After a long, stifling silence, the tension finally began to ease with the arrival of an unwitting intruder.

Cathy came charging over with rapid pitter-pattering steps and threw herself into Marcus's arms. "Dad, Amy said she wants to be a doctor just like you. Can you teach her?"

Marcus wrapped one arm around Cathy and set down the liquor bottle with the other. Pulling Cathy close, Marcus said, "Of course. But it's a lot of hard work. Go ask Amy if Amy's willing to put in the effort."

Cathy planted a kiss on Marcus's cheek and scurried off again.

Lin Feng picked up a branch, poked at the charcoal fire, and glanced over at Daryl. "Daryl, how's that pheasant coming? Ready to throw on the grill?"

Daryl, mid-butcher on a white-tailed deer, paused and cursed without turning around. "Fuck you! Want to eat? Come get it yourself. What, you want me to spoon-feed you?"

Lin Feng rolled his eyes. When Daryl kept quiet, Daryl was still a cool, brooding looker. The moment Daryl opened his mouth, that image was gone.

And as for why... Lin Feng's gaze drifted toward Merle. It had everything to do with that wonderful older brother.

After all, whenever the Dixon brothers talked, the first word out of either mouth was always "Fuck."

"What are you looking at me for? I didn't tell Daryl to curse at you. Or do you have some weird kink and want me to have a go too?"

Merle laughed, fished a pack of cigarettes out of a pocket, lit one for himself, then passed the pack to Marcus.

"Lin, maybe you were right..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa — can we just skip this topic? Okay? Instead of going over all that, I think we'd be better off talking about what to do next."

Lin Feng cut Rick off before Rick could get started. Whatever Rick wanted to say, Lin Feng had zero interest in listening to that hesitant, hand-wringing nonsense.

Same as it ever was: save your confessions for yourself, and leave the peace to the dead.

Shane took the cigarette pack, pulled one out, and asked, "So? What bright idea have you got now?"

"Guys, what do you say we pull off something big?" Lin Feng took the pack from Shane and lit one for himself.

Those words made Merle's eyes light up. Merle didn't even notice the personal stash being passed around anymore. "How big?"

Lin Feng blew out a cloud of smoke, took a swig of liquor, and pointed toward the distant wheat fields with the fingers holding his cigarette.

"Doomsday-ark big."

"..."

The gleam in Merle's eyes faded out. Merle grumbled a string of curses and pocketed the cigarettes.

As for the others... the moon sure is looking very moon-like tonight...

Seeing that no one was taking him seriously, Lin Feng blinked, then laughed. "I'm not joking, guys. We have farmland here, and the terrain is wide open. Build high walls and we've got a steady food source. We could even live inside those walls permanently."

"As for materials — four towns and two counties within range. More than enough to piece together a full fortress. And we've already secured food for now. Once we make it through the next two months or so, we harvest the wheat fields. There are several farms around here, enough to put together thirty years' worth of food for us."

When it became clear that Lin Feng wasn't just daydreaming, that the plan actually held some real feasibility, everyone fell quiet and started thinking.

Maybe. Perhaps. Possibly. Conceivably... this could actually work?

Hardware stores were stocked with rebar and cement. Across that many locations, coming up short on materials wasn't a real concern.

Worst case, there was agricultural wire mesh. Combine that with wooden posts and you had high walls.

"That's a massive undertaking. Cement and rebar alone would start at ten tons minimum, and that'd probably only get you a thin wall."

"We don't have the manpower. Just digging the foundation trenches would take three months."

"I didn't come here to be a construction worker. Never did it before, not doing it now!"

People started chiming in from all sides, raising problems and solving them one after another.

But no matter how the math got sliced, it always came back to the same bottleneck: manpower.

Lin Feng wasn't in any rush. Planting the seed today was enough.

When it would take root and sprout, Lin Feng didn't know. But with plenty of hands available right now, they could certainly reinforce a few more defensive structures in the meantime.

At the very least, they couldn't keep relying on those fences. Those things wouldn't hold against much of an impact, defensive rating of barely 2.5.

Rick and Hershel gradually caught Lin Feng's meaning. The two exchanged a look and clinked their glasses in quiet understanding.

You could call Lin Feng ruthless. But that ruthlessness had never once been turned against the camp's own people.

This young man was always thinking about their safety. That much was indisputable.

At the very least, his intentions were rooted in the camp's best interests, weren't they?

Daryl wrapped up on the other side, changed clothes, jogged over, grabbed a bottle of beer, and chugged the whole thing down.

After finishing, Daryl tossed the empty bottle onto the nearby grass, fixed Lin Feng with a look, and snapped, "Fuck you! Didn't you say you were gonna help with the butchering? And what happened? You slipped off over here to drink by yourself? Have you got any shame?!"

