Chapter 51: Human Nature and Darkness

Since both Guo Hanyue and Seito were able to join, it proved that the party system did not strictly require members to be Awakeners!

Moreover, the addition of members twice over had allowed Jiang Yi to discover a pattern: not only did he need to accept the other person, but the other person also needed to accept him in return!

In other words, while the party system belonged to him, the choice of joining was a mutual decision!

He certainly acknowledged Li Huiyu's strength, but it was obvious that Li Huiyu did not acknowledge him, and even treated him with less regard than Guo Hanyue.

Such a person could simply never become his party member!

And those not on his party roster not only failed to provide him with experience points, but were instead "enemies" who would steal his kills!

No wonder Jiang Yi had always maintained an indifferent attitude toward him.

The trust level could be said to be an extremely useful metric! Jiang Yi even regarded it as a measure of friendliness and closeness!

Anyone whose trust level could not be read meant they held no goodwill toward Jiang Yi at all!

For instance, Dongfang Tian and Li Gang!

Seeing Jiang Yi's expression, Guo Hanyue was so exasperated she wanted to crack open his head just to see what on earth he was thinking! Li Huiyu was exceptionally strong; no faction would easily let someone like that slip away, would they...

Seito looked at Li Huiyu beside him with a hint of vigilance. To be honest, upon hearing Guo Hanyue's implication, he still felt a touch of a crisis. After all, if Li Huiyu joined, he would once again become the weakest person in terms of strength!

Dongfang Tian looked toward Jiang Yi's side with a complex expression. Originally, he had the most people under his command, but he never expected that after a single battle, only Li Gang remained by his side!

Noticing Dongfang Tian's gloomy mood, Li Gang leaned in and lowered his voice, "Dongfang, don't worry. As long as our plan succeeds, everything here will still be yours!"

Dongfang Tian's eyes lit up, but then he looked at Jiang Yi and Guo Hanyue with a conflicted gaze. "Do you think we should still proceed with that plan now? How about we just drop it for now?"

Li Gang was taken aback. His voice involuntarily rose a pitch before he immediately lowered it again. "Dongfang, what are you thinking? Don't worry, leave this matter to me!"

Dongfang Tian raised his head, only to find that Li Gang had already walked away!

"Captain Jiang, how can we get out of here? Do you have any ideas?" After the six of them had respectively organized their belongings, Li Huiyu took the initiative to ask Jiang Yi! As for Dongfang Tian, he was directly ignored...

Jiang Yi surveyed the surrounding environment and ultimately realized that while this place was temporarily safe, it also blocked any means of escape. After all, this was the third floor, and there was only a single passageway leading down to the second floor!

There were no other exits, and jumping down from the third floor to the outside was completely unrealistic. They had only awakened abilities, they hadn't turned into supermen! Having no good solutions, he looked at Dongfang Tian and Guo Hanyue!

As for Li Gang and Seito, they were directly ignored.

Dongfang Tian and Guo Hanyue clearly pondered things more deeply, but faced with such a situation, they had no immediate good ideas either!

Li Huiyu looked contemptuously at these three obvious leaders and said in a deep voice, "Since none of you have a good solution, how about listening to mine?"

Everyone was startled and couldn't help looking at Li Huiyu. Li Huiyu leaned against the wall, ignoring their varied, scrutinizing gazes, and lowered his voice: "Since you all know that escaping requires returning the way we came, instead of thinking of other methods, we might as well figure out how to wipe out the zombies on the second floor!"

Everyone was greatly shocked, whereas Jiang Yi was rather excited—killing zombies was what he was most interested in.

"Are you out of your mind! Do you have any idea how many zombies are on the second floor? Are you trying to get us killed?" Li Gang reacted with extreme intensity. After all, he had just witnessed his men being torn apart piece by piece by a horde of zombies with his own eyes. Even with his thick nerves, the mere thought of that scene made his heart pound with terror.

Li Huiyu let out a cold snort. "I think the one out of his mind is you. Take a look at how much food is left on the third floor; this little bit isn't even enough for the six of us to eat for a single day! If we just drag this out, we'll all die sooner or later!" Li Huiyu ruthlessly exposed the biggest problem facing them all!

Although this place was a cafeteria, there was no kitchen on the third floor, and all the food was brought up via the service elevator. The dishes in the private dining rooms had long since rotted and bred worms; what little edible food remained was merely some snacks they had collected that the guests had carried with them.

Li Gang's face turned beet red with stifled anger, but he stopped talking. After all, Awakeners needed to eat too, and in fact, their appetites were even larger than ordinary people's.

Li Huiyu then shifted his gaze back to Jiang Yi. After all, he wasn't a fool either; although he looked down on someone like Jiang Yi who didn't even understand martial arts yet managed to form a party, he had to admit that the person with the most say right now was none other than him!

Jiang Yi rubbed his chin. While he was quite tempted by Li Huiyu's suggestion, he also had to face reality—there were simply far too many zombies on the second floor!

Relying on just the six of them, charging down there wasn't going to kill zombies; it was going to feed them!

However, Li Huiyu's words provided him with inspiration. They still had a major advantage right now: the staircase from the third floor to the second floor wasn't all that wide, and furthermore, zombies didn't know how to climb stairs!

Recalling how earlier they had lured almost all the zombies on the second floor into the main cafeteria, Jiang Yi suddenly had a flash of inspiration, raised his head, and smiled. "Perhaps there really is a way!"

