Published: February 6, 2025
"Thank you to my hard-working brother 1888, and thanks to everyone else including Leng Qiu, Xing Luo Xue, Wolf Map, Lingnan, Bu Yao Ai Qing, Shu Chong, and many other book friends. Thank you all for the recent contributions to the roulette. Lao Huan appreciates everyone!"
In the deep of night, all the core members and high-ranking officials of Cloud Summit Villa gathered together.
"Everyone has heard about the situation. Anger won't help now; what we need to do is think of solutions," Xia Lei said while sitting next to Ye Zhongming, her gaze sweeping across the crowd. Her usually smiling face was rarely covered in frost.
"We don't need to discuss slogans or determination; let's talk about specific plans."
Everyone's expression was serious, and no one spoke first. After all, a mishandling of the situation could lead to family destruction and death. At this moment, everything needed to be done with caution.
"We can prioritize these crises and address them one by one," Lu Yi, the oldest and most experienced, was the first to speak.
Ye Zhongming nodded, his eyes filled with approval; Lu Yi was quite good and had a clear mind.
Looking at the paper in his hand, Lu Yi said in a deep voice, "The first crisis we face is the group from Ying City Prison arriving tomorrow morning. If possible, we should trade food for a temporary peace and send them on their way."
The others all shook their heads.
The arrival of individuals from Ying City Prison was clearly a consequence of the previous incident involving trading scrap vehicles for food. They believed Cloud Summit Villa was easy to bully and came here to take advantage.
Trading food for peace? They obviously wanted to rob you of all your food!
Given that they would definitely not surrender, a confrontation with Ying City Prison was inevitable.
"It seems everyone knows that a fight is unavoidable. Well then, after weathering the crisis with Ying City Prison, we need to deal with the two forces that have taken hostages; we must rescue our own people!" Lu Yi stated firmly, and everyone agreed.
This was also the most infuriating issue for everyone. In the apocalypse, it was essentially the same as in peaceful times; to survive, resources had to be fought for. Fighting and killing for these things was one thing, but using hostage-taking methods would stir up a strong sense of solidarity against the enemy. Compared to the armed groups from Ying City Prison taking advantage here, everyone wanted to annihilate Dongshan Kou and the Lou family.
"As for the threat from the Tech City team, we can temporarily ignore it and consider our next moves after addressing these crises."
Putting down the paper filled with information, Lu Yi took a sip of water from the glass in front of him before continuing, "Finally, there’s the problem with the zombie horde. If these zombies don’t change direction, we will face a huge crisis, more troublesome than anything we've encountered before, because those things do not understand retreat; once they come, it will be a life-or-death situation."
The people in the room instinctively frowned. There was no way around it; no one had truly encountered a zombie tide before. Even when they faced mountains of corpses and seas of blood previously, they had just completed their tasks and escaped. This time was different—if the horde really came here, either Cloud Summit Villa would be breached, or they would eliminate the zombies. There was no third possibility.
Digesting Lu Yi's words, everyone looked at Ye Zhongming sitting there. The thoughts were clear, but what to do next depended on him.
"Is there specific information about Meng Lin?"
"Yes!"
Upon hearing Ye Zhongming's inquiry, Xia Lei immediately nodded. "Zhang Dalong from Ying City Prison has five factions under him; Meng Lin is one of them. He is neither the strongest nor the weakest, ranking in the middle. The number of people he has here is over two hundred, and he is a two-star evolver with unknown profession. He has more than fifty one-star evolvers under him, dozens of firearms, and the ammunition count is unknown."