Li Yu looked at her and asked, "What's your name?"

"Noble Consort."

Li Yu frowned and said, "I mean your name, not your nickname."

The woman blushed instantly, lowered her head, and said a bit embarrassedly, "Guifen."

"Gui as in osmanthus, fen as in fragrance?" Li Yu asked.

"Yes." The woman was awkwardly picking at her foot upon hearing Li Yu say her real name.

Li Yu didn't mind these details and said to her, "You want to join us, but you need to pass some assessments and make contributions. Let's do this."

He turned to Dapao and said, "Dapao, explain our rules to her, then have her move some things."

Dapao nodded and briefly told her about their rules—there's no free lunch, and she can't join directly but can be a cooperative personnel, earning food by completing tasks.

After listening to Dapao's introduction, Noble Consort didn't hesitate but directly went to Old Huang, who was moving things.

Ju Tianrui saw her coming over, so he found Li Yu to understand the situation. After clarifying the situation, Ju Tianrui knew how to handle it.

.....

On the other side.

Third Uncle and others were experiencing some events too.

When Third Uncle and his group arrived there, they happened to see some remaining Motorcycle Gang members attempting to escape.

Under the pursuit of Third Uncle and his team, they quickly wiped out these remaining Motorcycle Gang members.

This grain planting area colonized by the Motorcycle Gang was very large, with no enclosing walls but some simple wooden fences, many of which were damaged with big holes, making it look very flimsy.

The crops planted there were not growing well.

Many were dried and dead, and there were traces of Zombies trampling over them.

The crops were still in the growing stage, far from maturation.

However, nine-tenths of the planting area was empty within sight, indicating that these regions originally had crops but were later destroyed for various reasons.

After eliminating the remaining Motorcycle Gang members, Third Uncle and his group noticed some people peeking through door cracks in the surrounding buildings.

After a while, finally, an old man came out of a house.

"You all, those Motorcycle Gang members left suddenly, did they leave now?" The old man, despite his white hair, had good stamina, and spoke with vigor to Third Uncle and others.

Third Uncle had known about those peeking from adjacent buildings and initially wanted them all to come out, but upon seeing this planting site, felt it wasn't worthy of being occupied by the Big Camphor Tree Base.

The area was too large; building a wall would be more difficult than constructing the entire Big Camphor Tree Base.

With their abilities, it was hard to achieve.

Moreover, it wasn't worth it; the area was so large that it would require more personnel for guarding, and the input-output ratio was too low.

Third Uncle looked at the old man before him, nodded, and said, "We killed them, how many people do you have here?"

Upon hearing Third Uncle's words, the old man wasn't afraid; instead, he was somewhat excited, saying to Third Uncle, "Well done, well done! Thank you, thank you. My grandson was brutally killed by them."

Then he shouted to the people hiding in adjacent buildings: "Everyone come out, they've wiped out the Motorcycle Gang. Everyone come out."

As soon as he finished speaking, a large group of people emerged from scattered houses.

These houses were centered around the planting site and scattered around the area.

During the day, they worked; at night, they hid.

Sometimes, they even had to move to farther places.

Seeing a sudden appearance of over a hundred people coming out of the houses, Third Uncle was somewhat surprised looking at them.

So many people! How could they fit into those houses?

Each person had a look of delight but also a bit of fear, gazing at Third Uncle and his group.

They didn't know whether Third Uncle's group would continue to enslave them like the Motorcycle Gang, just like jackals leaving only to bring in tigers and leopards; to them, there was no essential difference.

However, the demise of the Motorcycle Gang brought them much joy.

The crowd buzzed with talk.

"Great, the Motorcycle Gang is finally gone, they got what they deserved."

"I'm just worried these people will continue exploiting us like the Motorcycle Gang."

"No way..."

"It's very likely, who knows? But we have nothing here, all the food we had was taken by the Motorcycle Gang, now only these half-dead crops remain...."

.....

While they were scrutinizing Third Uncle and his group, Third Uncle and his team were also vigilantly observing them.

Seeing they were unarmed, Third Uncle's group wasn't too anxious.

Looking at their poor state, faces full of hardship; even with such a big planting area, they remained skinny.

The old man looked at Third Uncle and said, "All our people are here, we have eighty-three in total now. Why are you here?"

The old man looked worriedly at Third Uncle, asking questions.

Third Uncle didn't immediately answer but instead asked, "How many people were here before? And why have these crops become like this?"

The old man sighed, somewhat painfully saying, "There used to be thousands here, but then the Zombie Tide and natural disasters killed many, many people.

Initially, we thought that if we could cultivate the land, even with Zombies, since Zombies don't eat grain, we could survive, attracting some people to join.

However, after one natural disaster after another, despite tremendous efforts, the harvested grain wasn't enough to eat; some starved to death, some left...

The current eighty-plus people, many have joined later on. Only a few of those originally surviving are still around."

"As for these crops, alas....so sinful. In this Doomsday, we put all our lives into planting the crops, a natural disaster hits, and it's all over.

A few years ago, we planted, but before harvesting, it dried up in a drought. This year, heavy rains drowned ninety percent.

Finally reaching the harvest stage, many coveted this place, coming over to loot; we fought desperately to protect, but left less than one percent.

Moreover, some people sneaked over at night to harvest secretly; the wheat wasn't mature yet, we didn't dare go out, outside were all Zombies.

Alas...after planting for so long, the harvest is minuscule."

Hearing the old man's words, Third Uncle could distinguish from his micro-expressions that he was speaking the truth.

Third Uncle frowned and asked, "Since it's so difficult, why do you still plant?"

The old man said with some emotion, "Now, food is hard to find everywhere, if we don't plant, we will starve; planting at least offers some hope, a chance that heaven might pity us once."

Third Uncle looked at the sparse crops, feeling that surviving in the Doomsday was indeed tremendously difficult.

No matter when, there will always be those who covet the fruits of others' labor effortlessly.

Others toil diligently, while they can directly pluck the fruits, how nice.

However, with such a large area, he felt these people could completely reduce the scope, even shrink it to one-tenth of the original, and then build walls for protection.

With walls, crops could be protected, and Zombies resisted, why not do this?

Therefore, he raised this question with the old man.

Upon hearing this question, the old man said emotionally, "We used to have many people here, but back then, our leaders wanted to expand to attract more people, so we needed to plant a larger area to sustain.

But later found out without walls wouldn't work, so they thought of building walls.

Look, that way on the east side, a long two-meter high wall stretches for tens of meters, cost years of time; many left during construction, after building for so long, less than one-twentieth was completed.

Thus, we gave up, and promptly a natural disaster broke out.

After this year's heavy rain, we wanted to build walls to shrink the scope, but then the Motorcycle Gang came."

......

(Explosive update tomorrow!)