“Main Quest: Eliminate the greatest villain of the apocalypse—Pei Liang!”
“The greatest villain?” One of the others frowned at that. “We’re being sent after the strongest fighter again?”
“I’m telling you, is the Main God targeting our team? The death rate on our last few missions has been way too high. I nearly didn’t make it out of the last dungeon, and that was only a minor boss.”
“Good grief. The moment it saw we hadn’t died, it immediately arranged a major boss for us.”
Another person sighed. “What can we do? The captain’s strength has raised our team’s overall rating. Of course, the missions aren’t going to be easy anymore.”
A young woman immediately bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you implying that the captain is the one causing us trouble?”
“Do you people have any conscience? How many times has the captain risked his life to get all of us out alive?”
“Don’t get worked up. We were just saying. What exactly did we say to offend you?”
“We’ve been through life and death together. Do we really have to weigh every word we say? Don’t be so petty, woman.”
“You—”
Clearly, although the team worked together fairly well, there were no shortage of internal problems.
There were five of them in total—four men and one woman. The handsome man whom everyone called the captain was Yu Cheng.
The other young woman, neat and sharp with short hair, was named Bai Rou. The remaining three men each had their own distinctive features: one wore glasses, another had his hair styled into an exaggerated mohawk, and the last was somewhat older, with the appearance of a good-natured man.
Yet the one who had just spoken with veiled criticism, and then responded with oily sarcasm when the woman challenged him, was that very same “good-natured” man.
Bai Rou was still furious and was about to argue with the two men when Captain Yu Cheng spoke up.
“That’s enough!”
He glanced at the four of them. The two who had dared to make snide remarks at Bai Rou would never have tried such tricks on him.
In fact, those faintly barbed complaints were already the strongest dissatisfaction they dared to express.
Yu Cheng said, “This dungeon isn’t based on a well-known work, so all we were given was a general outline of the plot.”
“In other words, we can’t quickly determine where the final boss is, how strong they are at present, or how much power they’ve accumulated around them.”
“Obviously, we also can’t take advantage of the plot to find the key turning points in the final boss’s life and kill them through some sort of shortcut.”
“There’s no doubt about it. This mission is S-rank difficulty.”
The other four sucked in a breath, their faces showing varying degrees of panic. Only Bai Rou remained relatively calm, her gaze fixed on the captain with undisguised admiration and adoration.
She had absolute faith in his abilities.
She hurriedly asked, “Then let’s first determine who the final boss actually is. Captain, did the system give us any clues?”
Yu Cheng said, “No.”
“What?”
The four of them looked at one another. “Then how are we supposed to find them?”
Yu Cheng, however, remained unruffled. He declared, “That’s actually a good thing. The Main God won’t assign a mission beyond our capabilities.”
“By the same logic, we don’t have anyone on the team who specializes in gathering information. Naturally, the system wouldn’t ask us to search through hundreds of millions of people for someone without giving us any clues.”
“The final boss is either somewhere nearby, or already a well-known figure.”
The moment he finished speaking, Bai Rou called out, “Captain—”
“Do you think the Pei Liang mentioned in the mission could be this Pei Liang?”
She pointed toward a building not far away. It was one of the city’s landmarks—a tall, conspicuous structure standing at the center of a plaza two streets away.
A huge poster was plastered across it. The poster featured an astonishingly beautiful female celebrity with an elegant figure.
She was frozen in a dancing pose, her entire body as beautiful as an elf from a dream.
But none of that was the most important part. What mattered was the line of enormous Chinese characters printed in the lower-right corner of the poster:
National-Treasure Dancer Pei Liang
Not only the three men admiring the celebrity’s beauty, but even the usually impassive Yu Cheng was dumbfounded.
“N-No way, right? The final boss of an apocalyptic zombie dungeon is a woman? A dancer?”
“She’s probably just someone with the same name. A beauty like that would be lucky not to become some powerful man’s plaything when the apocalypse began. How could she be the final boss?”
