Chapter 252 "I'm Not Good at Management"

Yang Yicheng clearly had something important to discuss and wouldn't just stand there and talk. He led the four of them out of the hall.

Feng Xue looked over and followed.

After passing through the centralized accommodation area, Lin Xi saw several small workshops, where she met the other women from the Iron Wolf Base besides Feng Xue.

Some were producing compressed dry rations, while others were making clothes; they were light industrial workshops that sustained the lives of many people.

Most of the busy employees inside are women, but there are also some men with disabilities, perhaps soldiers wounded in war.

Xiang Xin asked curiously, "I thought this arsenal was full of strong men."

Even Feng Xue is a warrior with extremely strong combat power.

The women here don't seem to be capable of fighting.

Yang Yicheng said, "In principle, the Iron Wolf Base only accepts people with combat capabilities. But they provided important supplies, so they were brought in here as an exception."

He meant to provide, not to contribute.

Lin Xi asked, "If you absolutely needed to obtain a certain resource, but the other party refused to provide it, what would you do? Like you did before, aiming at her hand?"

Yang Yicheng hummed in agreement.

Lin Xi asked again, "And then?"

Yang Yicheng shook his head: "Usually, by the time you get to the aiming stage, the other side will have already provided supplies."

Lin Xi pressed on: "What if you didn't give it to me, and you still fired the gun?"

Yang Yicheng sighed impatiently, thought about the situation carefully, and said, "Take her back to the base with the supplies. After all, she has 'provided' what I need, so she is qualified to enter the base."

The tone remained condescending.

At this point, Lin Xi learned about an ending she had never experienced before. If she hadn't escaped after her right hand was injured, Yang Yicheng might have taken her back to the Iron Wolf Base if he had obtained the supplies, let her recover, and then let her stay there to live and work.

Li Shuyi glanced at him from behind, but didn't dare to say anything.

She was brought into the Iron Wolf base because of her contribution of the solar charging panel; if she hadn't been with Lin Xi, she would most likely have been sent here to work.

Thinking of this, she subconsciously glanced at Lin Xi.

Speaking of which, Li Shuyi overheard Lin Xi and Yang Yicheng's conversation. If Lin Xi hadn't discovered the radish and found her, she probably wouldn't have been forced to come here with a gun pointed at her.

If the base continues to provide a stable livelihood, she could work to earn food, and that wouldn't be unacceptable to her.

She lives with many of her kind here. If she hadn't witnessed so much ugliness in people's hearts since the apocalypse and seen the bad reviews of the base online, she probably would have joined one long ago.

Lu Wei and Xiang Xin listened silently to Lin Xi and Yang Yicheng's conversation without offering any opinions.

Suddenly, a series of hurried footsteps approached them, and a small figure rushed out and hugged Yang Yicheng's leg: "Uncle Captain."

Lin Xi looked down and saw that it was a little boy who was just above her knees.

This situation is rather unusual.

Lin Xi has rarely seen children since the apocalypse, and the child in front of her looks to be only two or three years old, a newborn born after the zombie outbreak.

There are newborns at the Iron Wolf Base!

Yang Yicheng stood there, at a loss. He seemed unwilling to interact with the child, but he couldn't just push him away violently.

He glanced around and saw a pregnant woman in her thirties come out, bowing and scraping to Yang Yicheng, and taking the child away.

It seems there is more than one newborn.

"Does anyone get married here?" Lin Xi asked.

Just like Cheng Ling back then, Lin Xi couldn't quite imagine a wedding taking place in the Iron Wolf Base.

Yang Yicheng did not respond.

As we walked further ahead, indescribable noises came from the room next door.

As a man put on his coat and left the room, he turned back and said, "Old Jiang asked me to make an appointment with you for 8 pm. Oh, and Xiao Gao too, he'll see you tomorrow."

A woman's voice came from inside the room: "Understood."

The voice was flat and emotionless.

Lin Xi was stunned, looking at the closed doors with surprise.

Li Shuyi also opened her mouth wide and shrank closer to Lin Xi.

Xiang Xin frowned, her chest heaving as if she wanted to say something.

They had all assumed that the women who came here, after being robbed of their supplies, would at least have a place to stay and some work to do, but they never expected this to happen.

A soft laugh came from behind.

Lin Xi then noticed that Feng Xue was also following behind.

Feng Xue seemed to see through their thoughts, and her voice was always so sarcastic: "Our Iron Wolf base doesn't have the mature production lines of your large bases. Although resources are not scarce, they are not abundant enough to support a group of people who can't do much work."

