Surviving the apocalypse with a wife and a system! [GL]

Jinghua was the kind of city that looked like it had been dreamed by someone with a soft heart and then engineered by someone with a very sharp mind. It hovered over the ocean in layers of silver towers, glass bridges, and green terraces that never seemed to end. At night the whole place glowed in a way that made the sea look black and gentle, like a giant piece of silk moving under the moon. The streets were clean, the air was clean, even the rain seemed to fall with a kind of order here, as if the weather itself knew it was living inside a future that had already made peace with beauty.

People in Jinghua did not stare at two women walking hand in hand. They did not whisper when they saw a family made by choice instead of tradition. Science had changed too much by then, and not only the machines and the hospitals and the floating farms. It had changed the way people thought about love, about family, about what a child could be. There were clinics that could weave genes with perfect care, health systems that could make two women build a biologically shared child together, and laws that protected every family shape with calm certainty. The old world had once argued about what was natural. Jinghua had moved on and learned that love was more real when it was chosen.

Still, even in a city like that, there were some things that felt impossible.

Like the way Bai Li looked at Yan Cijin.

Like the way Yan Cijin’s whole face changed when Bai Li leaned in close and smiled in that shameless, handsome way of hers.

Like the way their daughter Lili could walk into any room and turn two grown women into absolute fools without even trying.

Their apartment sat on the upper side of a sky tower that faced the sea. It was not the biggest place in Jinghua, but it was warm in the way a house should be. White walls, soft light, large windows, a tiny indoor garden, shelves full of books and little things that held memory. On rainy days the windows turned the sea into a silver blur. On bright days the whole home looked wide open, as if it could breathe. Yan Cijin said she liked the quiet. Bai Li said the quiet was dangerous because it made her want to kiss her wife more often. Lili said the quiet was boring and then immediately ran around enough for three people.

That morning started the same way most of their mornings did, with Bai Li pretending to be the victim of a very serious attack.

Lili had jumped on the bed with both feet, her little pajama sleeves flying up, and landed between them with a triumphant giggle. Bai Li made an exaggerated groan and rolled onto her back with one arm over her face.

”I have been beaten,” she announced. ”By a tiny person. I fear I may never recover.”

Lili put both hands on her hips, which made her look twice her age and still like a baby at the same time. ”You were sleeping too long.”

”That is because I am a hardworking woman who needs rest.”

Yan Cijin, already half awake, turned her head on the pillow and looked at Bai Li with an expression that had long ago become part fondness and part suspicion. Her beauty always felt too clean and elegant for the way mornings found her. Her hair was loose and a little messy, her skin soft in the early light, and her eyes had that slow waking warmth that Bai Li loved most because it was only ever for them, never for the city, never for the world. ”You worked hard doing what?” she asked.

Bai Li opened one eye. ”Loving my family.”

Yan Cijin’s mouth twitched. ”That is not labor.”

”It is if I do it properly.”

Lili climbed over Bai Li and flopped next to Yan Cijin instead. ”Mommy Cijin, Mother Li is being dramatic again.”

Bai Li sat up at once with offended pride. ”Again? What do you mean again? I am a picture of dignity.”

Yan Cijin reached over and lightly pushed her forehead with one finger. ”You are a picture of nonsense.”

Bai Li caught her finger and kissed the tip of it. ”That is a very affectionate insult.”

Yan Cijin immediately withdrew her hand, but her ears had already gone slightly pink. ”Get up and eat breakfast before Lili starts feeding you spoon by spoon.”

”I would let her.”

”No, you would not. You would make it a game.”

”That is because games are fun.”

Lili nodded very seriously. ”Mother likes games. Mommy likes tea. I like snacks.”

Yan Cijin looked at her daughter and sighed in the face of such wisdom. ”At least one person in this home is honest.”

Bai Li got out of bed with a lazy stretch that made the lines of her body look unfairly graceful even in a wrinkled sleep shirt. She was tall, broad shouldered, and handsome in a way that had once made Yan Cijin stare too long before she even admitted she was doing it. Bai Li knew it too. She used that knowledge irresponsibly. ”I am honest too,” she said.

Yan Cijin raised her brows. ”You lied about sleeping.”

”I was resting my eyes.”

”You were snoring.”

”Definately not.”

Lili burst into laughter. ”Mother said definately wrong.”

Bai Li clutched her chest. ”Traitor child.”

Yan Cijin laughed softly then, a low bright sound that always seemed to hit Bai Li right in the heart. Bai Li looked at her wife like she had just been handed a gift and was still trying to understand the shape of it. There were many years behind that look now. Years of learning each other, loving each other, building a family from something that had started as curiosity, then friendship, then danger, then the kind of love that changes the way a person breathes.

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TO be continued.