"Why are there so many cars out here?" Xiaoyun asked, noticing the seven cars outside the wall.
"I don't know either. Lingang just told me that there are some people outside. Let's try to talk to them first."
Yezi quickly stood tall on the wall, showing himself over the battlement before raising his voice.
"Hello, everyone. Can I ask why you guys are here?"
"I thought you guys had a lot of food cooking since that massive smoke was coming from the forest." One of the men asked from below.
"Yeah, we thought the same thing, too. Can we buy any food from you guys? We can trade," another man replied.
"Are you guys all together?" Yezi questioned.
"No!" The first man replied.
"Should we trade with them?"
Yezi quietly asked as he went back down to talk with Xiaoyun and Yiming, who both looked a little conflicted.
But eventually, Xiaoyun made the decision to agree to it after noticing their lack of weapons from the men's outside.
The moment the drawbridge was lowered, all of the militia guards on the wall pointed their rifles as a warning.
"We're just taking precautions. After a few minutes, we'll come down with food to trade with you guys," Xiaoyun yelled out loud this time.
The people outside nodded in agreement. None of them is running away despite seeing the guns that are drawn at them.
"I'll go to the store to get the food. You stay here."
After waiting for almost twenty minutes, Yezi finally came back with a pickup truck full of canned food.
Xiaoyun quickly signaled three of the guards to follow him down to reunite with Yezi before driving the pickup truck outside.
The moment their car stopped in front of the first car, all three guards, along with Xiaoyun, stepped out to finally see who they were dealing with up close.
Most of them were middle-aged men, with a few on the back who looked more towards the younger side.
He could even see a few women and children inside several of the cars as if they had just escaped the city together.
"Hello, I'm the mayor of Luoping. Are you guys here to trade or to join us?" Xiaoyun asked as he stood behind the three guards armed with rifles.
"Good day, sir. My name is Liu Bing. I'm here to trade." Liu Bing stepped up first before the other men in their cars could.
"Great. What do you have?" Xiaoyun asked.
"We have looted many medical supplies. From aspirin to antiviral drugs. You name it, we have it."
Liu Bing quickly brought Xiaoyun and Yezi to the back of the van before opening it, revealing all the medical equipment he had described.
More importantly, ten people were sitting inside, all holding blood-stained machetes with tough faces.
At first, they all looked a little intimidating. But they were quickly overshadowed by the three fully equipped militia with their M16s.
"We would like to take all of it," Xiaoyun answered calmly.
"Oh, all of it. That is going to be a hefty price... You sure you want all of it?" Liu Bing asked to make sure.
"Name a price. I have all kinds of canned food. Just name it."
Liu Bing thought for a second as he examined the food in Yezi's truck, then gave his initial offer.
"How about at least five boxes of beef cans?"
"Sure. You two, go lift seven boxes to his van."
As the two guards headed to the back of Yezi's pickup truck to carry the food, Yezi himself was a little confused by the number.
"Wait, why are we giving them seven?" Yezi quietly asked.
"I think we can be great trading partners, Mr.Liu Bing, you don't mind me giving you extra as a little gift, right?" Xiaoyun asked.
"Of course not." Liu Bing instantly replied, his face filled with gratitude and excitement at the same time.
After the two militia carried the boxes of food into the van, one of the men inside popped open one of the cans.
To their surprise, the beef was real as the smell filled the entire van. Their stomach immediately started growling as if they hadn't eaten for days.
"Thank you so much!" Liu Bing excitedly reached his hand out for a handshake.
"No problem."
With the first deal done, everyone else in the line had high hopes after seeing Liu Bing drive off with his van, with all the medical equipment loaded across the drawbridge.
"Next one, please."
As the next person stepped out of the car, it was a man wearing sunglasses. His face appeared tough, yet it felt goofy to see on a cloudy day.
"What do you have to trade?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"We got seeds, as well as several bags of fertilizer." The man replied before guiding the two of them to the rear end of his car.
"Why did you carry these all the way out here? That's such an odd choice to keep inside the car." Yezi commented.
"My family was planning to go back to my hometown and live as farmers. But we got caught up in the chaos.
We realized we didn't have enough food to make it after calculating the distance, so we decided to stop here when we saw the smoke in the distance."
The explanation seems valid as the two of them could notice his family inside the car, looking a little scared as they stared at the militia's rifles.
"Well then, let's see how much there is."
The man opened the trunk, revealing the ten packs of fertilizers and several small packs of different vegetable seeds.
"I can offer you two boxes of canned food," Xiaoyun gave his initial offer.
"At least five." The man replied.
