Ye Miao had nothing to hide, so he told her his analysis in full: "Tianju Village may not practice slavery, but it's famous for its unruly behavior. Territories like this are unruly simply because they want to gather more resources, so they usually try to get the maximum number of people as quickly as possible."

"If it had just been upgraded to village level, it would be fine, but as far as I can remember, Tianju upgraded the village around the same time as me. So much time has passed, so even if Zhou Xian doesn't have a full 1,000 people, he's bound to have around 900 or so. If we want to maximize resource collection efficiency, it's reasonable to maintain a headcount of 990+."

"Under these circumstances, the Rose Settlement has a full capacity of 100 people, so there should be at least 70 or 80, right? Can he accommodate them?"

An Ruoying replied calmly: "What if there happens to be a vacant seat?"

Ye Miao continued to himself, "The bigger question is, if you want to implement slavery, you also need strength and logic."

"Red Maple Village has a population cap of one thousand. Wei Hua could have created dozens of slaves and locked them in the basement to serve him, without affecting the normal operation of the territory. Rose Settlement, on the other hand, has a population cap of only one hundred. If the lord created another batch of slaves, the territory would inevitably collapse. Of course, the lord of Rose Settlement could restrain himself and use only two or three slaves to satisfy himself, but if that were the case, he would never let Tianju Village know about it."

"Let me put it this way... Red Maple Village went so far as to expose our guilt, and we only learned of this by chance. If Rose Village had fewer slaves and was so far away from Sweet Orange Village, the news shouldn't have been able to reach them directly. Unless the lord of Rose Village completely cut off the slaves' contact with the outside world, giving them the opportunity to file a complaint, that would be a foolish mistake, wouldn't it?"

Ye Miao finished his analysis in one go. An Ruoying, watching the screen with admiration, immediately agreed, "That's right. If the 'slaves' of the Rose Colony really could seek help from the outside world, they would definitely contact you, Pure Land, first. There's no way they'd contact Tianju!"

Ye Miao: "I suddenly feel a little embarrassed. What's going on?"

An Ruoying finally made a summary speech: "I think we have to take care of the matter of Tianju Village, otherwise he will do bad things outside and ruin the reputation of your Pure Land."

[Ye Miao] How do you want to manage it?

[An Ruoying] Fight violence with violence, just beat him down! He's not a good guy if he does this. Beat him down and kill him, his death will not be unjust.

Seeing this reply, Ye Miao shook his head: "It's not difficult to defeat him, the difficult part is to find a way to appease the other lords after that."

An Ruoying was stunned.

[Ye Miao] In the apocalypse, nothing is more important than one's own safety, but the annexation of major territories is extremely insecure. Last time I attacked Red Maple Village, many lords in T City must have been wary, but the subsequent verdict and declaration temporarily reassured them. Now, if I were to attack Sweet Orange Village again a few days later, I'm afraid no one would believe my excuses.

[An Ruoying] Why wouldn't anyone believe this? Zhou Xian himself is up to no good. Let the legal team investigate and obtain his confession and make it public. The facts are clear.

[Ye Miao] I conquered the territory, and the legal team is my own. If you don't know me and just look at the whole process, do you believe the confession released by my legal team?

"..." An Ruoying looked at the last question and remained silent.

Indeed, this is a very simple principle. To summarize: suppose there are several countries in your area, and the most powerful country, A, annexes medium-sized country B and declares B guilty. Then it annexes medium-sized country C and declares C guilty as well. As country D, which has not yet been annexed, would you be unable to sleep or would you trust A again?

If you choose to believe again, then you can only say that the lords are quite naive.

An Ruoying bit her lip: "Then what are you going to do?"

[Ye Miao] To be more objective, while it's true that the Rose Settlement was breached by the Sweet Orange Village, we don't know where the members went, and at least we have no evidence that the Sweet Orange Village killed them all. Conversely, if the Sweet Orange Village continues to attack the small territory, as long as they achieve the "breach," we can't control whether they kill innocent members or not, because we can't monitor their movements all the time.

