Chapter 71: A Wall Can Still Be Raised

Wu Haoran clutched his bleeding forehead, his pants still not pulled up.

He shouted angrily at the team leader, “What the hell are you doing?!”

The team leader’s eyes were icy cold, sending chills down anyone’s spine.

“Don’t blame me. There are people who don’t want to see this kind of thing happening right under their noses.”

The woman pinned beneath Wu Haoran scrambled to her feet and bolted.

As she ran, she screamed like a slaughtered pig, “Help! Somebody help me!”

But Wei Lingxia quickly blocked her way.

Already battered and bruised from Wu Haoran’s earlier beating, Wei Lingxia slapped the innocent woman hard across the face.

“Why are you running? If you run, do you want me to be the one getting bullied instead?”

Inside the Chen family’s tent, there were always a lot of women.

But because there were so many men in the Chen family, no one in the group dared to covet the women inside their tent—unless Chen Huaihai himself offered them.

Wu Haoran’s wife had a fit in the middle of the night, so bad she couldn’t even take care of herself anymore.

After beating Wei Lingxia, Wu Haoran took advantage of the fact that the other Chen men were off with another group and came to pick a woman.

Right now, all Wei Lingxia wanted was to calm Wu Haoran down.

She twisted the woman’s arm viciously, threatening her, “Go ahead, run. There’s no food for you anywhere. If you don’t starve to death, you’ll be eaten alive by men out there.”

The ragged woman’s eyes filled with tears.

She hung her head in silence as Wei Lingxia dragged her back.

Meanwhile, inside the Chen family’s tent, Wu Haoran was squaring off with the team leader.

“Who can’t stand it? Let him come out, and I’ll kill him right here!”

The team leader frowned and sat down on a small stool.

“Listen to me. If you want to stay in this group, you’d better not do things like this.”

“If you must, take it outside the group.”

“Don’t make things difficult for me.”

He was the kind of person who hated making enemies, but Shi Yuebai had forced his hand this time.

The team leader hadn’t forgotten—just now, standing at the Shi family’s gate, he’d seen a pile of pet food cans stacked in the corner.

That meant Shi Yuebai could still trade for a lot more of those cans.

Wu Haoran spat on the ground. “In times like these, you want to play the savior? If I don’t do it, someone else in the group will.”

The team leader pressed his lips together, silent, just staring at Wu Haoran.

Of course he knew that stopping Wu Haoran alone wouldn’t change anything.

But Shi Yuebai had given him a can of food, and what she asked of him wasn’t even that hard.

Before the apocalypse, the team leader had been a capable leader, able to organize survivors and fight back against all kinds of disasters.

But order had collapsed too quickly.

No matter how much cohesion he had, it couldn’t withstand the darkness in people’s hearts.

“That’s the situation. But today, I have to step in.”

The team leader looked at Wu Haoran.

Wu Haoran got up, and when he saw Wei Lingxia coming back, he cursed, “I’m only listening to you out of respect, but who the hell do you think you are now?!”

In the chaos of the apocalypse, Captain Qiao’s organizational skills had earned everyone’s trust.

That’s why they’d followed him all the way to the wasteland.

But now, Captain Qiao was no longer up to the task. Aside from a bit of leadership, he simply couldn’t help his people survive out here.

Wu Haoran had long stopped wanting to listen to him.

He deliberately dragged over the woman Wei Lingxia had brought back.

Seeing her head bowed in unwillingness, Wu Haoran punched her in the face.

“Bitch, you should feel lucky I even want you.”

Captain Qiao’s face darkened. Amid the woman’s sobs, he picked up a stone.

And once again, he smashed it down on Wu Haoran’s head.

Wu Haoran cursed, “Qiao, did you take the wrong meds today?”

The two of them started brawling, nearly bringing down the Chen family’s tent in the process.

Wei Lingxia watched from the side, not knowing what to do.

Any woman from her family who didn’t want to stay had already run off by now.

The whole place was a mess.

Wei Lingxia screamed, “My tent! Oh God, my food!”

No one knew which woman started it, but someone grabbed the food from the Chen family’s tent.

With no men coming out to stop them, a second woman, then a third, joined in.

In no time at all, as Captain Qiao and Wu Haoran fought, all the food Chen Huaihai had stockpiled was looted.

Some ragged women hid in corners, stuffing moldy food into their mouths as fast as they could.

Others ran while eating, only to trip and fall.

Wei Lingxia shrieked, “The Chen family still has people! My two sons will be back soon, just you wait!”

Wu Haoran and Captain Qiao were evenly matched, fighting for over an hour, both ending up injured.

But Wu Haoran had lost all interest in forcing himself on women tonight.

Cursing, limping, he left.

Leaving behind Captain Qiao, also bloodied from head to toe.

The team leader’s wife hurried over, looking at him with concern.

“All this for a can of food—was it worth it?”

Captain Qiao patted her head and wiped the blood from his nose.

“It was.”

He looked in the direction of the Shi family and suddenly said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a wall actually go up.”

His wife didn’t understand. “What?”

Captain Qiao smiled.

“I mean, now that the Shi family has mercenaries on their side, they’ll have enough food for a long while.”

“Look at their yard—the pet food cans are just piled out in the open, not even worried about being stolen.”

His wife curled her lip. “Aren’t people always saying the Shi family are idiots?”

Because only idiots would leave food lying around like that.

Captain Qiao pressed his lips together, saying nothing.

Idiots?

If they were really all idiots, could they have built a wall like that?

Everyone said the Shi family was being kept by the mercenary group, that they were Yi Zhe and the others’ regular brothel.

To Captain Qiao, that kind of talk was ignorant and laughable.

What kind of woman couldn’t the mercenaries get if they wanted? If Yi Zhe said the word, women would line up to join them.

Why would they go to such lengths to support a bunch of old, weak, sick, and disabled people from the Shi family?

Plus a baby?

People shouldn’t just trust their eyes or take things for granted.

Captain Qiao couldn’t figure out the Shi family, but he was sure they weren’t simple.

This wasn’t just about a can of food.

His wife fell silent, helping him back to their tent with a complicated look.

And the whole group had just witnessed their usually easygoing, respected leader locked in a vicious fight with Wu Haoran.

When Wu Haoran got back to his own tent and saw his wife lying there, her mouth twisted from her illness, he flew into a rage.

He kicked her in the chest as if she were trash.

“This shitty place—I don’t want to stay here another day.”

Qiao’s too weak to hold anyone here, and now he’s pissed me off too.

Without a second thought, Wu Haoran packed up his things and left the group.

So cold."