It was afternoon.

The unsightly semi-permanent warehouse had finally been completed on the fifth day, right on schedule.

Lin Feng wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and grimaced at the crudely nailed wooden door.

Merle spat on the ground, glanced down at calloused palms, and looked thoroughly drained.

"Fuck! Finally done! I'm having a couple drinks later, and nobody's stopping me, not even Lin!"

Lin Feng grinned. "Suit yourself. Just don't drink yourself to death."

Merle flipped a middle finger, silently fished out a cigarette pack, and stuck one between his lips.

Contra glanced over. "Toss me one."

Merle threw the pack and the lighter across without a word. No helping it, Contra never carried a lighter.

Lin Feng squinted up at the sun, then turned back. "Taking the rest of the afternoon off. Do whatever you want. Tomorrow morning we start the harvest, strictly by the plan. The drying ground, "

"Brother Lin, the radio's going!" Carl came sprinting over, breathless.

Two days ago, Crane had failed to broadcast from the rooftop at dusk as promised. The moment that didn't happen, Lin Feng had felt something was wrong and posted Carl at the radio to wait.

Carl had been quietly thrilled by the assignment, finally, real work.

Three straight days of keeping watch had burned through every last shred of that enthusiasm.

Until today, when the radio finally made a sound again.

The moment Carl gave the word, Lin Feng bolted for the temporary radio room.

Static crackled from the receiver, and through it came Crane's voice, broken and intermittent.

Holy crap. Don't tell me you're cashing out on me right now.

"Lin, are you there, crackle,"

"I'm here, but my signal's bad. Repeat, signal is bad!"

"OK, I copy, crackle, we'll arrive today, crackle, evening. Please have, crackle, food, crackle, medicine ready for us. We were — crackle — ambushed. Someone — crackle, is injured."

"Copy that. I'll be waiting at the police station. Repeat, the police station."

"OK, then we'll, crackle, see you tonight."

The radio went quiet.

Eugene materialized from somewhere, studied the temporary setup, scratched their head, and said with some gravity, "I'll take a look at it later, but, "

"Go ahead, do what you can. If it doesn't work out, that's fine. Don't stress over it."

Eugene looked genuinely moved by that.

No shortage of food or drink. Protected. No performance reviews. Just the occasional stretch of skilled technical work, a chicken leg waiting as a reward when things went well, and the daily sight of a certain goddess, to Eugene, this was flat-out paradise.

"Don't worry. I'll get it working."

Lin Feng clapped Eugene on the shoulder, gave an affirming grunt, and stepped out. "Merle, Daryl, Marcus, grab your gear, load up some food and emergency medicine. We're heading out to bring people in."

None of the three looked particularly surprised. Each acknowledged the call and headed off to their tents.

Abraham fell into step beside Lin Feng. "Want me along?"

"No need. But there's something I'll want your help with in a few days, training the newcomers. Their individual skills are solid, but they're short on killing methods."

A gleam lit up in Abraham's eyes, though one more question followed. "Why not pick him?"

Because you need a purpose again, soldier. Something to stop you rattling around in your own head all day.

Lin Feng didn't say that. "Division of labor. Yes or no?"

"Hand them to me. I'll give you back a bunch of fine fighters."

"Yeah," Lin Feng said with a smile. "I'm looking forward to it."

He meant it. The monsters loose in Harran operated on a completely different level from anything they'd faced here.

Virals everywhere. The occasional Volatile. Bombers, Toads, each one with its own lethal trick.

Anyone who had survived in that environment and actually made it out of Harran was the elite of the elite.

On the subject of Volatile-certified survivors...

Merle and the others packed fast. Supplies loaded, they hollered that they were ready.

Lin Feng passed a few quiet words to Rick, hugged Beth, and climbed in.

The engine roared. Both vehicles punched out of the camp and were gone from sight within moments.

Lin Feng rode in the passenger seat, ignoring Merle's barely-contained excitement. He still couldn't quite work out why leaving camp sent Merle into this state every single time.

Couldn't just be cabin fever and the itch to start something, could it?

Probably boredom, honestly. Not enough work to keep busy, otherwise the only thing on Merle's mind would be getting back to bed.

Thinking about it, Lin Feng turned his attention to who might actually be in Crane's group.

Brecken and Jade, no way to know yet if they'd made it out. If they had, the camp was gaining serious high-tier combat power, and Lin Feng had been wanting both of them.

Brecken was a parkour instructor. With Brecken, they could keep producing new runners, an enormous asset for urban scouting, intelligence work, and supply runs.

