Dawn crept over the horizon in a wash of pale light. The sun climbed slowly from the brightest point of that glow, spilling across the land.

Once visibility was good enough, Lin Feng grabbed his recurve bow and stepped out of the vehicle. He drew, nocked, and loosed several arrows in quick succession, pinning a handful of walkers that had shambled out of nowhere dead to the ground.

[Walker killed. EXP +1]

The prompts flashed past one after another. Lin Feng watched his experience bar tick upward, counting the scattered kills from last night's patrol, the total had climbed to 80 points.

He ran a quick mental calculation. Two more days and the level-up should happen.

Before long, Merle climbed down from the vehicle too. A lit cigarette dangling from the corner of Merle's mouth, Merle strolled over to a nearby bush and started taking a leak.

Call it civilized, Merle didn't even bother turning away from people. Call it uncivilized, Merle at least had the decency to face the bushes.

No wonder Daryl had always been so completely unbothered about this sort of thing. The root of it ran deep.

Merle gave a couple of full-body shivers, hitched up the trousers, and turned around, and caught the look on Lin Feng's face.

"What?" Merle asked, on instinct.

Lin Feng gave a slow, disdainful shake of his head and let out a flat tsk.

That did it. Merle caught on, laughed, and spat out a curse. Then Merle climbed back into the vehicle, dug out the smoked meat left over from yesterday, and started chewing.

"Come on... I mean, even so, there's a limit, right?"

"Pfft." Merle waved it off. "Worrying about this, worrying about that. In a world like this, little brother, your odds of getting mauled to death by walkers are a hell of a lot higher than dying of some bug. Get over it."

Lin Feng shut his mouth. The words were crude, but the logic held. Still, this level of unfiltered coarseness was something else entirely, the kind of thing that would send a certain timid old man diving for his shotgun.

A little while later, Daryl and Cathy woke up one after another. The group knocked out a quick breakfast in the vehicles, then drove on down the country road.

They hadn't gotten far when Lin Feng spotted trouble. About fifty meters up the road, several wrecked cars sat jammed across the lane, completely blocking the way.

"Stop the car. We've got an obstacle."

He grabbed the walkie-talkie. "Marcus. Come to a stop. There's a roadblock ahead — could be hostiles. Keep yourself and Cathy safe."

Marcus's voice crackled back immediately. "Copy. You stay safe too."

Merle pulled the vehicle to the side and cut the engine. A grin spread across Merle's face. "Little brother, you're fine against walkers, but when it comes to people, can you actually pull the trigger?"

Lin Feng drew the Glock 17 from the small of his back, racked the slide, and said, calmly, "I think I'm doing all right as a leader. At least I don't look like the bad guy."

Merle stared at him for a beat, then broke into loud, genuine laughter.

This kid. Merle liked him more every day.

"So? What's the play?"

"Depends. If we can talk it out, we talk. If we can't," Lin Feng shrugged. "We find a way to kill every last one of them."

He unbuckled his seatbelt and got out.

"Stay sharp," Merle called after him. "Trouble shows up, you shoot. Don't think about it. We'll have you covered."

Lin Feng nodded and moved forward, slow and careful.

Wind pushed through the branches. Leaves whispered against each other in the quiet.

The country road ahead wasn't wide. The wrecked cars sat at irregular angles across it, almost like they'd been placed that way deliberately. The ground was smeared dark with dried blood. Every door hung open. It looked like the owners had run into something here and bolted, straight off the road and into the trees.

The bushes and grass on the roadside had been crushed flat, pushed outward from the asphalt toward the woods.

Everything seemed, on the surface, normal enough.

Then a shadow flicked through the trees to his left. Fast.

Lin Feng swung the gun toward it on instinct. The shadow stopped behind a thick trunk and went still.

"Come on out. Don't waste my time — just say what you want."

A beat of silence. Then a voice from the trees:

"Hey, friend! Easy! We're not bad people! You can see it yourself, our cars broke down, and we got hit last night. We had no choice, we ran into the woods to hide from the walkers. We just came back to get our stuff. That's all, I swear!"

The story sounded reasonable enough. Lin Feng let his expression soften. He slid the Glock back into his waistband and spread his hands like a helpful neighbor.

"Damn, sounds like you had a rough night. Need a hand, guys?"

"Oh, God, thank you so much!"

Three burly men stepped out of the tree line, one with a pistol, one with a club, one with a machete. Mixed group, tense faces, eyes that didn't fully trust what they were looking at.

