Absorbing Survivors and Expanding the Base

They had originally thought that Liu Yang was simply reluctant to collect items for them, which was why he had walked from one end of the street to the other. Now, seeing his actions, they understood instantly.

Liu Yang had already cleared out the items from all the other shops, and this was the very last one!

Yet they simply could not fathom how Liu Yang had managed to pull this off. This wholesale street held at least thousands of tons of supplies.

And yet, all of it had vanished into thin air in just a matter of minutes?!

Liu Yang turned to the group and said, "Sorry, but you all were a bit too slow—your backpacks aren't even full yet. The supplies on this entire street have been collected by me. You'll need to go search elsewhere."

A look of despair washed over one of the survivors' faces. "This wholesale market has the most supplies in the entire vicinity. All the other places were cleared out by us long ago. Without this wholesale market, how are more than a hundred of us survivors supposed to survive?!"

After the apocalypse broke out, the survivors in this neighborhood had joined forces to form a settlement consisting of over a hundred people.

They were led by that muscular man with supernatural abilities.

Before long, they had believed they could build a survivor base centered around this wholesale market.

Unfortunately, the food in the wholesale market had now been completely collected. For their group of over a hundred people, even figuring out where to find food was a massive problem, let alone establishing a base!

Another survivor chimed in, "Yeah, exactly! Looks like we're going to starve to death! Out of our hundred-plus people, only Brother Wang is an Awakened one with decent strength. The rest of us are basically the elderly, the weak, the women, and the children. We're no match for the zombies at all! We're finished!"

"Within a radius of a dozen kilometers, only this wholesale market had the most food and the fewest zombies. It took us days just to clear the zombies out of here."

"The other supermarkets and such have too dense a population, so there must be countless zombies there now. With our strength, we wouldn't dare step foot inside!" another survivor said helplessly.

They had cleared every single zombie off this wholesale street, losing quite a few companions in the process.

Never had they imagined that Liu Yang would waltz in and take all the food, reaping the rewards without doing any of the work.

Regrettably, Liu Yang's strength was overwhelming, and all of them were too intimidated to voice their anger.

They could only stand there and grumble.

The muscular man, known as Brother Wang, turned to the crowd and said, "If anyone is to blame, it's our own slow pace, not him. Stop running your mouths!"

It wasn't that he failed to grasp the gap between himself and Liu Yang. As a fellow Awakened, he understood even more clearly just how formidable Liu Yang truly was.

The sheer sense of oppression radiating from him was enough to make anyone's heart race with terror.

The man probably only needed to flick a finger to wipe out everyone present, yet these people still had the audacity to complain—it was pure suicide!

Besides, in the apocalypse, there were no rules to begin with.

When it came to food, whoever was stronger took more.

Since the man possessed the ability to sweep away all the food, naturally, he would take as much as he could carry.

Put yourself in his shoes: if you had that ability, wouldn't you want to take the food from an entire street?

Were you expecting him to leave it behind for others?

Only an idiot would think like that!

Otherwise, there was no way anyone would leave food for strangers.

Therefore, the muscular man had a very clear-headed grasp of his current situation.

Not a trace of anger lingered on his face.

Only the look of resignation to fate.

Having heard the crowd's chatter, Liu Yang paused to think for a moment before saying, "Your survivor settlement has over a hundred people?"

"Yes," the muscular man hurriedly and respectfully replied.

Liu Yang told them, "How about this? The Splendid Garden Villa District, about 20 kilometers away from here—you must have heard of it before, right?

"That is my survivor base. You can take your people and seek refuge there. Once you step inside, food will no longer be an issue."

Hearing this, a light gleamed in the muscular man's eyes. "The Splendid Garden Villa District? I know it. I used to be a taxi driver! I've been there—that's a wealthy neighborhood!"

Liu Yang nodded. "That's right. It has now been transformed into a survivor base, and it's extremely safe. No horde of zombies can breach its defenses.

"Furthermore, I am the master of that place. I give you my word: any survivors led there by you will receive ten catties of grain for free!

"You can spread the word about that survivor base around this area and along your journey there. The more people you bring, the greater your reward. For every single person you bring over, I will give you one catty of rice. Bring me a thousand people, and I'll give you a thousand catties!"

Hearing Liu Yang's offer, the muscular man's face immediately lit up with joy!

Right at this moment, their survivor settlement already housed over a hundred survivors.

If they brought all of them over to Liu Yang's base, wouldn't that instantly net them over a hundred catties of rice?!

In the apocalypse, a hundred-plus catties of rice was enough for a single person to survive for three whole months!

