Chapter 558: Hurry up and divide the cake

After hearing Xie Guangfa's words, Zhang Su's expression remained unchanged, but his heart skipped a beat. Sure enough, before he could speak, someone else had already expressed their stance.

"I quite agree with Old Brother Xie. The conditions in this village are a bit poor, but that young lady also said that once their leader returns, they will rearrange things for us. Let's not be in a rush."

"Even if they rearrange things, where can they put us? Their own people will definitely live in the good houses on the mountain, and we'll still be living at the foot of the mountain."

Someone immediately retorted, feeling that the person's thinking was overly optimistic.

"The mountain road is narrow, and they've even built a perimeter wall. Look at the foot of the mountain—it's wide open with no cover. Damn it, if any zombies pass by on the road, they could charge straight into the courtyard. Can this compare to being on the mountain?"

"You can't put it that way. The mountain has its benefits, but the foot of the mountain isn't entirely without merit. Here..."

"Enough!"

Zhang Su raised a hand, stopping the argument. He let out a long breath and set the tone: "We went through hardships and dangers to escape so we could live better. This village is clearly not safe!"

He paused, then looked at Xie Guangfa: "Old Xie, I know you're a man who values loyalty, but I must think about everyone's future safety. Based on what you just said, I'll ask you one thing: if we are going to go to war with Tianmayu, are you coming with us or not?"

The villagers didn't like beating around the bush; Zhang Su laid it out plainly.

Xie Guangfa slowly raised his head to look at Zhang Su, then lowered it again, rubbing his leg, and said leisurely: "What? If I say I'm not coming, are you planning to finish me off first?"

Creak, creak.

The sound of him kneading his leg suddenly seemed louder because the whole room had gone quiet.

"What kind of bullshit is that? I mean if you don't want to move, then just stay here, and we'll come call you after it's done!"

Zhang Su had clearly compromised; he decided not to provoke this powder keg and to stabilize things first.

The direct communication style was highly efficient...

"I'd be anxious staying in the village alone. If we're going, we're going together."

Xie Guangfa said blandly.

Hearing this, the face of the person who had been backing him up went slack. He thought to himself, *You damn cripple, you have no principles at all. You're just going to cave like this? *

Sharing the same thought was Da Niu, who had just been kicked. Standing on the kang, he made faces and cursed Xie Guangfa's ancestors down to the eighteenth generation in his heart.

"Good! With Old Xie's invincible divine leg helping us, victory is in sight!"

Zhang Su secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He raised a hand and said to the group: "The main reason Meng Changwei doesn't want to make a move is Zhang Su. If Zhang Su is dead, he'll have no concerns, and then cooperation between us will be possible!"

"Boss, when did Zhang Su die?"

Da Niu felt that Xie Guangfa agreeing to go along was a sign of weakness, and since he had regained the face he'd lost earlier, he hurriedly chimed in to assert his presence.

"If you don't have a brain, don't talk. Just listen well. When I tell you to move, you move. Do you understand?"

Zhang Su felt a headache coming on whenever Da Niu spoke.

"Oh, alright." Da Niu felt particularly aggrieved. He complained about being sprayed by the quilt, cursed at for being a cripple, kicked, and then scolded for asking a question—it was just too hard.

"Boss, do you already have a plan?"

Monkey was clearly much sharper than Da Niu, following up on Zhang Su's words.

"That's right. Come closer and listen to me!"

Zhang Su walked to the middle of the crowd. Once everyone had gathered, he whispered the plan he had in mind. As he spoke, the eyes of those around him grew brighter and brighter, except for Xie Guangfa, who sat on the edge of the kang with a calm expression, seemingly uninterested in these plans.

Meanwhile, in another large courtyard in Village No. 1, Meng Changwei was tidying up the head of the kang, moving very nimbly.

Previously, when Yang Liehuo had summoned the villagers to take refuge on Tianmayu, everyone here thought something major had happened, so they had rolled up their bedding and run, leaving the rooms in a mess.

However, for the people from Daciaobao Township, this was nothing. Their camp had originally been in the village, and they were very experienced with rural life: four people to a kang, eight to a courtyard, and the twenty-plus people were split among three courtyards arranged in a 'pin' shape, allowing them to look out for one another.

"Boss, I found some zombie fragments in the utility room. I'm going to go light the stove now. *Hoo*, it's damn cold!"

A young man walked into the room from the courtyard carrying a wooden bucket, his face frozen red, breathing out white mist.

Meng Changwei, who was laying out the kang sheet, turned his head to look and said speechlessly: "Xiao Wei, you really don't treat yourself as an outsider, do you? You didn't even ask before burning their stuff. Didn't we bring our own corpses over? Go get your own!"

"The whole corpses still need to be chopped up, it's too much trouble. Let's just use these for now, and we'll make it up to them later. Boss Zhang won't be that stingy."

