The door of the Land Rover swung open, and Guan Zixuan stormed out aggressively.
“Zou Gaoming! What are you doing?!”
He was tall with long legs, and within a few strides, he reached the group. Grabbing Zou Gaoming by the collar, he harshly questioned, “While we’re not in the village, is this how you treat passersby?”
Standing in front of Guan Zixuan, Zou Gaoming was still slightly shorter and was effortlessly lifted off the ground.
Such humiliation made his face flush red with anger. “Brother Guan, isn’t this unnecessary? They suddenly drove over, ignored our warnings, and insisted on entering the village. I explained politely that outsiders aren’t allowed in, but they wouldn’t listen! They even used venomous insects to injure so many of our brothers. I had to teach them a lesson!”
“Bullshit!” Pang Cancan jumped out of the car, slamming the door. “We just wanted to come here to escape the cold wave. If they didn’t want to let us in, fine! But they even blocked us from leaving! Especially him—thinking he’s all that just because he has a metal-type ability—he completely dismantled our car!”
Zou Gaoming stubbornly refused to admit it. “Don’t slander me. Look at the car yourselves. Is there even the slightest damage?”
“That’s only because you couldn’t beat us and had to restore it!”
“Well, you provoked me first.”
His blatant lies left Pang Cancan so furious she nearly fainted.
She scanned the surroundings and suddenly brightened when she spotted a small family sedan. “And what about him? He died at your hands! If we weren’t strong enough, we’d have ended up just like him!”
Guan Zixuan turned his head. Wei Yan, who had just arrived, followed Pang Cancan’s pointing finger with his gaze.
The driver’s corpse was still slumped in the passenger seat, his death especially gruesome.
Yet Zou Gaoming remained defiant. “He was the same! Insisted on entering the village and even tried to ambush me with his ability. I just fought back too hard… That’s not my fault!”
Wei Yan frowned.
Sensing the situation turning against him, Zou Gaoming quickly patched up his argument. “Brother Wei, it was you who set the rule that outsiders can’t enter the village. First, to prevent anyone infected with the zombie virus from getting in and spreading it. Second, because our resources are limited. Our village only has a few hundred households. You guys barely keep us self-sufficient by constantly scavenging supplies from outside. If we keep accepting strangers without restraint, we won’t be able to sustain ourselves!”
“Especially now, with the drastic temperature drop. Survivors near G City all know about our hot springs and are coming in waves to seek refuge. If I don’t agree, they resort to all kinds of despicable tricks. If I let them go, they just camp at the foot of the mountain, waiting for the right moment to charge up.”
“There are still hundreds of families in the village, most of them powerless ordinary people. If these outsiders break through, they might slaughter the whole village and seize the hot springs. By then, I’d be the sinner responsible for our downfall.”
“Brother Wei, Brother Guan, tell me—was I wrong?”
Zou Gaoming spoke with conviction, his gaze locking onto Guan Zixuan’s without a hint of guilt or remorse.
Did he truly believe his own words, or was he twisting the facts to manipulate their trust?
Guan Zixuan slowly released his grip on Zou Gaoming’s collar.
But his expression remained dark. He knew Zou Gaoming was problematic, yet he couldn’t pinpoint any faults to accuse him of.
Seeing these two about to be persuaded, Pang Cancan was livid and wanted to argue further.
“Cancan.” Su Su tugged at the hem of her clothes in time. “Forget it.”
The people before them all belonged to the same village. Their bonds ran deep, and naturally, they were more inclined to believe their own.
Pang Cancan gritted her teeth unwillingly.
Just let it go like this? That Zou Gaoming had clearly been aiming to kill them!
Su Su shook her head. She wasn’t telling Pang Cancan to stop pursuing the matter—just to stop arguing.
In this world, being in the right didn’t mean others would listen.
From the confrontation just now, she could tell that Wei Yan was the true leader of Hot Spring Village. Both Guan Zixuan and Zou Gaoming deferred to him more than anyone else.
Su Su took a step forward, ignoring everyone else, and stared straight at Wei Yan. “No matter what difficulties you have, the fact that he tried to kill us is right here before us. This can’t be settled so easily.”
Wei Yan understood this reasoning as well.
His lips pressed into a thin line. “We can offer compensation. As for Gaoming, he will also be punished.”
Pang Cancan scoffed disdainfully. “How fake.”
After experiencing her past life, Su Su’s demands had already become extremely low. She felt that the man before her was at least relatively upright.
“What compensation are you offering?”
Wei Yan pondered for a moment. “Crystal stones, food, we can provide either.”
Su Su shook her head. “I don’t need those.”
Having listened in for a long time, Guan Zixuan finally couldn’t hold back and interjected, “Then what do you want? Do you want to kill Zou Gaoming?”
He wasn’t being sarcastic—he was genuinely asking.
“We want a chance to enter the village,” Su Su stated her final objective. “The cold wave came too suddenly. I’m worried the temperature will keep dropping. Hot Spring Village is a good place to take shelter.”
“What’s so hard about that…”
Guan Zixuan had just started agreeing when he suddenly remembered the village rules set by Brother Wei and swallowed the rest of his words.
“You can.”
Wei Yan agreed quickly, drawing everyone’s attention.
Zou Gaoming protested angrily, “Brother Wei, they—”
“Shut up.”
Wei Yan swept his gaze over the injured and unconscious villagers before speaking in a deep voice. “This mess is your own doing—are you not planning to make up for it?”
Hearing this, Su Su immediately understood that he didn’t fully believe Zou Gaoming’s lies.
“You can enter the village, but there are conditions.”
“Go ahead.”
