"Yang Yong, there are thirteen hundred and forty-two people in the convoy. Fewer than six hundred can fight. The rest are elderly or children, and more than forty are injured."
He sighed, his voice coarse, like sandpaper scraping iron. "We're running low on food."
Yang Yong listened and grunted in acknowledgment.
"Head into the village first. Settle the elderly and children in those big houses in the middle. Combat personnel, secure the perimeter. Lao Zhang, handle the arrangements."
"Right." Lao Zhang turned to leave, then looked back after two steps. "Oh, that girl named Wang Jie has mentioned you eight hundred times along the way. Something about grain seeds..."
"Got it."
Yang Yong looked past Lao Zhang's shoulder toward the edge of the crowd.
A young girl stood there, clutching an old notebook with a faded strawberry sticker on its cover.
She was short and very thin, her oversized hoodie hanging on her like it was on a clothes hanger.
When she saw Yang Yong looking over, her whole body tensed. She hugged the notebook closer to her chest, her knuckles turning white.
A middle-aged woman beside her said something to her. Only then did she draw a deep breath and walk toward him.
She took tiny steps, as if walking on ice.
"Y-Yong, hello, Brother Yong. My name is Wang Jie."
She stopped in front of him. Her voice trembled a little at first, but suddenly steadied when she reached her field of expertise, as if she had found solid ground beneath her feet.
"I majored in crop cultivation and farming systems at university. Before the Apocalypse, I was in graduate school, researching crop adaptability in extreme environments. I heard you have Ideal Grain Seeds. I'd like to..."
"You want to plant them."
"Yes!" Her eyes lit up, the