Chapter 165 - 164: Colonel Lin

Chapter 165: Chapter 164: Colonel Lin

Originally, Lin Fan had planned to just stand there and coolly say, ’You guys carry on. Just pretend I’m not here.’

He wanted to see what they were up to.

But now, looking down at the two men prostrating themselves before him, he suddenly felt like a green recruit, completely at a loss.

Meanwhile, Tan Wei and his soldiers were utterly dumbfounded.

They didn’t recognize the newly arrived young man, nor did they have any idea what these special forces soldiers—who usually wouldn’t even give them the time of day—were doing.

Even Tan Wei’s eyes darted back and forth between Ye Qingzhou and the newcomer.

He was an Awakened One. Although his awakened ability had little combat power, his enhanced constitution and recovery abilities had allowed him to survive the early days of the apocalypse.

He had also helped a few people here and there. Most of the men with him now were the ones who had joined the convoy with him.

Leveraging his firearms proficiency and his awakened ability, he had become part of the armed personnel when the team was short-staffed, and after a few battles, he’d been promoted to a squad leader.

Having his own base of support and a special awakened ability meant his position had remained secure, whether it was when Zhou Chaoxian was in charge or when Zhao Cheng took over.

But today, he was getting antsy. After Zhou Chaoxian’s vehicle had gotten stuck in the horde of corpses yesterday, Zhao Cheng had been the first to make a move. If the two sides had gone to war, he, with fewer men than Zhao Cheng and less strength than Ye Qingzhou, might have had a chance to profit from their conflict.

However, Ye Qingzhou’s swift capitulation and the fact that her veteran soldiers didn’t resist at all had dashed his hopes. He had no choice but to return to his original position, continuing to serve as a squad leader under Zhao Cheng.

But now, Zhao Cheng and his men had all vanished without a sound.

He didn’t know how it happened, but he saw the result.

This unknown, highly efficient "purge" sent a chill down his spine. He realized that both he and Zhao Cheng had grossly underestimated Ye Qingzhou and her special forces soldiers, who acted like her private bodyguards.

He didn’t know why Ye Qingzhou had suddenly made her move or what was different about this morning compared to last night. But the moment this young man appeared, the instant those two special forces soldiers suddenly bowed in allegiance, he felt like he was onto something.

"Everyone, lower your weapons!"

Tan Wei raised a hand. No matter what, it was best to show goodwill first. He chuckled, a slightly stiff yet very enthusiastic smile instantly appearing on his face, completely devoid of his earlier tough-guy attitude. He whispered to Ye Qingzhou,

"Colonel Ye, and this is...?"

Although he didn’t know what had happened last night to shatter the convoy’s internal balance of power, he wasn’t an idiot. He could clearly see the attitude of Ye Qingzhou’s side toward the young man.

’The men who just fled back were the ones Li Rong had taken to support the supply team this morning. I caught the gist of their chaotic account. Holy hell, he used some Demon Technique to execute seven people without even blinking.’

’Then he strolls into the gas station with his people, clearly certain he had Zhao Cheng beat. Ye Qingzhou’s sudden move was obviously a coordinated attack with him from the inside!’

Once he thought it through, it all made sense. Tan Wei decisively abandoned his newfound role as a player and returned to his position as a pawn on the board.

Ye Qingzhou had naturally heard the five men’s account as well and was secretly marveling at the young man’s ruthlessness.

This was the first time she had seen Lin Fan. Although his name had crossed her mind countless times between last night and this morning, she still had trouble connecting it to the face in front of her.

The person described by Zhang Wenyuan and profiled by Hu Chen felt a bit sharper than the man before her.

But that didn’t affect her judgment of him.

She slowly walked forward, gave the prostrate Hu Chen a light kick, and nodded at Lin Fan with a smile. Then, she gritted her teeth and hissed at the two on the ground:

"You two, rejoin the formation..."

Hu Chen and Yu Wentao immediately scrambled to their feet. Grinning foolishly, they gave Lin Fan a standard military salute, then jogged back to the ranks behind them, their expressions as natural as if nothing had happened.