Wei Yan looked at Su Su. “We’ll arrange a place for you to stay, but supplies won’t be provided for free. If you need anything, you can exchange something of equivalent value with me, or trade with the villagers.”
“While you’re in the village, if you face any grievances, you can come to me to resolve them. But if I find out that you’re bullying the villagers, I won’t tolerate it. The lightest consequence will be expulsion, and the worst… you’ll pay the price.”
Su Su nodded. “Alright.”
Wei Yan’s expression finally relaxed a little. “Good. Then I’ll take you up the mountain.”
As for Zou Gaoming…
Wei Yan spoke coldly, “As for you, you’ll be confined for a month. You’re also excluded from this round of resource distribution.”
The expressions of the surrounding villagers were filled with frustration, but out of fear of Wei Yan’s strength and authority, none dared to voice their objections.
Just like that, the conflict was resolved.
Su Su started her car again and drove along the winding mountain road.
“Hmph, that bastard got off easy.” Pang Cancan leaned over the seat. “I really didn’t expect that those three ability users we ran into at the supermarket were from this village.”
“It’s not surprising. They were only three people, so logically, they shouldn’t have been lacking supplies. Yet they still chose to empty out the supermarket. Either they were excessively greedy, or they were gathering resources to support their base.”
This Hot Spring Village was, in essence, a small-scale base.
Wei Yan was the unquestionable leader here. Guan Zixuan and that other female ability user were his supporters. As for Zou Gaoming… he was the troublemaker that needed to be kept in check.
Because of his existence, Su Su actually felt a little more at ease.
“At the very least, while we’re staying here, we don’t have to worry too much about someone stirring up trouble.”
“That’s true.”
So far, Wei Yan’s image still seemed fairly upright.
After driving for over twenty minutes, they finally arrived at the hot spring resort nestled halfway up the mountain.
In just that short time, perhaps sensing that there was no immediate danger, Xiao Hei had dozed off again.
Considering that snakes needed to hibernate, Su Su wasn’t too concerned.
She went back to carrying it in her arms as usual. Even though it already weighed twenty to thirty pounds, she was still determined to keep it close wherever she went.
If she ever got too tired, she even had a newly made oversized backpack—it wouldn’t be a problem to carry it on her back either!
Up ahead, Wei Yan was the first to step out of the car. He glanced at the off-road vehicle, his gaze naturally landing on Su Su first.
Her presence was simply too eye-catching, making it hard for anyone not to linger their gaze on her.
Of course, the massive python in her arms was equally striking.
“Zixuan.”
Guan Zixuan jogged over. “What’s up, Brother Wei?”
“I’ll go sort the supplies with Wenxiu. You take our guests to Mountain Retreat and explain the village rules to them. Make everything clear now so we can avoid unnecessary disputes later.”
Even now, he still believed this cold wave wouldn’t last long—at most, just a few weeks.
This was the confidence of people living in the southern regions when it came to cold weather.
“Got it!”
Wei Yan watched as Guan Zixuan cheerfully ran off into the distance. He stared for a few seconds before withdrawing his gaze and turning to the spatial ability user Zheng Wenxiu to begin taking inventory of their supplies.
“Alright, you three, I’ll take you into the village!”
For some reason, Su Su had a strange sense of goodwill toward Guan Zixuan. Maybe it was because he was handsome—though he was a bit tanned and a little overly enthusiastic, his smile and overall demeanor were undeniably upright.
“Alright.”
Hot Spring Village was vast, with a stunningly beautiful environment. The villagers’ courtyards were scattered across various mountain corners, and from time to time, they passed by carefully renovated buildings.
“That over there is a small golf course. Though it doesn’t have a fancy lawn, you can hit the ball into the lake—it’s basically like skipping stones!”
“That over there is a water park. While it doesn’t have high-end attractions like rapid plunges, it does have slides, and sliding down gives you a taste of the thrill of surfing!”
“The back mountain is where the hot spring baths are. There are hundreds of large and small hot springs, mostly meant for tourists. Villagers have their own hot springs at home, so they rarely go there.”
As they walked, Guan Zixuan introduced the village with enthusiasm.
Pang Cancan was soon overwhelmed by shock. “This place is so beautiful! It’s like a paradise!”
Standing here, it almost felt like they had returned to the time before the apocalypse, as if the world outside—full of zombies and endless catastrophes—had never existed.
Guan Zixuan puffed out his chest proudly. “Of course! This is all thanks to Brother Wei, me, and the whole village!”
Su Su and Pang Cancan looked at him in confusion.
Being watched by two young women, Guan Zixuan’s ears instantly turned red, but deep down, he was delighted.
He began explaining in detail, “Before the apocalypse, Brother Wei and I knew each other from work. Later, we both quit our jobs and came to his hometown—this village—to transform it into a hot spring resort!”
“Brother Wei is highly capable, grew up here, and has a great relationship with the villagers. As for me, I’m nothing special, but I happened to have some money to invest.”
“So, we teamed up and started this business with great enthusiasm.”
“But our luck was terrible. The apocalypse broke out just one week after the resort opened.”
Guan Zixuan sighed, both regretful and relieved. “Luckily, we had just started and didn’t have many tourists yet. Otherwise, when the apocalypse broke out, with so many visitors in the village, it would’ve been a total disaster!”
It was indeed both unfortunate and fortunate.
Su Su glanced at the villagers’ courtyards nearby. Inside, people peeked out, observing them—these outsiders.
They looked well-protected, untouched by the horrors of the apocalypse. Their eyes held only curiosity and scrutiny. Some even had faint, unreadable smiles.
Su Su withdrew her gaze.
The more she saw, the more she couldn’t understand—why, in just a week, would this thriving Hot Spring Village be completely devoid of life?