If you slap me, the whole world will suffer the same harm.

The next step is to handle the aftermath.

More than 80,000 prisoners of war—this is a rather troublesome number.

Killing them would be against all reason and morality; releasing them would be like letting a tiger return to the mountains; taking them in would mean they would obediently follow orders.

"We're willing to follow Boss Lin Chen!"

"Yes! Whatever Boss Lin says goes!"

"We're convinced! We're truly convinced!"

To Lin Chen's surprise, nearly half of the 80,000 prisoners voluntarily expressed their willingness to surrender.

The reason is simple... the afterglow of that "craftsmanship" session hasn't completely dissipated yet, and if they were to do it again, they'd rather commit suicide on the spot.

The remaining 40,000 or so who were unwilling were basically die-hard fans of the female warriors' shelter.

They were taught from childhood that "men are unreliable" and "men are all slaves," making them submit to a man.

"dream!"

"We would rather die than surrender!"

"Go ahead and kill us if you dare!"

A female warrior leader, who was bound, glared fiercely at Lin Chen. Although her legs were still rubbing together unconsciously, the stubbornness in her eyes did not diminish at all.

"You'd rather die than submit, huh?" Lin Chen raised an eyebrow.

"Yes! Kill us! We will never submit to you!"

"Okay."

Lin Chen nodded, then said to Iron Wolf beside him, "Split them up, into groups of twenty, and make them form a circle."

"Let them see what it means to have 'craft skills' delivered in ten consecutive rounds."

The air suddenly became quiet.

"Ten...ten shots in a row?!" Chen Hu's voice cracked.

"Brother Lin, can...can you handle it?" Tie Lang asked, his face filled with fear and even a hint of concern.

"For the cause of revolution, if I don't go to hell, who will?" Lin Chen said with a righteous and awe-inspiring expression.

Zhang Han: "...Are you sure you're really doing this for the revolution?"

Without wasting words, Lin Chen walked up to the group of female warriors and met Blood Rose's gaze.

"I'll ask you one more time, are you going to lower the price or not?"

Blood Rose snorted coldly and turned her head away.

Lin Chen sighed, and then began.

five minutes.

Apart from the sounds of Lin Chen's own people trying to suppress their laughter, the only other sounds in the square were the increasingly loud, almost despairing screams of the bound women.

"No more! I'll lower myself! I'll lower myself!"

"Brother Lin Chen! Please let us go!"

"I'll do anything you say! I'll do anything for you! Please!"

"I'm going crazy! I'm really going crazy! I don't want to experience that anymore!"

After just one round, all 40,000 female warriors who had been "unyielding to the death" surrendered.

"That simple?" Iron Wolf was dumbfounded.

Lin Chen calmly withdrew his right hand, his expression unchanged: "Women are all afraid of this, no matter how strong they are."

"What about the man?"

"Men are more afraid."

Everyone shivered.

In this way, all 80,000 prisoners chose to surrender.

After the news spread, the more than 40,000 people who had already been cooperating also expressed their willingness to formally recognize Lin Chen as their elder brother.

"Brother Lin! I'll follow you from now on!"

"We're impressed by Boss Lin's methods! We never want to experience it again!"

"Following Boss Lin, you'll have evil spirits to use, girls to look at, and... uh, you'll also have a craft."

"Get lost! Don't even mention handicrafts!"

Lin Chen smiled and said loudly, "Alright! From today onwards, we are a team! I have only one request... obey my orders and stand with me through thick and thin!"

"We'll stand together through thick and thin!"

"Stand together through thick and thin!!"

"We'll stand together through thick and thin!!!"

The shouts of 135,000 people shook the entire ruins.

Back at the shelter, Lin Chen took a headcount.

"System, what is the total number of people in the shelter?"

"Ding! The current total population of the shelter is approximately 185,000, of which approximately 135,000 are combat personnel and approximately 50,000 are non-combat personnel."

"Where is the evil spirit?"

"Current number of evil souls in possession: seventeen."

Lin Chen breathed a sigh of relief: "Seventeen pieces, that's enough to last until the end of the competition."

But here is the problem.

"Brother Lin, our shelter only has five buildings. It was already cramped to house 30,000 people, but now it's 180,000... How are we going to manage?" Iron Wolf scratched his head.

"Combine rooms, stuff people into every available space. If all else fails, pitch tents in the plaza," Lin Chen said. "We now have seventeen evil spirits, so there are no evil attacks at night, and we can sleep outside without worry."

"That's all we can do."

So, this small Level 2 shelter was transformed into a huge camp overnight.

The building was packed with people, the square was filled with tents, people were sleeping on the city walls, and even on the rooftops there were people wrapped in blankets watching the moon (blood moon).

"It's so crowded, like the subway during rush hour..." Xiaoxue exclaimed, looking out the window at the dense crowd below.

"Have you ever seen a subway?" Lin Chen walked over.

"I met him before the apocalypse."

"oh."

Xiaoxue suddenly turned her head: "Brother Lin Chen, can we really make it into the top ten now?"

Lin Chen smiled and looked up at the blood moon in the sky.

"It definitely can."

Xiaoxue nodded emphatically.

Hong Ji leaned against the wall in the distance, watching Lin Chen and Xiao Xue's figures, a complex expression flashing in her eyes.

Zhang Han walked up to Hong Ji without her noticing and whispered, "You're starting to believe him too?"

Hong Ji was silent for a moment, then said calmly, "He is indeed stronger than everyone else."

"I'm talking about being a human being."

Hong Ji looked at Zhang Han and gave a rare, very faint smile: "I don't know."

Zhang Han didn't ask any more questions.

The sky was getting dark.

Inside the shelter, smoke rose from the chimneys.

Despite being in the apocalypse, people showed a rare moment of relaxation thanks to the protection of evil spirits.

Lin Chen sat on the roof of the main building, with a rough map of the central area spread out in front of him and several pieces of animal hide covered with writing on them beside him.

"Tomorrow's plan..." he muttered to himself, his finger tracing patterns on the map. "There are still twenty-three evil kings left in the east, eighteen in the west, and in the south..."

"Lin Chen." Xiao Xue's voice came from the stairwell.

"Um?"

"Have something to eat. Sister Hongji made some hot soup."

Xiaoxue came up carrying a broken bowl. The soup in the bowl was steaming, and there were a few pieces of meat floating in it that she didn't know what they were.

"Thanks." Lin Chen took it, took a sip, and said with a complicated expression, "This taste... is quite Hong Ji's personal style."

Xiaoxue chuckled: "She said it was made from the flesh of a level four evil creature."

"That should be quite nourishing."

"Supplement? Supplement what?"

Lin Chen: "...It's nothing."

Xiaoxue looked at him suspiciously, then sat down beside him, hugged her knees, and whispered, "Brother Lin Chen, sometimes I wonder, if the apocalypse hadn't come, where would we be now?"

"He's probably skipping classes to play video games in college."

"That's fine too."

"Hmm, not bad either."

The two remained silent for a while. The blood-red moonlight shone on the roof, casting an eerie red hue over everything.

"But things are already like this." Lin Chen put down his bowl, his gaze firm and calm. "Then I will lead you all to the very end."

Xiaoxue turned her head to look at Lin Chen's profile and nodded emphatically.

"Um!"