"Damn yellow-skinned monkey!"
Merle, who was sprawled on the ground, finally caught his breath.
Enduring the turbulent, agonizing pain in his stomach, the old rascal pushed himself up with both hands on the gravel-filled ground, crawling up like an enraged wild boar.
His fierce, scarred face twisted together in agony, looking extremely ugly.
He recklessly rushed forward while brandishing his sandbag-sized fist, stirring up a gust of wind as he aimed straight for the back of Ling Feng's head.
Ling Feng didn't even turn his head.
He casually leaned his upper body backward, and the fist whistled past the tip of his nose by a hair's breadth.
At the same time, his fingers stuck on the crossbow mechanism didn't loosen a bit; instead, he calculated in his heart how to give this mad dog an unforgettable lesson, preferably crippling this obnoxious fellow right on the spot.
Just as Ling Feng was about to turn around and deliver a heavy blow...
"Enough!" Daryl on the side suddenly roared with a raspy voice.
Daryl knew very well that the Asian man before him moved shockingly fast; if he really went for the kill, his older brother would definitely bite the dust here today.
He decisively let go of the crossbow, exerted force with his feet, lunged forward, and tightly wrapped his arms around the waist of Merle, who was still trying to lunge forward from behind.
"Let me go! You wimp! Together, let's fuck this scum up!" Merle still refused to give up, kicking wildly on the ground with saliva flying everywhere, letting out unbearable profanities from his mouth like a machine gun.
Ling Feng didn't make another move.
He weighed the snatched black recurve crossbow in his hand twice; the feel was surprisingly good, and this weapon was indeed not bad.
Afterwards, he supported the crossbow with one hand, pointing the coldly gleaming metal arrowhead straight at Merle's glabella.
"This is the last warning." Ling Feng half-squinted his eyes, his gaze sweeping back and forth across Merle's stinking face, his voice pressed extremely low, "If that rotten mouth of yours spits out another half a dirty word, I don't mind sending you to meet God."
Pointed at closely by that sharp arrowhead, Merle's Adam's apple rolled with difficulty, and his arrogant cursing abruptly stopped.
Seizing the opportunity, Daryl tightly covered Merle's mouth, dragging and pulling him toward the edge of the woods while lowering his voice to quickly warn him to behave.
This farce filled with gunpowder smoke could finally be considered barely brought to an end.
Andrea, who had been hiding behind Ling Feng the whole time, let out a long breath of foul air.
Having witnessed with her own eyes Ling Feng crushing these two men with absolute strength, her confidence inside instantly grew ample.
This man's combat power was simply unreasonably high; following him maxed out her sense of security directly.
Andrea walked out from behind Ling Feng's broad back, looked around, and shouted in a raised voice: "The fight is over, and the spectacle has been watched enough! Shouldn't we prioritize discussing business now? Where are we going next?"
It was a wake-up call for everyone.
The crowd, who had just been watching the show, instantly looked at each other in dismay, their expressions quickly replaced by confusion and panic.
Yeah, where to go?
Not far away, the direction of Atlanta was still blazing with fire, and muffled explosions could be heard from afar. That only interstate highway had been completely blocked by traffic, and entering the city was tantamount to courting death.
"I... I want to check out the surrounding county towns. My aunt lives there, maybe it's fine over there." A fat man wearing glasses timidly raised his hand.
"Bullshit! Right now outside is full of abnormal infected people. Are you running to the county town to deliver takeout to them? We must find a place protected by the military!" Another uncle with a Mediterranean haircut immediately retorted loudly.
Everyone knew nothing about the surrounding terrain, arguing noisily into a mess, and no one could convince anyone else.
Just as the scene was about to get out of control...
"Hey, everyone stop arguing for a moment!" Dale stood on the RV's step, clapped his hands hard, and squeezed out a comforting smile on his wrinkled old face, "I happen to have a complete road map of Georgia in my car. We can spread it out and take a look; it's better than guessing blindly here."
Finished speaking, the old man turned and dived into the RV, swiftly pulling out a large paper map and spreading it directly onto the wide hood of the Ford pickup.
Shane, Lori, Carol, and others immediately crowded over. Ling Feng casually slung the crossbow over his shoulder and lazily led the two sisters to gather around the front of the car.
The map was densely marked with various towns and highway networks.
The fat man who had just clamored to go to the county town pointed again at an area to the north: "Let's go here. There's a small town, a supermarket, and a gas station here. We can find supplies to sustain life."
This proposal immediately won the echo of a few people; modern people simply couldn't imagine surviving in the wild.
Hearing this, Ling Feng directly spoke up to interrupt their fantasies.
"Even a southern central metropolis like Atlanta ended up having to be cleared by incendiary bombs, what makes you think those small places without even a few people in the police station can remain intact?" Ling Feng's voice was not loud, but every word hit the nail on the head, "Going to a place like that has no meaning other than serving as extra meals for piles of monsters."
The fat man opened his mouth, but couldn't say a single word of rebuttal. The facts were right before his eyes; the military's defense line had long since completely collapsed.
Shane, standing nearby, keenly seized this opportunity.
Having had his face made to lose by Ling Feng just now, he was worried he couldn't find a way out, and right now was the best time to establish his absolute leadership position.