Lin Feng offered an embarrassed grin. What was wrong with slacking off just once? ╭(╯ε╰)╮

Daryl wasn't genuinely angry, though. Honestly, Daryl rather enjoyed this kind of big-family living. There was something here, a sense of being needed, that Daryl had found nowhere else.

No longer just a punching bag for a drunk with a short fuse...

Beth sat quietly in an inconspicuous corner, eyes on the Butcher's awkward grin, a small smile tugging at the corners of Beth's lips.

Could the Butcher actually get embarrassed?

Truly unbelievable...

As Nancy, Carol, and the others finished putting the last of the dinner together, the icebreaker feast officially got underway.

Dry wood crackled and popped in the bonfire. Flames leaped high, and warm orange light washed across every face gathered there.

Like the glow of hope.

Several picnic tables had been pushed together into one long spread, covered in an assortment of food that felt almost extravagant by current standards. Everyone settled in around it with their utensils ready.

Lin Feng was pushed into the seat at the head of the table. He had no idea how that had been decided, but he didn't sweat it. He raised his bottle and said:

"Fate brought us all to the same place today, and we've laid out a feast right here. Tonight we have liquor, meat, and friends — and tomorrow will only be better than today. So let's raise a toast. Let's eat!"

Glass bottles clinked together, and the lively feast erupted into laughter.

It was a release. All of it. Rick's group had been run ragged by walker herds, nearly losing Sophia. Lin Feng's fighters had faced down a mutated herd, and Merle had nearly bit the dust. Then today's firefight on top of all of it. Everyone had been running on fumes under a constant high-pressure grind.

Nobody spoke about it openly. Merle had even stayed dry for, well, two whole days because of it. But the chance was here now, and nobody was passing it up.

"Shane! You haven't forgotten that you still owe me three glasses of whiskey, have you?! Don't think drinking makes me forgetful, buddy. I'll be watching you!"

Hearing those familiar words, and sitting with the fact of having been played today, dark lines crept across Shane's forehead.

But Shane didn't try to weasel out of it. Three glasses of whiskey were poured and chugged, one after another.

When it was done, Shane's face and neck were flushed red as a branding iron. Still standing. Not admitting defeat. Shane grabbed two skewers of mystery grilled meat off the table, shoved them in, chewed through the burn, and asked, "That all you got?"

Merle immediately let out a whistle, snatched up a beer bottle, and hollered, "Come on then! Uncle Merle will drink you under the table! Whoever drops first is a little bitch!"

"I'm putting a glass of whiskey on Merle!"

With Lin Feng, who never passed up a chance to stoke the fire, opening the bidding, the rest jumped in immediately.

"I'll go with Shane!"

"Merle!"

"I'm backing Shane. He won't let me down!" Rick said, showing a rare playful side.

The energy climbed. The farm's inaugural God of Drinking Contest was officially underway.

The two locked eyes, tapped their bottles together once in a symbolic toast, and started chugging.

In the end, the one still standing was...

➤ Next: A Girl's Blush Outshines Everything

Chapter 52 - A Girl's Blush Outshines Everything

Early the next morning.

When Lin Feng crawled out of the tent, he spotted three people sitting around the campfire. Wait, why were all three of them wearing the exact same clothes?

Marcus heard the noise, glanced over, and silently tossed two sticks of firewood into the flames.

"Hey, Marcus? Up this early?"

A vein twitched on Marcus's forehead. The words died in his throat before they could form. Let it go. Not worth arguing with a bunch of drunks.

Hss,

Fractured memories drifted up from the dark, surfacing in Lin Feng's mind as scattered, barely-connected pieces.

Yesterday's drinking contest... Shane had won.

Then Merle got carried off by Daryl, and Shane threw up all over Rick.

After that, Lin Feng himself had been waving a bottle in the air, yelling about something, reclaiming the land, restoring order, something like that.

And there was someone else. A blonde girl who handed him something. Then he seemed to have patted her head and said something he probably shouldn't have.

Because afterward, he was pretty sure he'd gotten chewed out. Or punched. One of the two.

After a moment of total brain-freeze, Lin Feng gave up trying to reconstruct it.

Just some drunken blabber. Not worth thinking about.

Yeah. Had to be.

"Marcus... yesterday... did I do anything..."

The corner of Marcus's mouth curled up. "I think you should go ask Mr. Greene that. Oh, and I remember we've got riot helmets somewhere. Might want to put one on before you knock."

"...What? Are you serious?"

Marcus shrugged helplessly.

Rick crawled out of the tent a moment later. Rick had been relatively restrained last night, but had still been poured into considerably. As for who was responsible,

Heh. Never in a million years would Rick have expected it to be good buddy Shane stabbing him in the back.

That guy knocked back seven bottles of beer in a row, threw up, rinsed his mouth out with water, and came straight back for more. If Shane hadn't absorbed too much alcohol too fast and gone down first, Rick was pretty sure things wouldn't have ended any better for Rick either.

