Beth left in a hurry, covering her flushed face as she ran off.

Lin Feng sat frozen where he was, a strange sense of unreality settling over him.

So... did he just get a girlfriend?

Wasn't that a little fast?

A sound caught his attention. He turned, and there were Marcus and Rick, arms crossed, watching him with unreadable expressions and whispering to each other, matching grins spread wide across their faces.

The kind of grin a farmer wears when the piglet finally figures out how to root up the cabbage patch.

"Hey. What's with that look? What, you two never seen someone..."

Wait. Both of them had kids. When it came to that kind of progress... he genuinely couldn't compete.

And so, Master Lin raised both hands, traced out a textbook Tai Chi opening form, flipped his wrists, and extended both middle fingers.

The two exchanged a glance and returned the gesture with matching grins.

Lin Feng dropped his hands, rolled his eyes, turned around, and lifted the cover off the breakfast Beth had left him.

Not a mountain of food, two big sandwiches, a large bottle of milk, and a small bowl of vegetable salad.

Someone had clearly put real thought into it.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Youth," Rick said, laughing.

"Oh, shove it. Don't you have Lori making food for you? Oh~ wait, don't tell me — it can't be, right? It couldn't possibly be that someone out here isn't getting a loving breakfast from their sweetheart~"

Twin veins bulged on Rick's and Marcus's foreheads. Done humoring the snarky bastard, both grabbed heated cans of beef and started eating with serious enthusiasm, like they were personally consuming Lin Feng.

The sun climbed steadily from the east. As it rose, camp members stirred awake one by one, and the place slowly came back to life.

Lin Feng and the others who'd been up early cleared out the leftover scraps from the day before, then scattered another layer of wood ash across the grass to kill the smell.

Andrew headed out with Glenn and T-Dog in a car toward the highway to strip some speakers, subwoofers, and other components from abandoned vehicles, raw materials for noise generators to lure walkers.

Under Daryl's guidance, Lin Feng worked on repairing and sharpening the iron arrows, and gave his recurve bow a round of maintenance while he was at it.

Rick and Marcus were going over the firearms, inspecting, cleaning, the usual. Merle would probably have done it better, but there was still no sign of that one waking up.

Lin Feng ran a whetstone along an arrow shaft, seemingly offhand. "Shouldn't we be running weapons training for every member of the camp?"

Rick paused mid-disassembly and looked over. "You want to organize a training session?"

"At a minimum, everyone should know how to use a handgun. If something goes wrong, they need to be able to protect themselves."

"Good idea. When are you thinking? Tomorrow?"

"To be determined, but soon. Before that, I want to shore up the camp's basic defenses. Open terrain is good, but it means we have no high ground to watch for distant movement. We need to build that ourselves."

"Watchtowers? That's a serious undertaking. How many are you planning?"

"At least four. Probably more added over time."

Even Daryl looked up at that. "Four? You really think we need that many?"

"Having them and needing them are two different questions, guys. We can't wait for something to go wrong and then wish we'd built them."

Lin Feng said it evenly, like someone who had already seen how the story ends.

"When you arrived last time, I clocked the problem right then. From the moment we spotted your convoy to the moment you reached the camp — less than 10 seconds. That's dangerous."

Rick brought a palm down on the frame. The parts clicked back into place. "Fair point. Battlefield intelligence has always come at a price. If all it costs is labor, that's worth it."

First proposal, passed without a fuss.

Lin Feng kept going. "Then there's the close-in defenses — fencing, trenches, cheval-de-frise, sandbags. All of it should be planned out. Useful against walkers, useful against people. Isn't it?"

Rick ran the numbers in his head, brow creasing. "Even with all of us working, that's at least a month."

"And we have the time, don't we? Once we clear out the warehouse, we won't need to run supply runs for months."

Almost in unison, everyone set down what was in their hands and looked at each other.

Lin Feng wasn't asking anymore. He was laying out a plan. He was giving notice: this is where we're going next.

