Chapter 299: Give Everything You Have

One hundred villagers, each strapped with explosives, were all mowed down by Fatty Xu.

Among them was Xu Lili, whom he had once been infatuated with.

But as he gazed at Xu Lili’s lifeless body on the ground, his heart felt oddly calm. He even started to question himself.

"Why was I ever so obsessed with this woman?"

Looking at Xu Lili now, she wasn’t even that pretty.

Some of the villagers weren’t quite dead yet. Fatty Xu’s aim was terrible, and they were still struggling in agony.

“Well, no turning back now!”

Gritting his teeth, Fatty Xu went around delivering the finishing blow to each of them. He awkwardly apologized to Zhang Yi, “Sorry, Boss. My aim’s pretty bad—I wasted your bullets.”

Zhang Yi generously waved it off. “No problem, consider it target practice.”

Bullets weren’t a scarce resource for him. With plenty of materials stored in his alternate dimension, Lu Keran could forge them continuously.

Many people had an irrational reverence for firearms and bullets, thinking they must be extremely valuable. In reality, they were cheap to produce—otherwise, many households abroad wouldn’t own them.

With all the villagers dead, and none of them reaching the Shelter, Ling Feng clenched his teeth in frustration.

“Damn it! Damn it all!”

This had been his last card. If it didn’t work, he’d have no choice but to admit the mission was a failure.

Half of the Special Forces Team from West Hill Base had been killed, leaving only a few survivors.

There was no way Chen Xinian would send him the remaining forces.

As for regular soldiers, sending them would be like throwing cannon fodder at Zhang Yi—they didn’t even have the skill to engage in a proper shootout with him.

Ling Feng fumed, venting his frustration, while the others stood silently around him, equally furious but powerless to do anything.

They wanted nothing more than to drag Zhang Yi out of the Shelter and tear him apart—but they lacked the strength to do so.

“Captain Ling, let’s go back.”

Engineer Wu suddenly spoke.

Unlike the others, Engineer Wu wasn’t one of Ling Feng’s subordinates. He had been assigned to assist Ling Feng on this mission by the higher-ups, so it was appropriate for him to speak up.

“We’re out of weapons and ammunition, and our soldiers are almost all gone. Staying here serves no purpose.”

Shi Dayong, Zheng Xuerong, Shen Hong, and Yu Lang were taken aback, quickly glancing at Ling Feng.

They were terrified that their proud captain might lose it.

But Ling Feng didn’t act out.

Instead, he gazed at the fortress-like Shelter, standing unscathed amidst the scorched earth. He stayed silent for a long time.

With Ling Feng not speaking, no one else dared say a word, waiting for their captain to make the final decision.

After a few tense minutes, Ling Feng finally spoke, his voice tinged with fatigue.

“Do you think we can go back?”

For the first time, exhaustion crept into his tone.

He was tired—truly tired.

In all his years as a soldier, he had never encountered such a helpless situation.

It was a total defeat.

The mission had failed, and so many of his soldiers had died. He felt ashamed to even think about facing Chen Xinian.

“Maybe I should just die here.”

As he spoke, Ling Feng suddenly drew his pistol and pointed it at his own temple.

No one expected this. Liang Yue’s eyes flickered, secretly hoping he would pull the trigger.

She knew how dangerous Ling Feng was. If he lived, he would be a significant threat to her future escape plans.

Besides, this butcher had too much innocent blood on his hands. He deserved to die!

But Shi Dayong and the others weren’t about to let their captain end his life.

They quickly wrestled the gun out of his hand.

“Captain, don’t do something foolish!”

“This wasn’t your fault! In the face of the apocalypse, we don’t have the modern equipment needed to breach that fortress, and Zhang Yi’s superpowers are too strange! Failure was inevitable.”

“You’re one of West Hill Base’s most important protectors. If something happens to you, the base would suffer a tremendous loss!”

Everyone was trying to talk Ling Feng out of it.

But to Liang Yue, it was laughable how easily Ling Feng had let them take the gun away. She couldn’t help but look down on him.

Ling Feng hadn’t intended to kill himself. It was all an act, just like when Cao Cao had cut off his hair to take responsibility for trampling a farmer's field.

“See? It’s not that I’m afraid to die—I just couldn’t turn down your earnest pleas, so I guess I’ll live.”

Ling Feng struggled a little. “Let go! Just let me go! I’ve failed the mission assigned by our leader. How can I face him?”

