After finishing up, Lin Feng slipped back into his skulking cat routine.

He glanced at his current status panel:

[Strength: 7, Agility: 6, Constitution: 6, Endurance: 6, Perception: 6, Spirit: 6]

[Unallocated Skill Points: 1]

One measly point. Constitution or Endurance?

You never realize how short you are on points until you actually need them...

He checked the new experience bar, [1/300], then cast a long, brooding look toward the town.

A place this size? Three hundred shouldn't be hard to scrape together.

While he was still mulling it over, his hand slipped, and the point landed in Endurance.

[Endurance: 7]

Blue light flared. The fatigue sitting in his body evaporated all at once. Every trace of lactic acid in his muscles cleared out, and the sensation that followed felt exactly like a deep massage working through each muscle group.

Two words: absolute bliss.

His waist stopped aching. His legs stopped hurting. Lin Feng felt like himself again.

What more was there to say? Time to get to work.

He started pushing inward along the town's outer edge. Lone walkers got an arrow each. Clusters got a few more. Efficient, clean, and simple.

His operating principle throughout: don't go looking for trouble, don't walk away from it, and don't leave a single one breathing.

While he pushed through, he swept each house along the route. Everything useful went straight into his dimensional storage. Whatever didn't fit got stacked near the front door to load onto the pickup later.

The rhythm of it felt familiar. It brought him back to those first days, tense, sharp, and grounded in a way that felt almost comfortable.

With the Endurance point invested, he noticed the difference immediately. After multiple bursts of hard sprinting, his breathing stayed deep and even. More gas in the tank than before, and he wasn't burning through it as fast.

The archery load was brutal, but the lactic acid buildup in his arms and lower back was slower than it used to be. No drag. No sluggishness.

Praise the deep blue.

...

By midday, working his search-shoot-scoot method down the street, Lin Feng had cleared fifteen houses and pushed his experience to 97 points.

He was stretched out on a sofa in one of the houses, working through a basic self-massage on his arms.

Strength and Endurance at seven was genuinely strong, but even that couldn't hold up after more than seventy consecutive full draws on a fifty-five-pound bow.

He could feel his form starting to slip. The muscles across his shoulders and upper back were making their dissatisfaction known, one tight knot at a time.

So after finishing that house, he stopped. Rest first, food second.

The last thing he needed was to grind out a day of hunting and come home with a muscle strain debuff wrecking his next run. That wasn't just a waste, that was the kind of mistake that could get him killed out here.

"The road to becoming Superman is still long and full of suffering."

He muttered it casually, without mentioning the lactic acid that was already clearing, or the muscle groups quietly knitting themselves back together.

After the massage, he pulled a can of beef from his pack, pried it open with his dagger, and started eating. Between bites, he kept his ears on the surrounding sounds.

Through the window, two completely different worlds.

Left side: the street was swept bare. Walker corpses sprawled the length of the asphalt, scattered every which way, like they'd been tucked in and put to sleep.

Right side: in the distance, a few walkers still wandered. Two here, three there, drifting in loose clusters with no destination and no end.

Lin Feng put his hands on his hips.

Archers really are just too dominant in this patch.

Once he'd rested up, he grabbed his blade, slung his bow, and walked back out. Every door he opened, every "person" he saw, he hit. He cut his way from the east end of the street to the west, blood running freely — or as freely as walkers could manage — without blinking once. Figuratively.

The sweep turned up a solid haul.

Most of it was food: sealed packages, bottled water, and condiments, salt, salad dressing, that sort of thing.

Weapons were basically nowhere to be found. Probably grabbed by the owners when they fled.

Tools, though, were everywhere. Iron hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, hoes. He went through them carefully, picked out the best of what was there, and packed away a respectable collection.

By dusk, he drove his blade into the last walker's skull. The system lit up with a gold glow he hadn't seen in a while.

[Walker killed ×1, gained 1 experience point]

[300/300 — experience bar full. Skill Point ×1 acquired]

The bar reset. [0/400] blinked into view.

