By the time the four of them drove back to the farm, dusk had already settled in.

The vehicles rolled slowly up around the camp. Merle was the first one out, hopping down with that unmistakable stench of blood still clinging to every inch.

The literal, physical kind.

Leaning back against the police cruiser, Merle lit a cigarette, a grin of pure satisfaction still plastered across that face.

"Hell yeah! This is what we should be doing! Chopping wood and mending fences can go straight to fucking hell!"

This beat working alongside Rick and the others by a mile.

Sure, Lin Feng nagged here and there, but Lin Feng was a boss who wouldn't chain his own people to a rooftop to die, and one who'd actually watch Merle's back when it counted.

Hard not to like that.

Lin Feng smiled from the side. He felt pretty good too.

One walker wave cleared. A third of their ammo spent, yeah, but nobody had taken a scratch. They'd come back with two solid, crash-tested police cruisers, more weapons, more medical supplies, and a handful of items that were genuinely hard to find.

And his EXP was sitting at [162/200]. Tomorrow, they'd head out again and he'd have another skill point to spend.

Marcus walked over, expression carrying a faint look of reluctance, and said, "Lin, what do you think of Hershel's family?"

Lin Feng blinked. The smile faded. "What's wrong?"

"You might not have noticed, but the temperature's been climbing."

"Which means those strong painkillers I pulled from the clinic earlier, the antibiotics and rubbing alcohol we picked up on this run — all of it needs somewhere dry and cool for storage."

"In this kind of heat, without that, their shelf life won't even hit half of what it should be."

Lin Feng nodded. "That old man can be stubborn sometimes, but he's someone we can trust."

Marcus caught the meaning immediately and nodded. "Then let's move them somewhere better. If they degrade, the only place left to look will be the big hospitals."

Lin Feng smiled. "OK. I'll go talk to Hershel."

After all, even a certain someone knew that professional matters belonged in professional hands.

Not long after, a steady knock sounded at the door of Hershel's house.

Hershel opened it.

"What is it, Lin? Did something happen?"

Lin Feng laid out Marcus's reasoning word for word. Hershel listened, and somewhere underneath all the damage that old heart had taken, a quiet warmth called trust slowly filled the cracks.

"No problem," Hershel said, nodding. "The house isn't big, but there's a spare room where you can store all of it."

"Don't worry, I'll tell everyone to keep clear of wherever you put the medical supplies."

"Thank you, Mr. Greene. And if you ever need anything, don't hesitate to say so."

Hershel didn't refuse. In a world this broken, medical supplies ranked second only to food and weapons. That was just reality.

After working out the details, Merle drove the vehicle up to Hershel's front door, and the four of them got to work, steady and efficient, no wasted motion.

The haul wasn't overwhelming in volume, but it was thorough. Thorough enough to stock a bare-bones emergency surgery.

Beth held Cathy's small hand and watched everything unfold, eyes not moving once.

"Cathy — are your father's friends... always like this?"

Cathy answered without a moment's hesitation. "Of course. My daddy is the strongest person in the whole world."

"..."

Nearby, Maggie caught every bit of that exchange and quietly pressed a hand over the corner of that mouth, shoulders shaking with a soft laugh.

Then Maggie walked up beside Beth, leaned in, and murmured, "So why don't you just go ask him yourself?"

Beth's face went red in an instant. Cathy's hand got shoved into Maggie's grip, and Beth turned and bolted back toward the house alone.

Maggie watched that fleeing silhouette disappear and said nothing, just let those eyes glimmer with something unspoken.

The supplies were plentiful, but not enough to slow down a few grown men. One truckbed's worth barely warranted concern.

The one thing that demanded real care: most of it was in glass containers. Every item had to be picked up carefully, set down carefully.

Because if something broke, whoever broke it would find out exactly what Lin Feng's resentment felt like up close.

They'd fought through two walker hordes. They'd hauled this stuff across nearly a hundred miles without a single crack. If it got destroyed on the very last step, Lin Feng would absolutely stand there, point directly at someone's face, and let them have it.

Fortunately, everyone understood what this batch of supplies was worth. The transfer went off without a hitch, start to finish.