"So for the next month, we're all lumberjacks and construction workers." A pause. "But... do you actually know how to build a watchtower?"

Lin Feng slid the arrow into the quiver and smiled. "Learn by doing. Failure's never the scary part. What's scary is never having the guts to try, isn't it?"

A beat of collective stunned silence. So the Butcher had put down his cleaver and picked up a book. Trading slaughter for lecture.

Still, they had to admit the pep talk landed. Because when it came to actual woodworking in this camp, the list started and ended with Dale Horvath and Hershel Greene.

Entry-level carpentry. The kind you pick up just by watching once.

With the broad strokes in place, the group moved on to specifics, where to set the cheval-de-frise, where to dig the trenches, which spots around the perimeter needed coverage.

A distant engine rumble broke through. Andrew and the others were back.

They'd hit the highway, popped some car doors, and pulled a selection of parts. Andrew got to work immediately after unloading.

Being a professional automotive engineer, putting together a timed noise generator wasn't exactly a stretch.

The only real downside was that the devices were single-use, no recycling, no recharging, and they were bulky enough that portability was essentially zero.

Lin Feng wasn't complaining. If it worked, it worked. What more did anyone need?

By midday, Nancy and Carol had put together a proper lunch between them, and Lin Feng laid out the full plan over the meal.

Lin Feng would head out ahead with Merle and a few others to clear the walkers near the warehouse, then set up the noise generators. Once the walkers' attention was completely pulled away, everyone else would move in to pack and haul.

Clean. Simple. Whether it ran smoothly would come down to how much nerve people had.

So this time, participation was voluntary. Anyone who wanted to come was welcome. Anyone who didn't want to go wouldn't be pushed. Holding down the camp was just as much a contribution.

➤ Next: Smoothly Emptying the Supermarket Warehouse

Chapter 54 - Smoothly Emptying the Supermarket Warehouse

Around noon, the entire camp stirred to life.

Lin Feng walked straight into Hershel Greene's rather unfriendly gaze and borrowed Otis, Jimmy, and Maggie.

The old man stood in the doorway, face dark, expression cycling through several things before settling into silence and a slow nod.

It had nothing to do with Lin Feng personally. No aging father ever had a warm attitude toward the pig nosing around the family cabbage patch.

Once everyone was gathered, Lin Feng laid out the plan. "Daryl and I go in first and clear every walker near the warehouse.

"Shane, Glenn, Andrew, the three of you are on noise-maker placement. Set the countdowns right. Last thing you want is to be standing there when the herd rolls in.

"When the timers go off, the walkers get drawn away. Everyone else drives in, moves into the warehouse. Women handle the packing, men handle the hauling, Rick keeps watch."

Merle stood off to the side, exhaled a long drag of smoke, and shook his head without pushing for a spot on the front line. Merle knew the current state of things better than anyone.

Light labor, fine. Shooting, no problem. But going in quiet with a knife or a club? That was a different story.

One bad moment and Merle might not walk out.

Reckless, sure. Stupid, no.

Plan settled, the whole group loaded up and headed out for the supermarket warehouse.

Lin Feng confirmed everyone's positions over the radio, then climbed out with Daryl and started sweeping the walkers around the building.

Yesterday's noise had pulled in walkers from nearly half the town, a dense, churning mass that had sent them retreating on sight. But after a quiet night with nothing left to trigger them, the herd had dispersed back into its aimless roaming.

The count at the scene was light. Twenty, maybe thirty at a glance.

That number used to qualify as a small horde. These days it barely registered.

With enough distance between them, Lin Feng drew and loosed like a blur, arrows streaking out one after another, dropping walkers without so much as a heavy breath when the last one fell.

Daryl moved forward in silence to collect the arrows. Lin Feng picked up the radio and called the others in, while pushing Shane's team to wrap up and disengage fast.

Because plans never kept pace with reality, the moment that first shot had rung out yesterday, walkers had already started drifting toward the sound.

