Chapter 1077: Everything Has Its Price

“I… I just… It was all so sudden back then, that’s why I…” The man stammered, trying to defend himself. He had secretly felt relieved before, but never expected that the youth had never planned to let him go. Yet, unlike the punishment he’d imagined, the youth opened his mouth only to send him straight to his death…

But what truly made him despair was that the youth only sneered coldly at him, not the slightest intention of listening. His face turned pale, his body began to tremble uncontrollably from the chill. After a moment’s thought, he suddenly looked at the others and said, “It wasn’t just me who tried to run! Why pick me out? Yes, I ran, but if I’d stayed behind in that situation, it would’ve only made things worse for all of us! Sun Xu, you want to make an example out of me, is that it? Why can’t you just say what you want right here-why force me to go over there? You all saw it too, they have guns, and they’re ruthless enough to attack through a closed door…”

The others, upon hearing the youth’s command, were all momentarily stunned. But then, one by one, they averted their gazes and kept silent.

Just as the man had said, though he was the one being sent to die, the real intent of the young man with salt-and-pepper hair, Sun Xu, was to warn everyone-when Ling Mo’s group had suddenly given them a show of force and everyone’s nerves were frayed again, Sun Xu immediately used this iron-blooded tactic to tell them: if anyone tries to run again, the next to die will be you…

When he saw that none of his companions spoke up, the man’s face turned from pale to red. He suddenly chuckled twice, nodding as he said, “I get it. You’re all just hoping for this, aren’t you? As long as I go die now, what happened before is over, and none of you will be punished again. And at a time like this, you’re all a little scared inside too. That’s why you want me to be the scout, right?” At this point, his voice shot up, his face flushed red as he shouted, “Let me tell you, I’m not going! If I’m going to die anyway, you might as well just kill me now!”

After shouting, he stood there gasping for breath, his fists clenched so tightly that veins bulged along his knuckles.

At that moment, Sun Xu finally spoke again. He glanced at the man with a blank expression and said, “You’re absolutely right. I won’t deny it.”

“Sun Xu. You son of a bitch…” The man’s eyes reddened instantly, but as soon as he raised his fist, a sudden scream burst from his lips. He clutched the eye that hid the Spider, body shaking uncontrollably. He looked like he desperately wanted to fight, but just couldn’t bring himself to do it. That feeling of frustration made him seem on the verge of collapse.

“But I never really planned to send you to die. It’s just that you led the way in doing the wrong thing, so now you’ll lead the way in setting an example. You know the enemy isn’t weak-why would I weaken our own fighting strength at a time like this? Everyone here is watching you. If you can honestly do as I say, you won’t die. And what happened before, and the insults you just hurled at me, will all be written off. You know what kind of world this is now. Unless you can completely rely on others to survive, you have to show your value. Are you someone who helps us survive, keeps our food and territory safe? Or are you just a burden, making no contribution at all?”

As the man tried to protest, Sun Xu waved his hand to cut him off and continued, “Don’t start with the Spider nonsense. You’re not the only one who’s had to sacrifice their body here. That’s the price we’ve all paid to survive this long-and tonight, if we want to go on living, we’ll have to pay a new price. Take Li Chengguang and the others: if they hadn’t been so careless, we wouldn’t have been forced into this situation. So even though they’re dead, they still bore some of the responsibility. Besides, I think there are things you haven’t forgotten, right? When Dawn Town was being cleared, how many of us died? How much blood do you all have on your hands? Let’s not even talk about the rest… Didn’t you once find a woman hiding?”

The man’s expression instantly turned ugly. He started screaming frantically, “Shut up!”

“You could’ve brought her back to our place, but when you saw how little she was wearing, you had evil thoughts. In the end, afraid she’d get the Spider and take revenge, you stewed it over and finally killed her in cold blood…”

“Shut up!” The man clutched his eye desperately, his shout laced with cries of pain.

Sun Xu looked at him indifferently, his tone cold and flat: “Maybe she wanted to ask you, too, why you had to kill her. So now, think carefully-do you want me to kill you right now, or do you want to do as I say and fight for a chance to keep living? Someone like you, the price you have to pay to survive is always going to be higher than others. That’s only fair.”

