By early the next morning, he had sprinted 150 kiloters and reached the small city base. When he stepped back onto the twentieth floor of that high-rise and looked out over the entire town below, he was quietly weighing his options.
Liang Yuzhi had laid it out clearly. Relocating here would require a skilled administrator — soone capable of managing over thirteen hundred Freen split across three very different groups.
The people from Scar Glenn's camp would harbor resentnt toward him, even if they were powerless to act on it. Too few, too old, too weak.
The people from his eastern camp were now loyal followers — motivated, full of hope for the future.
Even the two hundred and eight who had arrived later had integrated quickly and well.
The reason was simple: they had been abandoned, cast out. They would carry deep resentnt toward the eight hundred natural persons in the small city base — the sa people who had driven them away.
Why? Because when no one knows what the future holds, being forcibly expelled in that kind of despair leaves a mark that goes bone-deep. People rember it for a lifeti.
Forgive and forget? Act as if nothing happened?
Li Wei honestly didn't think he could manage that himself.
Don't tell soone to be kind when you haven't walked in their shoes.
So here was the problem.
Because of the All-Heavens Lord Alliance's baseline Humanistic Care requirents, he couldn't use harsh thods against those eight hundred natural persons. They hadn't lived through a siege. They hadn't been saved by Li Wei. They had no reason to feel grateful — and might well feel resentful, quietly mourning the Fla Duke who had once ruled them.
When conflicts arose between them and his core, loyal Freen, what was he supposed to do? Adjudicate impartially? Give everyone equal bla? Pretend not to notice?
He wasn't a skilled administrator. He couldn't devise so elegant solution that would keep his core base satisfied while also winning over eight hundred people who had no particular reason to trust him.
And there was no way to build a separate underground facility in this city — everyone would have to live together.
Perhaps Li Yue and Liang Yuzhi both saw this as a manageable nuisance — the kind of thing that would cause problems but ultimately wouldn't matter. That was consistent with how they thought.
But asking Li Wei to sacrifice the interests of his core base to appease outsiders who hadn't yet earned their place — he genuinely couldn't do that.
After a long deliberation, he decided to give up the relocation opportunity.
Because rather than letting things drift toward his weaknesses and end in a ss, it was better to stay in the rhythm and lane he knew best.
Play to your strengths. Nothing shaful about that.
He walked to the elevator shaft, struck the bronze bell mounted beside it, and waited. A mont later the elevator descended slowly. When the doors opened, inside was an elegantly prepared breakfast, a pen, and a notepad.
Written on it: Respected Lord, how may we be of service?
Li Wei stepped forward and wrote quickly.
"In five days, conduct a routine inspection. Identify any natural persons who may be infected and send them out. Gather a total of one hundred people — I will be sending them to the Frost Duke as this year's tribute, and I guarantee there will be no repeat of this situation in the coming year. Rest assured: those who are sent will receive proper treatnt. They are living well. Soone you know will co to collect them in five days."
He wrote in Chinese characters, but by the ti the words appeared on the notepad, they had transford into an entirely foreign script, unrecognizable to him.
He struck the bell again, turned, and descended — heading back toward the Scavenger Camp at a run.
He had no concern about whether they would comply. There was sothing interesting about this situation: if Li Wei announced that he wanted them to vacate a section of the underground base to house three hundred people, they might resist fiercely, sabotage things quietly, refuse to cooperate in every way they could.
But if things stayed the sa as before — they would be pleased, and efficient.
This was Li Wei's small strategy: using continuity to gradually divide, gradually absorb, and steadily build a loyal core base, one group at a ti.
A little over an hour later, the Scavenger Camp ca into view in the distance. He was still more than five kiloters out when the alarm bells inside the camp began to ring — a sign that the sentries were sharp and diligent.
A rustle of feathers.
Adai, who had been sleeping in Li Wei's pack all night, snapped awake at the sound of the bells, spread his wings excitedly, and took to the air — clearly delighted to be back sowhere familiar.
A mont later, the bells rang again. Alert cancelled.
By the ti Li Wei reached the edge of the town, Li Yue had already co running out to et him, Thomas, Leon, and Zhao Xuanxuan in tow.
No words were needed. Li Yue stepped forward and pulled him into a tight embrace.
No awkwardness, no performance. Neither of them needed that. But both understood what the embrace ant.
These past twenty-odd days, it hadn't only been Li Wei who had been grinding through it — fighting, struggling, gambling everything on the future. Li Yue had been worrying, wrestling with doubt, enduring her own kind of tornt.
She had already effectively allied herself with him. She genuinely admired him. She and Liang Yuzhi had both been ready to join the raid — and Li Wei had firmly refused their help. She had respected that.
But respecting it didn't an she could be fully confident. Even with Li Wei's certainty, she hadn't been able to share it entirely.
Perhaps only when the territory-wide announcent ca through had her heart finally settled.
The complexity of it was hard to put into words.
"It's over. Everything's fine."
