Liu Yueqi thought for a moment before agreeing:
"That group is currently occupying the county grain silo north of town. It was supposed to belong to everyone."
Lin Feng raised an eyebrow.
"I heard the grain silo wasn’t emptied out and transported away?"
Liu Yueqi shook her head.
"Those are just rumors from the outside. Otherwise, someone would have come to occupy it long ago."
"The truth is, it was already emptied. On the second day of the apocalypse, a fleet of special grain trucks came. They took everything to the Riverfront Pier, along with other industrial supplies, and shipped it all back to the safe zone in the rear."
"Except for some old rice left in the corners, maybe a few tons, everything new is what we’ve harvested ourselves by organizing people to rush-harvest the summer rice from the fields."
"Right now, there’s probably a little over a hundred tons of rice in total."
"I don’t know the exact details. You’d have to ask the locals."
Lin Feng glanced at his subordinates outside the house and nodded.
"Alright. The sooner the better. Let’s head out now."
Liu Yueqi grunted in acknowledgment, put away her Thousand Slash Saber, and followed behind him, adding a reminder:
"The noise you guys made clearing the way just now could be heard for kilometers. They’ve probably noticed and are on guard. Driving there now would give us away too easily."
"I suggest we approach on foot."
Lin Feng nodded, walked to the doorway, and ordered everyone to grab their gear from the vehicles. Then he turned back.
"You know this area better. Lead the way."
Seeing the fully armed group, Liu Yueqi took a deep breath and moved to the front, leading Lin Feng and the other seven men deep into the village’s narrow paths.
Along the way, Lin Feng asked a forest ranger whose hometown was here about the rural area north of Jin City—specifically, how much early-season rice was currently being grown.
The man took out his phone to check a map and made an estimate.
"There should be over a hundred thousand mu, and each mu can produce about a thousand jin of rice..."
"If you do the math, that’s actually a huge food source. If we can rush-harvest it before the typhoon hits, it’ll definitely get us through this winter."
Lin Feng nodded in agreement.
’One mu is five hundred kilograms, equivalent to half a ton of rice. One hundred thousand mu would be fifty thousand tons of raw rice.’
’That’s enough to fill the entire grain silo again.’
’Assuming each person eats half a jin of rice per day at most, a hundred thousand people would consume twenty-five tons a day. Fifty thousand tons of rice could feed this group of survivors for a full five years.’
’Compared to this, the hundred-odd tons of rice Liu Yueqi’s survivors managed to gather are basically nothing.’
Lin Feng could only hope the typhoon would hold off a little longer, giving him enough manpower to get the harvest in.
It was now a race against time.
He then looked at Han Yuxin beside him. Realizing the value of this inconspicuous treasure hidden in the northern suburbs, she immediately took out her phone and reported:
"I’ll arrange for manpower and send out the notice right away."
Lin Feng gazed at the vast expanse of golden rice paddies at the end of the path, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Put the fishing operations on hold. Organize all able-bodied survivors to come here and harvest the grain. Distribute a portion to them based on a set ratio—the more they work, the more they get."
"At the same time, organize the Support Soldiers to find nearby farm machinery. Use combine harvesters to reap it in bulk. Try to get this done within a few days."
"Survivors who perform well can be given the opportunity to become Support Soldiers, with food and lodging provided. As for the Support Soldiers, use Red-Armored Beetles as a reward. Once they upgrade to Late-stage Enhanced People, they can apply to join the Warriors."
Han Yuxin’s eyes lit up. She was beginning to understand why Lin Feng had insisted on restructuring the Thirteenth Division and reducing the number of frontline combatants.
It was because this separation created a class system, and the differences in status and benefits between classes were the best form of motivation.
Survivors wanting to solve their problems of food, drink, and safety would naturally work twice as hard. Becoming a Support Soldier would grant them a certain status within the base, protection, and no need to worry about being bullied.
And within the Support Soldiers, strength levels would be used to create a hierarchy. Once they upgraded to Late-stage Enhanced People, they would want even greater power, like becoming an Awakener.
That’s when the promotion channel from Support Soldier to Warrior would open up for them.
Becoming a Warrior meant joining the base’s middle-class, gaining the opportunity to walk the path of the strong—a much safer alternative than striking out alone.
Ordinary Survivor, Support Soldier, and Warrior—these were the three classes Lin Feng had laid out for them.
As for the specific management measures and the duties of different departments, those would have to wait for Princess Betty and the others to arrive and make detailed, departmentalized arrangements.
For now, however, Lin Feng looked toward the distant horizon.
Without satellite imaging or real-time monitoring from weather stations, no one could predict future weather patterns.
They could only hurry and get this one harvest in.
This grain would become the foundation for the permanent base Lin Feng planned to build. Naturally, the more, the better.
Even if they couldn’t take it all with them in the end, he would rather burn it all than leave it for the Zerg Race.
By the time Han Yuxin had relayed the orders back to the camp, the group, led by Liu Yueqi, had already left the small town and arrived in the countryside further north.
A high-walled compound containing several large, white storehouses appeared before them.
Looking from a distance, they could see the black characters on the plaque above the main gate, which read: County Reserve Grain Silo.
Liu Yueqi pointed to an office building inside the compound.
"The survivors are all in there. They’ve been bewitched by those bald-headed charlatans. They just sit in the building all day, meditating and singing. They’re all mystical and weird, and they won’t even come out to harvest the rice..."
Lin Feng nodded and ordered the other seven men to don their Battle Armor like him, just in case the people on the other side were armed with guns.
Although bullets from ordinary rifles and machine guns could barely threaten a Tier Two Perfect Awakened, for the Tier One Awakeners behind him, a rifle shot to the head or torso was still potentially fatal.