“It’s not sexism. It’s just that someone like her wouldn’t have the opportunity or the circumstances to become that powerful.”
“I think so too. Could this be another smokescreen set up by the system? If that pretty little thing, whose waist isn’t even as thick as my thigh, is really the boss, I’ll perform a headstand while shitting myself.”
The moment he finished making that boast, a system prompt rang out simultaneously in all five of their minds.
[Ding! Main target discovered: Pei Liang, the greatest villain in this world. Main Quest activated.]
Everyone fell silent.
“You’re doing it. I’ll record it.”
“Get lost!”
The mohawked man stared in disbelief. “It really is her?”
Yu Cheng thought for a moment. “It’s not actually that inconceivable.”
He looked at Pei Liang’s poster. “This world has a setting where all living creatures evolve collectively. She was already a top-tier dancer to begin with, possessing physical conditioning, flexibility, agility, and the skill to complete high-difficulty movements far beyond that of ordinary people.”
“If evolution then made up for her lack of strength—or granted her a suitable ability—there’s no reason she couldn’t become the strongest fighter.”
Yu Cheng then jumped straight up. His jumping ability was incredible; as long as he had a foothold, he could easily leap more than ten meters into the air.
With several jumps and pushes off nearby surfaces, he reached the roof of a high-rise building and surveyed the city from above.
Although the city had now ground to a halt, the surrounding clues—such as the update times on electronic billboards scattered everywhere—made it possible to determine when the large-scale outbreak had occurred.
After Yu Cheng came back down, he told the other four, “It’s been only eight days since the major outbreak.”
“According to the system’s information, the radiation that caused living creatures to evolve appeared on the seventh day after the outbreak. In other words, even if the final boss awakened her abilities immediately, she should still be in the ‘infant stage.’”
The four of them visibly relaxed.
The bespectacled man sounded much more at ease as he said, “I knew it. After several highly stressful dungeons in a row, it’s only natural that we’d get an easy one.”
“Sure enough, it’s just a scare tactic. As long as we find the final boss quickly and kill her before she grows stronger, it’ll be a piece of cake.”
“Then how do we find her?”
Bai Rou said, “She’s a major celebrity. Before the apocalypse, the media would have been following her every move. We can start with newspapers and the internet.”
It had been only seven or eight days. There was no way every server had gone down already. If they searched carefully, they should still be able to find traces of her whereabouts.
“Once the apocalypse began, traveling became difficult. As long as we can determine where she was before the apocalypse, we should be able to narrow down the area.”
But as though determined to oppose them, the instant she finished speaking, a radio inside an audio-visual store by the roadside crackled to life.
The group followed the sound and soon realized that it was a broadcast from a nearby base that had already brought the situation under control.
The broadcast was carefully reporting on road conditions along the national highways across the country, the distribution of zombies, and areas densely packed with abandoned vehicles.
It was also explaining how to prevent infection and save oneself when encountering zombies, while announcing that the base was accepting homeless people.
When the group heard this, the older man smacked his lips and said, “This must be a base established by the government, right? They reacted pretty quickly.”
But then the broadcast announced the person in charge of the base—none other than the world-famous dancer, Pei Liang.
Before the apocalypse, Pei Liang had been a celebrity. Although after the apocalypse descended, every profession and the influence of fame had lost their meaning, having someone everyone was familiar with as the initiator was still more reassuring than having a complete unknown in charge.
Besides, the public generally held celebrities to high moral standards, especially elegant artists like Pei Liang.
It had only been a few days since doomsday began, so this ingrained habit had not yet disappeared. Thus, to make the base seem more credible, Pei Liang’s name had been displayed in the open like a lucky mascot.
But Yu Cheng and the other players were even more bewildered.
“What is this—the game starts with us standing by the roadside, and a clue just drops from the sky?”
“No, this is way too easy. It’s so smooth that I almost feel embarrassed.”