Lin Feng clocked it immediately. Their clothes were dirty, sure, but their eyes were sharp, their posture steady. These weren't men who had spent the night sprinting from the dead.

The one in front had a thick beard. He raised both hands, stepped forward, and smiled. "Man, you are a good person. No, an angel, that's the word. Hey, by the way, are you an international student?"

"Yeah. I am."

The bearded man eased another step closer, his face settling into something like sympathy. "Oh, poor kid. God bless you. Hey, are you, "

Lin Feng had what he needed.

He let out a quiet breath. "Just the three of you?"

The bearded man blinked. "What?"

"I said, is it just three of you. Are you deaf?"

"Yeah, it's just—"

The word wasn't finished.

Lin Feng's hunting knife cleared its sheath like lightning and drove straight up under the man's chin.

Guh, ngh,

The force of it nearly lifted the man off his feet. His big frame shuddered. Those brown eyes went wide, locked on Lin Feng's face, full of nothing but confusion.

An Asian international student. Weren't they supposed to be the easiest marks? How could this one,

Two gunshots rang out, almost simultaneous, from two different directions. The men on either side of the bearded leader dropped, skulls opened, already lying on the ground with nothing left to do but stare at the sky.

Lin Feng watched the light go out in the bearded man's eyes. He pulled the knife free and gave the body a casual push.

Thud. Dust kicked up from the dirt.

He crouched and wiped the blade clean on the dead man's clothes, unhurried.

Three punks. Three. He'd half-convinced himself there was actually an ambush hidden in those trees. Instead it was three clowns with a handgun and a couple of blunt instruments who thought blocking a road was a viable career.

Their gun hadn't even cleared leather before his knife was already inside the man's skull.

A complete waste of time.

Lin Feng walked back toward the vehicles, peeling off his blood-soaked shirt as he went and tossing it into the weeds.

The shirt was done. Forget the walkers the smell would draw, if that soft-hearted old man caught one look at it, he'd be grabbing his shotgun and yelling for everyone to clear out.

Merle shouldered the rifle and let out a low whistle in Marcus's direction.

Well. Who would have expected that. The doctor had just put a round through a man's skull from nearly forty meters out with nothing but a red dot sight.

One shot. Clean headshot.

Daryl looked just as surprised, but gave Marcus a small nod, a quiet acknowledgment, the closest Daryl got to a compliment.

Marcus, for his part, looked like he'd done nothing unusual at all. A faint curl at the corner of the mouth, and then turned attention back to Cathy.

➤ Next: Arriving at the Farm

Chapter 18 - Arriving at the Farm

This was the first time Lin Feng had killed a person, and the first time he'd done it in front of his own people.

Honestly? Probably because he'd put down so many walkers, he didn't feel much of anything.

This East Asian man who always came across as easygoing and unbothered hadn't hesitated for even a second when it came time to act.

That completely reset what Merle and the others thought of Lin Feng, and put them more at ease, not less.

They weren't afraid Lin Feng would pull the trigger. They were afraid Lin Feng wouldn't.

After all, who could follow a leader who couldn't handle trouble?

They pushed the blocking car off the road together and got moving again.

"What's the matter, little brother? Why the long face, need to run home for mama's milk?"

Lin Feng glanced at Merle's smirking expression, leaned his head back against the window, and said without much interest:

"I was thinking, is our firepower too weak? If we had rocket launchers and mortars, we wouldn't have to waste nearly this much effort."

"Come again?"

When a string of question marks was the only response, it wasn't that the person asking had a problem, it was that they thought you had one.

"What? Is there a problem?"

At Lin Feng's counter-question, Merle fell into an uncharacteristic silence.

Merle had figured Lin Feng was just struggling to adjust after killing someone for the first time. Looking at it now, though, wasn't Lin Feng adjusting a little too well?

Tires kicked up a cloud of dust as the vehicle turned onto a rural dirt road. On either side stretched endless fields of wheat and corn.

"Oh holy shit, now I finally understand why you had to come here. If we harvest all this and stockpile it, it'll feed us for years, at least!"

"Yeah, food won't be the problem. But the defensive infrastructure is going to be tough to build, and we don't have enough hands."

"...Doesn't that farmer have any of those around?"

"I really hope you can fix that habit of yours. If not for my sake, at least think about Daryl."

"Think about you guys? Why don't you guys think about me?"

The moment Daryl came up, Merle was back to arguing on instinct.

