Chapter 29: Chapter 29: "Publicize" the Village Head’s Achievements?

To confirm this, Song Yinghe endured the unfriendly stares and deliberately asked around, subtly inquiring about various village matters over the years.

By the time she returned to the treehouse, the expression on her face said it all.

"That damn Liu Yaozu!" Song Yinghe plopped down onto the rattan chair. "Do you know why Liu Dali is so popular in the village? The villagers say he uses some of his money every year to build infrastructure for the village, including things like streetlights!"

She scoffed, "I had no idea Liu Dali was so generous! And that Liu Yaozu, letting Liu Dali take all the credit for his good deeds. He probably figured no one would believe him if he claimed to be so charitable on his own income."

But there must be some kind of shady deal between those two. Otherwise, why would the village chief be so generous? And why would he protect Liu Dali like that?

Chi Yuanshan suddenly sighed. "I gave them too much credit."

He’d been on friendly terms with Liu Dali in the past, and the village chief had been very supportive of him planting fruit trees in the village, which gave him the wrong impression.

But Chi Wan shook her head, a mischievous grin on her face. "It’s not too late to find out now. The village chief wants to take over the experimental base for his own career achievements. In that case, let’s just give him a *big* achievement. Dad, where are the receipts from when you donated money to the village?"

Hearing Chi Wan’s words, Song Yinghe’s eyes lit up. She playfully slapped Chi Yuanshan. "I told you before to be more careful, but you wouldn’t listen. You’re not even as smart as our daughter. Good thing your dad’s donation was made through a public account. We were thinking about legal tax deductions at the time, so it’ll be easy to look up the records."

Chi Wan was relieved. "Then we can ’publicize’ the village chief’s ’grand achievements’ in developing the village, and Liu Dali’s family along with it. I hope they were good and spent all the money where it was needed most..."

*

While Chi Wan was eagerly preparing to catch the village chief red-handed, Li Xingye’s team finally completed the first device powered by a Crystal Core.

Although it was just a small stove, everyone involved was incredibly excited.

"Boss, I can’t believe it actually works!" Qiangzi’s eyes shone as he stared at the flame burning on the stovetop. "If we can turn this into a weapon, even normal people would have some way to protect themselves!"

Lin Wei, who was standing nearby, nodded eagerly at Qiangzi’s words. He was so invested in this project because after the nightmare of almost being eaten, he hoped to find more ways to protect his wife and daughter.

But his mood quickly soured. "Unfortunately, my superpower is still too low-level. This is all I can manage. As for weapons, we’ll have to rely on that person from Frenzy Base."

Li Xingye smiled and handed a backpack to Lin Wei. "I know. I’ll figure something out. You’ve all worked hard. Take these Crystal Cores. Leave the low-level ones for research, and you, Sister Zhang, and the others can split the ones that are Fourth Rank and above. The base’s future construction depends on you all, so you should focus on improving your strength, too."

Lin Wei took the backpack, his hands trembling slightly with excitement. Of course he wanted to improve his strength, but the scarcity of food had kept them from taking too many risks. After all, Crystal Cores only increased one’s power, they didn’t fill one’s stomach.

But now, with Li Xingye around, food was no longer a worry, so improving their strength had naturally become a top priority.

"Leader, we’ll also start going out regularly to hunt zombies and improve our strength on our own," Lin Wei said seriously. "Once my superpower is a little stronger, I might be able to create even more useful Crystal Core Devices."

Li Xingye nodded. "I’ll leave it to you, then."

The moment Lin Wei left, Cheng Peng spoke up anxiously, "Something’s not right, Brother Ye. What if Frenzy has already made Crystal Core weapons? Then we..."

Cheng Peng didn’t finish his sentence, but everyone understood what he meant.

Frenzy hadn’t made any moves on them before because Li Xingye was there to keep them in check. They wouldn’t dare to act rashly until they had figured out the true extent of his power.

But the last time, when Ding Yao instigated Wildfire Base to cause trouble, it was likely a signal.

But not only did Li Xingye not die out there, he returned with supplies. The first thing he did upon his return was to wipe out Wildfire Base.

Perhaps because Wildfire Base had seemed so laughably weak against Li Xingye’s combat strength, no one had been foolish enough to provoke them yet, even though everyone knew their base had acquired a large batch of new supplies.

"But they’ve been awfully quiet lately. It doesn’t look like they have any intention of avenging Wildfire Base," Haozi sneered. "I haven’t forgotten what that bastard Ding Yao did. If it weren’t for him, Lao Qi wouldn’t have died."

Li Xingye didn’t say anything, simply asking Cheng Peng, "Have you sensed Ding Yao’s presence outside the base recently?"

Cheng Peng’s superpower allowed him to remember the scent profile of anyone he came into contact with, and his range was large enough to cover a radius of about 100 meters around the base.

He shook his head. "Ding Yao probably knows my superpower’s range, so he hasn’t come near the base. But Brother Ye, that reminds me of something I’m curious about. He never came to the base back then, and he wasn’t following us, so how was he so sure we’d run into trouble out there?"

Haozi scoffed, "What if he just wanted Wildfire Base to test the waters? Even if the attempt failed, Wildfire Base would be the one to suffer the consequences, not him."

What Haozi said made sense, but Li Xingye still felt something was off.

It was just a keen intuition, the kind a High-level Superpower User possesses. He had a feeling that Ding Yao might have other motives. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

But it didn’t matter.

For Li Xingye, the only reason he hadn’t killed Ding Yao before was that he didn’t want to waste the energy.

Since they were so eager to find out how strong he was, he might as well pay them a visit and let them study him up close.

A slight smile touched the corners of Li Xingye’s lips. "Qiangzi, you guys get ready. In a couple of days, we’re going to go ’exchange pointers’ with Frenzy Base."

Qiangzi didn’t understand all the subtleties and scheming, but he was very familiar with this turn of phrase from Li Xingye!

"What’s there to prepare? We can leave right now!"

Haozi rolled his eyes. "Leave for what? Brother Ye hasn’t even finished putting the kitchen together yet."

Qiangzi scratched his head and grinned. "Hehe, of course, the Space God’s business is the most important."

As he spoke, he threw an arm over Li Xingye’s shoulder and said seriously, "Boss, you said the Space God helps us so much, we should repay her somehow. Just giving her worthless gold and jewels doesn’t show our sincerity."

Li Xingye shot him a sideways glance and said with a straight face, "You’re right. I’ve seen old customs where they’d sacrifice a pig’s head to a deity. Maybe we should..."

Qiangzi felt a chill run down his spine from Li Xingye’s gaze. He instantly backed away and laughed nervously. "Don’t scare the little lady. Well, you seem busy, big brother, I’ll go see if Qianqian and the others need help..."

Li Xingye laughed and cursed good-naturedly. Then, remembering he hadn’t checked the space today, he took a look inside.

What he saw gave him a shock.