When the moving was done, Maggie brought out four cups of water and asked with mild curiosity, "Did you all clear out the clinics in town?"

Lin Feng drained the cup, set it down. "No. Doing that tomorrow."

Maggie looked caught off guard. "Then where did all this come from?"

"Neighboring King County. Picked it up over there." A beat. "Wasn't a big deal."

Hearing that completely flat delivery, Maggie's curiosity only deepened.

Leaving the nearby areas untouched to cross nearly a hundred miles to the next county over. That wasn't exactly playing it safe with one's own life, was it?

But Lin Feng offered nothing more. After a brief exchange with Hershel, Lin Feng led the four of them back to camp.

Lin Feng, Merle, and Marcus headed to the well to draw water and wash up.

Daryl pulled out two strips of smoked meat, gave them a quick once-over, and dropped them into the pot to simmer. A few canned goods went on the heat beside them.

A small figure was crouched close by, staring into the campfire without blinking, the look of someone who had been waiting and was fully prepared to keep waiting.

"Uncle Daryl, is the fire okay yet?"

Even as the words came out, drool betrayed every intention and slipped free without permission.

Daryl's brow furrowed. "Didn't eat today?"

"Huh? No, I ate... I just still want to eat more..." Cathy spoke in a small, bashful voice, chin tucking toward the chest.

Daryl had a sudden, clear understanding of why Marcus had once run completely dry on food and water. There had been a very good reason.

Still, eating this much without looking remotely pudgy. That was genuinely strange.

Daryl didn't push it. A branch poked at the fire, and then, low and easy: "Wait a little longer. Inside's not hot yet."

Merle had cleaned up and changed, and came over to crouch beside Daryl, wearing a wide grin.

"Well, well, well — is our little babysitter Daryl back on soothing-kids duty?"

Daryl shot Merle one flat look. The message was perfectly clear: don't make me curse you out in front of the child.

"Grandpa Merle..."

Cathy hadn't even finished the sentence.

Daryl's face had already gone dark.

➤ Next: Lin's Town Scavenge, Slay, and Evac

Chapter 28 - Lin's Town Scavenge, Slay, and Evac

Early the next morning, Lin Feng crawled out of his tent, stretched, and squinted at the sliver of dawn light cutting across the sky.

One thing on the agenda today: level up.

He was only thirty-eight experience points short. No reason to drag it out. Just get it done.

He ducked back into the tent, grabbed his gear, and drove the pickup out of camp.

He'd already dealt with Merle and the others yesterday. Today was a rest day — free to move around however he liked, as long as he didn't start trouble.

Once past the farm, Lin Feng headed toward town alone, pulling over every now and then to put down a stray walker with his recurve bow.

No rush today. He treated it like practice, taking his time, knowing he'd get there eventually.

Ten-odd miles of road, and he stretched it out to nearly an hour. By the time he was close, his experience counter read [178/200].

He found a concealed spot, tucked the pickup away, then shouldered his bow and walked into town on foot.

The town wasn't much. In earlier days it had been nothing more than a transit stop for trading farm goods and livestock, built up gradually over the years. The amenities matched that history. No large factories, no hospital, barely a handful of shops that had ever sold weapons. Mostly general stores and small diners, with a few tiny brokerage offices mixed in between.

Lin Feng gripped his blade and pushed into a cluttered general store, easing the front door shut behind him.

Toppled shelves. Junk strewn everywhere. Bloody footprints across the floor. Someone had come here after the collapse, and they'd paid for it.

There were walkers inside. More than one.

He sheathed the blade, pulled the fire axe from his storage, and wrapped both hands around the handle. Then he moved carefully toward the partitioned room at the back.

"Hoo... errgh..."

The faint raspy growl bled through the wooden wall. It didn't put the slightest edge of tension in him.

He stepped over the debris, found the door handle with his left hand, twisted it softly, and shoved.

The walker behind the door went down hard, flat on the floor. Before it could push itself up, the axe was already falling.

A flash of cold steel. The skull split in two.

