Chapter 75: Let Them Sign the Contracts

Even Liu Mu herself had been coveted by more than a few men with ill intentions before; if not for her strong personality and ruthless methods, whether before or after the apocalypse, she likely would have long since become someone else's "property."

Of course, after the apocalypse, she actually lived more easily, because... if you kill a person or two, nobody cares!

"Listen to me now," Liu Mu threw the person aside and casually rubbed Niu Boyi's ears, "Those who have women in their families acting as sacrifices, stand to the right; those who don't, stand to the left."

"You shrew, you dare to kill people, sooner or later the law will..."

Bang!

The gunshot was short and sharp; the man who attempted to spring up was shot in the chest and died on the spot.

"Damn it, do as the Boss says, or I'll shoot you one by one and feed you all to the dogs!" Liu Gang held his handgun toward the crowd like a god of slaughter, the killing intent radiating from his body making people tremble with fear.

Liu Gang had killed people before; Liu Mu was certain of this from the very first moment she saw him. She was all too familiar with people who had killed.

Holding down Niu Boyi, who wanted to shake his head, Liu Mu watched coldly as the twenty-some men of varying ages divided into two groups.

She said slowly, "Lying isn't good. People, once they get involved in taking lives, have a certain scent on them; my nose can smell it if I just twitch it a little."

Sure enough, three more people shuffled over to the right.

Only nine people remained on the left, but two of them were clearly flickering their eyes, not daring to look at the others.

"Cai Zhenlong's father, right?" Liu Mu spoke suddenly. The short, thin man who was called out shuddered and hurriedly said, "No, don't kill me, no one in our family is a sacrifice, really! My wife and mother are both in the city, and my daughter found a way to marry away a long time ago, really!"

Immediately, someone on the right tried to drag him down with them, "Your daughter married at ten-something, you have the nerve to say that? How is this any different from letting her be a sacrifice?"

"At least she doesn't have to die!" Cai Zhenlong's father's eyes turned red, and he roared at the man, "Don't think I don't know your conspiracy. There's no way you're harming the women in my family. Senimu, my daughter marrying in her teens was a normal marriage; the couple is living very well now! If, if she were still alive, she would have children by now..."

He couldn't go on. In the past, who didn't envy him, Old Cai, for being clever? He had gotten the women in his family into the city to get urban household registrations early, and when he got wind of the situation, he decisively married off his daughter who was still in her third year of high school. He had secretly checked the family background and character of his daughter's partner, then quietly encouraged his daughter's puppy love with the child's mother to make the match.

"Then... whose family was your wife's sister's daughter from?" Since she was the cousin Cai Zhenlong rescued, she must have been from a family in the town.

Upon hearing this, Cai Zhenlong's father subconsciously looked at the man beside him.

Not giving them a chance, Liu Fugui's handgun barrel shifted, "Are you going to crawl over there yourself, or should I send you on your way?"

"I, I didn't want to either, please, who told that shrew of mine to give birth to four money-losing goods in a row? I really had no choice..."

"Kill him!" Liu Mu said flatly, and a gunshot followed.

This time, it was actually Liu Fugui who fired. The middle-aged man's hand holding the gun was shaking, but his eyes were exceptionally firm.

It was just that his marksmanship was still a bit lacking; although he hit the chest, the man struggled on the ground for quite a while, staining the floor with blood.

Except for the time he fled for his life from the Haicheng Urban Base, this was his first time actively killing someone. Beyond the thought of wanting to show his capability to Liu Mu, he also hated such men, but more than that, he was considering the future.

How could a man who was inherently patriarchal and even pushed his own closest female relatives to their deaths be loyal to a female Boss?

In the apocalypse, having a divided heart meant stabbing someone in the back at any moment; leaving them would only lead to endless trouble.

Thinking of this, Liu Fugui looked at the row of people on the right with a sinister gaze and gripped the handgun in his hand tightly.

The crowd on the right immediately felt aggrieved; the vast majority of them did not want to send the women of their families into the Mining Tunnel, but there was no help for it. If they didn't send them, they feared their whole families wouldn't be able to stay in the town.

Not everyone had the thick skin of the Cai family, whose men had been street loafers for generations, yet still had good heads on their shoulders and maintained decent relationships with the town's clan elders and officials.

Although such people were often looked down upon, they could always get information at the first opportunity and were always a step ahead in avoiding harm.

"We didn't want to either! We just didn't want to be driven out! The one in the shirt you killed last night was from the town's Enforcement Team; they were the ones forcing us to offer up the women in our families, otherwise our whole families would be targeted..."

"And you wouldn't get a share of the Coal Mine dividends, right?" Liu Fugui helped them state the key part, "Boss, you decide, kill them or what?"

"Don't, Boss, we were wrong, don't kill us!"

The people over there were truly panicked now; these people killed as soon as they said they would, and they no longer dared to harbor any delusions.

Facing the pleas for mercy, Liu Mu instead looked at the people on the left, "Uncle Cai, you come out first."

She let Cai Zhenlong's father walk to the other side, then looked at the remaining ones with interest, "I am a person who values integrity in business and reason in life. Why don't you tell me why your family members didn't have to be sacrificed? Don't lie, or they might not be satisfied."

These "they" naturally referred to the people on the right.

Half an hour later, the mutual accusations ended, and nine people were ultimately singled out.

"You were neither forced by others, nor were your families wealthy, yet you actively offered up your daughters or sisters."

Liu Mu paced back and forth in front of them, "I've summarized it this way, do you have any objections?"

"No, no objections, isn't this all so the family can advance further?" one of the relatively calm young men replied. When he spoke, there wasn't a shred of guilt in his tone or his eyes, "Since sacrificing one or two people can allow the family to gain more benefits and resources, even if the one being sacrificed were me, I would be willing."

"Hmm, not bad, I admire you," Liu Mu said, slowly raising her handgun and pressing it against the man's brow, "Then give me a reason why you should live?"

"I graduated with a major in geology and exploration, and I have ten years of experience in Coal Mine exploration and maintenance. Among the people here, they might be good at digging, but when it comes to the overall control of the mine, not one of them can catch up to me."

The man spoke clearly; although his body was trembling from fear, he was still relatively calm.

"What to do?" Liu Mu said sympathetically, "Your family only has you and your..."

"My cousin," Yang Jinxian moved half a step to block a slightly younger man, "Our two families drew lots to offer up family members. After my eldest sister and his younger sister died, their spirit tablets were placed in the Ancestral Hall. As long as we are alive, they will have a share of the ancestral offerings during festivals for the rest of our lives."

"So you want to live," Liu Mu withdrew her emotions, sighed, and without stating a conclusion, asked the next one, "What about you? You offered up your out-of-town wife to get a bigger share of the money?"

"I had no choice, really, Boss Liu, my family needs money, my dad is useless and can't go down the shaft, I..."

Bang!

Liu Mu tilted her head slightly to dodge the splashing blood, "Test for you all: why did I kill him?"

Yang Jinxian didn't dodge and got blood splashed all over his face; he retched twice but didn't forget to answer, "Lazy and gluttonous, preying on his family, he deserved to die!"

His cousin wanted to help him wipe the blood but was pushed away. Yang Jinxian wiped his face, "We brothers can go down into the mine; we won't do less work than the miners."

The others seemed to understand Liu Mu's ultimate intention and expressed one after another that they were willing to go down into the mine to dig coal, would absolutely not slack off, and were willing to do the most tiring and heaviest work.

"Good, this is what you volunteered for!" Liu Mu retracted her gun and waved her hand, "Uncle Fugui, have them sign the contracts."