Upon reaching the accommodation area, Xu Lin heard the sounds of cards being played and indescribable noises coming from inside the rooms. She kicked open the door and fired a shot into the roof.

"Don't move, put your hands on your heads and squat in the corner," Xu Lin said coldly.

The room was filled with smoke. When everyone saw that Xu Lin had a gun, they obediently squatted down against the wall with their heads in their hands. Zhou Pin went over and tied them up one by one. There were 12 people in total: 4 playing cards, each with a woman sitting next to them, and 2 men abusing the two women.

"Alright, now each of you has one chance to answer my question. If you answer well, we can talk things over. If you don't answer well... well, you decide for yourselves," Xu Lin said with a roguish grin, one foot on a table made of stacked stones.

No one spoke.

"ah!"

Xu Lin used a Tang sword to cut off the arm of one of the men who had just assaulted her, splattering blood all over the faces of those nearby.

“I…I…I’ll talk,” said the person on the far right.

“Come with me.”

Xu Lin went into a room next door, followed closely by the man from before.

"Tell me, where did you come from?"

“We’re from a nearby urban village. We used to collect protection money for the casino. But now that it’s the apocalypse, we’re out of food and have to come out here to make a living.”

How many of you are there in total?

"There are 17 people in total."

"Where are the others?"

"The boss took them to the village to collect supplies."

When will you be back?

"They should be back by noon. That village is full of women and children left behind."

"How long have you been here? How many times have you been collecting supplies?"

“We just arrived a couple of days ago. We were in an urban village before, but we ran out of liquefied gas and couldn’t cook, so we came here. Please spare us. If I had known you were after this place, I would never have come here to take over your territory.”

How many people live in the urban villages now? How do they make a living?

"There are a few hundred people, most of them farm or rent houses and cook for themselves. Most of them have food stored up, but it's just a few of us bachelors who don't know where our next meal will come from."

Although the urban villages are old and dilapidated, they can survive longer in the apocalypse. Almost every family has surplus food, and they use liquefied petroleum gas, unlike the natural gas used in residential areas.

After asking a few more questions and finding nothing more, Xu Lin let him go. She then asked two more people the same questions, and their answers were almost identical.

They tied everyone up and locked them inside. Xu Lin and Zhou Pin then went to another room.

“There are 17 of them in total. They used to live in an urban village, and were thugs at a casino. When the apocalypse came, they ran out to find supplies because they had no food. They also kidnapped six women, the six in the house. Their leader took four men out to find supplies and was supposed to be back around noon, around 10:30 now. They should be back by then. I heard this guy is quite skilled.” Xu Lin paused before continuing. “What should we do with these people?”

To say they committed heinous crimes is an understatement; they only robbed people of their food and other necessities. But to let them go would be unfair to the innocent people they harmed.

"Lock it here and notify the Self-Defense Forces to come over. We have witnesses and physical evidence of the victims and looted supplies. Let them handle it," Zhou Pin said.

I ran into Lao Liu a few days ago, and he mentioned that some veterans and retired police officers in Xingfu Community had spontaneously organized a self-defense team to deal with issues such as robbery and theft. The team covers the entire street where Xu Lin and her family live, so it's the most suitable team to handle these people.

After discussing their fate, they waited for half an hour until the leader of the group returned. His skills were nothing compared to Xu Lin and Zhou Pin's, and he was thrown into the room where the others were being held like a chicken.

Xu Lin and Zhou Pin, unwilling to expose themselves, anonymously wrote a letter and posted it in the Happiness Community, just like before, before going home.