Ye Qingzhou turned, took a deep breath, and gestured toward Lin Fan, announcing to the crowd gathered at the entrance of the gas station’s main hall:

"This," she began, "is my old friend, Colonel Lin Fan of the Jishan Biotechnology Research Institute..."

"Pfft..."

Behind Lin Fan, Chu Zhaozhao suddenly burst out laughing before quickly stifling it. Even with Su Qing standing beside her, he could feel her body trembling with suppressed laughter.

"Uh... Colonel Ye, what is all this?"

Even Lin Fan was completely dazed by this one-two punch. His mind was no longer filled with question marks, but with a torrent of jumbled "information" and "possibilities" that was causing him to mentally short-circuit.

He subconsciously turned to the female officer—who looked somewhat weary, her face smudged with grime and her expression neutral, but her eyes exceptionally bright—and asked about the current situation.

From everyone’s behavior and her epaulets, he had already deduced that she was the renowned Ye Qingzhou he had heard so much about.

Before setting out, Lin Fan had learned about the basic structure of their convoy from the surviving soldiers. He also knew that a man named Zhao Cheng had used his superior numbers to take command from Zhou Chaoxian, so he had made some preparations for the situation he was about to face.

’This Zhao Cheng,’ he’d thought, ’judging by his actions, is an ambitious opportunist. But since he ordered his men to slaughter civilians and plunder supplies, he’s no different from a bandit. I’ll just have to find a way to kill him.’

’But if I do that, my appearance as a powerful outsider would inevitably cause the remaining armed personnel and the originally weaker Ye Qingzhou to unite against me.’

’They have dozens of men, dozens of guns, Awakened Ones, and an armored vehicle.’

’I might win in a direct confrontation, but how many of the people with me could survive a sniper’s bullet from the shadows?’

’Unless I kill them all or reach some kind of agreement with this Ye Qingzhou, the fate of Wang Zhong and Zhang Wenyuan, who were surrounded by zombies last night, would be a cautionary tale.’

’What’s more, Liu Bin can’t even scrape together twelve people who know how to shoot. Protecting an entire convoy is impossible with just a few Awakened Ones.’

To avoid being controlled by them, he had prepared several plans on how to dismantle and absorb the various factions within the group, and even how to intervene in their internal power struggles.

But at this very moment, all of it had become wishful thinking. For the first time, he felt the situation slipping out of his control.

Hearing Lin Fan’s question, Ye Qingzhou ignored the utterly astonished gazes from Tan Wei and the men beside him. She turned around gracefully. She didn’t answer, but simply looked at Lin Fan in silence.

Her eyes were crystal clear, like polished mirrors, and Lin Fan could even see his own reflection in them.

’This Colonel Ye,’ Lin Fan thought, ’this woman whose aura is completely different from Su Qing’s, a woman who is even a couple notches more beautiful—she solved every problem the moment she opened her mouth.’

’With a single sentence, she established my unquestionable legitimacy in taking over this convoy and gave my purge of its dregs this morning absolute "legality."’

’If you’re an outsider and you kill seven of our people, even if they were murderers and arsonists, it’s still vigilantism. You’re a Demon. The others will band together to fight you just to save their own skins.’

’But if you suddenly transform into an "imperial inspector," then you’re just being impartial, enforcing strict military discipline. You’re upholding the law and punishing violators. The others will just think, "Heh, good thing that wasn’t me. I’d better stay in line from now on."’

’She instantly changed the nature of the event from a bandit running into a local tyrant to an allied force rendezvous with a leader dropping in from high command. Now, the way the remaining armed personnel and the ordinary people see me will be completely different.’

’At this moment, by publicly announcing my identity, Ye Qingzhou has completely handed over the legal authority of this convoy to me.’

’Aside from that Zhao Cheng, there will be no more obstacles to me absorbing them...’

Thinking all this through, when Lin Fan looked into Ye Qingzhou’s crystal-clear eyes again, he realized they seemed bottomless.

And in an instant, the way he looked at Ye Qingzhou changed. The wariness was gone, the probing vanished, replaced by a complex sense of admiration.

He suddenly felt that this woman before him was a little more interesting than anyone he had ever met.