[Ye Miao] So what we really need to do is to prevent him from breaking into the small territory, at least not by using our name to break into the small territory.

[An Ruoying] Do you have a solution?

[Ye Miao] Almost there.

【An Ruoying】Then can I participate???

Ye Miao could feel her excitement through the screen even though she was miles away, and couldn't help but laugh: "Okay, then I'll create a group after I finish the work at hand."

[An Ruoying] Wow, are you grouping up to tear down the scumbag?! I love it! Looking forward to it!!!

It was originally a serious matter, but Ye Miao was forced to laugh by An Ruoying.

After closing the dialog box, she temporarily put aside the problems of Tianju Village and dealt with the affairs of her own territory.

Chu Cheng, who had been at the base for a day, sent her a lot of messages, reporting on his work. Ye Miao looked carefully, feeling both admiration and relief, because Chu Cheng had done far more than she had instructed.

In addition, Chu Cheng also put forward some requirements based on actual conditions.

One reason was to get some skill cards. He'd noticed that the mid-level players in the territory weren't living as comfortably as they'd imagined, and most of them had relatively few skills. He wanted to place some skill cards in the general store, selling them with a limited supply to even out the power levels. If possible, he wanted 1,000 cards, with Ye Miao having the final say on card quality.

Ye Miao agreed without hesitation.

The skill cards she got from Wei Hua were worth more than 30,000, and after paying out the breakthrough rewards and subsistence allowances, she still had more than 20,000. They were all looted from the members of Hongfeng Village. It was only right that she return some of them to the intermediate members.

Chu Cheng's other request was that, since Wang Yong's business team had opened a purchasing agency for the main territory, to protect the interests of both parties, she wanted her to set limits on member withdrawals. If a member wanted to withdraw from the territory but had outstanding purchase payments, they would not be allowed to withdraw. If the purchase payment was paid but the goods had not yet been delivered, they would be notified to avoid losses.

After reading this, Ye Miao carefully looked through the system settings, but found that the settings in this part were very rough and did not have as much freedom as other aspects of the game.

She had no choice but to tell Chu Cheng: "In fact, there are not many players who quit the territory. You may not see one for ten days or half a month. If someone quits in the future, I will communicate with Wang Yong in time. The probability of problems is not high."

Chu Cheng replied: "That's fine, thank you."

With both matters settled, Ye Miao lazily got out of bed. When the NPC sent by Chu Cheng arrived to deliver the meal, she passed on the skill cards to them. There were 3,000 of them in total, which would not only fully enrich the skills of mid-level players, but even senior members could get some.

Thinking of this, Ye Miao couldn't help but sigh once again at Wei Hua's abnormality—over 30,000 cards! How many people would he have to extort? How many people would die because of this? But what's the point of keeping so many cards? You can't eat them!

T City stronghold.

After breakfast, Sun Mengjuan rushed to the farmland area and sweated profusely in the fields for the whole morning.

The work on the farm is paid on a daily basis. If necessary, you can work for half a day and then go to collect your payment. You will be paid 25 gold coins, and there will be no delay.

Given this job, Sun Mengjuan didn't want to risk going out and killing monsters. However, perhaps due to the long-standing distrust, she still found Li Chenqi at noon, who was assigned by Chu Cheng to look after the farmland, and asked tentatively, "Hello, can I get half a day's pay first?"

"Oh, do you have something to do this afternoon?" Li Chenqi nodded, opened his backpack without hesitation, and took out the gold coins to give to her.

He was so straightforward that Sun Mengjuan felt embarrassed. She lowered her head and said, "It's okay... I'll come back this afternoon."

Li Chenqi couldn't help but look at her, but still gave her the money without saying anything more.

Some principles are very simple. The other party should be paid according to the amount of work he did. As for why he came in the afternoon and took away half a day's salary, he didn't need to pursue it at all. It was none of his business at all.

"...Thank you." Sun Mengjuan took the gold coins in her hand, held them tightly, and turned to go to the grocery store.

