After eating and drinking to their heart’s content, there was naturally something important to announce. Zhang Su was just putting on a portable loudspeaker when he was pulled aside by Li Zongkai.

"Mr. Zhang, those eight brothers from before... they found me and said a lot, particularly regretting their impulsive actions earlier. What do you think?"

Before the meal, the eight people who chose to leave the Civilization Guardian collectively found Li Zongkai, expressed their remorse and apologies, and hoped to follow the Civilization Guardian and rejoin Celestial Horse Island.

"Yes, I almost forgot about them!"

Zhang Su patted his head. The statistics showed that those eight genuinely wished to join Celestial Horse Island, or rather, they longed for it. After all, in this northern part of Qin City, if they couldn’t join Celestial Horse Island, they’d have to go far away...

It was unlikely for eight people to start their own small faction; not to mention whether other people could tolerate it, there was basically no space for their survival.

"Those guys also fought hard in battle before. It looked like there wasn’t anything fundamentally wrong with them, but those eight are easily incited. Even if they come back, we shouldn’t put them together. We can distribute them, two to each family, and if they perform well, they can just be ordinary members."

Zhang Su didn’t want to delve into it much. As the population grew, he’d need to delegate some power to his subordinates, and Li Zongkai was the best candidate.

Li Zongkai gently nodded at Zhang Su’s words, saying, "Alright, then I’ll discuss with Director Liu and the others. But who should we contact at Survivor Alliance?"

"Survivor Alliance?" Zhang Su gave a half-smile and patted Li Zongkai’s shoulder, "Didn’t I say before?"

Having said that, Zhang Su left the restaurant, leaving Li Zongkai puzzled.

"Hey, hey, cough!"

Zhang Su stood at the second-floor window of Little Lucky, adjusting the microphone. Below, the small courtyard was crowded and packed, those who couldn’t stand inside stood at the courtyard gate, but everyone could hear.

"Brothers, I trust you all understand one thing: a dense population will attract zombie hordes. The more concentrated the population, the larger the zombie hordes attracted. The exact data isn’t clear, but it must be positively correlated. You might not have felt it inside the city before because outer Survivor Camps were blocking the disaster!"

Zhang Su spoke, preparing to subdue the four forces.

Everyone nodded somewhat understandingly. They indeed heard related talk, but not everyone believed it. Since King Yama mentioned it now, they’d just take it as true.

Zhang Su noticed some people were skeptical, so he shared some experiences from over three months in Qing County, along with the encounters of Cyan Dragon Corps. These events are worth warning everyone.

"King Yama..."

After hearing various cases, a diligent and timid member raised his hand slightly, "Can I ask a small question?"

Everyone looked at the speaker, an ordinary member from Apocalypse Corps.

Yang Xinqi rolled his eyes, knowing his subordinate well. This guy usually loved to ask questions. However, now there were so many people, it wasn’t his turn to speak, yet just as he was about to stop him, he heard Zhang Su nod.

"If it’s about zombies, go ahead."

"Well... I understand your talk about humans releasing a magnetic field attracting zombies, but where did the large number of zombies in the city go?"

Qin City, including its districts and counties, has an area of about 7,800 square kilometers, with a total population of slightly over three million. Among them, over one million live in the Haigang District, and the district covers only 700 square kilometers. Nine percent of the area holds over thirty-five percent of the population.

According to this proportion, the zombie density in urban areas would be very large, yet the current situation is that there isn’t a major zombie horde in the urban area.

"During the early disaster outbreak, we also drifted through the city for a while, saw huge zombie hordes pass through, moving in an unknown direction. I think... they certainly have their targets, but we’re not aware. There’s another point that can’t be ignored...

The city’s environment is complex; many zombies are trapped in enclosed spaces, not discovered. The proportion of those zombies should not be small. That’s all I can answer you; the situation with zombies is diverse and complex, with many places needing research."

Everyone nodded slightly after Zhang Su’s explanation. Currently, no one has thoroughly understood zombies; there are many unknown aspects.

"Continuing from my previous topic! To cope with zombies’ characteristics, our Celestial Horse Island adopts the method of dispersing the population with Satellite Villages. All these are for later discussion. Currently, the primary task is to complete personnel reintegration, which means taking back the news of merging our five forces, telling the brothers who aren’t aware yet!"

Zhang Su talked about merging, but everyone knew it actually meant their forces joining Celestial Horse Island.

Regarding this decision, Li Zongkai and several original leaders had no objections.

Yang Xinqi saw his subordinates dare to ask questions and also raised his hand, indicating he wanted to speak.

Zhang Su suppressed a smile, gesturing for Yang Xinqi to go ahead, "Director Yang, what do you want to say?"

"It’s like this, King Yama, I noticed Celestial Horse Island has apparent geographical advantages, with winding mountain roads making it easy to defend and hard to attack. With modifications, it could be transformed into an impregnable fortress. Can this development direction be considered?"

The mode of dispersed living is destined not to grow big; once the population reaches a certain scale, it’s easy to scatter. He feels gathering is more advantageous.

Zhang Su nodded, not denying Yang Xinqi’s proposal, saying, "I know Celestial Horse Island has the potential to develop into a large safe camp. Speaking broadly, it’s entirely possible to take Celestial Horse Island as the core, enclosing fields and building a new city-state from the adjacent areas. But there’s a premise...

It’s now bitterly cold, not the right time for grand-scale construction. We can use this winter to stabilize the situation, strengthen the military and populace, perfect the system, and start building walls and our steel stronghold when spring comes!"

"When that day truly comes, forget horde sizes of thirty thousand or fifty thousand zombies, even if it’s a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, we’ll be able to handle it. Furthermore, in this process, we won’t stop exterminating zombies. Thinking positively, survivors elsewhere are also tirelessly killing zombies; maybe by spring, the zombie threat will be negligible!"

It’s not Zhang Su painting a rosy picture but his genuine plan for the future. He doesn’t imply that once the zombie threat is removed, they can be carefree. Once external threats diminish, human internal conflicts will escalate.

Peace is a dream pursued by everyone, but this dream is bound not to be realized for a considerable time in the future. So long that it might span the entire lives of everyone present, perhaps peace won’t be seen in their lifetime.

Currently, it’s about competing for population, territory, and basic resources. Really arriving at a day of stability and peace, production resources will become coveted; all resources accelerating industrial recovery will be in hot demand.