Another man in his forties said with a smile.

"Oh, Boss Zhang is wealthy and generous. There are so many zombie corpses at the foot of the mountain that we couldn't burn them all in a year; he won't miss this little bit. Haha, speaking of which, where did Boss Zhang and his people go? In this cold weather, with the zombies getting stronger, why go out instead of staying on the mountain?"

Xiao Wei chatted idly while lighting the stove.

"A camp of over a hundred people needs to keep running. Do you think that's easy? Just eating takes two hundred pounds of white flour a day. There's plenty to do!"

Meng Changwei shook his head. The people under him were just simple-minded, living such comfortable days. He wanted that too, which was why after leaving Daciaobao, he hadn't considered finding a place to strike out on his own, but had come to Tianmayu instead—not for anything else, but just to take the burden off his shoulders...

As the zombies grew stronger, Meng Changwei felt immense pressure. Being the boss had left him exhausted and feeling inadequate! "Boss, do you think Boss Zhang will let us live on the mountain? I think that tourist resort doesn't look half bad!"

Xiao Wei asked while adding corpse chunks to the stove, a look of longing appearing on his face.

Just then, an older sister walked out from the bedroom across the way, patted the dust off her clothes, and chimed in: "Probably not. At most, they'll let Boss Meng go up to live. We don't have that kind of face."

The two bedrooms were door-to-door, making it convenient to separate men and women. Meng Changwei smiled and waved his hand after hearing the woman's words: "Even if Boss Zhang let me go, I wouldn't go. I'll stay with everyone else. We... hmm?"

Just as he was speaking, a *thump-thump-thump* of knocking sounded in Meng Changwei's ears. He turned his head and saw Zhang Su knocking symbolically on the large iron gate before walking into the courtyard with his men—polite, but not by much.

"What are these guys here for..."

"Empty-handed, they must be here to ask for supplies. Boss, let's not give them any!"

"Right, definitely don't give them any. They have grain but don't eat it, just know how to sponge off us. That's not right!"

The few people tidying the room were very dissatisfied with the Flying Wolf Gang.

"You guys stay busy, I'll go out and ask!"

Meng Changwei put down his work, took a deep breath, and stepped out the door. He couldn't be bothered to invite them into the room; it would be inconvenient to kick them out later.

"Hey, Old Qi, why are you guys here? All settled in?" Meng Changwei pushed the door open and walked out, a look of surprise on his face. With a sweep of his single eye, he walked toward an axe thrown in the corner of the courtyard, pretending he had come out to get something.

"Old Meng, don't be busy for a second. I have something important to tell you."

Zhang Su took two quick steps to Meng Changwei's side and handed him a cigarette.

"Something important? Is it that the courtyard you chose isn't to your liking? Then just switch."

Meng Changwei took the cigarette and tucked it behind his ear, then bent down to pick up the axe.

"A courtyard doesn't count as anything important..."

Zhang Su didn't care about Meng Changwei's attitude. He draped his arm over the other man's shoulder very familiarly and whispered: "Just now, one of my brothers went up the mountain, wanting to trade for some supplies with Boss Zhong. And guess what happened?"

Meng Changwei turned his head to look at the dozen or so people standing in the courtyard. He didn't follow up on Zhang Su's words at all, but instead asked: "Which one of you went up the mountain just now? How come I didn't hear any movement?"

"We live over by the village entrance, you live in the village, of course you wouldn't hear it. There are electric scooters in the courtyard, *zoom zoom*, very convenient. Don't interrupt, it's important news. Do you want to hear it or not?"

Zhang Su looked serious and mysterious, showing an attitude that if you didn't listen, you'd definitely regret it.

Well, might as well listen.

Meng Changwei said distractedly: "If you want to say it, say it. If it's not convenient, don't. But I'll say this first: if I learn some secret, I'm not taking responsibility for it!"

Zhang Su didn't care at all about what Meng Changwei said. He followed his own script, saying word by word: "My brother overheard a shocking piece of news: Zhang Su is dead!"

!!?? Meng Changwei was first startled, then a strange expression appeared on his face—the kind of funny look where you want to laugh but are holding it in. Finally, he couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"Hahaha... Leader Zhang is dead? Do you want to hear what you just said?"

Zhang Su's face didn't have a hint of a smile; he was incomparably serious: "It's true, I'm not lying to you!"

"Come, come, tell me who overheard this news. You might as well throw your ears away..."

"Look at you, why don't you believe me... Skinny Monkey!" Zhang Su called out to the back: "Come tell Boss Meng what news you heard!"

"You got it!"

Skinny Monkey darted to their side in a few steps, his back hunched and his eyes darting around. With a "you don't know, do you?" expression on his face, he began.

"Boss Meng, just now I went up the mountain. Before I could even contact the people inside, I heard a huge ruckus in the camp. I thought to myself, everything was fine before, how did it turn into a fight so quickly?

