Chapter 237: Ning Guang County Invades!

In a lavish villa within Ning Guang County, Yue Zhong's arch-enemy Lie Tianyang was currently sitting on a sofa. Beside him sat a fat man with a large head and big ears, whose bulging stomach made him seem as if he was 6 months pregnant.

There were 4 stunning young ladies in revealing clothes who knelt before him, massaging his legs, as well as another two ladies as such kneeling on the sofa beside him and gently kneading his shoulders. There were also two ladies standing behind him who were carefully massaging his back.

Four bright-eyed men wearing black suits stood beside the fat man, staring fixedly at Lie Tianyang.

The fat man was the Ferocious Tigers' controller of Ning Guang County, Tao Zhengyi. Prior to the apocalypse, he had been the tyrant of Ning Guang County, colluding with various officials and simply doing as he liked. He had a few hundred henchmen under him, and he had opened all sorts of businesses such as a real estate company, a bar and an internet cafe: in total, he had possessed over 2000 workers and lackeys in Ning Guang County.

After Z-Day, Tao Zhengyi had managed to overcome the initial difficulties, wantonly using the name of the government to persuade survivors to join him. At the same time, he began to organize his own forces, eventually opening up a military camp and obtaining a large number of weapons and ammunition. Not long after, he brought people to subdue the entire Ning Guang County and began to widely recruit subordinates. By borrowing the name of the government, he was able to gather many survivors.

Once the number of survivors under him had grown to more than 12,000, adding onto the fact that there hadn't been any news from the central government for a long time, Tao Zhengyi decided to discard this pretense. He formed the Ferocious Tigers Group and declared himself the leader, before continuing to rule Ning Guang County under a dictatorship regime.

With an entire military camp's worth of modern weaponry and a substantial amount of resources like food, Tao Zhengyi began to swallow up the various surrounding powers one by one. The total number of survivors currently under him was already over 16,000. In this region, he could be considered as a real big shot.

Lie Tianyang laughed lightly as he said,

"Chairman Tao, are these women to your liking?"

These days, Lie Tianyang had relied on his own abilities to decimate the leader of a small-scale power. With his overbearing nature, he became the leader of the small-scale power and these beautiful women were actually brought over from that small community by him.

Tao Zhengyi rolled his eyes at Lie Tianyang. As if he were scolding a dog, he cursed unhappily at Lie Tianyang, saying,,

"Not very satisfied. Out of these 8 ladies you've sent me, 4 of them have been used before by others! You f*ckin want to insult me, don't you! You're so insincere, yet you still wish to borrow my troops, no way!"

'Damned fat pig. Do you know how hard it is to find pretty virgins after the apocalypse? Finding you 4 of them is already a blessing!! You didn't say anything when you were about to receive them, but now that they're in your hands, you want to go back on your words! How shameless!"

Lie Tianyang was full of indignation in his heart, but he actually maintained his smiling facade and said slowly,

"Chairman Tao, as long as you lend your troops to me, I promise you that I will be able to find you 20 beautiful virgins. Remember, Clear Wind Camp's population actually numbers in the 2000s. If we attack Clear Wind Camp and assimilate the people there, your power will definitely be enlarged by one step. Furthermore, they have just gone through an attack by a herd of Mutant Pigs. Their ammunition has already been depleted, so right now is the best time for you to launch an attack on them!"

Tao Zhengyi's small eyes blinked a few times, before he squinted at Lie Tianyang and slowly asked,

"What's in it for you if we wipe out Clear Wind Camp?"

There were no free lunches in this world. Tao Zhengyi was well aware of that, and he certainly didn't believe that Lie Tianyang would deliver such a delicious piece of cake right up to his mouth for no particular reason.

Lie Tianyang gritted his teeth as he replied savagely,

"Clear Wind Camp's Yue Zhong stole my base and my women. I really want to consume his flesh and skin him. After destroying Clear Wind Camp, I don't need anything. All I want is Yue Zhong and his women."