Lin Feng let out a hard breath, dropped that hard-earned skill point into Constitution, and sat down on the ground.

[Constitution: 6 → 7]

The familiar rushing sensation swept through him from head to toe. The swollen tightness in his muscles turned cool, and the relief hit so fast he shuddered.

He clenched his fist. The soreness was still there, but it was already burning off faster than before.

The cost, though?

Hunger had become extreme hunger.

His stomach contracted sharply, firing signals through his nerves straight to his brain, and it wasn't subtle about it.

Feed me right now or I am shutting this whole operation down.

Lin Feng ripped his pack open and started eating, pulling out whatever his hands found, chewing twice and swallowing, choking it down with water when it stuck. There was nothing elegant about it. He looked like a starving ghost who'd just gotten a second shot at a buffet.

Ten solid minutes of that.

When it was over, he'd put away nearly a pound of smoked venison, two cans of beef, three packs of crackers, and a full canteen of water.

Only then did the hollow grinding in his gut finally go quiet. The warmth of a full stomach settled in to replace it.

He let out a burp, pressed a hand to his belly, which was starting to radiate heat, and wondered, mildly, whether he was developing into something of a bottomless pit.

With this little food... probably not, right?

He reassured himself with that completely useless logic, then didn't bother with the rest of the house. He slipped out the back door and went to get the pickup.

He wasn't leaving behind what had taken him an entire day to collect. Just the flour alone was coming up on five hundred pounds, and that wasn't counting the cans, energy bars, vacuum-packed pasta, and everything else scattered across fifteen houses.

All told, more than enough to keep their whole group fed for three or four months.

Moving it was the easy part. Dimensional storage made the perfect hauler, collect, store, drop into the truck bed. Repeat until done.

That was it. A full day of search, fight, and extract, wrapped up clean.

➤ Next: The Top Demon Protectors Take Their Place

Chapter 30 - The Top Demon Protectors Take Their Place

When the familiar rumble of the pickup rolled across the farm, Marcus was the first one out, AR-15 cradled against his chest, muzzle slightly raised, finger already resting on the trigger.

"Marcus? Just you? Where are Merle and Daryl — did they head into the woods to hunt?"

Marcus rolled his eyes, clicked the safety on as he lowered the rifle, and said:

"Come on, man. You've been gone the entire day. Walkie-talkie off the whole time. Where do you think they went?"

Remembering the police walkie-talkie sitting isolated inside his storage space all day, Lin Feng gave an awkward smile and ventured, "Uh... looking for me?"

"No shit. When Merle headed out, said if you turned into a walker, that Winchester was going to smash your head to pieces — and then a knife would dig around inside to see just how much water was sloshing in there."

"Fuck! I bust my ass going out there to scavenge supplies for everyone, and this is the thanks I get?! I protest! I demand an appeal!"

Marcus didn't bother entertaining the clearly unsteady missing person standing in front of him. He unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt and called into it:

"Merle, Merle, this is camp. Lin's back. Safe, unhurt. Also, he says your gun is limp and couldn't crack his skull open even if you tried."

Lin Feng: "?"

"Fuck! Tell him to wash his damn neck and wait! Today, only one of us walks away clean, him or my sweet baby!"

Lin Feng: "!"

The look Lin Feng turned on Marcus held roughly thirty percent disbelief, thirty percent heartbreak from betrayal, and forty percent pure outrage.

"Marcus, you didn't used to be like this. Back then, you told me—"

Marcus raised a hand, one eyebrow going up. "No, no, no, Lin. Instead of trying to talk me into taking the fall with you, maybe think about how you're going to calm down that hotheaded brute."

"Because Merle was genuinely worried about you."

Lin Feng shut his mouth and dropped the act, staring ahead as he slowly processed that.

Merle... actually worried about someone other than Daryl?

That was more improbable than hitting every number on a machine quick-pick.

Merle's truck came tearing back before long, fast.