"Three boxes, leave it or take it," Xiaoyun warned, giving his final offer.
"Four boxes, please. My family needs it to get to the countryside." The man begged as his voice started to crack.
"Fine, you got it. Four boxes."
"Thank you so much."
The man bowed down with gratitude as one guard lifted the seeds and fertilizer away while the other one lifted the boxes of canned food.
"Hope you have a good journey."
With the car driving off, Xiaoyun moved on to the next deal.
However, the next two car deals were for miscellaneous items, so he only traded a single box of food for them out of generosity.
Yezi was getting a little tired, so he headed back inside his car and waited. Leaving Xiaoyun as the only one directing the trades.
"Finally, the last one," Xiaoyun murmured as the final car approached.
As soon as Xiaoyun saw the car, he was stunned by its size. It wasn't just any car—it was a whole RV.
All three of the guards immediately pointed their guns at the driver, who still hadn't stopped their car engine, nor had they exited the car.
Only after waiting for a whole minute did the RV enter park mode, and it took another minute for the driver to get out.
It was a middle-aged man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts who looked as if he was about to go on a vacation.
"What do you want to trade?" Xiaoyun asked.
"Anything in this RV, as long as I can trade food for it." The man replied, his voice sounding a little urgent for some reason.
"Um, how about the entire car then?" Xiaoyun suggested after noticing the solar panel on the roof.
"I can't do that. The boss is going to get mad at me, and I still need to get back," the man replied nervously after noticing the rifles pointed towards him.
He got even more nervous after seeing the soldiers standing on the wall, all holding guns and pointing at him as if they were about to fire if he did something suspicious.
It was almost as if, due to being in the back of the line, he didn't actually see what kind of people he was dealing with.
"Okay. Then let go inside."
---
As soon as Xiaoyun and a single guard followed the man inside the RV, they were shocked by what they saw.
Inside the RV were people all tied up. Ranging from middle-aged men and women to even children.
When they saw Xiaoyun, all of them started making muffled noises through the mouth tape, as if they were trying to beg for help.
"Um, what are you planning to sell exactly?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"You need workers, right? They can do whatever you need, from farming to lifting boxes. They have the strength you need.
It's up to you how you want to use them. Should I mention that the women are brand new?
For only a box of food, they are yours. They will obey whatever you order them to do," the man replied, pointing at the hostages.
"You are a human trafficker?" Xiaoyun asked coldly, his mind instantly realizing what the RV was for.
"Hey! Come on, don't have to use that word to describe me like that. We are more like giving them a chance to survive in this apocalypse.
I prefer to call myself a generous merchant, bringing them to a new home... Or whatever you want to put them in."
Looking towards the tied-up children with several whip marks on their faces, it was the final straw that broke the camel's back.
"Don't move," Xiaoyun warned as he suddenly drew out his gun and pointed right at the man's back.
"H-hey w-what a-are you d-doing? I-I thought w-we are t-trading." The man nervously asked, his legs trembling from nervousness.
"You, go untie them... Now, human trafficker, you tell me, where is this human trafficking operation located?"
Xiaoyun questioned as the guard began untying the hostages, removing their hand ties before moving onto the next one.
"I can't tell you that. I will die if I will——"
"Do you want to feel your nails getting pulled out and your skin getting sliced over and over again?
You will be begging for me to kill you... If you tell me now, I'll let you go free with your RV." Xiaoyun offered.
"N-no, sir. I-I don't want to die."
Seeing the human trafficker still seemingly a little hesitant to answer, it forced Xiaoyun to switch off the gun safety.
"I give you one more chance to live... Where are they located?" Xiaoyun angrily questioned as he moved his finger onto the trigger.
"I-it's located at——"
Suddenly, the man elbowed Xiaoyun right in the stomach as he pushed Xiaoyun's hand up into the air, trying to knock his gun out.
The guard inside immediately raised his rifle at the man, but the two were way too close for him to fire as they were wrestling for the gun.
Just as the two continued to wrestle for control of the gun, a loud bang suddenly came right outside the RV's door.
As the man's body fell onto the floor with a bullet wound in its head, it was Yezi who fired the shot by the door.
"Maybe you shouldn't threaten a human trafficker so much that they turned on you," Yezi advised after setting foot inside.
"Fuck, I was about to beat him myself. You could have killed me right there." Xiaoyun complained as he wiped the man's blood off his face.
"Sure, buddy. I'm the best sharpshooter out there, and you know it... You two, don't just stand there. Go untie the rest of them." Yezi ordered.
"Yes, sir."
After the other two guards joined in untying the hostages, they still looked extremely afraid of Xiaoyun despite being untied.