When this stronghold was still the Red Maple Village, she, as a mid-level player, was actually not doing too badly. At least she could have enough food and clothing, and she didn't have to worry about starving to death or becoming a slave like the lower-level players.

But even so, she hasn't had money of her own for a long time.

At that time, the so-called "doing well" depended entirely on the allocation of territory. Intermediate players had several dishes to eat at each meal, purple equipment available when going out, and everyone had additional privileges and benefits. If they occasionally lost purple equipment, they could use the privileges and benefits to avoid compensation. It was indeed better than the bottom players.

But now, with the gold coins in her hands, she can go to the grocery store to buy things by herself, which makes her feel the long-lost freedom.

This freedom made her happy, but also a little uncomfortable. When she reached the grocery store, her heartbeat quickened. She swallowed hard before speaking softly, "I-I want an order of lentil and pork, and rice."

The NPC in the grocery store looked at it and said, "12 gold coins, and a free bowl of soup."

The low price made Sun Mengjuan even happier!

"Here." She paid promptly, took the lunch box handed to her by the NPC, and happily returned to the farmland, intending to eat while sitting on the ridge, so as not to be late for work accidentally!

At the main territory market, Zhang Tingting didn't know what to eat for lunch, so she once again stopped by Deng Wei's pancake stall to buy pancakes.

At the noodle stall a few meters away, a familiar figure made Zhang Tingting pause. Then she turned and whispered to Deng Wei, "What's been going on with Fang Yuming these past few days? He's like an eggplant playing doubles. I ran into him today while leading a team to kill monsters. I wanted to say hello, but I was startled by his expression."

Deng Wei's eyes lit up: You asked the right person!

Then he started whispering to Zhang Tingting, "I was leaving home a few days ago when I ran into Fang Yuming blocking her at the door of the old man's house. He asked her why she accepted Chu Cheng's gift but not his. It was extremely awkward. I hid in the corner for a long time and didn't dare to move forward."

"Why does he want to compete with Chu Cheng?!" Zhang Tingting was surprised. "Does he like the boss too?!"

Deng Wei grasped the key point: "Have you also discovered that Chu Cheng likes the boss!"

"I'm not blind!" Zhang Tingting said confidently, but she was obviously not interested in Chu Cheng's gossip anymore. She pressed on, "What did the boss say? Did he reject him? In fact, Fang Yuming came to the territory earlier than Chu Cheng! If the boss..."

Fang Yuming took a deep breath and raised his head: "I can hear you."

"Hiss—" Zhang Tingting and Deng Wei turned around suddenly, their eyes widened.

Fang Yuming sat at the small table of the noodle stall with his arms folded, his expression unchanged. "An assassin's high agility includes hearing. Especially when the wind is favorable, he can hear sounds from far away."

"Well, well, well, well..." Zhang Tingting's tongue was tied and she was digging her toes into the ground.

After holding it in for a long time and still not knowing what to say, Zhang Tingting completely broke down and simply turned around and ran away: "Sorry to bother you, we won't see each other again!!!"

"Hey... Hey?? Your pancakes!!!" Deng Wei had just finished wrapping the pancakes and called out to her in a hoarse voice, but of course she couldn't stop him.

"I gave you the money, but you don't want to take the pancakes..." Deng Wei complained to herself with her head down, and suddenly came to her senses the next second: That's not right!

She turned her head again with a look of horror. Fang Yuming was still sitting there, but she couldn't pack up her stall immediately and run away like Zhang Tingting, so she instantly started digging her toes into the ground.

"Um...um..." Deng Wei forced a smile and handed over the pancake in her hand. "I made these pancakes, and she paid for them. How about you eat them and take it as your apology?"

Fang Yuming said nothing.

Deng Wei said with a bitter face: "We are wrong, okay? We are just chatting about gossip, absolutely no harm! And we are not targeting you... It is hard not to be interested in gossip about the boss!"

Outside the territory, although Zhang Yi was a member of Zhang Tingting's team, he did not return to the territory with Zhang Tingting at noon. He just ate some food he bought in the morning and continued to kill monsters with extremely high efficiency.