Yu Cheng, however, furrowed his brows. “Don’t let your guard down. This place is more than a thousand kilometers from the city where the final boss is located. No one knows what might happen along the way.”
The other four agreed, but they clearly did not take it to heart.
If this had been the middle stage of the apocalypse, when all living creatures had finished evolving, they might have panicked.
But it had only been a few days. The evolutionary radiation had only appeared a day ago, and most people had not even awakened their abilities. A thousand kilometers sounded far, but with their skills, it would take them at most a week to get there.
By then, no matter how extraordinarily talented the final boss was, there was no way he could stand against experienced players from the Reincarnation Game, players with abundant combat experience, formidable strength, and bodies that had undergone multiple enhancements and modifications.
They were wrong. The Main God had indeed arranged things according to the unspoken rules. This instance was practically a vacation.
Sure enough, once they left the city, they found a decent car by the roadside without much trouble.
After eliminating the few zombies wandering nearby and collecting the gasoline from the surrounding vehicles, the five of them were just preparing to set off for their target city when the system finally offered a sluggish reminder:
[Ding! Boys, make sure to protect yourselves out there.]
“…”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
The four of them paid it no attention. Nonsense was meant to go in one ear and out the other.
Only the sensitive Yu Cheng sensed that something was off. Why did he have such a bad feeling?
The team that had set out to fight the final boss was already on the road. Meanwhile, the final boss himself remained completely unaware.
It had been rather late when Pei Liang returned with Gong Ran and the others last night. After making the necessary arrangements, everyone went downstairs to rest.
Guan Qian, who had been brought back with them, had not paid much attention to what was happening around her.
She was utterly exhausted. Perhaps she had cried herself to sleep, because the moment she fell onto the bed, she quickly passed out. When she opened her eyes again, it was already early the next morning.
Breakfast had already been prepared outside. The selection was not particularly extensive, but it was comparable to the cafeteria of an ordinary workplace. Besides, the cooks from the cruise ship’s kitchen department were certainly far better than ordinary cafeteria chefs.
The meals were quite good, and there was even some octopus left over from yesterday.
They would not be short of meat for the next several days. Fortunately, the ship was equipped with industrial freezers, so there was no need to worry about the meat spoiling anytime soon.
Guan Qian served herself a meal and stole a glance in that direction. She found it somewhat unbelievable that Pei Liang had neither imprisoned her nor interrogated or tortured her in private.
Pei Liang definitely knew the plot, so it was impossible that she did not realize Guan Qian was an anomaly. She must have already guessed that Guan Qian was either a reincarnator or a transmigrator.
Normally, to preserve the uniqueness of her advantage in the plot, she should have eliminated Guan Qian.
Could it be because Guan Qian possessed the precious ability to store things in a separate space? That did seem possible. There did not appear to be any powerful space-type ability users on the ship, and even if there were, they had not awakened their abilities yet.
Guan Qian felt uneasy. She looked toward Pei Liang’s table, where Pei Liang was seated with Chu Yebai. Gong Ran had also gone over.
Chu Yebai did not seem very happy to see him, but Gong Ran completely ignored his expression and chatted animatedly with Pei Liang.
Her feelings were complicated. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed another table.
A woman who bore some resemblance to Pei Liang was sitting at the table beside her. She was eating breakfast leisurely.
The woman’s identity was obvious enough. But who was the man sitting opposite her?
The man was actually quite handsome on his own, but the woman treated him with extreme disdain. In the short time it took them to eat breakfast, they had already traded several rounds of sarcastic remarks.
Yet the man simply refused to leave.
Guan Qian hurriedly asked the person beside her, “Who are those two over there?”
The person glanced over and replied, “Oh, the woman is Boss Pei’s younger sister, Pei Ning. The other one is Boss Pei’s former fiancé, Zhong An.”
The scumbag man and vicious woman from the original story’s previous life? How had they ended up here together, safe and sound?
Had Pei Liang not settled accounts with them? And judging by their seats, they seemed to be core members of the base.
