Chapter 93: The Rougher the Seas, the Pricier the Fish

Chapter 93: Chapter 93: The Rougher the Seas, the Pricier the Fish

After Mengde’s rally, the entire base launched into a fervent, large-scale planting operation.

The level of fervor nearly rivaled that historical period when people believed "the bolder the person, the greater the harvest."

Fueled by their die-hard Affinity for Mengde and the base’s excellent benefits, not to mention the guarantee of their safety, the survivors worked with incredible enthusiasm, their former worries a thing of the past.

The women from the Bikang Group were also put in charge of managing the base’s day-to-day operations.

They put their professional expertise to full use, keeping the entire base running in perfect order.

It’s worth mentioning that Jiayi and the other "Bikang’s Four Beauties" also joined the base’s management.

Before the apocalypse, these four women were high-level executives at the Bikang Group, once responsible for the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people.

Managing a tiny base like this was an absolute breeze for them.

Unlike the other thirty-plus women from Bikang, these four essentially held the same authority as Mengde himself, issuing commands as the base’s top administrators.

They could do so because everyone knew they were the supreme leader’s women.

After all, they had Mengde’s... tireless support behind them, day and night...

Coupled with the guards led by his subordinates like Leng Feng, a top-down, pyramidal structure took shape.

Mengde was at the top, followed by Bikang’s Four Beauties. Below them were his four key subordinates led by Leng Feng, who handled external matters, and the thirty-plus women from Bikang, who handled internal matters. At the bottom were the rest of the survivors.

Once this structure was in place, Mengde was completely freed up.

Basically, all matters were now being handled by someone else.

Lei Qiang and Brother Jingfu led their respective teams out to gather supplies, and their missions went smoothly.

They took out several cargo trucks and brought back a huge haul of supplies each day.

According to the two of them, they had already emptied three warehouses marked on the map.

Their gains were immense!

Unfortunately, however, eight of the guards who went off the island died in the process.

This was unavoidable.

After all, from what Mengde had seen so far, the number of zombies still far exceeded the number of humans.

If not for the zombies’ limited intelligence and clumsy movements, there would have been no human survivors left long ago.

Therefore, whenever a guard unfortunately died during an expedition, Jiayi and the others would, per Mengde’s instructions, provide a large quantity of supplies to the deceased’s family as a form of death benefit.

Spurred by this policy, the number of people wanting to join the off-island supply runs didn’t decrease; in fact, more and more people were requesting to go.

You see, anyone who went out on a supply run and returned safely would receive an extra share of supplies.

This served as a reward for them risking their lives off the island.

It was also something the survivors who stayed on the island to farm didn’t receive.

To quote a certain fish-selling bigwig: "You think I’m scared of rough seas? The rougher the sea, the pricier the fish!"

The higher the risk, the greater the reward should naturally be.

For this group of people whose Affinity for Mengde had already reached the "die-hard" level, this was undoubtedly a huge encouragement!

A new apocalyptic order, one where "effort brings reward," was gradually taking root.

’This is different from those methods of exploitation.’

’In my view, exploitation might work for a while.’

’But exploit people for too long, and it’ll cause a backlash. It’s not out of the question that someone would just put a bullet in your head.’

’This is the apocalypse; if you still think you can get away with that old-world capitalist exploitation, you’re hopelessly naive.’

’You can’t be like one of those influencers, reaping all the benefits of the system while mocking the younger generation for struggling to find work...’

To make up for the people the base had lost, Mengde had Lei Qiang and the others recruit some survivors when they went off-island.

With the benefits offered by Mengde’s base, he believed a casual mention would be enough to tempt quite a few survivors.

And as it turned out, that was indeed the case.

In just the past five days, they had already brought back several dozen survivors.

So, the whole base fell into a rhythm: the planters planted, the scavengers scavenged, and the administrators managed...

All in all, things were developing steadily.

The only thing that slightly bothered Mengde was that—perhaps influenced by Jiayi and the other members of Bikang’s Four Beauties—the other women in Villa Number One couldn’t seem to stay idle either.

Sister Bai and Sister Ru were in charge of the food and logistics at Villa Number One;

Aunt Cheng and Da Mimi were constantly familiarizing themselves with their Superpowers, absorbing Crystal Cores, and raising their Superpower Level. They had both already reached Tier Three;

Perhaps the only ones slacking off were Jiayao and Little Minami.

Those two girls would occasionally hang around the kitchen under the pretext of learning to cook, or they would go find Aoxue and the others to learn about managing the base...

In short, every woman had her own thing to do.

This was a good thing, but Mengde still reminded them that their main priority should be improving their Superpowers and overall strength.

In the apocalypse, survival ability was what mattered most.

And what did survival ability depend on? Personal strength, of course!

Although Mengde didn’t need these women to fight zombies to the death,

every woman still needed the basic ability to protect herself.

So, Mengde’s main daily task was to teach these women "spearmanship"...

Ahem... proper spearmanship...

As for the *improper* kind...

That was reserved for private lessons at night...

These past few days, Xiaoyao had probably been the most diligent in her practice...

After all, she had just... you know...

’I’m not a heartless guy...’

’Naturally, I couldn’t help but spend some extra "Crystal Grains"...’

Double the "Crystal Grains," in fact!

As the older sister, to reduce her younger sister’s burden,

...it was only reasonable for Jiayi to share half of the "Crystal Grains"... right?

But these happy days didn’t even last for two full days.

Because their "Aunt Flo" came to visit...

After all, he couldn’t exactly "charge with a bloodied bayonet."

So the pressure fell back on Aunt Cheng, Da Mimi, and Sister Bai...

...the three women who had already "broken the zero-distance barrier" with him.

Because among the remaining women...

Take Aoxue’s group of three. Let’s not even talk about Aoxue, the ice queen CEO.

That woman was incredibly cold and aloof; at most, she’d let him hold her hand or give her a kiss.

Cheng Fei’er and Liu Ruyun were a bit better.

Although they were ready to be "eaten," and he took every opportunity to feel them up,

...for some reason, they always held back from taking that final step.

As for Sister Ru, the issue was Xiaoling’er. Her daughter was too clingy, leaving him no opportunity to "make his move"...

Then there was Little Minami, the Yan Ba from Japan.

He remembered some handsome "godfather" figure once telling him: ’With women from Japan, you don’t need to be polite. Just stand up and pump hard...’

But every time that girl called him "Onii-chan," she sounded so innocent and pure...

’Making a move on her so suddenly... wouldn’t that be too crude?’

So, his progress in "lighting up" the Goddesses was temporarily stuck here.

But luckily, Mengde wasn’t completely out of options.

After his tireless efforts these past few days,

Liu Ruyun, the caring big-sister type, and Cheng Fei’er, the top-tier secretary, were about to be conquered by him...

In a day or two at most, he’d be able to eat some "fresh meat"...

He just didn’t know which two "cheeks" he’d get to eat first...

But just as he was getting antsy for his "meal," a group of uninvited guests arrived on the shores of the island!

And they were here with the intention of occupying Villa Island.

"Boss, bad news! A group of people are fighting their way onto the island..."

. . . . . . . . . .