It has been so long since the end of the world, but she has never felt so motivated to kill monsters!

Before, in Red Maple Village, everything she found had to be turned in, leaving her with barely a sliver of gold. But now, everything she found belonged to her. Not only did Zhang Tingting, the team leader, take nothing, but the territory only collected a fixed tax. This meant that every bit of her effort contributed to a better life.

After using his last ultimate move, Zhang Yi single-handedly knocked down another brown bear.

The gold coins dropped by brown bears can be used, the bear skin can be sold to tailors to make clothes, and the bear paws can be sold to cooking players. Although it is difficult to fight, once you win, you will gain a lot.

Zhang Yi breathed a sigh of relief, smiled, and happily calculated: If this continued, she would be able to move into the stone house soon. Or if she saved a little more, she could move directly into the red brick house one day. It would be very comfortable at first glance with its own door and courtyard!

Zhang Yi fantasized about a better life. Thinking back to a few days ago, she was still a low-level player who could be reduced to a slave at any time. She felt that her current life was a dream.

In Tianju Village, Zhou Xian was meeting with three of his most trusted core members in the small conference room on the second floor of his villa to discuss the next territory to attack.

The notification tone suddenly jumped twice, and Zhou Xian subconsciously clicked it, still saying, "I think we should attack the Little Red Riding Hood settlement first. It's far away from us and the Rose settlement, so it's easier to avoid suspicion."

After he finished speaking, he looked at the panel that had just been opened. After taking a closer look, his face suddenly turned pale.

"The Little Red Riding Hood settlement is close to the snow-capped mountains. It's said there are some monsters that we haven't encountered here." The subordinate was still analyzing the details. After a while, he heard nothing and glanced at Zhou Xian. "Boss?"

Zhou Xian regained his composure, took a deep breath, and forced himself to calm down. "I have something to do. Please go to the living room on the first floor and wait for me."

"Okay." The three members looked at each other, tactfully didn't ask any further questions, and left together.

Even after they closed the door, Zhou Xian's back was still sweating.

There were only two messages in the panel, but they were unexpected.

The first one is:

[Ye Miao] Hello, I heard you responded to my declaration yesterday, reached a slave settlement, and saved the players there? Thank you very much! But as the initiator of the declaration, I have an obligation to share the burden with you. You can send the members of the Rose Settlement to Get Rich Overnight Town. My main territory is full, but there are still a few hundred vacancies in the stronghold. I can take care of them.

The next one says:

[An Ruoying] There is also space in my Tiaodeng Town, and I can help.

In addition, the name of this group is: Anti-Slavery League.

Zhou Xian tried hard to breathe, but every breath he took was colder.

Although the other party's words were polite and courteous, and there was no loophole to be found, he felt that what he had done was exposed.

He had to force himself to calm down and replied: Hahahaha, thank you, but I won't bother you this time, I can do it myself! Last night, there happened to be dozens of vacancies left in Tianju Village, so I brought everyone back.

[An Ruoying] Okay, then if you need anything else later, you can always ask me and I will try my best to help!

【Zhou Xian】Okay, thank you.

[Ye Miao] I've heard that Red Maple Village isn't the only one practicing slavery in T City. I'm grateful that everyone is joining me in this fight for justice. But for me, overthrowing the system is only the first step; resettling the members who were previously persecuted and abused is the most important thing.

Perhaps out of guilt, Zhou Xian immediately replied: I agree.

[Ye Miao] Now your Tianju Village is almost full. If you overthrow such a territory next time, you can send people directly to me. My base can accommodate members of five or six settlements without any problem. I can also send my people to pick them up.

[Zhou Xian] Okay, no problem.

After typing these five words and two punctuation marks, Zhou Xian broke out in a cold sweat again.

The other party must have noticed something strange. These words may seem caring, but in fact they are just a warning.

After hastily ending the conversation, he turned off the panel, went out and went downstairs.

