You were supposed to hoard supplies, why the heck did you hoard zombies!

Finally, after Peng Yue's repeated assurances, Gao Feng reluctantly agreed to his request.

The dormitories that had just been vacated soon had new occupants.

Even to show their sincerity, Peng Yue specifically sent a heavy truck to the Hunter Squad.

The company didn't have many trucks, most of them being medium and small-sized cargo vehicles, so Gao Feng didn't decline and accepted the truck right away.

In response, to express his gratitude, Big Beard, as head of the Special Action Department, approved two sets of protective gear for the team.

With those two sets, plus the ones Peng Yue had previously bought, more than half of the squad now had full sets of iron armor.

With better equipment, naturally, they could try going to places they didn't dare to before.

The first targets were a nearby small market and a few chain supermarkets.

Peng Yue cajoled and deceived people he knew from several small settlements, rallying them together, and then headed straight for the destinations.

And, taking the chance of collecting supplies together, he decisively had the leaders of some "accidentally" dead settlements swallowed up.

Equipment provided by the company was indeed effective against zombies, but even more so against the living.

Human teeth and claws don't lead to infected mutations.

As long as the chest and limbs were protected, seven or eight armored squad members could make twenty or thirty people run away in a scrappy fight.

Seeing this, the people from the small settlements realized it wasn't about the alcohol for the drunken man—his true intent was to annex them.

Who could tolerate that?

Originally, everyone kept to their own wells and rivers.

After all, whether people are an asset or not depends on whether you can afford to support them.

If you can afford them, then more people mean more power.

If you can't, then more people are just a burden.

That's why the population of each settlement was actually controlled within a certain range.

Therefore, most of the time, people did not think about annexing others.

Unless the other party had an extremely rich reserve of resources.

Otherwise, even if you took in other people, it would only increase the burden of your own settlement, a needless hassle.

But what about Peng Yue now?

You've lost your orchard and are still annexing like this?

At first, there was some concealment, but later it became blatantly obvious that annexation was their goal.

So, after several small settlements disappeared one after another, the remaining people finally could not sit still and naturally banded together for warmth.

"I'll ask you one more time."

"Are you going to open the door or not?"

Peng Liu's voice was dreary as he shouted at the inside.

What stood in front of him was a steel door that had been taken from a yard somewhere.

Sandbags and tires, bundled with wire, formed a special low wall, which even had a few shelters made of iron sheets.

Inside was a hardware store facing the highway.

The bricks in front of the store had been pried up, and a hundred or so potato plants along with some corn, half of which had already been dug up, were planted in their place.

A few men hid behind the wall, faces filled with angry expressions.

One of them was holding a homemade shotgun in his arms.

"Damn it, that Peng is pushing it too far!"

"I used to think they were the ones who kept order, but now they seem worse than Chen Xiaoyong!"

A person next to him immediately agreed, saying:

"Who's to say otherwise?"

"Now, who doesn't know that he was beaten black and blue by Chen Xiaoyong?"

"Who would have thought this bastard wouldn't go after Chen Xiaoyong for revenge but instead come after us?"

As the two were talking, the voice of the same man from outside came again.

Peng Liu.

"So it's respect the wine or drink the penalty, huh?"

His tone was clearly impatient, but the few men in the yard still showed no signs of backing down, instead swearing even more intensely.

"I'll give you five more seconds."

"Five."

"Four."

"Three."

But the counting abruptly stopped there.

Those inside were listening tensely, and at this point, they became somewhat curious.

Some even began to fantasize that perhaps the Peng Family had decided to give up?

The man holding the gun was about to stick his head out to check when suddenly a thunderous roar blasted in his ears, and the low wall in front of him collapsed with a crash!

It was like a frenzied rhinoceros.

The heavy truck, wrapped in iron and steel, smashed through the gate, its huge body instantly bringing down the surrounding low walls!

The two men hiding behind the wall were buried by sandbags and tires before they had a chance to react, then the thousand-pound wheels rolled over them!

Screams of terror rose instantly.

The women hiding inside the room all huddled on the ground with their heads in their hands the moment the truck charged in.

They huddled in a corner, shaking like a flock of sheep at the sight of a wolf.

Amidst the crying and shouting, the truck had already stopped.

A few men got down from the vehicle, their gaze quickly fixating on the blood-red sand in the debris below.

"A-Jie."

"You went too far."

"Tsk tsk, look at this, how are we supposed to deal with this mess now?"

Peng Liu, who had just entered, looked reproachfully at them; he then walked over to the sand pile, dug around a bit, and revealed a head that had already been deformed.

"How are you?"

"You alright? Say something, brother?"

The man's eyes, nose, and mouth were filled with blood and sand.

His head wobbled a few times before his eyes completely rolled back.

Peng Liu dropped the body with disdain, cursing under his breath about the bad luck, and then turned his gaze to the women who had been dragged out of the house.

He slowly stretched his mouth into a smile.

Luckily.

There were still a few women.

Big Beard had made it very clear.

Women, just like men, were ten for one gun.

But clearly, there were other things to do before trading them for guns and bullets.

The men holding the women, seeing the expression on Peng Liu's face, instantly understood his intent and all wore excited smiles.

Amidst the women's cries and the men's heavy breathing, the settlement that had survived several crises finally fell.

The motorcade's compound.

The Jiangbei Special Operations Division office.

Big Beard's gaze sharpened as he watched the figures descending from the truck outside.

They've abducted more people from other settlements?

Damn it, if this continues, won't my performance be ruined?

Director Zhang had made it very clear.

His task here was not only to supervise the trades between the two parties, but most importantly, to ascertain the situation of the nearby settlements.

Then wait for Director Zhang to have time to come and inspect personally.

As for why he insisted on visiting each new settlement himself—

No one in the marketing department knew.

But it had always been that way.

Moreover, this rule was written in the company's policies, and every marketing department employee had to abide by it.

But now the Peng family brothers were blatantly exploiting their power to rob and extort, and all the people they captured were given to the company in exchange for guns and bullets.

What could he say?

"Stop capturing laborers everywhere, Peng, you're stealing all my performance achievements?"