Jade went without saying. Low health, one versus four, three of them dead. Close-quarters combat among women? Top tier, full stop. Michonne was probably the only one who could go toe-to-toe.

And the last one, the unmentioned one, Crane the Superman. Heh. When someone already carried that nickname, what else was there to say about their caliber.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, Lin Feng caught himself noticing a gap of his own. Purely bare-handed close-quarters combat, stripped of raw stats, he seemed to...

Never mind. Not going there. Those stats are also the result of hard work.

About two hours later, Lin Feng's group rolled into King County and pulled into the police station lot.

Over a month since the last visit. The place looked even more desolate than before. The walkers that used to drift along the streets had vanished, leaving everything strangely hollow.

Merle dropped down from the vehicle, shut the door, and swept a look around. "So what's the play? We just wait?"

Lin Feng glanced over. "What else? Throw a welcome party?"

Merle deflated a little, walked to the back of the pickup, and pulled out a bottle. Cap off, two long swigs.

"Don't drink too much. Walkers show up, I'm not babysitting you."

"Relax. Just taking the edge off." One more swig, then the cap went back on and the bottle went into the cab.

"All right. Let's head inside first, rest while we can. There might be a fight waiting for us tonight."

Lin Feng led the group through the doors and up to an office on the second floor.

Merle looked around at the familiar layout. Something crossed Merle's face, a frown pulling in slow.

After a long moment, Merle opened his mouth.

"Holy shit. I just remembered, back at the last police station, I found a marked military map."

Lin Feng turned his head slowly.

You found a piece of high-value intelligence. And then you forgot about it.

Are you actually a plant?!

Merle seemed to register the look, and whatever had been about to follow died in Merle's throat.

Lin Feng drew a long breath. "We'll deal with this when we get back. Rest for now."

The words had barely landed when engine noise drifted up from the empty street below, more than one vehicle, by the sound of it.

The group looked at each other.

Well. Looks like the other side made it, and they hadn't fully trusted Lin Feng's timeline either, reporting a later arrival than the real one.

Lin Feng felt an amused smile pull at his mouth.

Leave it to Crane the Superman.

➤ Next: There's Another Expert?

Chapter 92 - There's Another Expert?

Lin Feng stood by the window and glanced outside: three pickups loaded with supplies, two off-road vehicles, and two trucks.

The convoy had barely stopped when an off-road door swung open and a woman with a high ponytail and a headset jumped down.

Lin Feng took in the familiar look. Jade.

The female lead of Dying Light 1. The kind of person who wipes out four enemies on low health and walks away.

The rear door of the same off-road popped open, and a young man in his twenties dropped down after, short brown hair, a clean side part, grayish-blue eyes.

Landing, scanning. The instinctive defensive posture was all there, but underneath it was something stiff, textbook. Rigid in a way that training puts in you before experience sands it back down.

This guy had been trained. But fresh out of the box.

The young man leaned close to Jade and said something low. Jade nodded. The pistol came off the hip, and the young man started moving toward the station, alert, measured.

Never seen this one before. Probably an unnamed NPC who never got a line.

"Hmph. Quite a few of them."

"Should we go down and say hello, Lin?"

Lin Feng considered it, then tapped a finger against the glass, not loud, just enough.

The young man's gun came up on instinct. Then the eyes found the source: tall, Asian, twenties. Something clicked. A few days ago, Crane had mentioned the contact coming to meet them might be an Asian youth.

Jade looked up too, gaze running a quiet assessment.

Decent build. But not much in the way of training marks, a self-made survivor, the kind the apocalypse churned out by the thousand. Hard to read exactly, but probably not anything special.

"Lin?!" Jade called out, testing.

Lin Feng gave a small nod. "Yeah. Where's Crane?"

"Injured. Passed out." There was an edge of urgency in Jade's voice that didn't quite stay hidden. "I'm Jade. Did you bring medical supplies?"

Something dropped in Lin Feng's chest. The hell? What do you mean Kyle Crane is severely wounded and unconscious?

What did you people run into out there? Don't tell me it was a swarm of Volatiles.

"Alright. Coming down now." He turned and led the three of them toward the stairs.

"Marcus, prep for a casualty. Daryl, Merle—sweep the perimeter, check if we've got a tail. Use your judgment on contact. You both know the rules."

Merle's grin spread wide. A slow, satisfied nod. "Leave it to me. Been going stir-crazy in here."