"Boss." The three core members who were waiting on the first floor stood up at the same time when they saw him coming down.

Zhou Xian held his breath and said, "The expedition plan is temporarily cancelled."

"Huh?!" The members were puzzled. "Why? We've almost made the arrangements. Now we just have to choose one of the two."

Zhou Xian's face turned pale. "Overnight Rich Town and Tiaodeng Town have noticed something's wrong. If we continue with our plan, it will be difficult to cover up the lie."

This reason surprised all three of them.

Zhou Xian was unwilling to give up. He maintained his composure and explained, but after he finished, he couldn't hold back any longer and punched the wall: "Damn it, they reacted too quickly. If we had known earlier, we would have hit a few more places first. If we stopped now, we could have made more money!"

He was filled with endless regret, feeling that the duck that was about to reach his mouth had flown away.

Besides regret, there was also a mix of anger that made him feel ashamed - they were all lords, but he was threatened by others, and they were two women!

He suddenly recalled Tian Ju, his deceased ex-girlfriend. She came from a good family and had a good personality, but she was not very smart. She was the kind of girl that he could easily deceive, so he gained a lot from her.

He therefore thought that all, or at least the vast majority of women were like that, but he didn't expect that he would meet two tough guys at once!

Zhou Xian didn't like the feeling of the situation being out of control, but for a moment he could only feel helpless and furious.

"We have to proceed with caution." Zhou Xian gritted his teeth. "Upgrading the city will cost a lot of money, and we will definitely continue to annex territories, but we have to be as careful as possible and not attract their attention."

After saying this, he felt even more depressed, because it reminded him that if he fought head-on, he would never be able to defeat those two territories.

Moreover, his territory had been stagnant at the village level for a long time, while the two girls' territories had actually been upgraded to small towns first.

It was hard for him to accept.

In Tiaodeng Town, An Ruoying walked into a newly built store, bought an ice cream cone, and sat down directly in the store, anxiously waiting for Zhou Xian's reply.

After waiting for a long time, An Ruoying still didn't see the answer. She privately messaged Ye Miao: "Why aren't you talking? Is that all?"

[Ye Miao] Let's do this for now. If he can really stop in time, we can turn a blind eye for now. If he continues to do evil, we will deal with him!

[An Ruoying] Ahh ...! I want to fuck him right now!

Ye Miao closed the dialog box with an amused look on her face and shook her head: Although she had beautiful expectations in her heart, she felt in her heart that Tianju Village would not stop.

There were two reasons for this. First, the system in Tianju Village was already just one step away from slavery, so responding to her declaration seemed incredibly fake. The fact that they insisted on doing something so fake suggested they had other agendas, so how could they easily give up?

On the other hand, she really doesn't have much trust in human nature under the collapse of order.

If An Ruoying's guess of "leaving no one alive" is true, and if Tianju Village has tasted the sweetness of this crazy behavior, what will most likely arise under the drive of interests will be more madness, more lack of bottom line, and more luck, rather than stopping at the brink of danger.

Once Pandora's box is opened, it will be difficult to close it.

That's why she often limits herself, not allowing herself to fall below the bottom line. Establishing laws is both a consideration for maintaining the security of the territory and also a way to set a threshold for herself.

Ye Miao sighed, pondered for a while, and then opened the conversation again, asking An Ruoying: "We can prepare for the expedition first. How many people can you have? Let's count the number of people first."

An Ruoying was so excited: "No problem!!! I'm at your service anytime!!!"

The tone was as if she was not a lord, but Ye Miao's subordinate.

Ye Miao was at a loss for words and could only remind her again: "Don't get carried away. Find another reason to count the number of people first, and don't just tell the members who to fight. If a fight doesn't break out, that's the best. If you really have to fight, don't alert the enemy."

An Ruoying: Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, you’re right! I’ve got that in mind! Don’t worry!

The author has something to say:

Sorry it’s even later. It’s almost the end of the year, so I went to burn some incense today.

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Let’s give out more red envelopes in this chapter, one for every 100 random comments, love you!