Lin Feng almost shot back: Do you seriously want Daryl to have nobody to talk to but you?

But on second thought, the worry wasn't that this old bastard wouldn't listen. The worry was that he actually would.

Forget it. Forget it. Some things weren't worth the headache.

"Hold on, little brother — look over there. Is that a cowgirl?"

Merle pointed with one hand.

Lin Feng looked in that direction, and the answer clicked immediately. That was probably Maggie, Hershel Greene's eldest daughter.

If Maggie was out here, they weren't far from Hershel's Farm.

"Looks like we're almost there."

"Daryl, Marcus, get ready. We're about to arrive."

"Copy that, Lin."

He relayed the heads-up to the back, then turned to Merle. "Follow my lead when we get out there. Don't act like a punk, actually, never mind. Just try to keep your mouth shut. Leave the talking to me."

"I'll try, little brother," Merle said, sounding like it couldn't matter less.

The vehicle arrived at the farmhouse on Hershel's Farm not long after. By the time they pulled to a stop, Hershel had already brought people outside, waiting in front of the door with shotguns and other weapons.

Seeing that, a thought moved through Lin Feng's mind. Maggie must have spotted them when they took out those highwaymen on the road.

Not exactly ideal.

"Looks like they're not exactly rolling out the welcome mat."

Lin Feng unclipped his seatbelt. "Doesn't matter. This isn't the only farm around here."

Hershel gripped the old shotgun tightly. Sweat had crept into the palm without notice, leaving the worn grip slick.

It wasn't until Cathy climbed out of the vehicle behind Marcus, clutching a rag doll, that the tension in the old man's chest loosened just a little.

There was a child. And one who looked well cared for. Maybe they only wanted to pick up some supplies along the road. Maybe they weren't bad people.

Hershel subconsciously pushed aside the image of Lin Feng and the others killing those men on the road.

Or maybe Hershel was just running from it.

"Hold your fire, kids. Let me go talk to them. Maybe they aren't so bad after all."

Maggie pressed lips together. Others might not know, but how could Maggie not know?

In barely three seconds, all three of those men had lost their lives.

Especially the black-haired Asian. Ruthless didn't begin to cover it.

Hershel stepped down from the porch without hurrying, the unhurried pace itself a message to Lin Feng and the others: I'm not a threat. I'm not here looking for trouble.

"Good morning, folks. I'm Hershel, the owner of this farm. You drove all the way out here. Is there something you need help with?"

Lin Feng spread both hands open. "Good morning, Mr. Hershel. I'm Lin Feng, you can call me Lin. These are my companions: Merle, Daryl, Marcus, and little Cathy."

"We drove out here looking for a safe place to settle down. In exchange, we can provide armed support, keep walkers from making your life difficult, as much as we're able."

Hershel's reaction was almost reflexive. The shotgun came up on the spot. "We're safe here. We don't need any armed support."

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Almost in the same breath, Merle and the others raised their weapons and aimed straight at Hershel and the people standing behind.

"Hey, easy. Everybody lower their guns. Just hear me out, alright?"

"Mr. Hershel, please put the gun down. We came here in good faith. Believe me, if we wanted to take this place, we wouldn't be standing here talking to you. We'd have used our weapons to knock that door open instead. Wouldn't we?"

Hershel's mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Because Lin Feng was right. What Merle and the others were holding were semi-automatic rifles, not old relics like the one in Hershel's hands.

Hershel lowered the shotgun slowly. "You're right, Mr. Lin. But you people..."

"We're too dangerous? Because we killed people on the road?"

The old man nodded, weak and silent. That was all the confirmation needed.

"They were highwaymen, Mr. Hershel. If we hadn't been strong enough, the people showing up at your door right now wouldn't be us, it would be them."

Hershel seemed to turn that over for a moment, then gritted teeth and said, "If you want to stay, fine. That large stretch of lawn to the south — along with the water well there — you can use all of it. But you stay away from where we live. That's the rule."

"Deal. We keep to ourselves, you keep to yourselves. That's fair."

"One more thing. I don't want you handling your weapons around here. You have a child. So do I."

"Understood. I agree."

Seeing how reasonable Lin Feng was being, Hershel let out a long, quiet breath, then waved a hand. "Come on in, then. I hope you'll respect these rules."

Lin Feng caught the faint trace of something in the old man's eyes.

A plea.

"Don't worry. We'll keep our word."

➤ Next: The Farm