By the time they reached the ground floor, the young man had already holstered the weapon. Expression neutral, but the wariness in the eyes hadn't gone anywhere.

Daryl and Merle peeled off without a word toward the backyard, circled out, and began working along the driveway.

Lin Feng pulled the fence gate open and waved. "Everyone in."

Engines turned over. The low rumble filled the air as the convoy rolled slowly into the cramped police station compound.

Jade surveyed the cluttered interior and frowned. This didn't look like anywhere people had been living long-term.

This guy... wasn't planning to take them out, was he?

Eyes moved to Lin Feng. Expression steady. But the right hand had already started drifting toward the hip,

"Jade. That trick? I stopped using it a long time ago." Lin Feng's tone was easy, almost bored. "Honestly, it's risky. Slow reaction and you hand them the initiative."

Jade's hand went still. The expression locked up. A flicker of something, caught, crossed that face before it pulled back under control.

Harder to deal with than expected.

Lin Feng rolled his eyes. "Where are your wounded?" He gestured to the man beside him. "This is Marcus. Top-tier surgeon—trauma, emergency surgery, the works. Hand your casualties over to him."

"Oh—Crane also mentioned food and fresh water." He patted the pickup behind him. "It's all here. Take what you need. Get through the hard part first."

Jade's tension eased by a degree. Gaze shifted to Marcus. "Can you treat a penetrating bullet wound? Crane took a round, but we're out of antibiotics. Running a high fever now. Unconscious."

Marcus blinked once, then nodded, calm. "I can handle it. Where are they? Don't you have a medic?"

A beat of silence from Jade. Something moved across that face, brief, sharp, gone. A shake of the head. "We did. On the way here... we lost them."

Marcus paused. "I'm sorry," quietly.

Then moved toward the trucks. Only the trucks had the space to work on a casualty.

A guess surfaced in Lin Feng's mind. A quiet ripple of regret went with it.

Eugene only ever claimed to be able to make a vaccine. But Imran Zere, that old doctor had actually been capable of it. A real chance, thrown away. What a waste.

Heads were poking out from along the convoy now. Lin Feng spotted a familiar figure, goggles pushed up on the forehead, face smeared with grime, one lens cracked, the whole look worn-out. Rahim.

"Get everyone fed first. My people are clearing for threats. Once Marcus is done, we move out to camp together."

Jade studied Lin Feng's face for a moment, then nodded. "Thank you. We'll pay you back."

Lin Feng waved it off, reached into the truck bed, and pulled out a pack of crackers and a bottle of water. "How did Crane get hit? Someone after you?"

"No. We were passing through a town when they hit us out of nowhere. Low-skill fighters, but a lot of them, and their firepower was serious. We lost several people getting out. That's when Crane took the bullet, covering Rahim."

Heavy firepower. Lin Feng's mind ran through the candidates quickly, crossed them off one by one.

The Governor's Woodbury was one possibility, but the geography was wrong. Woodbury sat to the northwest.

Negan was even less likely. The Saviors were up near Washington, due north.

Unknown faction, then.

"What's the headcount?"

"Six lightly wounded, two critical, fifteen combat-capable, three non-combatants. One of them is a child."

Lin Feng did the math. Twenty-six people.

More than expected. A dozen or so was what had come to mind.

The convoy doors opened. Rahim hopped up onto a pickup in two clean moves and started passing out food and water down the line.

Jade's call, probably, everyone's share was modest. Disciplined. Nobody took more than their portion.

The corner of Lin Feng's mouth pulled up, just barely. Then settled back.

Because a woman with a ponytail had dropped down from one of the rear trucks and was walking over to where the young man was standing.

Lin Feng's eye twitched.

One young man, that alone wasn't enough to be sure. But add this woman,

The memory hit like a dam breaking, flooding in all at once.

"Haven't asked you yet," Lin Feng said. "That kid. Not bad. What's the name?"

Jade was still chewing crackers. A glance at Lin Feng. Something clicked behind the eyes.

"Leon. The one next to him is Claire."

Lin Feng caught the implication in Jade's tone. "I already have a partner," he said. "Her name is Beth."

Jade looked at him. Said nothing.

Then Lin Feng's expression shifted into something strange, an unreadable look, faintly odd around the edges, as though a thought had just surfaced that he wasn't quite sure what to do with.

Riding in the same vehicle as Leon, all the way here, and walking away without a scratch.

You've definitely got some serious luck riding with you.

➤ Next: He's Tough Enough Anyway