Starry City.

Streaks of white light descended.

Long Ming and the others instantly appeared inside Starry City.

"Haha, we successfully evacuated!"

"We won!"

...

Johnny and the others hugged each other, cheering and crying with joy.

"We really have Long Ming to thank for getting out of there alive this time!"

"Yeah, where is Long Ming?"

"Over here."

...

Cloud Fish and the others excitedly gathered around Long Ming.

"Long Ming, you’re just too amazing!"

"Yeah, so damn badass!

...

"Just got lucky."

A slight smile appeared on Long Ming’s face. ’Good thing I made it in the nick of time.’

"Bro, don’t be so humble! When you were fighting that monster at the end, you looked totally badass!"

Johnny handed Long Ming’s backpack back to him.

"By the way, what about that monster?"

Cloud Fish and the others asked curiously.

"Oh, I shook her off!"

Long Ming didn’t dare tell them he had actually killed it, lest he scare them.

"I see. We really owe you for this one."

Xiaoqi immediately thanked Long Ming.

"No need to thank me, I was just doing my part. Here’s this run’s earnings."

Long Ming handed all four backpacks he was holding to Xiaoqi.

"Why so many backpacks?"

Xiaoqi was surprised to see Long Ming hand over so many.

"Picked them up along the way."

Long Ming explained nonchalantly.

Hearing this, Xiaoqi opened the backpacks to take a look. When she got to the third one, she was stunned by its contents.

"Long Ming, come with me for a moment."

Xiaoqi took his arm and pulled him aside.

Long Ming looked at Xiaoqi with confusion and asked,

"What’s wrong?"

"You got a red drop?"

Xiaoqi said, looking at a round, alloy ring inside the backpack.

"Yeah."

Long Ming nodded calmly.

In truth, he had stripped this alloy ring from Lula’s hand. He had also picked up all the other valuable items from the other backpacks.

Xiaoqi then lowered her voice and said to Long Ming,

"Why are you being so honest? We only managed to escape because of you. Otherwise, we would have been completely wiped out. You don’t have to turn in so much stuff. Just hand over a little."

"I know, but rules are rules. You can’t get anything done without them."

Long Ming replied, unconcerned.

Hearing Long Ming’s words, Xiaoqi felt even more surprised. ’To think there’s still someone with such strong principles in this day and age.’ But she still replied with a smile.

"Alright. Since you say rules are rules, then as the commander of the Rat Group for this operation, do I have the right to decide how to distribute the loot?"

"You do."

Long Ming nodded after hearing her out.

"Then I’ve decided. You only need to turn in these two backpacks. The rest are yours!"

Xiaoqi only took two of the backpacks, returning the one with the "red drop" to Long Ming.

Seeing Xiaoqi insist, Long Ming accepted it without another word.

Just then, Tang Ye and the other Rat Group members who had died ran over, shouting,

"Sister Qi!"

Seeing Tang Ye and the others, Xiaoqi walked over to ask them a question.

"Has Sister Mira made it out?"

"Not yet, but the combat team members who died are over there."

Tang Ye and his group pointed to a spot not far away.

"Let’s go, we’ll wait over there."

Xiaoqi turned her head and, upon seeing Cao Jie and his group, led Long Ming and the others over.

When Cao Jie saw Xiaoqi’s group approaching, he immediately came forward and asked with concern,

"Xiaoqi, are you okay?"

"I’m fine. We evacuated safely."

Xiaoqi replied calmly.

"Evacuated safely? How did you manage that?"

Cao Jie and the others were dumbfounded. They couldn’t imagine how Xiaoqi’s team could have escaped from that other group.

"That’s right. It’s all thanks to Mr. Long Ming. Otherwise, we would have all died in there."

Cloud Fish said excitedly.

"That’s right!"

"Mr. Long Ming’s skills are incredible!"

...

Johnny and the others chimed in with excitement.

Hearing this, Cao Jie shot a somewhat unnatural glance at Long Ming.

Long Ming simply stood there calmly, saying nothing. He just raised his wristband to check his status.

Name: Civilization Explorer No. 841221 (Rename)

Race: Carbon-based Human

Genetic Level: Level 0

Profession: None

Power: 6 points

Agility: 7 points

Physical Strength: 6 points

Intelligence: 6 points

Long Ming was quite astonished as he looked at his displayed status.

His infected/mutated status had vanished. However, his Power, Agility, and Physical Strength had each increased by one point. This was a huge gain.

Although Long Ming didn’t know why he hadn’t died after his zombification but had instead grown stronger, he had begun to notice a pattern. To become stronger, he had to constantly push past his own limits.

Perhaps this was what they called growth.

...

「A little over three hours later.」

The other scattered combat personnel and members of the Rat Group emerged one after another.

Just then, Mira also evacuated with over thirty people, looking completely disheveled.

Xiaoqi quickly walked up to her and said with concern,

"Sister Mira, you’re finally out safely."

"Sigh, we got out, but we lost more than half our people."

The expression on Mira’s face was dejected.

The atmosphere at the scene instantly grew heavy. Cao Jie and the others started cursing up a storm.

"Our luck was the absolute worst! First, we ran into a zombie horde, then we ran into that bunch of assholes!"

"Let’s not talk about that now. First, let’s tally the losses and gains."

Mira was also grinding her teeth in hatred.

"Okay."

Cao Jie and the others immediately began to tally the losses and gains.

Xiaoqi also shouted to Johnny and the other members who had successfully evacuated,

"Everyone, trade me all your evacuation recordings and items!"

"Yeah, okay."

Johnny and the others then handed over their backpacks and recordings.

A short while later, the earnings turned in by the Rat Group were all tallied.

Xiaoqi then walked up to Mira.

"Sister Mira, our side is tallied. How about yours?"

"It’s tallied. We’re at a loss of 9.8 million one-dimensional coins."

"The losses are that heavy?"

"Yeah. Too many people died, and we lost a huge amount of gear and weapons."

"It’s okay. Our side has a total profit of 11.21 million. So, all things considered, we didn’t lose money on this run. We even made a small profit."

"That much profit? How many of you escaped?"

"Over thirty from the main group, and over twenty scattered members. It’s a shame, though. If we hadn’t run into that other group, we could have made a huge profit. Now it’s just a small one."

"I’m not letting this go. I’ll get even with that group later! The only headache right now is that I have no idea how to explain this to Luoxue. I’ll probably have to schedule another run."

Mira’s face was flushed with anger.

"There’s nothing to be done about that."

Xiaoqi was also quite helpless.

"You’ve worked hard. Let’s call it a day."

Mira said to Xiaoqi.

Xiaoqi nodded, then shouted to all the waiting members of the Rat Group,

"Today’s mission is over! Everyone can log off now."

"Alright!"

The crowd replied in unison.

Long Ming also raised his wristband, preparing to log out of the game.

Just then, Xiaoqi called out to Long Ming,

"Mr. Long Ming, wait a moment."

"What is it?"

Long Ming looked at Xiaoqi, puzzled.