Guan Qian stared in disbelief. “They… they…”
The person beside her laughed. “Jealous? That’s something you can’t envy your way into. The two of them are incredibly capable.”
“Of course, your ability is pretty good too. As long as you perform well, you definitely won’t be mistreated.”
Thanks, but she wasn’t so pathetic that she would envy a pair of scumbags. Guan Qian sneered inwardly.
But as the female protagonist, Pei Ning had been reborn. She probably had no idea what kind of opportunities she could have had originally.
The corners of Guan Qian’s lips curved upward, as if she had spotted a breakthrough.
After breakfast, the bridge connecting the port island to the city was lowered.
A team was left behind to guard the place. With the little genius and several architects working on the plans, the container-filled port still had a great deal that needed to be renovated.
Everyone else followed Pei Liang into the city, and of course, that included Guan Qian.
The place where they had burned the zombies yesterday was not far from the bridge. Even though the thick smoke rising at the time had been visible from several kilometers away, the scene was still shocking when they arrived in person.
Tens of thousands of zombies had been burned to cinders. Sparks still flickered across the ground, and the air was filled with the unpleasant stench of charred remains.
Gong Ran whistled. “That’s quite an effective ability.”
He looked at Pei Ning. “Give me a tube of your blood when we get back.”
Pei Ning was terrified of this notorious mad doctor from her previous life. The moment she heard this, she hid behind her sister.
Pei Liang immediately understood Gong Ran’s intentions. She smiled. “That was exactly what I had in mind.”
“One person’s efficiency is limited, after all. That’s why I was so eager to acquire you.”
“Once we extract and replicate the information factors in your body, the balance of the battlefield will shift completely in my favor.”
As she spoke, Pei Liang smiled at Pei Ning. “That’s why I said your importance is irreplaceable.”
Pei Ning gave a shy smile. For a moment, she seemed filled with a sense of mission and honor.
Guan Qian’s face twitched as she watched. This idiot had been coaxed around by just a few nice words?
Gong Ran nodded. “A few days will be enough. If we can successfully extract the pheromones, we’ll be able to rapidly occupy at least the major cities.”
“As for the forests, which pose a much greater problem, things will become far more manageable as well.”
Chu Yebai had already reached the same conclusion. He had not agreed with Pei Liang’s choice of location for the base at first.
But now it seemed that her vision really was farther-reaching than his.
The scene returned to the corpse-burning pit. Pei Liang said to Chu Yebai, “Begin.”
Without another word, Chu Yebai activated his telekinesis. The crystals hidden beneath the bones in the ashes floated into the air.
There were tens of thousands of zombie corpses present. Like humans, zombies also mutated after exposure to radiation. Although few showed obvious signs of mutation at first, those capable of mutating had already developed crystals in their brains.
With such a huge number of zombies, even if only a small percentage had mutated, the number of crystals would still be considerable.
The others perhaps still lacked a direct understanding of how important the crystals were. But when Guan Qian and Pei Ning saw the small pile of several hundred crystals, they realized that, in the apocalypse, this was an unimaginable fortune to anyone.
It was just like leveling up in a game. Perhaps as one progressed, the changes brought about by absorbing crystals would become smaller and smaller. Later on, aside from crystals belonging to creatures such as zombie kings, ordinary ones might be completely useless to someone at Chu Yebai’s level.
But during the early stages of awakening one’s abilities, the effects of the crystals were immediate.
Pei Liang knew the number and abilities of every Esper on her team like the back of her hand.
After taking the crystals Chu Yebai handed over, she immediately distributed more than ten each to Chu Yebai, Gong Ran, Pei Ning, and Guan Qian.
Those members of the combat team who had awakened abilities also received their share according to the nature of their powers.
Pei Liang said, “There aren’t many for now, so we can only prioritize raising our overall combat strength and improving the practicality of our abilities.”
Putting everyone else aside, Guan Qian’s spatial ability was absolutely irreplaceable to the teams venturing outside to fight.