“Heh… Sun Xu, you really have the nerve to say that… Haven’t you killed quite a few yourself…” The man’s screams had turned into muffled groans of pain. He couldn’t help but double over, but even so, he still raised his head to glare at Sun Xu, squeezing out a sentence through gritted teeth.

Sun Xu replied with an unchanged expression, “And how do you know I haven’t paid a price? Alright, I’ll give you thirty seconds to decide.”

After saying this, he turned his gaze towards the factory and stopped speaking. But everyone knew he was silently counting… these thirty seconds would be neither more nor less.

The others didn’t look at the man. Compared to keeping everything to survive, the life and death of a companion indeed seemed insignificant. Just as Sun Xu said, everyone here had paid a great price… Thinking of this, the panic among the group suddenly diminished. What they had to do tonight was not much different from what they had done before to take over the entire Dawn Town and to obtain the granary…

“It seems quiet outside,” Black Silk said suddenly after listening for a while behind the door. “Earlier, I could vaguely hear a man’s scream, but now it’s gone. And for some reason, the scent they emit… I mean the sweat from fear and excitement, has also diminished a lot, even though the wind direction hasn’t changed.”

“Can you even smell that?” Ye Kai couldn’t help but ask.

Black Silk glanced at him and said, “Of course, as long as the wind direction is right, I can smell it within a hundred meters, especially when there’s a sudden burst of sweat. This… is kind of a special ability of mine. I’ve always had a strong reaction to scents.”

“At this distance…”

“You get the idea,” Black Silk said.

Ye Kai silently wiped his palms on his clothes and discreetly stepped back two steps…

Yuwen Xuan, on the other hand, pondered, “So they were startled just now… but why did they calm down after the scream?”

“I think it’s because of one of them,” Ling Mo suddenly spoke. “When I extended my psychic power just now, I sensed a very dangerous aura. If someone among them can stabilize the situation and remain unaffected by our provocations, then it’s this person. So, besides the Mother Spider, this person is the one we should be most cautious of. But I don’t know what exactly happened among them. As for other aspects… you should have noticed too, their psychological resilience is weaker compared to ours.” Ŕ𝐀ŊỌ𐌱Ęs

“This is probably related to them being confined in one place for a long time, and since there are no zombies here, they likely have little contact with other kinds of monsters. So, in terms of survival experience, they can’t compare to us. At least in a situation like just now, if I were them, I wouldn’t give up so quickly. If they could calm down a bit, it wouldn’t be so easy for us. Unfortunately, these things are all hypothetical. The gap in strength is hard to bridge, and the gap in psychological resilience is also impossible to close quickly,” Mu Chen said, suddenly spirited.

“I’d like to see what else they can come up with,” Zhang Xincheng nodded in agreement and said with a cold smile.

“Speaking of which… there’s a line I’ve wanted to say for a long time. Ahahaha, bring on the spiders!” Yuwen Xuan laughed.

“Madman, can you not speak?”

“Do you understand the atmosphere? Don’t you know everyone is very serious?”

After Ling Mo’s counterattack and the analysis at this moment, everyone’s mood finally emerged from the gloom. Although the blood on the ground remained, everyone had become calm. The other side was only trying to provoke them, and Ling Mo pointed this out, specifically mentioning psychological resilience, just to help them adjust themselves.

Thinking of Ling Mo’s expression just now, they all felt a bit embarrassed. Especially Ye Kai… he thought to himself that it was one thing to be unable to do anything, but to have Ling Mo, who stood up for everyone, gently guide him… Thinking of this, he clenched his fists again.

However, Ling Mo didn’t notice these subtle changes in them. He continued to stare at the door, silently thinking, “Why… why hasn’t the Mother Spider come out yet? At this point, are they still unwilling to play their final card? If that’s the case, what is your next move?”

At this moment, the man who had been keeping his head down was clenching his fists tightly, his teeth clicking as he gritted them. Just as the thirty seconds were about to end, he suddenly raised his head, breathing heavily as he looked at Sun Xu’s back, then exhaled a long breath and said with a blank expression, “Alright, I’ll go.”

Sun Xu turned his head, gave him a meaningful look, and nodded, “It’s good that you’ve figured it out. Otherwise, if you didn’t cooperate, it would be a headache for me. I’ll say it again, as long as you listen, the chances of survival are still high.”

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