Shane coughed heavily twice, slammed both hands onto the hood, and pulled everyone's attention back to himself.
"He's right!" Shane raised his tone, his tone extremely agitating, "We must never go to cities and densely populated places! It's too dangerous. If we want to survive, we must find a wilderness far away from the city!"
As he spoke, his fingers slid rapidly across the edge of the map. Suddenly, his finger paused, heavily pressing on a marginal area marked on the map.
"This!" Shane's eyes lit up.
Several people stretched their necks to look over, and Carol softly read out the place name label: "Quarry?"
"Yes, it's the Quarry." Shane turned around, facing everyone, and began to analyze the pros and cons, "This place is deep in the mountains, far away from those main roads, and hard to be discovered by infected people outside. Most importantly, the Quarry usually only has a single access route, with a dead end and high mountains behind it. This means as long as we guard that only entrance, we don't have to worry about being ambushed. This is definitely a perfect natural Camp."
It must be said that having been a police officer for so many years, Shane indeed had some tricks up his sleeve in tactical choices.
Seeing this, Lori immediately stood by Shane's side to assist: "Shane has dealt with quite a few emergencies before, and he is very experienced. I think what he said makes a lot of sense, what does everyone think?"
This woman was truly shrewd; Ling Feng watched Lori's maneuver from the side and evaluated silently.
She knew very well how to elevate Shane's prestige at this time.
With Lori taking the lead, Dale also nodded in agreement. Hearing that this place was both safe and defensible, the rest of the people who had no opinions to begin with immediately expressed their agreement one after another.
"Alright, since no one has any objections!" Shane waved his big hand with a rather commanding and grandiose posture, "Everyone get in the car immediately. Before it gets completely dark, we must reach the Quarry!"
With the order given, the crowd quickly dispersed and ran back to their respective cars.
Ling Feng led Andrea and Amy toward the off-road vehicle.
Pulling open the passenger door, Ling Feng unceremoniously threw the crossbow onto the leather seat, then sat in the main driver's seat himself and turned the key to ignite the engine.
The two sisters crawled into the back seat, one on the left and one on the right.
As soon as the car door closed, the complaints Andrea had pent up burst out directly.
"What on earth gives that Shane the right?" Andrea crossed her arms, leaned her entire body against the seatback, and rolled her eyes to the heavens, "What does 'He's right' even mean? Stepping on your words to find a sense of presence for himself, looking like an arrogant leader, it's truly sickening to watch."
Leaning forward and grabbing the back of the driver's seat, she stared at Ling Feng's profile with utter incomprehension: "And you, Ling! You are clearly so capable of fighting, why didn't you just seize the command authority just now? Why let that control-freak cop order us around?"
Ling Feng put the car in gear, released the handbrake, and steadily followed the taillights of the pickup truck ahead.
Hearing Andrea's complaint, Ling Feng let out a light chuckle.
"Being the leader of a crappy team like this, what substantive benefits are there?" Ling Feng controlled the steering wheel with one hand, glanced at her through the rearview mirror, and said in an extremely casual tone, "Every day you have to worry about what everyone eats and drinks, whose family lost half a piece of bread, and you still have to go play judge. When danger hits, you're the first one to rush up and die."
Andrea was choked up for a moment: "But this is power..."
"Only fists are power." Ling Feng interrupted her, his attitude exceptionally clear, "In this damn world, as long as your strength is strong enough and your firepower is fierce enough, whether you are the nominal leader makes no difference at all. No matter who sits in that position, when big things happen, won't they still have to look at my expression in the end?"
This was the route he had set.
Go be a mother hen? It's better to save energy to deal with the system, specifically targeting valuable women to fleece Pleasure Points.
This naked philosophy of survival completely baffled Andrea. After thinking about it carefully, she actually found it to be flawless.
"Did you hear that, sis? This is called great wisdom!" Amy smiled brightly on the side, her body pressing directly against the back of the driver's seat, her two little hands very naturally embracing Ling Feng's shoulders.
Resting her chin near Ling Feng's shoulder, the little girl's warm breath blew onto Ling Feng's neck: "I think what Ling said is so right. Why should we manage those irrelevant people? As long as he can protect us well, that's enough."
Watching her own biological sister's clingy, infatuated appearance, Andrea despairingly patted her forehead.
It's over; this girl has been completely brainwashed and is utterly hopeless.
However, Andrea didn't argue anymore, obediently leaning back against the seat, with a little more anticipation in her heart for the future Camp life.
The motorcade drove away from the wide highway and turned into a dilapidated dirt road.
As they went deeper, the forests on both sides became denser and denser, the branches and leaves blocking the sky and the sun, completely shutting out the meager remaining evening glow.
The road surface was uneven, and the off-road vehicle climbed upward all the way amidst the bumps.
More than half an hour later, the view suddenly opened up.
Ahead appeared a huge circular Quarry pit, surrounded by steep rock walls and dense forests. The huge pit below was filled with water, forming a lake, and as for whether there were fish, one would only know after fishing.
Just as Shane said, this place backed against high mountains, with only that one narrow road that they had just entered through, and its concealability was extremely strong
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