Guan Qian had not expected this woman to be so generous, but she certainly would not pass up an opportunity to improve her abilities.
Thus, following Pei Ning’s instructions, everyone absorbed the crystals where they stood. It was actually quite simple. As long as they tried to merge with the crystals, anyone could do it.
Once the crystals vanished, everyone present clearly felt their bodies grow stronger.
Gong Ran said, “Isn’t this a little too much? Are you sure that, even after everyone here has been strengthened to this extent, you can still keep them under control by yourself?”
As he spoke, Gong Ran’s eyes shifted toward Chu Yebai.
He did not like the idea of having just formed an alliance with someone, only for that person to be dragged down by his own people and become useless.
Gong Ran smiled and added bluntly, “Changing partners is a hassle, especially when you’ve found one whose principles align with yours. I have no intention of working with this guy.”
The bandits had not thought of that possibility before. But after Gong Ran pointed it out, they suddenly felt as if the sky had cleared after the rain, and that perhaps they really did have a chance.
Their boss, however, merely smiled and countered in an even, unruffled tone, “What a coincidence. I can’t stand working with someone like you either.”
He pulled Pei Liang toward him and kissed her. “Baby, thank you for the present. I like it very much. I want more!”
Gong Ran’s brows immediately knitted together. What was wrong with this man? Did he have no idea what he was trying to do?
And he still had the nerve to ask for more?
He could not possibly be stupid enough to go this far, could he?
No. Something was wrong.
Gong Ran knew that Pei Liang and Chu Yebai had an ambiguous relationship. He had assumed it was merely a matter of each taking what they needed from the other. But now he was beginning to notice something unusual.
Even if both parties understood exactly what kind of relationship they had, Chu Yebai still dared to ask for benefits so naturally. And judging from his expression, he did not look as though he had merely grown stronger and was trying to provoke someone.
Rather, no matter how he looked at it, he resembled the pretty boys Gong Ran had seen before going to prison, asking rich older women for cars and gifts.
Gong Ran wanted to curse himself for overthinking things, but Pei Liang’s reaction afterward made him realize that he had not imagined it at all.
Pei Liang clearly enjoyed Chu Yebai’s ingratiating behavior. She lightly patted his cheek and said, “Fine. Collect a little more today. When we get back to the base tonight, you can pick whatever you want.”
Guan Qian wore the expression of an old man on the subway staring at his phone. Good grief. After the male lead had turned perverse and started sleeping with men, he had now added living off a woman to his list of accomplishments.
As expected, her investment in the villain was still the better choice—
Even though these two perverts had already defiled it.
Guan Qian’s heart wept bitter tears, but she failed to notice that Gong Ran’s expression had become thoughtful.
The group continued deeper into the city and arrived at a park near a plaza.
“If possible, try to avoid causing unnecessary damage to the buildings,” Pei Liang said.
Then they repeated yesterday’s method almost exactly. However, this area was close to a commercial district and had been densely populated, so it was easy to imagine that there would be far more zombies than the day before.
Furthermore, Pei Ning had just absorbed the crystals, causing the concentration of her pheromones to increase sharply. The range of attraction would certainly be wider as well, and mutated plants and animals might even be mixed in among the creatures drawn here.
Naturally, someone had to remain below to provide support. Pei Liang stayed on the ground.
Gong Ran frowned. “You were seriously injured only yesterday. Don’t be reckless—”
He did not finish the sentence, because Pei Liang tugged down the collar of her shirt. Even though he had performed meticulous surgery on her, a wound could not possibly heal completely in such a short time.
Yet Pei Liang’s chest was completely free of scars, as though the scene of her ripping out her own heart the day before had merely been an illusion.
“Have you awakened an ability?” Chu Yebai was the one who asked.
The lackeys behind him immediately broke into a cold sweat. Fortunately, they had not done anything suicidal just now. Otherwise, they would currently be fighting zombies with blood running down their backsides.
