More than an hour later, Zhu Haitao finally walked out of the building. Director Gao, who was drinking by the bar window, waved to him. Noticing Director Gao, Zhu Haitao was taken aback, then walked over!

"Have a drink? To say goodbye to the past!"

Director Gao shook the bottle in his hand at Zhu Haitao, who had just walked in.

"How did you know what I was thinking?"

Zhu Haitao walked over and sat opposite him, looking at Director Gao and asking.

"Because you walked down!"

Director Gao took a sip of wine and said, "If you can't let go, then... you would have jumped down to accompany your wife and children. Since you can still sit here and drink, it means that you have left your identity as a father and a husband up there. The person sitting in front of me now is just the City Lord of Jinshi! Right?"

"Heh~! That's right!"

Zhu Haitao chuckled, looked up at the roof of the building across the street, suddenly grabbed a bottle of wine, and instead of pouring it into a glass, clinked it directly with the bottle in Director Gao's hand. "Cheers!"

...

Several hours later, when it was almost dark, two drunken men staggered out of the bar, stopped for a while by a car on the roadside, then opened the door, started the car, and slowly drove away from the city in an arc...

"After that drunken night, I discarded all my personal identity and only retained the identity of the City Lord! So, now my only goal is to allow the people in the base to go as far as possible in this damned world! For this, I can give everything!"

After telling his story, Zhu Haitao looked at Li Chenzhou and said, "So, if your base still has the ability to accept some people, please help me. There are too few humans in this world now. If we want humanity to continue, we need more population! Like I said before, you can pick any talent you want, and I will absolutely not say a word against it!"

"Two questions!"

After listening to Zhu Haitao's story, Li Chenzhou's eyes showed some appreciation. He looked at Zhu Haitao and asked, "First, you need to know that at any time, humans have one problem, and that is not poverty, but inequality! If I were to choose people from your base, it would definitely not be able to hide from the survivors. They would all know that if they were chosen by me, the chances of survival would be much greater, and I would even dare to guarantee that they could live for a long time.

And those who are not selected will have to wait to leave here with you to find that extremely slim hope, which can basically be described as nine deaths and one life! So... those who are not selected by me, will they be willing? Will they honestly let me choose and then take away the people I need?"

"Yes!"

To Li Chenzhou's surprise, Zhu Haitao did not hesitate at all to Li Chenzhou's question. He nodded vigorously and answered in an extremely affirmative tone: "I can guarantee that you can choose as you please, and they will not have any objections!"

"..."

Li Chenzhou looked at Zhu Haitao in surprise. He didn't know if this guy was overly confident, or if his control over the base had really reached that level.

At least, Li Chenzhou knew that the Manor Base definitely couldn't do this. Just looking at how many people directly surrendered when Lin Qiang attacked before, he could know that if he said in the Manor that he could choose some people to go to a better place, and those who stayed behind would most likely die, it was estimated that half of the people at the selection site would be beaten to death! Then there would be no need to choose, and the winners and those who were not killed would just leave together!

"Okay!"

Although he didn't quite believe it, Li Chenzhou still nodded. Anyway, this could be verified in a while, so he asked the second question first: "Then... the second point is, how can you be sure that they can live well in our base after I choose people to leave? Maybe my base is quite dark, and after they go there, they will only be treated as slaves, or even used as cannon fodder to attract zombies! If that's the case, then they would be better off dead. How do you guarantee their future?"

"I would like to say that from your eyes, I can see that you are not a very cruel person, at least you will not kill or abuse people for no reason! So they should not encounter the kind of things you said. But I must admit that this is just my intuition, or rather a guess, that is to say... I can't guarantee it!"

Zhu Haitao shook his head. "But I have no choice. I have to take a gamble, and those who are chosen by you... they are the same. This is the apocalypse, and there is simply not much opportunity for people to choose. So, they can only hope that their luck is better! And... even the worst outcome may not be much different from those who stay, don't you think?"

"Seems so! Alright! Then that's it, I can indeed accept some people!"

Hearing Zhu Haitao's answer, Li Chenzhou couldn't help but laugh: "Moreover, I would like to see your control over the survivors in this base. If it's really like you said, maybe... I can give you a surprise, too!"

"Surprise?"

Zhu Haitao's expression suddenly became dim, and he murmured, "It's been a long time since I've experienced that!"

"Then let's go, maybe you'll be able to experience it soon!"

Li Chenzhou stood up and said to Zhu Haitao, "Let me see your control over the base!"

"Okay!"

Zhu Haitao stood up confidently. Then, he turned around and raised his arm to make a gesture. Suddenly, a whirring alarm sounded in the base.

"I guess, in other cities, if any base dared to make such a loud noise, it would definitely be surrounded by a zombie horde, but we don't have that concern here. To be honest, I never thought that in the apocalypse, my greatest threat would actually come from my own kind!"

Listening to the alarm, Zhu Haitao turned to look at Li Chenzhou and smiled. "And what's even more terrifying is that compared to zombies, humans are much more dangerous and cruel. Zombies kill people, at least there's a reason—because they like the smell of blood. But when humans become ruthless, they don't need a reason to kill!"

"That's why I said before that choosing people wouldn't be so smooth!"

Li Chenzhou looked at the survivors who were constantly gathering in the largest open space in the base in the alarm, and said softly.

"Is that so?"

Zhu Haitao smiled when he heard the words, then stepped towards the open space, saying, "Then let's go together and prove your wrong idea!"

"I also hope I'm wrong!"

Looking at Zhu Haitao's back, Li Chenzhou murmured, then strode to follow...