Shane hauled the dead-weight device up onto a low rooftop, cursing the whole way, set it down, dialed in a twenty-minute timer, then found a wide balcony on a four-story building and dropped a second one there.

The last one went to Glenn, tucked into a backpack and strung up in a tree with the kind of easy agility that made it look effortless.

Shane checked the watch, raised the radio. "Lin! Done on my end — all three should be live in about three minutes!"

"Copy, Shane. Get your team moving, link up with us fast. Stay safe."

"On our way!" Shane shot back, and the group turned and pulled out.

On the other side, Merle led Rick and the rest inside the warehouse. The moment they stepped through the doors, everyone stopped.

Supplies stacked floor to ceiling in every direction.

"Damn... No wonder you kept saying one run could lock in years of food."

"How long would all this actually last? Five years? Eight?"

"Not that long. Camp's going to keep growing." Rick rested hands on hips, looked around, then turned to the others and clapped once. "Alright — discussion later. Right now let's focus on getting all of this home."

Under Rick's direction, the team broke into packing and hauling with clear priorities.

Food came first, always, especially the vacuum-sealed goods with shelf lives measured in years. Emergency reserves in every sense of the word.

Lin Feng and Daryl swept the perimeter, confirmed the surrounding area was clear, then headed back inside and threw themselves into the hauling alongside everyone else.

Outside the entrance, Dale stood post, same as always. One person, one rifle, one steady old-timer.

Inside, the team had gone quiet. The early chatter had tapered off as the mountain of supplies wore down their energy, and eventually the work swallowed every conversation whole.

The convoy ran three full round trips. It was not until dusk, the sun already sinking toward the tree line, that the fourth and final load was secured. Lin Feng called it and led everyone home.

Back at the farm, Hershel had Beth and Patricia working through the incoming supplies, sorting everything into zones.

Long shelf life from short, clearly labeled, with the shorter-dated goods earmarked for first use.

Anything prone to moisture and spoilage went up to the second floor of Hershel's barn, packed under a layer of hay to slow the damp. The vacuum-sealed stock went on the ground floor, same treatment.

As for the children, Carl had sacrificed too much. One kid, two younger sisters to keep occupied for an entire afternoon. By the time the sun dipped low, Carl had run completely out of words.

The sky bled red as the sun went down. Lin Feng and the others rolled back into camp on the last of the fading light.

They unloaded into Hershel's barn, sorted everything into place, and by the end of it even Lin Feng, a physical specimen who operated well past normal human limits, had hit the wall.

The others hit it harder. Even Otis and T-Dog were bent over gasping, looking like they were ready to file for early retirement.

The sheer grind of the day spoke for itself.

Lin Feng got everyone sent off to rest and start dinner, then dropped down next to the campfire and started working through a canteen of salt-sugar water.

Did nothing for thirst. But it brought the body back faster than plain water ever could.

Merle skipped the usual bottle tonight. Just sat on the ground smoking, expression somewhere between sharp and distant.

"Holy hell. Tomorrow... scratch that, I'm done with ops like this. Permanently. Too damn much."

Lin Feng smiled, passed the canteen over. "Fair. Tomorrow's a rest day. Day after, we do something else."

The men around the fire exhaled — then immediately tensed right back up.

"Something else? Bro. Even oxen get days off."

"You're getting tomorrow off, aren't you? And besides, we're not oxen. We're survivors scratching through the end of the world."

Lin Feng shrugged, still smiling. "Look at what we've got. Supplies stacked to the ceiling. The hay shed's packed so full there's barely room to walk. We're sitting on three to five years of food, easy.

"So here's the question, if we don't build up some defenses and a herd rolls through, or someone with bad intentions decides we look like an easy target... are any of you actually okay with handing all of that over?"

Every person around the fire went still at the same moment, eyes swinging toward Lin Feng.

So this was what the Chinese called an open trap, a move so transparent you could see it coming and still couldn't refuse.

Terrifying.

➤ Next: Entrustment Beneath the Setting Sun