Mutual probing!

If things kept going like this, there was no telling how long the conversation would drag on.

"Brother, let's be entirely frank with each other. We fled from Hezhen and want to know if Jiangcheng is dangerous. Who put up that sign at the intersection back there?" The bearded man asked with a bitter smile.

In truth, Xue Feng knew nothing about Hezhen.

After all, having been reborn into this world, his previous memories contained no information regarding Hezhen.

He only knew that Hezhen was somewhere in the direction of Jiangcheng.

"Jiangcheng can be considered a relatively safe place. The city is currently undergoing the Homeland Project, which aims to wipe out all the zombies within the city limits. As for that sign, it was erected by the leader of Jiangcheng's largest base." Xue Feng spoke the truth.

He merely omitted a few crucial details.

For instance, the leader of that base was none other than himself.

"Why on earth did you guys flee from Hezhen? Is Hezhen that dangerous?" Xue Feng asked out of curiosity.

Could the entire town of Hezhen have been overrun by zombies?

Perhaps an even more powerful mutant creature had appeared.

He had resolved the zombie horde in Jiangcheng himself.

As for the crisis in neighboring Baicheng, Xue Feng had also stepped in and handled it.

Yet, if zombie hordes were erupting in other places as well, what would happen?

Xue Feng could not quite fathom the specific situation.

"We..." The bearded man started to speak.

Suddenly, he vomited a mouthful of blood, tinged with purplish spots.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

After coughing violently for a moment, someone beside him handed the bearded man some detoxification medicine.

The bearded man swallowed them all, yet his expression remained grim.

"You've been poisoned?" Xue Feng asked.

"That's right, and it's connected to that place in Hezhen. We only came looking for an antidote to see if it would do any good," someone nearby replied.

"It probably won't have any effect. This isn't your ordinary poison." The bearded man clutched his chest with a bitter smile.

Clearly, consuming those pills had not made the bearded man feel any better.

Then, the bearded man looked over at Xue Feng.

"Brother, do you know anything about the leader of the base here? Does he have any means of detoxifying us? We could negotiate with him." The bearded man seemed to have made up his mind about something.

"Who knows what kind of monster the leader here is!"

"Exactly, we've just escaped the wolf's den, we can't walk right into a tiger's lair!"

"We cannot allow ourselves to be controlled again."

The few people nearby grew anxious,

clearly objecting to the bearded man's approach.

"Are we just going to die like this then? No matter how terrifying other places might be, they can't possibly be worse than Hezhen." The bearded man offered a wry smile.

Hearing the bearded man say this, the others fell silent.

They were poisoned as well.

Since the medicines they had found so far were useless, what else could they do?

Right at that moment, Xue Feng took out several pills and tossed them toward the bearded man and his group.

"Take these universal antidotes. They will cure the poison," Xue Feng said.

These were rewards previously given to him by the system.

There had been fifty pills in total.

He had used two of them, and the rest had simply been resting in his spatial inventory, serving no purpose.

Now, he took them out and handed them to the bearded man and the others.

The bearded man caught the pills, his gaze filled with suspicion.

There were no markings whatsoever on the medication.

They were just ordinary capsules, and any normal person would doubt what such items were truly for.

"A universal antidote? Is there really such a thing?" Someone bluntly voiced their skepticism.

"Whether you take them or not is up to you." Xue Feng spread his hands.

The bearded man took a deep breath and swallowed one immediately.

"Don't do it, boss!"

"That's right, we don't even know who this kid is. What if this is poison?"

"We can't just trust this guy so easily!"

The others panicked at the sight and shouted in protest.

"I'm half-doubting it myself, but we don't have much of a choice right now. Since you were willing to follow me out of there, I have to take a gamble no matter what!" Determination filled the bearded man's eyes,

radiating the courage of someone facing death.

The others were deeply moved and tried to snatch the medicine from the bearded man's hands

so they could each take one.

It looked rather like a scene from a television drama where characters fought over who should consume the poison,

much like the characters in Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils that Xue Feng used to watch, where Yang Guo and Xiaolongnü vied to ingest the poison.

However, the bearded man remained calm, gripping the medicine tightly and refusing to hand it over.

If it truly turned out to be poison, wouldn't they all be finished together?

"Wait, I'm starting to feel much better."

Suddenly, the bearded man cried out in pleasant surprise.

Then, he tore open his clothes.

On his chest, there had been a dense patch of purple,

with even the skin turning a deep violet color.

Yet now, visibly to the naked eye, that patch of purple was beginning to fade away.

"Brother, what kind of medicine is this?" The bearded man looked at Xue Feng with intense excitement.

"A universal antidote. Didn't you hear me say that just now?" Xue Feng retorted.

"I never imagined it could cure even that bastard's poison! Are there any side effects to this medicine?" The bearded man couldn't help asking again.

This time, Xue Feng did not answer, merely shaking his head.

He didn't feel angry,

because if the bearded man hadn't trusted him to some extent, he wouldn't have swallowed the pill in the first place.

Right now, he was simply trying to ensure his safety.

Sure enough, upon receiving Xue Feng's silent confirmation, the bearded man handed the remaining pills to the others.

After swallowing them, the complexions of these individuals also improved visibly to the naked eye.

The other two men likewise checked their skin, seeing it return to normal as well.

The three women weren't as uninhibited in checking, but they undoubtedly felt better too.

"Many thanks, brother! You have no idea, this isn't ordinary poison; it's the power of an Awakened! He ruined our lives." The bearded man gnashed his teeth, his gaze filled with hatred.

He looked as though he wanted to hack that Awakened into a thousand pieces.

"It has to do with Hezhen, right? What on earth is going on over there? Why did you guys flee from Hezhen?" Xue Feng posed a series of questions.

At this, the bearded man and the others no longer held anything back.

Since Xue Feng had cured their poison, he was their savior.

The bearded man signaled the other two men to go search for food, while he sat down to talk things through properly with Xue Feng.

It all started with the outbreak of the apocalypse.

In the beginning, the bearded man had also been surviving entirely on his own.

"To be honest with you, brother, I am an Awakened. So when the apocalypse struck, I didn't encounter too much danger and managed to survive." The bearded man finally revealed that he was an Awakened.

After all, since Xue Feng had saved his life, there was nothing left to hide.

Although Hezhen was a small town, it still housed quite a few people—

at least tens of thousands—and the danger level was no lower than that of a city.

In fact, it was arguably even more dangerous.

When the apocalypse broke out, there had been a massive horde of zombies as well.

Moreover, buildings in small towns were generally low, mostly consisting of single-story houses,

which offered no defense whatsoever against the onslaught of zombies!