Sure enough, Pei Liang casually grabbed a handful of crystal cores and absorbed them at an astonishing speed.
Chu Yebai understood that, quite apart from the diversity of supernatural abilities, the physical evolution brought about by mutation alone was enough to raise Pei Liang’s strength to an entirely new level.
Just as everyone had expected, with Zhong An in her hands, the forty-meter-long blade swept outward, and countless zombies were cut in half before they could even get close.
After absorbing the crystals, Zhong An’s metal became more stable, its duration increased, and the time required for it to change shape grew even shorter.
Ever since he had been used to chop meat into paste, the man had completely accepted his fate as a human tool. Before leaving that morning, Pei Liang had even given him some last-minute training.
The training itself was not complicated. Whenever her finger touched the hilt, he had to transform into a different shape according to the pattern.
Pei Liang’s exact words had been: “You haven’t practiced yet, but I trust your ability to adapt. You’re a top graduate from a prestigious university. You can’t possibly be incapable of such simple coordination, can you?”
As she spoke, half her face turned black, yet she maintained a kindly smile. “If you can’t even do something this simple, I’ll have to reassess your value.”
How could Zhong An possibly dare to be careless?
She had already conquered the entire ship, and that still was not enough. The perverted doctor she had brought back the previous night had also been tormented until his backside was covered in blood. Zhong An had witnessed just how terrifying she was.
At that moment, Zhong An could only be grateful that she was interested solely in his body for now. So what if he was a human tool? At least that was better than having his backside thoroughly ruined the previous night and still being forced to come out and work the next day.
She had that kind of resolve, but when Guan Qian watched from the helicopter as Pei Liang used her fiancé to hack through zombies as easily as chopping vegetables and melons, she was completely dumbfounded.
What the hell was this woman doing, throwing every established trope to the dogs? This was nothing like the scumbag-woman script she was supposed to be following.
Only now did she understand why Zhong An could still be considered a core member. This guy had somehow managed to make the protagonists, villains, scumbag men, bitchy women, and every other character from a melodramatic apocalypse story coexist peacefully, each shining in their own field.
On that point alone, Guan Qian felt she had no choice but to admire him.
And with how spectacular the battle was, where did it look anything like the early days of the apocalypse, when humanity was supposedly being forced into retreat at every turn?
The moment they entered the city, the group became a harvesting machine sweeping through fields of wheat. The people in the helicopter opened fire with overwhelming force, killing zombies to their hearts’ content.
Chu Yebai and Gong Ran kept an eye on the overall situation, making sure no zombies or mutated plants and animals escaped their control while also safeguarding the people nearby.
When Pei Liang grew tired of killing below, she would return to the cabin with ease, either through telekinesis or by combining her own leaping ability with qinggong. The helicopter would then fly to a safe altitude so she could rest for a while.
They had brought plenty of food and energy supplies, all of which were stored with Guan Qian. Naturally, that included weapons, explosives, and fuel as well.
With Guan Qian around, they were no longer limited by the helicopter’s interior space. Her endless stockpile kept the supplies coming, allowing everyone to fight to their heart’s content for an entire day.
The operation continued from morning until afternoon. The city was a developed one, with a permanent population of several million.
Yet just in this park alone, they had killed hundreds of thousands of zombies. The corpses overlapped until they nearly reached waist height.
Considering the number of people who had mutated at this early stage, they had likely wiped out at least one-fifth or one-sixth of all the zombies in the city.
Of course, the efficiency was also due to the density of the population in this district. Other areas were more sparsely populated, so the pace would not be nearly as fast.
Forget everyone else—even Guan Qian, who had always felt uncomfortable around Pei Liang, was filled with boldness and exhilaration during the day’s operation. It had been immensely satisfying.
One of the team’s ability users had awakened the power to raise the temperature of flames. Although his ability was mainly supportive and had considerable limitations when used alone, it was extremely useful during the early stages.
As a result, he had been given quite a few of the crystal cores they had collected earlier.