So I hurriedly snuck outside the mountain gate to eavesdrop on the situation... And once I heard it, damn, it was huge! It turns out Zhang Su is already dead. There aren't just one group of people inside, but three, and they're preparing to carve up Tianmayu!"

"Three groups carving up Tianmayu... This, are you saying this is true?"

Meng Changwei frowned. He treated the news of Zhang Su's death as a joke, but if Tianmayu was in chaos, the credibility of the previous news shot up. However, the possibility that both pieces of news were fake couldn't be ruled out.

It's just... Zhang Su's life or death was hard to confirm, but verifying whether Tianmayu was having an internal conflict was too easy. What was the point of running over here to play such a joke? "Of course it's true!"

Seeing Meng Changwei's astonishment, Skinny Monkey knew he already believed it a little. He hurriedly lowered his voice again, wearing the expression of an old rural woman gossiping.

"They were arguing so damn fiercely. Two men were shouting at that woman with the surname Zhong, saying that when they built the camp, they had a hand in it, and even if Brother Su were still here, he would have given them a piece of the territory. The other group said no matter what, they had to occupy at least one-third of the territory, or they would make Tianmayu a living hell!"

The words came out incredibly smoothly.

"Closing the doors to have an internal conflict, that's interesting!"

Zhang Su smiled meaningfully, then looked at the silent Meng Changwei: "Old Meng, I know you guys from Daciaobao Township have cooperated with Tianmayu a few times before, but that was limited to cooperation. Now that Zhang Su is gone, the one surnamed Zhong is clearly using a delaying tactic on us. Once their tug-of-war is over, I'm afraid it will be bad for us!"

Meng Changwei tightened his grip on the axe, a light of contemplation flashing in his single eye. He looked at Zhang Su, then at the intense-looking Skinny Monkey. *What do you mean 'bad for us'... *

We are just outsiders. Does their internal conflict have anything to do with us?

It's clearly that you saw the possibility of taking advantage and want to stick your oar in, yet you're making it sound so high-minded! He slowly shook his head: "In any case, I don't believe Boss Zhang is dead!"

"You don't believe it? It's normal that you don't. Either you suspect the people at Tianmayu are lying, or you suspect my brother is reporting false information. This is easy to handle: let's go to Tianmayu together and see for ourselves! If it differs from what my brother heard, we'll just use the excuse of trading supplies. If it's true, Old Meng, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They're carving the cake into three, what's wrong with us two joining in? Whoever sees it gets a share!"

As long as he could trick the armed people of Daciaobao Township into going up the mountain, Zhang Su's plan would be a success. By then, it would be like having mud in your pants—even if it isn't shit, it's still shit!

Meng Changwei didn't speak; he naturally wouldn't compromise easily.

He raised his hand and waved it lightly, then turned and walked toward the room. The information Zhang Su brought was too massive. Whether it was true, false, or half-true, he needed to digest it properly.

"Old Meng, what are you still hesitating for? If it really comes down to it, lend us five guns. Once we succeed, we'll carve out a piece of territory for you Daciaobao Township brothers from the mountain, and we can all live inside the perimeter wall and be worry-free from then on!"

Seeing Meng Changwei's hesitation, Zhang Su painted a big picture.

"The defensive fortifications on that mountain are complete—concrete walls, iron gates, the quality is top-notch. Even these crazy zombies can't break through!"

Skinny Monkey chimed in from the side.

"Stop arguing for a second, let me have some quiet."

Meng Changwei shook his head and continued walking toward the room.

To tell the truth, when he saw the Tianmayu perimeter wall and mountain gate, he was quite excited. Considering the special terrain, plus the strict defensive measures, it was truly easy to defend and hard to attack. As long as they had supplies, it was like a paradise.

But to say he would kick someone when they were down and seize the camp while their combat force was away—he could never do that. This was his bottom line. Never mind that the other side had already provided decent living conditions; even if they hadn't, he couldn't just break his bottom line.

Zhang Su and Skinny Monkey exchanged a look and didn't stop Meng Changwei again, only saying: "Hurry up, opportunities don't wait for anyone!"

"Boss, I see this Meng guy isn't easy to trick. I'm afraid we'll have to start the second step! As long as Tianmayu messes with him, he's bound to get anxious, and then... hehehe!"

Once Meng Changwei entered the room, Skinny Monkey whispered to Zhang Su, unable to hold back a laugh at the end.

"Don't be in a rush. The second step is too risky. If we mess up, we might get ourselves dragged into it. Let's wait for Old Meng first!"

Zhang Su's lips moved slightly, his voice very low.

According to their plan, if the people from Daciaobao Township weren't willing to cooperate, they would first provoke Tianmayu by lying that Daciaobao Township was plotting to storm the camp, inciting a rift between the two sides, and then they could fish in troubled waters.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 559 =====