Chapter 397: Chapter 387: The Plan

"It looks like the Commander has already found a way to deal with the Meat Dragons?" Tang Mo remarked. Everything inside the Yang Family Base seemed to be proceeding in an orderly fashion, with no sense of panic whatsoever.

"The Meat Dragons themselves aren’t hard to deal with. The problem is there are just too many of them. With only a few thousand of us, it’s useless."

For him, the Meat Dragons that so terrified ordinary people were a resource not to be wasted.

The troops’ Combat Power was already high, so when they went out, hunting Meat Dragons was the most cost-effective option.

And through actual combat experience, they discovered that although the Red-eyed Meat Dragons looked horrifying, their Strength and speed weren’t as formidable as people imagined.

Forget superpower users—even a strong, able-bodied person with a weapon could handle one or two of them without a problem.

It was just that the apocalypse had come on too fast, giving no one a chance to prepare. It was also a nationwide catastrophe, which instantly shattered humanity’s psychological defenses and left them without any thought of resistance.

In truth, people were only passive because they could still rely on their current food supplies. The day they truly ran out of everything, even the weakest among them would pick up a weapon to protect themselves.

"Then why not come up with a plan?" Tang Mo asked tentatively. After all, Commander Yang had already done an excellent job of making the base self-sufficient on his own. She wasn’t sure if he was willing to take on more.

"You have a plan?" Commander Yang leaned forward, the eager expression on his face already giving Tang Mo her answer.

"I have an idea. It might be worth a try."

On the way to the Yang Family Base, Tang Mo had given it a lot of thought and finally devised what seemed to be the most feasible plan.

"In all this time, every Meat Dragon we’ve seen has been roughly the same size. We haven’t seen any smaller ones, which suggests their population is fixed. I’ve also observed them and am fairly certain they have no reproductive capabilities."

Tang Mo summarized her observations for Commander Yang.

Commander Yang listened intently, nodding repeatedly. He too had captured quite a few Meat Dragons over the past months.

Aside from using them for food, they had also kept some for observation and had discovered long ago that the Meat Dragons had neither gender nor reproductive functions.

Commander Yang’s confirmation bolstered Tang Mo’s confidence in the rest of her plan, assuaging her fear that her judgment might have been mistaken.

"Since their numbers are fixed, the next step is much simpler. We just need to eliminate the finite population of Meat Dragons."

Everyone understood that in principle, but so far, no one had come up with a viable method.

Commander Yang remained silent, waiting to hear what the young woman before him would say next.

"Since you’ve already discovered a large, edible portion on the Meat Dragons, why don’t we make a public announcement? Anyone who hunts and kills a Meat Dragon—be it a Red-eyed Meat Dragon or one of the dopey, docile ones—can come to the Yang Family Base to exchange it for food. The food part will require some effort from you and your people, Commander. You’ll have to cook the fresh meat harvested from the Dragons before giving it to them. Just give them half; we’ll keep the other half for ourselves."

The streets are crawling with Meat Dragons right now. While hunting a Red-eyed Meat Dragon might be difficult, killing one of the dopey ones that’s already eaten its fill is something almost anyone can do, provided they can muster the courage.

It’s just a matter of whether people are willing to do it.

What the young woman before him said made a lot of sense; it was an angle Commander Yang had never considered.

In fact, not everyone at the base even knew that the meat they were eating came from Meat Dragons.

Commander Yang had tried broaching the subject with some ordinary civilians—a family member in the adjacent residential building—to gauge their reaction. To his surprise, the person threw up right after hearing the news and refused to eat anything afterward.

So, Commander Yang had given up on telling the public, limiting consumption to a small circle within his base.

But if they followed Tang Mo’s plan, getting the general public to hunt Meat Dragons really would kill three birds with one stone.

First, it would keep people from starving to death by giving them a food source.

Second, it would effectively reduce the number of Meat Dragons on the streets.

Third, his people wouldn’t be processing the meat for free. Taking half as a fee was perfectly reasonable. Commander Yang knew full well that even though only a part of a Meat Dragon was edible, that part was still a huge piece of meat. Half of it would be enough to feed one person for several days.

Commander Yang nodded repeatedly. "But how would we get them to bring the Meat Dragons to the base? Even if they kill the non-threatening ones, the journey here is still treacherous. How would they make it? Besides, people have been terrified of the Meat Dragons for so long. That fear won’t be easy to dispel overnight, will it?"

Commander Yang quickly raised two concerns. The first was the danger of the journey to the base. The second was the difficulty in getting people to suddenly muster the courage to start killing Meat Dragons.

Both were very real problems. If they couldn’t be solved, everything Tang Mo had proposed would remain pure speculation, impossible to implement.

"I’ve thought about both of those problems. The first one is easy to solve. Just tell everyone that you only accept the torso of the Meat Dragon for its hide, which you’ll use to make weapons and fortifications. You don’t take the head or limbs. They can use the meat from the head and limbs as bait to ensure a safe journey here."

Meat Dragons were cannibals, but as Tang Mo had observed, they didn’t attack their living counterparts.

But in the eyes of a Red-eyed Meat Dragon, a dead one was just another piece of meat.

"Besides, that saves you the trouble of disposal. Getting rid of all that waste would be a hassle, after all."

"As for the second problem—people’s ingrained fear—you’re right that it can’t be reversed overnight. But all you need to do is give them a catalyst."

"What is this catalyst? And how do we create it?"

Commander Yang was completely captivated. ’This young woman is like a goddess,’ he thought. ’It seems like she has a solution for any problem.’

Eliminating the world’s Meat Dragons was something Commander Yang had only ever dreamed of. But today, after listening to this young woman, he felt for the first time that it wasn’t just some impossible fantasy. The blood in his veins began to pump with excitement, as if he were back in his twenties, full of unstoppable drive.

"That catalyst... I’ll take care of it."

Tang Mo smiled. Her calm and composed expression inexplicably inspired a sense of trust in Commander Yang.

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