Tao Zhengyi pondered for a while, before replying shamelessly,

"Alright! Since it's like that, I'll make an exception JUST for you. However, my Ning Guang County has a shortage of workers, and you seem to have over 300 survivors under your control, right? Hand them over to me and we'll treat that as the fee for borrowing my troops."

Upon hearing that Tao Zhengyi actually wanted to take away the 300+ survivors under his control, Lie Tianyang was so furious that his lungs almost exploded. A small force like this was all that he had right now, yet Tao Zhengyi still wanted to take it away, which filled his heart with resentment. As a faint killing intent started to seep out from him, an extreme desire to kill the fatty in front of him emerged from within Lie Tianyang.

Right at this moment, another strong killing intent, which was by no means inferior to that of Lie Tianyang's, seeped out from the other corner of the room, shaking Lie Tianyang awake.

Tao Zhengyi was only a normal person, whose fighting strength couldn't even measure up to that of normal citizens. However, being the controller of Ning Guang County, he had been able to use means like food and beauties to rope in many experts. This was why Lie Tianyang didn't have the slightest bit of confidence in being able to successfully kill Tao Zhengyi in this place.

Lie Tianyang suppressed the anger within his heart and pretended to hesitate for a moment, before nodding his head in agreement and saying,

"Sure! I will hand them over to you. When will you dispatch your forces?"

Lie Tianyang didn't have any plans for those 300 survivors anyway. After all, with the existence of two major powers in this region- Tao Zhengyi and the Chinese Army itself- being trapped in the middle left him with no future prospects whatsoever. He intended to first take down Yue Zhong, before immediately moving somewhere else to establish himself again.

To normal people, there was danger everywhere after the apocalypse, leaving them with no way of travelling elsewhere. However, to Evolvers like Lie Tianyang, as long as he didn't provoke any fearsome Mutant Beasts or come across a vast horde of zombies, then travelling was basically not a problem.

Tao Zhengyi seemed to be unaffected by Lie Tianyang's outburst of killing intent. Instead, he pinched the cheek of a beauty kneeling down in front of him and casually replied,

"Once your people have arrived, I will send out my men!"

"I shall go gather them now! I hope that you can keep your word."

With that, Lie Tianyang stood up and strode out of the room.

"All of you are dismissed!"

After Lie Tianyang had left, Tao Zhengyi waved his hands towards those 8 beauties and 4 bodyguards, telling them all to withdraw.

A thin man with protruding temples slowly walked out from the shadows. He had dark skin and the thenar spaces (webbing between thumb and index finger) of both his hands were covered with calluses. Both of his eyes flashed with a bright light.

Once the man had walked out, the frivolous and haughty expression of Tao Zhengyi was wiped away, replaced by a stern and serious one.

"Bao-zi, what do you think?"

(TN: the suffix '-zi' is used here to express affection of some sort, a bit like '-kun' from Japanese. There isn't really a good way of translating it, so I just left it like that. Interestingly, Bao Zi can also mean leopard/panther, although it is only part of a name in this case. Perhaps this man's abilities have something to do with leopards/panthers though.)

The middle-aged man who had walked out of the shadows was called Zhang Bao, the strongest Evolver under Tao Zhengyi's command. Prior to Z-Day, Tao Zhengyi had saved Zhang Bao's life and had even done all sorts of favours for him. After the events of Z-Day, Tao Zhengyi had also fiercely protected Zhang Bao's life when he was undergoing evolution and had a fever. This led Zhang Bao to have absolute loyalty to Tao Zhengyi, as well as being his strongest subordinate.

Zhang Bao said unhurriedly,

"Yue Zhong could usurp Lie Tianyang's position all by himself, so he's obviously not someone simple. I feel that Lie Tianyang's intention is to let both us and Yue Zhong's side fight it out, making both sides sustain heavy losses, from which he stands to gain. Of course, his supposed hatred for Yue Zhong is probably real."

