does someone in this place really supply you with goods?”

“Ah…” The clerk raised her eyebrows. Because her skin was completely withered, her forehead wrinkles were especially prominent. “It’s the ‘delivery man’… He regularly brings me some cans… But I can’t touch them… These are the store’s things… I can’t afford them…”

“‘Delivery man’…?”

Yun Yao picked up a can and looked at it. She quickly discovered the clue.

She was too familiar with these cans.

“That ‘delivery man’ you mentioned… what does he look like?”

“He…” The female clerk thought for a while, then extended one hand and placed it over her eyes. “He wears a… a golden…”

“Glasses,” Yun Yao prompted.

“That’s right… glasses. He wears clean shirts… loves to smile, and his smile is very nice…” As the female clerk spoke, she unconsciously revealed a smile. “When he talks to people, his voice is very gentle… and he smells very good too…”

As she described him, one figure accurately and unmistakably entered everyone’s minds.

“Chu Tianqiu.” Yun Yao and Lin Qin simultaneously spoke this name aloud.

Chu Tian… qiu?

Upon hearing these three words, the female clerk’s expression finally began to change slowly. It seemed the three words “Chu Tianqiu” made a deeper impression on her than “Qiaoyun.”

“Who is… Chu Tianqiu?” Her cracked lips continuously trembled, as if awakening some sleeping memories.

Yun Yao didn’t answer this question. She only looked toward Lin Qin with furrowed brows.

A strange thought began to circle in her mind.

“Lin Qin… what does ‘piglet’ mean?” Yun Yao asked.

Lin Qin briefly explained what happened when she first came here.

When everyone first saw this woman, she had personally cooked her own child and tried to share it with everyone. She had already gone completely insane.

After hearing this sentence, Yun Yao silently lowered her head.

Soon, her gaze flickered back and forth, as if some clue was connecting all the unreasonable things together.

“Wait a moment…” Yun Yao murmured. “It’s not because of Qi Xia…”

“What…?”

“I’ve fallen into a misconception…” Yun Yao said somewhat distractedly. “I originally thought Chu Tianqiu went completely insane… because he saw Qi Xia twenty days ago…”

“Isn’t that the case?” Lin Qin asked back.

“Could there be another possibility…” Yun Yao turned her head back, her expression exceptionally horrified. “Was it for this girl?”

“What…?”

“Or rather…” Yun Yao tried hard to calm her emotions down. “Was it for that child?”

These few short sentences caused everyone’s brows to furrow.

“Yun Yao…” Lin Qin interrupted. “Isn’t your hypothesis too bold? Are you saying that child was Chu Tianqiu’s…?”

“Yes…” Yun Yao nodded. “Just as this girl said, over a long period of time, the person she most commonly saw was Chu Tianqiu. For some unknown reason, Chu Tianqiu had relations with this girl, and when he learned his child had died tragically, he went completely insane…?”

Upon hearing this, Zhang Chenze couldn’t help but interject, “Too… too absurd… I’ve also met that Chu Tianqiu. Although I don’t know him very well, I basically know what kind of person he is. Although he’s quite insane, how could he possibly have a child with this woman here… He… he’s not that kind of savage person in my memory…”