Chapter 176: Still Short on People to Dig Ditches

Cao Lingyun felt a sharp pain for just a moment.

But very quickly, the pain faded away.

Seeing Xiao Jiao and Ying Ruoying both rushing forward, Cao Lingyun didn’t have time to think about anything else.

He was the captain of the security team—how could he be more useless than these two women?

Cao Lingyun’s style was pure chaos.

He turned around, grabbed his watermelon knife, and kept hacking away.

The enemies had knives too. Amid the flying blood, every one of them who took a hit went down.

But Cao Lingyun was different.

He had been slashed countless times—he’d lost count of how many times he’d felt pain, and his clothes were in tatters.

But that was all.

The wounds hurt for a bit, then stopped hurting.

Other than his ragged clothes, his body was perfectly fine.

The enemies, on the other hand, couldn’t withstand their injuries at all.

Someone realized something was wrong and tried to run out of the living room.

Xiao Jiao, wielding her staff, jumped out the window. With a sweep and a strike, she knocked the guy to the ground.

She’d learned her staff skills from her aunt.

Whenever she had free time, she’d practice by the vegetable patch. After enough practice, she could swing through a whole basic routine with impressive vigor.

Even Shi Yaoyao couldn’t help but applaud her.

Xiao Jiao herself didn’t think her staff skills were anything special.

She also took a few hits from the people rushing out of the living room.

But just like Cao Lingyun, the pain only lasted a moment before fading.

Someone made it to the courtyard gate.

A paper airplane landed, and Shi Yuebai ordered Xiao Jiao,

“Don’t let a single one escape.”

Xiao Jiao kicked up her staff, and in two or three steps, reached the gate.

She stared at the man in front of her with timid eyes and a flushed face, and said in a small voice,

“You’re not allowed to leave, okay? Auntie will get mad.”

The men’s eyes turned red with anger.

What kind of monster was this?

Xiao Jiao looked so cute and delicate, with her two braided pigtails and a Barbie-style red pinafore dress.

But when she swung her staff, she could beat someone to death.

She still thought she was weak and pitiful, her eyes brimming with tears.

“D-don’t come any closer, okay? Ah!”

Before the men could approach, Xiao Jiao unleashed a flurry of staff moves.

The men trying to escape the courtyard were soon writhing on the ground in pain.

On Ying Ruoying and Shi Second Sister-in-law’s side, things were much more brutal.

Those who fell into Xiao Jiao and Cao Lingyun’s hands at least had a chance to live.

But Ying Ruoying either slit throats or cut off heads.

Shi Second Sister-in-law stood beside Shi Yuebai, her crossbow never missing its mark.

Every bolt she fired went straight for someone’s throat.

She’d even blindfolded herself—if she didn’t, she’d see seven or eight overlapping images in front of her.

The effects of the Chizhi mushroom hadn’t worn off yet, and soon Shi Second Sister-in-law was drenched in sweat.

But everyone else was freezing.

Especially in this weather, the entire villa inside and out had been swept clean by Shi Yuebai’s people.

The wounded survivors on the ground looked terrified.

They were so scared they felt chilled to the bone.

The cold nearly froze them in place.

Shi Yuebai released her hand seal, her chubby hand gripping her upright staff.

“Take all the survivors back.”

“We’re still short on people to dig ditches.”

So much free labor—it would be a waste to kill them.

Even though these people had committed all sorts of heinous crimes, bullying men and women alike.

But Shi Yuebai had no intention of paying them. Feeding them three meals a day with processed food was enough.

They weren’t even worthy of absorbing spiritual energy.

Anyway, Ying Ruoying could be self-sufficient, and Shi Yuebai’s processed food stockpile barely took a dent.

It was perfect.

Ying Ruoying put away the steel wire she’d pulled from her ring.

“Yuebai, what should we do with these bodies?”

“Burn them. Leaving corpses around will just feed mutant beasts.”

Shi Yuebai had Cao Lingyun and Ying Ruoying carry the bodies to the basement.

When everyone returned, Cao Lingyun quickly locked up the wounded survivors with ankle chains.

The chains had been hastily made by Guai Guai.

They even had built-in alarms.

If anyone tried to escape and got more than 200 meters past the second wall, the ankle chain would emit a piercing alarm.

Guai Guai always managed to come up with weird, but surprisingly useful, gadgets at critical moments.

Shi Yuebai looked at the pile of wounded men.

“Your wounds will heal up slowly.”

She pointed at Shi Second Sister-in-law. “Don’t even think about running. Anyone who tries will die fast.”

Shi Second Sister-in-law’s crossbow was no joke.

She could shoot blind, following the sound of the alarm, and never miss.

After spending just a day in the villa in the big city, that night when Shi Yuebai returned to her base—

Twenty-four Chizhi mushrooms had sprouted. Each one was only the size of a nail.

But with so many growing at once, they were absorbing more and more spiritual energy.

She hadn’t realized lingzhi mushrooms were so easy to grow.

Sure enough, with her spiritual energy combined with the wasteland, even something considered a rare treasure by the Wu tribe was growing like weeds in her vegetable patch.

Shi Yuebai didn’t have any extra spiritual energy to activate the healing array for Scarface’s men.

At most, she could feed them some processed food with zero radiation.

There were about fifteen men with knife and staff wounds.

Scarface wasn’t at the villa.

After charging in, he’d left twenty men there and gone off to handle other business.

Otherwise, they could have caught Scarface this time—either kill him or make him dig ditches for Shi Yuebai.

The fifteen wounded men, now locked in ankle chains, all looked terrified.

Who could have imagined—

So many of them, and they’d been wiped out by a stick-thin guy (Cao Lingyun), a delicate girl (Xiao Jiao), a severely nearsighted woman (Shi Second Sister-in-law), and a prostitute everyone looked down on (Ying Ruoying).

Wiped out, just like that.

???

Dear lord, had the wasteland become this absurd?

But being wiped out wasn’t even the most shocking part.

What was going on now?

One moment they were being beaten like dogs in a city villa.

The next, they’d been dragged to this place shrouded in white mist.

The harsh reality gave these fifteen no time to figure things out.

Soon, the rest of the Bridge Team—six oddballs—came over, each dragging two or three people.

Without a care, they hauled the fifteen men off to the ditches.

Cries and wails rang out. Shi Yuebai turned to Ying Ruoying and said,

“You’ve still got a few bodyguards hanging in your courtyard, right? Send them all back—they’re useless.”

They were grown men, perfectly healthy.

Yet they couldn’t even beat Xiao Jiao.

Shi Yuebai didn’t even know how to comment on Ying Ruoying’s taste in people.

She pointed at the six oddballs who’d returned.

“These six are yours to use as you like. If any die, just get the body back to me within four hours.”

Shi Yuebai had a total of nine adult men under her command.

Squad Leader Qiao needed people for the points system, Pang Zhenggong needed a team for scavenging.

The remaining seven oddballs—Cao Lingyun had already been promoted to security captain.

The other six adult men, Shi Yuebai assigned all to Ying Ruoying.

Fighting for territory in the big city was never going to be peaceful.

---

Recently, my mind has been much clearer, and I’ve been sleeping better—no more lying awake exhausted but unable to sleep.

My mood has improved a lot too. I still get anxious sometimes, but it’s not like before, where I’d spiral uncontrollably.

I’ll be just fine, and I hope you all will be too."