Xiang Xin: "Isn't there a workshop here?"

Feng Xue crossed her arms: "There aren't that many positions. They can't carry heavy loads, they can't fight zombies, they can't go out into the wild to farm or gather food, and the most basic food problem can't be solved."

Lin Xi frowned: "Farming in the wild?"

Feng Xue: "Yes. With the cover of the mountains and forests, it's not easy to be discovered by the enemy, and there are fewer zombies. However, it is still dangerous, and the consumption is very high. Farming and gathering are done by our soldiers."

Lin Xi understood why most of the people at the Iron Wolf Base had darker skin.

She said in a muffled voice, "That's no reason to bully them."

It was you who brought them here by "providing" them with essential supplies or tools for survival, which led to their current situation.

If these people hadn't come to the Iron Wolf Base, they might have encountered other dangers and died in the second or third year of the apocalypse, but at least their fate was in their own hands.

“No one forced this. In other words, it was all consensual.” Feng Xue sighed and shook her head. “If you can’t contribute points, you’ll get very little food, just enough to survive. If you want to eat your fill, you’ll have to rely on others for help.”

She tossed her high ponytail again: "Besides, our base is full of young people with great physiques! It wouldn't be a loss to hang out with handsome guys with eight-pack abs!"

"..." Lin Xi and Xiang Xin didn't understand, but they couldn't find the right words to reply to Feng Xue.

Seeing that Yang Yicheng had no patience to explain, and that she had kindly tried to reason with Lin Xi but Lin Xi still reacted the same way, Feng Xue couldn't help but shake her head: "Why are you so...sigh. Anyway, no one is forcing you, and there are normal 1v1 marriages too. It depends on personal choice and luck."

Lin Xi: "...That child?"

Feng Xue: "If it's a child born to a single person, then the base has no choice but to take care of it. Who knows how many years the war will last? In the past few years, the number of people in our base has only decreased, not increased."

In other words, some children are from single-parent families and may not be able to find their biological father under this "voluntary" model, so they are considered to be raised by the facility.

Lin Xi sighed, feeling this shouldn't be the case. She asked, "Are all the people here soldiers?"

Yang Yicheng seemed too lazy to pay attention to Lin Xi and led the way on his own.

Although Feng Xue's tone was unfriendly, she answered Lin Xi's question without reservation: "Wrong! There are actually very few real soldiers. They were all gradually organized by Captain Yang and Deputy Captain Li. Most of them just have a good foundation and have developed their skills after coming to the Iron Wolf Base."

Lin Xi thought of Lin Jie, her cousin, who wasn't very capable, but was strong enough to be recruited into the Iron Wolf Base.

She then asked, "What about the weapons?"

Those large quantities of high-end firearms and ammunition are not things you can just pick up on the battlefield.

At this point, Feng Xue's face darkened, and she looked at Lin Xi with a fierce glint in her eyes: "Why are you asking so many questions? Are you going to open a base?"

As they spoke, the group sat down in what appeared to be a conference room.

Lin Xi looked around at the advanced equipment, but her gaze finally settled on Yang Yicheng.

She had long since stopped trying to provoke Yang Yicheng.

Feng Xue sat down opposite her and glared at her.

Lin Xi: "...Just curious about how Captain Yang manages the base."

Yang Yicheng said calmly, "I'm not good at management."

After everyone was seated, Yang Yicheng glanced at Li Shuyi, seemingly questioning her about why she was there.

He said, "What we're going to talk about is confidential."

Li Shuyi was the only "recluse" present who did not participate in combat.

She had always been afraid of Yang Yicheng; she would tremble at his gaze or even when he spoke to her. At this moment, she wisely stood up: "Then I..."

Yang Yicheng: "Go outside and wait."

Li Shuyi left the meeting room on her own.

Yang Yicheng said, "Two more wars have broken out outside in the past few days. Many bases are looking for you."

He looked at Lin Xi.

Lu Wei asked, "Is there any news from the relevant departments?"

Yang Yicheng: "Almost every base that contacted Lin Xi claimed to have received instructions from 'relevant departments'."

However, no one dares to think how many of them are genuine, or how many will stay true to their original intentions.

Lin Xi witnessed firsthand how the Watchtower Base, originally an authoritative base, "betrayed" itself and was forced to activate its self-destruct system.

She never imagined that one day, while being chased, she would hide in Yang Yicheng's Iron Wolf Base.