Volume One: The Apocalypse Descends Chapter 43: The Public Trial and the Camp System

The coins embedded in both his wrists continued to torment him with pain. Having already lost a considerable amount of blood, Wang Shuangjiang’s mind had grown hazy.

After Xiang Chengguang lifted him up, Wang Shuangjiang saw the three women opposite him—the same women he and Wang Defa had tormented over the past two days—staring at him with faces full of hatred. With every last shred of resistance gone, he confessed everything he had done since the apocalypse, spilling it all out without holding anything back.

Wangjiawan, like most rural villages in the inland regions, had suffered severe population loss. Almost everyone left in the village was elderly, along with a small number of middle-aged women who had stayed behind to care for their children.

Wang Shuangjiang was over forty and a widower. His wife had died of illness years ago, leaving him with a son.

He had scraped a living from the fields and occasionally taken on odd jobs in construction, managing to put his son through university. Now that his son had graduated and gone to seek his fortune in a major city, Wang Shuangjiang—who had never possessed much ambition—simply idled away his days in the countryside.

There was only one other man in all of Wangjiawan around his age: Wang Defa.

Although Wang Defa was gluttonous, lazy, idle, and good for nothing, and had even spent time in jail for theft when he was younger, making him despised by both people and dogs for miles around, Wang Shuangjiang had few friends to drink with. Since drinking was practically his only hobby, he ended up associating with Wang Defa.

Whenever his craving for alcohol struck, he would fry up a couple of simple dishes at home and call Wang Defa over for a long drinking session.

That evening, as usual, Wang Shuangjiang invited Wang Defa to his home for drinks. The two drank until they were completely drunk.

They were not awakened until the next morning, when the notification from the Apocalypse Survival System jolted them awake.

Still not fully sober, the two men spent a long time confirming the matter with each other before finally determining that the system was real, rather than a drunken hallucination.

Wang Defa, who enjoyed listening to audio novels, was not unfamiliar with concepts such as systems and apocalypses. He immediately began waving his arms and laughing wildly.

“The apocalypse is great! All the old rules are being reshuffled. The time has finally come for the two of us brothers to rise!”

His eyes gleaming, he looked at Wang Shuangjiang.

“Didn’t you train at that camp near our village a while back? You even bragged to me that you’d handled guns and fired at targets.

“That camp is usually deserted. It was fine before, but this is the apocalypse now! We’ll go over there, pry open the gates, and find the guns. I’ll take an AK, and I’ll get you a shotgun. We’ll build something big together and make a glorious future for ourselves!”

Wang Shuangjiang, who normally had little mind of his own, was roused by Wang Defa’s words. Hotheaded, he left with him and slipped into the militia training camp.

Wang Defa had once spent some time as a burglar specializing in picking locks and forcing doors. With Wang Shuangjiang, who knew the inside of the militia training camp, leading the way, the two actually managed to pry open the armory.

At the beginning of the apocalypse, monsters were still relatively sparse, and the open terrain of the countryside gave them an advantage. The two men really did manage to shoot and kill several monsters with the firearms.

After leveling up and feeling the obvious increase in their strength, the two became completely swollen with arrogance. In Wang Defa’s words, they were the chosen sons of Heaven.

Believing that their monster-slaying had saved the lives of everyone in Wangjiawan, the two demanded tribute from the villagers.

An old villager named Wang Fude led the resistance and angrily denounced them.

Wang Defa thought that before the apocalypse, he had suffered enough contempt from the villagers. Now that the apocalypse had arrived, if he still had to endure the disdain of this old man, then what was the point of the apocalypse coming at all?

Rage surged through him, and wickedness emboldened him. He shot Wang Fude dead on the spot.

After killing a man and seeing blood, Wang Defa showed not the slightest trace of remorse or fear. Instead, he completely unleashed the evil within him. Holding the gun on Wang Fude’s daughter-in-law, he forced himself upon her.

Wang Shuangjiang, who had been a widower for more than a decade, watched the entire thing. Driven by his own desires and encouraged by Wang Defa, he joined in the assault on Wang Fude’s daughter-in-law.

Pandora’s box had been opened. The two men became increasingly lawless. Not only did they forcibly seize large quantities of supplies from the villagers’ homes, they also abducted three women, including Wang Fude’s daughter-in-law, and brought them to the militia training camp for their own depraved amusement.

The members of the Migration Team listened to the account of how two ordinary villagers, Wang Shuangjiang and Wang Defa, had plunged into the abyss within just two or three days of the apocalypse and become demons capable of every kind of evil. They were filled with both lingering fear and relief.

Xiang Chengguang held up Wang Shuangjiang, who was already barely clinging to life after losing so much blood, and said, “The apocalypse has come, and the powerful institutions responsible for maintaining order have temporarily ceased to function. On top of that, the existence of the system may cause some people to believe that they are no longer ordinary human beings, but superhumans who can place themselves above others.

“But what I want to say is that, apart from the threat posed by creatures invading from another world, the essence of our lives has not changed.

“We still have to struggle tirelessly to survive. Survival is already difficult enough. I do not want terrible things happening among our own people as well.

“So, at least within our camp, our way of life and our order must remain the same as they were before the apocalypse. The only difference is that the violence used to maintain order has changed from an institution serving the collective into me personally.”

With that, he raised Wang Shuangjiang high into the air with one hand.

“Wang Shuangjiang, as a member of the militia, you conspired with another person to steal firearms from the camp and participated in a series of vicious crimes, including robbery, rape, and murder. I sentence you to death. The sentence will be carried out immediately.”

The instant he finished speaking, he swung his arm and threw Wang Shuangjiang away. Wang Shuangjiang crashed heavily onto Wang Defa’s corpse, and their heads struck each other with a crisp crack of splintering bone.

Xiang Chengguang continued, “Most of the people here are my elders. Many of you watched me grow up.

“Moreover, during the apocalypse, everyone was willing to place their trust in my family and embark with us on this uncertain migration. Along the way, we have faced life-and-death dangers together.

“I do not want a situation to arise in the future where I have to personally punish someone among you.

“That is all I have to say. From here on, I hope everyone will promptly discuss our camp’s future plans, arrangements, rules, and regulations.”

After saying this, beneath the solemn gazes of everyone present, the stern expression on Xiang Chengguang’s face faded.

“Mom, Xiaoxiao, let’s patrol the camp and see whether there are any spatial gaps inside it.”

At that moment, Xiang Chengguang was in an exceptionally good mood. If he had not been mindful of the occasion, he could hardly have stopped the corners of his mouth from curling upward.

That was because, just moments earlier, the notification from the Anti-Cliché System had sounded in his mind once again.

“Ding! The Order Builder mission has been completed. Please select and claim your reward from the mission panel.”

He would be able to obtain another new skill—and this time, unlike before, the skill would not be entirely determined by the system.

He would have a great deal of freedom to choose for himself, which filled Xiang Chengguang with anticipation for the mission reward.

But that could wait for now. The most important thing was to patrol the camp and determine whether any monsters were hiding within it.

At the same time, he needed to make use of He Wan’s spatial perception ability to see whether any spatial gaps existed inside the camp.

These matters concerned the safety and survival of the militia training camp and had to be confirmed immediately.

Yet throughout the patrol, Xiang Chengguang could not help drifting off into thought.

Which skill should he copy?

Ah, this really was a happy dilemma!