Engineer Wu coughed and said, “In fact, we didn’t come back completely empty-handed.”

“If we take the people of Xu Family Town back, that should be enough to appease the leader.”

In the post-apocalypse, villages like Xu Family Town, with a large number of living people that could be easily controlled, were extremely rare.

West Hill Base was always in need of people—whether for experiments on superhumans or as labor for the Fourth Life Pod.

Engineer Wu continued, “Besides, we’ve already lost so many Special Forces members. If you can’t pull through, the base will suffer even more.”

The Special Forces chimed in, agreeing with Engineer Wu’s reasoning.

Ling Feng hesitated for a while before letting out a resigned sigh.

“In that case, I’ll have to live with this shame and return to the leader.”

Though Ling Feng was deeply resentful, he knew the mission had failed. Continuing to fight would be pointless.

“Let’s go back to Xu Family Town.”

His cold demeanor returned as he led the way back.

Before leaving, Ling Feng detonated all the explosives strapped to the villagers from Xu Family Town.

A blinding flash of light shot up into the sky. If not for the Shelter’s glass shielding, it would have blinded them.

Zhang Yi closed his eyes, ignoring the explosion.

Though the house shook, the distance was far enough that the Shelter remained undamaged.

Fatty Xu, caught off guard, had his eyes stung by the blast, turning them red and teary.

“It’s over.”

Zhang Yi knew that this time, Ling Feng and his people wouldn’t be returning anytime soon. If they did, they would need better weapons and more resources to challenge him again.

Back in Xu Family Town, the villagers were on edge after hearing the explosion from across the river.

They desperately wanted to escape.

But in the icy wilderness, without shelter or sufficient food, they wouldn’t survive three days.

Faced with such harsh conditions, people instinctively huddled together for warmth, even if it meant facing death together.

As the town’s nominal leader, Xu Dongtang was deeply troubled.

Never in his worst nightmares had he imagined that the people from West Hill Base would do this to them.

If he had known, he would have listened to Xu Chunlei.

But… did he ever have a choice?

Xu Dongtang furrowed his brows. After much reflection, he realized a terrible truth.

No matter what decisions he made early on, today’s outcome was inevitable.

Xu Family Town had plenty of people and food but lacked the military power needed to protect themselves in the post-apocalypse.

Whether they faced a powerful superhuman like Zhang Yi or an organized force like West Hill Base, they were always going to be the victims.

This wasn’t a civilized world anymore. Strength ruled everything.

When Ling Feng and his men returned to Xu Family Town, the villagers saw that the hundred people who had been taken were not coming back.

They already knew what had happened.

But this time, no one spoke. They just stared at Ling Feng’s group with lifeless eyes, like corpses watching grave robbers.

Ling Feng stood before them and said, “We’re leaving now.”

At those words, a flicker of hope appeared in the villagers’ eyes.

Were these devils finally going to leave? Were their days of suffering finally over?

Only they knew the hell they had lived through for the past month.

Though the Special Forces Team was just over sixty men, they consumed enough food for five or six hundred.

They had also killed, worked to death, or otherwise caused the deaths of over five hundred villagers!

Despite the freezing weather, Xu Family Town hadn’t lost many people to the cold. Instead, they had lost nearly a third of their population to these outsiders.

The villagers’ eyes filled with excitement, thinking they had finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

Even Xu Dongtang’s eyes welled with tears of joy.

“Thank goodness! This time must have been hard on all of you. Should we help you pack up?”

“Of course.”

Ling Feng added, “Have everyone pack what they need for daily use. Prepare to come with us back to West Hill Base.”

“Oh, and by everyone, I mean all those between the ages of 16 and 35.”

Xu Dongtang’s smile froze.

“Captain Ling, what do you mean by that?”

Without even looking at him, Ling Feng said in a commanding tone, “Not just anyone can go to West Hill Base. This is a tremendous opportunity—a gift to you all. You should take advantage of it.”

Xu Dongtang was stunned, realizing Ling Feng wasn’t joking.

In a panic, he shouted, “Captain Ling! These young people are the backbone of Xu Family Town! If they leave, only the old, weak, women, and children will remain. How will we survive?”

Ling Feng finally looked at him, but his gaze was one of disdain, as if he were scolding a child who didn’t understand.

“In the apocalypse, expecting everyone to survive is unrealistic. You need to be willing to make sacrifices. Let the strongest live to carry on your family’s legacy!

Author's Note