Tao Zhengyi rubbed a jade ring on his index finger with his right thumb as he asked back,

"That's right! That bastard Lie Tianyang really is a mad dog right now, wanting to bite at anyone who he's unhappy with. How confident are you of killing him?"

Zhang Bao pondered for a while before replying in a low voice,

"I am confident in being able to defeat him! However, in order to kill him, unless I join hands with Dong Zi, Tie Ya, Niu Sheng and the others, there is only a 10% chance of finishing him off ."

Dong Zi, Tie Ya and Niu Sheng were the other three Evolvers that Tao Zhengyo had recruited. Each of them was very overbearing, possessing powerful skills and abilities.

Tao Zhengyi contemplated for a while before saying,

"I've decided. I must have this fat piece of meat that is Clear Wind Camp. Once Lie Tianyang has brought his people over, you, Dong Zi and Niu Sheng will bring troops to go open up Clear Wind Camp. At that time, let Lie Tianyang be at the very front. Bring some additional rockets, so that when the time's right, you can deal with both him and Yue Zhong at the same time."

(TN: Tie Ya has not been accidentally left out by the author in this chapter- the next few chapters show only Zhang Bao, Dong Zi and Niu Sheng, so there are no mistakes if you're wondering about what happened to him.)

"Understood!"

Zhang Bao nodded.

Two days later, Lie Tianyang delivered the 300+ survivors into Tao Zhengyi's hands, as well as bringing along with him the address of the place that Yue Zhong's stronghold had just migrated to. As a tyrant of this area, Lie Tianyang knew this region like the back of his hand, and his new subordinates had constantly been monitoring the direction in which Yue Zhong's army was moving. Within a day, he was able to work out the exact location of Yue Zhong's new stronghold.

Tao Zhengyi also did not go back on his words and dispatched 2 Battalions, forming an army 1000 men strong. With Zhang Bao in command, they made their way towards Yue Zhong's stronghold.

Tao Zhengyi's current armed forces consisted precisely of 5 Battalions, a total of over 2500 people. Although he had such a strong army, there naturally wasn't enough equipment or weapons for all his soldiers, and so many of them were only assigned Type 54 Handguns; some were even given machetes, watermelon knives and butcher knives. However, according to Tao Zhengyi's way of thinking, as long as they had the numbers, then they would have enough power. Using some of the men as cannon fodder was completely fine to him.

Of course, there was an Elite Company within each of the 5 Battalions, which was equipped with modern weaponry and equipment taken from the military camp that the Ferocious Tigers had opened. The Elite Companies possessed the greatest power and only they could truly be considered as Tao Zhengyi's trump cards.

Approximately 5km to the east of Mahogany Town, 10 warriors were hiding on the top floor of a small 2-storey bungalow, taking turns to keep watch over the main road. If there were any vehicles passing by, they definitely would not escape the warriors' eyes.

A fragile-looking young man of small stature walked up to another young man, who was sporting a beard and was dressed neatly in clean clothes. He said,

"Squad Leader, go and rest! It's my turn!"

These 10 warriors were all reconnaissance fighters from the 1st Platoon of Yue Zhong's 1st Company; all of them were Enhancers above Level 8. Amongst them, there was the Squad Leader Guo Quan, who was a Level 10 Enhancer. After Yue Zhong had returned from the Mechanized Infantry Brigade Station with a huge amount of equipment, their team had been keeping watch here. They had already been stationed here for 4 days.

When the horde of Mutant Pigs had attacked, it had caused Yue Zhong's stronghold to sustain disastrous losses; at the same time though, it produced many new high-levelled Enhancers all at once.

"Xu Yang, I'll keep watch for a little longer! Go back and rest first!"

Guo Quan smiled at the small-statured young man, before both his eyes suddenly narrowed and he said in a deep voice,

"There's something wrong! Quickly notify headquarters, enemies are on their way!"

In the distance, a huge fleet of vehicles could be seen making its way towards them.