"Morning. Lin, Marcus."

"Morning, Rick. How are you feeling?"

"Wild, man." Rick smiled and waved a hand. "I don't think I ever had a night like that even before all this."

Maybe it would end up being one of the rarest memories of his life.

Lin Feng narrowed his eyes, kept the smile easy on his face, and asked like it was nothing:

"So — how did your talk with Hershel go last night?"

Rick's smile stiffened. "Uh... pretty good, man. Though I think Hershel would probably like you a lot more."

"Pfft, "

Marcus choked on a laugh, turned away, and his shoulders started shaking.

So much for the upright, principled sheriff. Cut him open and there was a streak of something darker in there after all.

Lin Feng blinked, completely at a loss.

The brain rebooted. Searching, searching...

Nothing.

"Forget it, we'll deal with that later. Around noon, everyone goes to the supermarket warehouse in town. Women pack, men haul and pull security. We clear the whole place in one run if we can."

Rick raised an eyebrow. "Everyone?"

"Everyone. We're short on time."

Rick caught the edge underneath Lin Feng's words. What was this guy worried about? Or was he working toward something?

"All right. We'll do it your way."

Rick nodded, didn't push further, and chose to trust him.

Marcus swept a glance across the tents where everyone else was still dead asleep. "I'll go throw together some hangover remedies for these drunks in a bit. Pretty sure I saw the supplies somewhere earlier."

That was his right hand for you. Call the push, and Marcus was already moving.

The three of them washed up, then heated a few cans, nothing fancy, just enough to stop their stomachs from complaining.

From the wooden cabin in the distance, a slender figure in a white shirt stepped out, basket in hand.

Marcus and Rick both looked up. Their eyes met. Without a word, they smiled, got to their feet, and found separate excuses to drift away from the fire.

"Going to check on Cathy."

"Going to check on Carl."

Lin Feng watched them go, puzzled, but didn't ask. Ask, and they'd say it was a single-dog problem. Untargetable by default.

Of course, if somehow targeted, that would be a whole different story. Or a whole different disaster.

Lin Feng watched Beth walking toward him from across the field. The steps were a little quick. The expression was off.

Very off.

He thought back to those half-said, sideways remarks Marcus and Rick had made about Hershel. Did something happen at the party last night?

That couldn't be right...

Beth reached him, set the wicker basket down, and crouched, the movement tracing a clean curve. Head slightly bowed, Beth hadn't said a word yet, but color was already creeping into those cheeks.

"Good morning, Lin. How did... how did you sleep last night?"

Lin Feng looked at the face half-hidden behind the hair and hesitated. "Uh. Pretty good. Slept really soundly."

"Just soundly? You didn't dream about anything?"

"No. Can you give me a hint, Beth?"

Beth lifted her head. Those almond-shaped eyes studied him, cautious. "You really don't remember?"

Okay, what exactly did I do yesterday? Why is everyone talking in riddles?

It can't be that I committed some unforgivable sin, right?

He tried the same approach back. "Like what?"

Beth frowned slightly, trying to figure out whether he was genuinely blank or just playing dumb. But looking at those eyes, that honestly confused expression, it wasn't impossible.

So Beth did something bold. Reached out, took his hand, and placed it on top of her head. "Remember now?"

Lin Feng went still for a second. His brain kicked into involuntary recall mode, and the buried memories came flooding back up.

Night. Noise. The smell of alcohol. Blonde Beth close in front of him, and his hands, the treacherous things, not holding back for even one second, reaching out to pat her head, his own mouth opening and saying,

"Of course! Our Beth is the one and only Little Moon in the whole wide world!"

His hand snapped back like he'd touched a hot stove. His face went scarlet. He dropped his head and mumbled, "I — I —"

The words snagged in his throat and wouldn't move.

How was he supposed to explain this? Blame the alcohol? That was a straight-up insult.

Say his hand just slipped? No wonder Hershel wanted to put him in the ground.

If some blonde punk went pawing at his own daughter like that...

I swear I don't know anything, officer. He was already in pieces by the time I got there...

Beth had gone still too. As if getting the answer was enough. A soft gloss of tears built at the edges of those eyes. A single sniffle, pressing down whatever was rising inside, and then quietly: "I understand, Lin..."

Lin Feng's head came up fast. He forced a grin that didn't quite land and stumbled forward. "Beth, that was the alcohol, you know that, right? I'm not normally like that, it was just the situation at the time, I,"

The more he talked, the more Beth's expression wavered toward something tearful, and the more his confidence drained out from under him. His voice kept getting smaller.

Until it felt like the only way out was straight through.

He shut his eyes.

"Fine. I'll say it. I really do like you."

The next second, something soft pressed against him.

➤ Next: Before the Operation