Pei Liang took him down with her and had him use his ability to raise the temperature of the flames used to burn the corpses. Before long, the temperature across the plaza became unbearably high, forcing the helicopter to stay away.
However, this greatly improved their efficiency. Many zombies that had merely been hacked apart or injured by explosions but were not yet dead were quickly burned to death as well.
Soon, the park had been reduced to ashes. Chu Yebai came down and repeated the process. This time, they collected even more crystal cores.
When he handed them over to Guan Qian, she felt as though, in the pre-apocalypse days, a trillionaire had transferred his entire fortune into her bank account and she had just watched it pass through her hands.
After a full day of exhaustion, they returned to the base. To restore everyone’s confidence in surviving the apocalypse, their combat operations had been filmed by drones.
The logistics team made some quick edits, then projected the footage onto a giant screen they had found during lunchtime for everyone to watch.
Those who had been lost and uncertain about the road ahead after coming ashore were practically boiling with excitement after watching the edited battle. Their spirits soared, and they felt that wiping out the zombies in the city within three days, consolidating the base within a week, and reclaiming the Earth within six months no longer seemed like a dream.
Thus, when Pei Liang and the others returned, they were greeted by cheers and crowds lining the streets.
Everyone who had gone out had become a hero.
The leaders took it fairly calmly, having seen such scenes before. The others, however, were flattered, nervous, and thrilled.
It was the first time a group of bandits had ever been treated like heroes. Pei Ning and Zhong An stood up straight as well, desperately trying to maintain stern expressions, yet unable to suppress the corners of their mouths from curling upward.
Pei Ning had completely awakened to her sense of mission. She now felt that her former habit of clinging to a man the moment she returned had been incredibly foolish.
Thinking about it carefully, was Chu Yebai really a good man? Hmph! He was merely the best among a bunch of short men.
What was so satisfying about relying on a man? It was far more gratifying to make a name for herself.
As for Zhong An, things were simpler for him. He felt that his humiliation on the ship had finally been washed away. Several beautiful women were even shrieking for him from the crowd, and he once again felt like he had what it took.
Even Guan Qian was both nervous and excited.
The kitchen had prepared a sumptuous dinner for everyone who had returned, comparable to a banquet aboard a cruise ship before the apocalypse.
Pei Liang did not say anything to spoil the mood. The people who had remained at the base were eager to do something for everyone.
Once everyone was seated, the core members still sat together.
This time, Guan Qian also moved a little closer.
As they ate, Chu Yebai coaxed Pei Liang, saying, “Managing a city this large is going to be a problem too, isn’t it?”
“How about handing over the area we conquered today to me?”
Everyone exchanged anxious looks on Chu Yebai’s behalf. He really had the nerve to ask.
Some people even misunderstood and thought he was beginning to test her or make a challenge.
But unexpectedly, Pei Liang nodded without a moment’s hesitation. “Sure! Though it hasn’t been completely cleared yet, we’ll just work a little overtime over the next few days and finish cleaning it up.”
No one could understand how this woman could be so generous. But in Pei Liang’s eyes, Chu Yebai already had the ability to handle the job. Putting the right people in the right positions was only natural. A mere eastern district would actually be beneath him.
As for worrying that he might seize power—
Heh.
The people on Chu Yebai’s side were thrilled. At that moment, Gong Ran set down his chopsticks.
He looked at Pei Liang and asked incredulously, “Why are you willing to give him everything?”
An image from earlier that day suddenly flashed through his mind, and he asked bluntly, “Is it just because he’s willing to let you sleep with him?”
Chu Yebai let out a mocking laugh. He put an arm around Pei Liang and said to Gong Ran, “Gifts between intimate partners aren’t something for you to be jealous of.”
He had intended to mock Pei Liang, implying that no matter how grand the promises she made to him were, in the end, Chu Yebai could still obtain more.
But Gong Ran took it as an explanation. He looked at Pei Liang and said, “Then I’m willing to let you sleep with me too.”