Merle climbed out, swept one look over Lin Feng, and without ceremony drove a hard punch straight into Lin Feng's face. Then Merle seized him by the collar and roared:

"Fuck you! Who the hell do you think you are? Superman? Here to solve every goddamn problem? Or did those walkers finish chewing out your brain? Oh, don't tell me one of them stole your walkie-talkie to call up old friends?!"

Lin Feng tilted his head back and looked up into Merle's eyes. Both were shot through with blood, solid crimson, and two fever blisters had formed at the corner of Merle's mouth.

Lin Feng didn't reach for an excuse. He spoke low and even. "Sorry. It's my fault, Merle."

Whether from exhaustion or rage, Merle just let go and walked straight back to the tent.

Daryl came in behind, crossbow slung across the back, face dark. No punch. No words. Just walked past Lin Feng without breaking stride.

Lin Feng bared his teeth, spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, and sat down right where he was, and inexplicably started laughing.

Marcus came over with cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol, crouched down for a look, confirmed nothing was serious, and headed toward the cabin to pick up Cathy.

Lin Feng pressed a swab soaked in alcohol against the cut, hissing at the sting while grinning like an idiot.

The Dixon brothers' version of caring arrived wrapped in fire and blood, but the urgency and sincerity underneath weighed far more than that punch.

Only someone who truly considered you one of their own could be that frantic, that furious, that... terrified.

From here on out, both top enforcers had taken their place.

---

Deep into the night, beside the campfire.

Lin Feng pulled several bottles from the truck, sat down near the flames, and passed them one by one to the three men seated around it.

They looked at the half-pint whiskeys swaying in his hand, said nothing, and reached out to take them.

Lin Feng twisted off the cap, raised the bottle, and gave his wrist a small flick, just a swirl.

Merle watched, silently dropped the cigarette butt, and raised the bottle.

Daryl and Marcus followed almost at the exact same moment.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

Glass on glass, sharp and clean in the night air, the sound landing somewhere deep in each of their chests.

Warm.

Not a word spoken. They tilted back in unison and drank, each to their own limit.

Lin Feng was the last to lower the bottle. When he did, he tipped the empty mouth straight down.

Not a drop.

He looked at the three stunned faces staring back at him and broke into a full, unguarded laugh. "Hahahaha, did I win?!"

That single, almost childish question lit something competitive in all three of them at once.

"Fuck! That's cheating, man! Doesn't count!"

"...I actually think Merle's right on this one."

"Oh yeah? Can you handle it or not? Then drink!"

Laughter rolled through the camp in waves after that.

No one brought up what had happened during the day. Yet somehow it felt like everything had already been said.

Years later, when they'd sit around a table again and someone brought up that night, one would smirk with dry mockery, another would curse a blue streak,

Inside Hershel's cabin, Hershel stood at the window watching the four of them carry on. Something flickered across that weathered face, and the corner of Hershel's mouth turned up, just slightly.

Then it settled back down.

"Maggie," Hershel said, "when you boil the milk tomorrow, take some over to them. Bring along a few portions of breakfast while you're at it."

Maggie paused, then said, "Sure, Dad."

Hershel nodded and drew the curtain closed, turning away from the noise.

---

By the time the moon climbed to the middle of the sky, Lin Feng was hauling the heavily drunk Merle and Daryl into the tent one at a time, tucking blankets over both of them, zipping the flap shut.

Marcus was fine and walked back to the tent under his own power. The doctor kept a steady hand for the blade; drinking wasn't part of it. Tonight had been a modest exception, a little, and not much more.

With everyone squared away, Lin Feng walked back to the dying campfire alone, picked up the nearby shovel, and scooped ash over the vomit on the ground.

Only after that did he let out a long breath.

His reflexes were sluggish. His limbs weren't fully cooperating. But his head was clear.

Counting it out, Rick had probably learned that despairing truth at the CDC by now.

He kept feeling like there was something else. Something he'd forgotten. It sat at the edge of his mind, just out of reach.

He had a vague sense it had something to do with the woods.

➤ Next: Watching from the Shadows