He pried the axe free and looked around the back room. Cluttered, but every surface had a thick coat of dust on it. Whoever had come scavenging after the collapse had heard the growling and walked away. Nobody had touched this place since.

Lin Feng got to work. One box of spare bowstrings for an American hunting bow. Two boxes of diamond-point iron hunting arrows, thirty shafts total. Shotgun ammunition — one box of 20-gauge, one box of 12-gauge, forty shells combined. Two basic shotgun maintenance kits. One heavy-duty clearing axe. Two skinning knives.

Food too, and plenty of it. Three crates of canned meat: luncheon meat, tuna, and pure beef. Two 20-pound bags of oats. Two 15-pound bags of flour. A 12-pound crate of salt. A 12-pound crate of white sugar. A 10-pound crate of dehydrated vegetables.

The rest of the loose odds and ends he left where they were. Not worth the storage space.

He stepped back out of the room. From somewhere deeper in the store, a more agitated growl had started up — drawn, no doubt, by the sound of the first walker hitting the floor.

Lin Feng didn't bother with patience. Two axe strokes, same method as before. Another solid haul of food off the shelves, and that room was done.

No firearms anywhere. That figured. General stores in farming towns like this almost never had a license to sell guns.

He slipped out the back door. Five walkers were drifting through the alley. He stepped forward and put them down one after another, then moved into the small diner next door.

If luck was on his side, there might be some seasonings in there. Anything to rescue their diet from its current state of absolute monotony. He wasn't asking for much. Just something that tasted like more than salt.

Luck wasn't on his side.

Six walkers wandering the place, and most of the seasonings had already expired. He let out a sigh, pushed through into the front dining area, and cleanly knocked down the only three walkers in there. Then he looked at the counter.

Worth checking.

He stepped up and swung the axe into the padlock. One sharp metallic crack, and the lock crumpled, twisted into scrap. He pulled the cabinet open.

Dozens of liquor bottles, lined up in neat rows.

Lin Feng had no real use for alcohol. If anything, it barely registered on his list of priorities. But after a short, slightly disdainful click of his tongue, he swept every bottle into storage anyway.

Even a mosquito leg had meat on it. He didn't need it, but someone always would.

Shuffling footsteps outside the front door. Slow, uncoordinated, mixed with low meaningless hissing.

Lin Feng glanced up. The noise from the axe had drawn the walkers near the entrance together. Now they were piling up outside one by one, pressing against the door, a creeping, suffocating sight.

He considered it for a second, then decided on the back door.

Cutting through that cluster wouldn't be hard. Pull the shotgun from storage, rack the slide, and one tube of shells would wipe them all out. But he still hadn't secured a steady supply of ammunition. Every shell spent was one he couldn't replace. Unless he had no other option, he wasn't burning through his stock on a handful of walkers.

He unlocked the back door and slipped out into the alley, then circled quickly around for a look at the front. The cluster was still building, walkers drifting in without any idea why.

He pulled the recurve bow from storage, nocked an arrow, and started shooting.

At this range he didn't even need to aim carefully. Just draw and loose.

The bowstring sang again and again. Arrows cut through the air and punched into skulls. One walker folded. Then another. Then another, dropping in front of the diner's entrance until the whole group lay still on the ground.

Twenty-odd bodies.

Lin Feng lowered the bow. It occurred to him that he might have found a solid new method for grinding levels.

The familiar notification chime sounded, the one he hadn't heard in a while:

[Killed Walker x1. Gained 1 Experience Point.]

[200/200. Experience Cap Reached.]

[Level Up. Gained Skill Point x1.]

[Killed Walker x1. Gained 1 Experience Point.]

[1/300. Insufficient Experience.]

He stowed the bow and rolled out his aching arms, then picked up the axe and walked over to start pulling arrows from skulls.

The iron-tipped hunting arrows came out first. Heavier than carbon-fiber shafts, but easier to source and repair out in the field. He'd have to think about bringing a blacksmith into the group at some point.

That way, when a horde eventually showed up on their doorstep, they'd have the option of thinning the numbers first, one volley of arrows at a time.

➤ Next: Archers Are Just Too OP