Li Wei said it quietly. Then, in front of Li Yue and the others, he summoned the new Pioneering Card and spoke calmly: "I need to build a One-Star Magic Ore Vein here."
The mont the words left his mouth, a faint column of golden light shot upward from the Pioneering Card — piercing straight through the planet's atmosphere, as if triggering so distant, mysterious boundary — and then rebounded back down.
A resonant hum.
The Pioneering Card vibrated and rang out. A wash of light spread across a twenty-ter radius, and then five figures appeared from nowhere.
The one at the front was unmistakably a caster — but not a Witch. A man. When his hawk-like gaze landed on Li Wei, Li Wei had the sudden, unsettling sensation that his fate was laid bare, his future seen through.
This was a caster's Inspiration?
Li Wei steadied himself imdiately, grateful that he was still wearing the Fla Baron title. Without it, he genuinely feared this man might use Inspiration to read everything about him.
A deeply unpleasant feeling.
"Li Wei?" The man spoke slowly.
"That's . And you are—"
"You don't need to know who I am. I'm here on orders to construct a One-Star Magic Ore Vein for your territory. Do you have any specific requirents regarding the placent?"
"I—"
Li Wei had barely opened his mouth when Li Yue quickly traded him 3,000 standard gold coins. He blinked. She wanted him to bribe the man?
"I do have so preferences. Please, follow ."
Li Wei smiled warmly and gestured for the man to walk with him. Li Yue wouldn't lead him wrong — so there was clearly room to be flexible here, in ways that wouldn't cause any real trouble.
So when the caster walked with Li Wei around the periter of the town for a stretch, his smile grew even brighter — because Li Wei had, by the end of it, pressed a total of 5,000 standard gold coins into his hands.
The man made no promises and stated no specific requirents. He simply took his four apprentices and got to work.
The location he chose for the Magic Ore Vein turned out to be exactly where the initial light column had landed — which ant the man had effectively done nothing at all, and had simply extracted 5,000 standard gold coins from Li Wei in the process.
"Don't underestimate the placent of a Magic Ore Vein. There's a great deal of nuance to it. If you hadn't tipped him today, he could have shifted the position by just a little — enough to reduce the yield of refined magical energy. It's an unspoken rule that everyone follows. I learned that lesson the hard way once. I wasn't going to let you make the sa mistake."
Li Wei and Li Yue had returned to the fifth floor of the camp. After Li Wei activated a Four-Star Conspiracy Card, Li Yue explained calmly: "Running a territory isn't as simple as it looks. Though I'm curious — why didn't you choose to relocate? I thought you'd move the territory to the small city base."
"I wanted to play it safe." Li Wei's answer was simple. His reasoning just as plain.
"I understand. You really do look out for your people. I think this place suits us well. We have the advantage of timing, and we have the advantage of unity — even if our location isn't ideal, it shouldn't be a serious problem."
Li Yue smiled. This was exactly what she admired most about him — what had ultimately convinced her to work with him.
It wasn't naivety or recklessness with resources. It was the quality that made a leader worth following.
There was no such thing as innate loyalty. No one was born a protagonist.
At its core, it always ca down to interests. Only when people were certain their interests would be protected — and that those interests would only grow over ti — would they give their unwavering support.
In this regard, Li Yue knew she fell short. Liang Yuzhi even more so. It wasn't that they couldn't see the issue — it was that they habitually treated it as a minor, easily-resolved matter, sothing that could be handled with a few words.
But over the coming years — even decades — neither she nor Liang Yuzhi, nor Thomas, Leon, or Zhao Xuanxuan, would be permanent residents of this territory. Neither would Li Wei.
The ones who would truly live here, who would be the backbone of this place, who would run this territory day after day — were always going to be these Freen.
They were not NPCs.
And the human heart doesn't survive being tested.
One mont of disappointnt could beco a vast crack, a permanent divide, years down the road.
She and Liang Yuzhi had always analyzed things in terms of data — advantages and disadvantages, numbers and outcos — reveling in the manipulation of power, while remaining blind to the living, breathing souls right in front of them.
Over the past few months, this Scavenger Camp had beco a place of hope for people who had been battered by the apocalypse, knocked to the edge of numbness by wave after wave of despair.
They had gradually co to know this place, and to know each other. They had found their roles, their responsibilities.
Over the past month, they had fought side by side countless tis — in fear and uncertainty, drawing strength from each other's presence, rekindling hope and the will to fight.
They were people.
Perhaps even the most exhausted body, the most deadened soul, still needed — and could still find — redemption.
The fighting strength they had shown was sothing that had impressed even Li Yue and Liang Yuzhi.
They had been raw at first. But through a month of combat, led by a core of elite Freeman soldiers, through their collective effort, they had been genuinely transford.
And now — at the very mont when they were full of hope and imagination for what the future might hold — to coldly issue an order telling them all to relocate to the place that had once been ruled by the Fla Duke, the very symbol of their despair and fear?
That would seem reasonable on the surface. In reality, it would be the most unreasonable thing possible.
Had anyone forgotten who the real foundation was?
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