84: Chapter 84 So what if we robbed them?

"If you want supplies, fine. The base has its own rules. You can form your own survivor squads and go to the Mission Hall to take on tasks. Completing these tasks will earn you corresponding points, which can be used to purchase supplies."

She took another step forward. "Of course, if there are Ability Users among you, you can go directly to the Mission Hall to register and form a squad to go out on missions. You can also apply directly to work in the infirmary or the resource department; room and board are provided, and family members of those who join will be given priority placement."

Her tone while saying this was very flat—no condescending charity, no earnest persuasion. She was simply stating a fact, simple and clear, whether they wanted to listen or not.

But after she finished speaking, the open space was silent for about three seconds before it exploded.

"Go to the Mission Hall?! Where is the Mission Hall? Is it far from here? You're making us walk there?"

The middle-aged woman who had clashed with them earlier shouted loudly, "What's the difference between making us ordinary people kill zombies and sending us to our deaths?!"

"Exactly! You have cars and guns, what do we have? What are you expecting us to use to kill zombies? Should we go up empty-handed and let the zombies bite us?"

A tall, thin young man stood in the crowd with his hands in his pockets, his neck stretching and retracting as he spoke.

"And now we have to go to work and take on tasks? Aren't the supplies you have just things you got by killing our family members?"

"And just now, you went from door to door. You must have taken the supplies they had too. Can't you just distribute them so we can all survive together?"

A middle-aged woman wearing glasses, who looked like she used to work in an office, pushed up her glasses. "Those who are capable should do more. You have the ability, so you should help those who don't. This is called social equity." She sounded as righteous as if Xu Wanning owed her something.

The middle-aged man who had spoken first spat on the ground at this moment.

"To put it plainly, you just want us to risk our lives for the authorities, right? They hide in the base eating and drinking well, while we're sent out to fight zombies for our lives. Why should we?"

He said this in a voice that wasn't too loud or too soft, just enough for everyone around to hear clearly.

"Yeah, why should we?" Someone immediately chimed in loudly. Several young men in the back of the crowd began to push forward, relying on the strength of their numbers, their voices growing louder and louder.

"Officials eat the government's grain, so they should take care of the common people. That's only right and proper. If you don't give us supplies, none of you are leaving. Since you've come here, don't think you're getting out so easily. There are many of us; the law can't punish everyone. So what if we rob them?"

The Tattooed Man, hiding in the crowd, shouted loudly. Immediately after, people in the crowd began to press forward—not everyone, but at least twenty or thirty of them.

Some were stirred up by the words just spoken, some were driven by a mix of fear and greed, and some had their courage bolstered by the phrase "the law can't punish everyone."

They began to inch forward, step by step, toward Xu Wanning and the team members by the incineration point.

The first to step forward was the middle-aged man in the jacket. As soon as he moved, the people behind him surged forward.

The man in the jacket walked at the very front. His face, which had been flying with spittle just moments ago, was flushed red as he pointed at Xu Wanning's nose.

"I'll be blunt with you. Those supplies you collected? You're leaving them behind today, whether you want to or not. If you don't, well, there are at least 100 of us here, and how many of you are there? Do you think you can get out of here?"

His finger kept jabbing back and forth. Xu Wanning looked up. She hated it when people pointed fingers at her. The long sword in her hand flipped, and in an instant, it severed the man's finger.

At the same time, she drew the gun from her thigh and swept it across the shadows of the crowd. She passed over the middle-aged man who hadn't yet reacted, passed over the old woman still trying to squeeze forward, passed over the shivering fat woman, and finally settled on a figure on the right side of the second row.

That person was hiding behind two others with his head down, his hoodie pulled low, revealing only a chin and lips, but Xu Wanning recognized him.

She recognized the colorful tattoos on his arms, and the gold chain hanging around his neck that had lost its luster. Tattooed Man, I've found you.

Perhaps sensing that Xu Wanning was looking at him, he lifted his head slightly, revealing one eye from under the brim of his hood. The moment their eyes met, his pupils contracted violently, and he instinctively tried to retreat into the crowd.

Xu Wanning's movements were too fast—so fast that the middle-aged man's hand was still suspended in mid-air, so fast that the Tattooed Man's body had only just turned halfway. A deafening gunshot exploded across the open space.

The few people closest to it shuddered in terror. The middle-aged man knelt on the ground, clutching his finger. The young woman holding the baby let out half a scream before clamping her hand tightly over her mouth.

The back of the Tattooed Man's head shattered completely. The bullet entered from a position slightly below the back of his skull, passed through the entire cranial cavity, and exited from a position slightly above the frontal bone, spraying out a cloud of red and white mixed debris that struck the back of the person in front of him.

The Tattooed Man's knees buckled, his shoulder tilted to the left, and he collapsed sideways onto the ground. The moment he hit the ground, one hand twitched instinctively, fingers clawing at the dirt, and then he stopped moving.

Dark red liquid flowed from beneath his shattered skull, staining a small patch of the grey-white ground red.

The open space was silent for a full five seconds—five seconds long enough for everyone's brains to break free from the word "impossible";

long enough for the burst of blood before their eyes to travel from their retinas to their cerebral cortex and transform into fear;

long enough for that middle-aged man to collapse to the ground, shaking like a sieve due to the excessive bleeding from his finger.

No one pushed forward anymore; everyone froze in place, as if their throats were being gripped by an invisible hand.

The fat woman who had shouted the loudest earlier had her mouth wide open, forgetting to close it, the black hole where she was missing a tooth clearly exposed to the sunlight.

The old woman leaning on a cane shrank back several steps, her eyes filled with terror and disbelief.

The middle-aged man who had been following the man in the jacket was only two steps away from Xu Wanning; the blood from the man in the jacket had splattered onto his shoes.

He looked down at the blood on his shoes, then looked up at Xu Wanning. His lips trembled as he tried to say something, but only a few shapeless gasps escaped his throat.

His legs were shaking, his knees knocking against each other, making his pant legs rustle.

Xu Wanning did not lower her gun. A wisp of blue smoke was still rising from the muzzle, which was pointed toward the ground.

There was no expression on her face—no anger, no triumph, no ripples of emotion after killing someone, as if the person she had just shot and killed was not a human, but a rat.

"Get back." She said, just those two words. Her tone was exactly the same as when she had explained the base rules—not heavy, not light, not hurried, not slow.

The crowd dispersed like a receding tide—not out of self-awareness, not out of cooperation, but because those in the very front were retreating simultaneously, and those in the back were being pushed backward.

No one dared to run, fearing that moving too quickly might provoke this killing star.

Everyone dared not move too much, only desperately squeezing to the sides, squeezing until shoulders touched shoulders, squeezing until even those who had their feet stepped on dared not make a sound, slowly dispersing into the corridor.

"Wait."

Xu Wanning spoke suddenly, and the crowd, which had been shuffling away in small steps, instantly froze in place, trembling all over.