Everyone looked at him, and Jiang Yi pointed toward the stairwell. "Li Huiyu is right. If we want to escape now, we can only return the way we came, but we also have an advantage—the zombies don't know we're on the floor above them! If we can sneak around from behind and lock them inside the cafeteria, we should be able to easily deal with the remaining zombies. As for the zombies outside the building, that will depend on our own fortune!"

Li Gang was the first to object. "Are you out of your mind? With so many zombies, how are you going to trap them? Who's going to lock them in? You?"

Guo Hanyue glared at Li Gang, abruptly cutting him off mid-sentence.

After pondering for a moment, Guo Hanyue nodded as well. "Jiang Yi's plan is probably the most viable method we have. As for who goes to close the door, I think Li Gang, who has the greatest strength, is extremely well-suited for it!"

Li Gang leaped to his feet, his face flushed with anger. "Bullshit, Guo Hanyue! You're trying to send me to my death! Whoever wants to go can go, I'm not going! Why should you people arbitrarily assign this to me?"

Dongfang Tian also frowned. Li Gang was his last remaining subordinate; sacrificing him at this point would be extremely disadvantageous!

Yes, in the minds of almost everyone present, going to lock the door was tantamount to sacrificing oneself to buy a chance of survival for the others. None of the people sitting here were that noble!

Jiang Yi opened his mouth, wanting to say he didn't mean to send them to their death, but Seito had already stood up and said, "I'll go!"

Li Gang cast a disdainful glance at Seito's slender frame. "Hmph, you're so noble. I just wonder if you can actually pull it off, instead of failing to lock the zombies in and ending up drawing them out instead!"

Seito was furious, gripping his blade as he snapped, "You!"

At that moment, Li Huiyu reached into his backpack, pulled something out, and revealed it to be a deck of playing cards. "How about this, let's draw lots to decide! Doing this alone is indeed too dangerous, and someone needs to cover them anyway! We Awakeners won't get infected, and Captain Jiang's suggestion has a very high success rate!"

With that, he picked out six cards and displayed them to everyone. "There are four number cards and two face cards here! The ones who draw the face cards will go, while the four who draw number cards will stay behind! Any objections?"

Jiang Yi gave him an extra look, truly not expecting that even at a time like this, Li Huiyu would still carry playing cards with him!

Although everyone felt some trepidation, Dongfang Tian knew the current situation no longer allowed him to refuse. After Jiang Yi's side agreed, he had no choice but to go along with it as well!

Li Huiyu quickly shuffled the cards, laid them out one by one on the windowsill, and motioned to them. "To be fair, you guys go first, and the last card is mine!"

No one had any objections; it was purely a matter of luck.

Soon, everyone had drawn their cards, and under Jiang Yi's lead, they flipped them open! The result was somewhat unexpected.

Li Gang, who was best suited to go down yet the most unwilling, seemed to have been struck by fate and drew the winning card. Holding the Queen, he had no choice and was inevitably the one who had to go down.

As for the second card, it was neither Seito, who had volunteered to go, nor Li Huiyu, who had proposed the idea!

Jiang Yi looked amused at the Joker in his hand and gently handed it to Li Huiyu. "It seems this really is the will of heaven. The one who proposed the idea—myself—and the one with the greatest strength—Li Gang—makes for a very logical pairing!"

Seito said with some anxiety, "How about I go instead!"

Jiang Yi glared at him. "Do you want to go die that badly? Stay put and look after Guo Hanyue!"

Guo Hanyue also nodded, as she very much approved of the combination of Jiang Yi and Li Gang. After all, among the six of them, Li Gang had the greatest strength, while as for speed...

Glancing at Li Huiyu, if he wasn't a speed-type Awakener, only Jiang Yi would be better suited!

Having witnessed Jiang Yi's agile movements among the horde of zombies, Guo Hanyue had zero doubts about his strength!

Li Gang seemed to recall something, swallowed hard, and finally stopped arguing. Dongfang Tian's expression was somewhat unsightly, but since he hadn't drawn the card himself, he couldn't very well object anymore—especially since he practically had no say left in the team.

Jiang Yi handed his backpack to Seito, and seeing the worry still written all over Seito's face, he lowered his voice and said, "Stay close to Guo Hanyue and take care of yourself. Don't worry, I'll be fine."

Guo Hanyue stood off to the side and rolled her eyes. "All right, you're just going downstairs to close a door, stop making it sound like a life-and-death parting!"...

Over on Li Gang's side, he whispered something to Dongfang Tian, then glared at Jiang Yi with a resolute expression as he clutched his weapon.

Jiang Yi was amused to the point of laughter by Guo Hanyue's remark, but he said nothing further. Wielding his black saber, he stood alongside Li Gang at the bottom of the third-floor landing, where the clamor from the second floor could already be heard.

Everyone grew quiet. Li Huiyu glanced at the phone in his hand. "Five minutes. If you two aren't back by then, we're charging straight down!"

With that, he pressed the countdown timer, and Jiang Yi smiled as he walked down the stairs. "Five minutes? More than enough."

Li Gang followed closely behind Jiang Yi as they cautiously approached the lower floor, a flash of ferocity crossing the depths of his eyes as he looked at Jiang Yi's retreating back...

Jiang Yi wasn't truly worried. As long as they were careful not to make too much noise, the success rate of his plan was exceptionally high!