That was by no means a small amount.

It had taken them days to clear out the zombies in this wholesale market, finishing the job only today.

As a result, this was supposed to be their very first scavenging run. They hadn't even managed to fill half a backpack before Liu Yang swept in and cleaned the place out. Up until now, not a single one of them had ever managed to scavenge even 100 catties of rice at once!

A delighted expression spread across the muscular man's face as he asked Liu Yang, "Are you serious?!"

Liu Yang replied, "Of course I am. You've seen my strength for yourself. Now that I've taken everything on this entire wholesale street, do you really think I can't afford to pay you that little reward?"

The muscular man nodded upon hearing this.

Indeed, he was right. An Awakened individual as formidable as Liu Yang, who was even capable of flight, scavenged food at a speed tens of thousands of times faster than theirs.

Even a Level 2 zombie probably wouldn't pose any threat to someone like him; he didn't need to clear out the zombies at all just to gather provisions!

No matter how many zombies lurked nearby, he could easily take whatever food he wanted.

Not to mention whatever he had gathered previously, this single wholesale street alone likely held hundreds of tons of rice!

After pondering for a moment, the muscular man nodded. "Alright, it's a deal! I used to be a local taxi driver, so I'm very familiar with these roads.

"While scavenging for supplies around here over the past few days, I've traveled to quite a few places and know the locations of several other survivor settlements! I'm confident I can persuade them. At the very least, I can bring a thousand people to your base!"

Since the outbreak of the apocalypse, wandering survivors outside had begun to huddle together, forming numerous settlements of varying sizes.

This muscular man was intimately familiar with the area. Moreover, having awakened his supernatural powers, he no longer feared ordinary zombies, which allowed him to scout out food in quite a few places during this period.

He knew the coordinates of quite a number of settlements!

Those settlements typically consisted of anywhere from a few dozen to a hundred-plus people.

The largest of them didn't exceed two hundred.

Scattered across various locations like loose sand, lacking any unifying leader to bring them together into a proper survivor base.

Liu Yang's appearance presented a golden opportunity.

The muscular man was confident he could persuade these people to join Liu Yang's survivor base en masse!

By bringing in all those people, he would be able to secure at least a thousand catties of grain for himself!

Even if he lived alone and rationed it carefully, that amount of grain could sustain him for at least two years!

"Very well, then I'll wait for your good news!" Liu Yang nodded. With that, he turned and left the wholesale street that he had thoroughly plundered, setting off toward other locations to continue his search for food.

At the same time, Liu Yang understood a fundamental truth: only by gathering all the food in the surrounding area into his dark space would these survivors be driven to a dead end, leaving them no choice but to join his survivor base without hesitation!

Luring them in with ten catties of rice now meant that a year later, their contributions to the base would amount to at least hundreds of catties of crops!

External resources would eventually be depleted one day.

Only by having survivors cultivate and produce their own food could the supply remain endless.

Furthermore, all the food produced within the survivor base required a twenty percent tax paid to Liu Yang. Therefore, the more people there were, the wealthier Liu Yang would become.

After Liu Yang departed, the remaining survivors began to murmur among themselves.

One of them asked the muscular man, "Brother Wang? Are you really planning to do what he said? Is that base of his really as good as he claims? What if he's just tricking us into going there to harvest our organs?"

"Yeah, exactly! Brother Wang, why does this sound so fishy to me? A base with zero threat from zombies, where everyone who goes gets ten catties of grain for free? Is he the savior of the world, just handing out food for nothing?"

Another survivor chimed in, "Shouldn't we go back and discuss this a bit more?"

The muscular man shook his head and retorted, "What do you idiots know? I'm an Awakened one, and you all know my strength. Put yourselves together, and you still couldn't beat me in a fight.

"But if my combat power is 100, his is at least 5,000!

"Do you have any idea what that means?

"Even a thousand of me wouldn't be a match for him!

"If he wanted to kill us, he could do it with a mere flick of his finger. Why would he need to trick us?

"Stop trying to measure the mindset of a powerhouse with your petty, dirty thoughts.

"Because your strength never reaches that realm, you can't possibly think about problems from his perspective.

"So, just do as the man says.

"This is a rare opportunity to latch onto a powerful backer—don't any of you dare squander it!"

The survivors had never seen the muscular man wear such a solemn expression.

Realizing the gravity of the situation, they had no choice but to nod in agreement.

"Alright, since Brother Wang says so, we'll listen to Brother Wang!"

"Yeah, yeah! We've relied on Brother Wang to survive safely up until now. Since Brother Wang says we should join that survivor base, let's all go together!"