It could be that the smell of blood made the atmosphere a little too creepy, especially after Xiaoyun started handing them chocolate bars with his bloody face.
"You guys are free to go now," Xiaoyun stated as all of them started eating the chocolate like there was no tomorrow.
But none of them moved until one of the older hostages in the RV spoke up.
"Can we live in your place? None of us has anywhere to go." The old man asked nervously.
"Of course, everyone is welcome as long as they respect the law... Here, let me just drive you guys around town."
"You sure you know how to drive an RV? It's a manual." Yezi warned as he remembered seeing Xiaoyun's car being automatic.
"Don't worry about it. I got this. I drove a lot of different cars before."
After Yezi and the guards got out of the car, Xiaoyun started the RV back up and started turning, changing the gears.
"Geez, this car is really a manual. Thank god the old driving test was a manual," Xiaoyun murmured as he began pressing the gas pedal.
---
As Xiaoyun began driving the RV in the town, he decided to start explaining the town's rules.
"Here are some basic rules for you guys to follow when living here. The first rule is that everything in the town is earned through work.
You'll be paid with food stamps, which can be traded for food at the store. We do not give out free food.
Unless you are an orphan or live alone as an elderly person, we provide only the necessities to survive."
The ten people nodded in agreement as Xiaoyun parked the car right by the training field.
"Second, there will be mandatory training every afternoon right out here in the field. This happens every day until a month of training is done.
Then, after training is done, mandatory training will be held every weekend instead... The training will teach you how to defend yourself and use a gun.
There will also be a lot of physical exercises to keep fit. And everyone is required to defend the town in case of an attack," Xiaoyun explained.
The people in the RV seemed a little shocked by the free training and the need to go to the front line, but they still nodded in agreement.
"Third, I am the mayor of this town. Yezi is the co-mayor of the town, the person who shot the criminal earlier.
Yiming is the training instructor. You guys will see him in the future... Just as a warning, you must always obey orders when a mobilization order is in effect."
The ten immediately nodded again.
"Fourth is, um, well, Yezi will tell you the rest later. Anyway, here's the store where you can trade your food stamps for food."
Xiaoyun explained as he parked by the store, his hand pointing outside the window towards its entrance.
After he finished showing them the town, he drove the RV back to the front to let Yezi walk them around on foot instead.
---
Within a day, Yezi was able to help the ten people assimilate into the town with work, as there were many labor shortages throughout the town still.
Yezi was back in the security room as the clock struck five o'clock in the afternoon, with Xiaoyun sitting there playing on his phone.
"How was it?" Xiaoyun asked, putting his phone back into his pocket.
"They are pretty fast learning. Almost felt like I was just guiding a bunch of sheep that follow orders."
"Maybe because they went through so many harsh conditions, they stopped resisting anyone at all," Xiaoyun commented.
The two sat in silence as usual after the conversation ended until one of them decided to speak up again.
"Hey Xiaoyun. What do you think about going to a human trafficker's base? I'm pretty sure this isn't a lone operation, is it?" Yezi suddenly brought it up.
"I knew you were going to say this at some point... You asked the victims already, right?"
"Yeah, I did. They told me they operate in the city outskirts... But they didn't explain any further."
"Well then, it looks like we've got no way of getting them until they show up at our doorstep again," Xiaoyun replied.
"I guess... Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you, I'm planning to get married to Huayi next Saturday.
The sudden announcement didn't really catch Xiaoyun by surprise at all, as he was expecting it sooner or later.
"Oh, congratulations. I was wondering when you were going to do it. Took you long enough." Xiaoyun joked.
"Yeah, unlike somebody who marries three different women less than a month of knowing them," Yezi argued.
"Yeah, yeah, anyway, it's getting late now. I am going back home."
---
When Xiaoyun got home, everyone was already sitting at the dinner table waiting for him to sit down.
"Xiaoyun, I heard there were several traders outside today?" Leyan asked as Xiaoyun took a seat next to her.
"Yep, there were several traders outside today. Yezi went to the store to get food to trade." Xiaoyun replied as Yuqi nodded in agreement.
As everyone began eating the food on the table, Yuqi had a question she wanted to ask Xiaoyun about.
"How about the new people? I heard some people joined the town."
"The new people were victims of human trafficking, which one of the traders did. Luckily, Xiaoyun stopped it and brought them to the town."
Yueyue explained that she was one of the guards who was outside the RV during the whole debacle.
"Why would people do this kind of stuff..." Nami murmured, looking seemingly disappointed in humanity.
"There's always going to be some bad apples. What matters is that we fix it before it gets worse," Xiaoyun murmured.