Chapter 649: Chapter 649: Laborers

"The medicinal fields cover hundreds of acres. We can’t use machines to dig, and with just us, who knows how long that would take. I think Evelyn Ford’s idea is a good one." Officer Graham voiced his opinion for the first time, and everyone else agreed.

Seeing that everyone agreed with the plan, Evelyn Ford smiled. "Liam Sterling, I’ll have to ask you to handle this."

Liam Sterling nodded. "No problem. I’ll go find Mr. Chase. The base captured a group of people recently. They were trying to form a gang, promoting extremism, and undermining the base’s unity. Mr. Chase was going to have them all shot. This is perfect. We’ll take them in and make them work to the bone."

Liam Sterling wasted no time. After Ronan Kendrick saw him out, he went straight to the base’s main building—though it was less a ’building’ and more a squat, two-story, red-brick house. Liam Sterling found Rhys Chase and explained the labor shortage for harvesting the medicinal herbs. Without any nonsense, Rhys Chase immediately ordered his assistant to have the fifty captured prisoners brought over and locked in the warehouse.

At ten o’clock that night, Ronan Kendrick and Liam Sterling went to the warehouse to collect the prisoners. Once they were all moved into the space, Evelyn Ford fed them Obedience Pills.

Evelyn Ford took out a whistle and blew it three times. The prisoners slowly woke up to see several people standing before them with guns. Just then, a sharp pain erupted in their lower abdomens. Within moments, everyone was on the ground, howling and writhing in agony. Seeing them in so much pain they were spitting up blood, Evelyn Ford raised an eyebrow in satisfaction.

"Who are you? Where is this? What did you give us, you bitch! Give me the antidote, or I’ll make you regret it!" Among the prisoners was a bald man. He was curled up on the ground, convulsing, but his eyes were fixed on Evelyn Ford with a venomous glare as he kept shouting threats.

Evelyn Ford uncoiled her whip, walked up to the bald man, and lashed him viciously across the back.

The bald man howled in pain, rolling back and forth on the ground while still cursing Evelyn Ford.

"You damn bitch! You worthless slut, you dare hit me? I’ll skin you alive!"

Evelyn Ford lashed him again, this time using her full strength.

Except for Taylor Vance, Zion Lowell, Zoe, and Annie, everyone else stood behind Evelyn Ford, each holding a rifle. Rhys Chase had said these people were slated for execution anyway, so they could do with them as they pleased.

"Aargh... Stop hitting me! It hurts! Aaargh..."

The bald man’s back was already a bloody ruin, the skin flayed open. The other prisoners watched, trembling in fear.

Evelyn Ford sneered. She walked before the crowd and said, slowly and deliberately, "This is the base’s farm. Because you promoted extremist ideologies at the base and attempted to undermine its unity, you were all sentenced to death. However, the base is willing to show mercy and spare your lives, provided you are willing to reform through labor. I have just fed you Obedience Pills. As long as you follow orders, the pills will remain dormant. Conversely, if you try to escape or cause trouble, the pills will activate a second time, and you will bleed from all seven orifices and die as your body rots away."

Evelyn Ford produced a bottle. "The painkillers are here. Anyone who chooses to follow orders, step forward. Anyone who refuses will be executed on the spot."

The moment Evelyn Ford finished speaking, the prisoners, enduring the intense pain, scrambled and crawled their way forward.

The bald man, whipped to within an inch of his life by Evelyn Ford, also crawled over, his legs still trembling. ’They hadn’t even been tortured when the base captured them. He never expected this frail-looking woman to be so brutal she didn’t even blink while beating someone.’

"Quincy, distribute the medicine to them. There are fifty men. Ethan Dawson, Miles Vaughn, Quincy, Peter Owens, Mr. Graham—each of you take ten. Get them to the medicinal fields to start working immediately. Anyone caught slacking off is to be executed on the spot. Anyone who causes trouble, execute them."

The word "execute" sounded as casual as talking about a meal coming from Evelyn Ford’s lips. The prisoners snatched the medicine and quickly swallowed it. In less than ten seconds, the excruciating pain vanished completely. One man’s eyes darted around. He lunged, intending to grab Evelyn Ford and take her hostage, but before he could even touch her, Ronan Kendrick shot him dead with a single bullet.

The others trembled violently in fear. The more timid ones dropped to their knees and began begging for their lives.

Evelyn Ford kicked the dead prisoner’s body aside, her gaze cold as she scanned the crowd.

"He didn’t know his place."

Ethan Dawson and the others stepped forward, each picked out ten men, and led them directly to the medicinal fields to work. Even the bald man was dragged away by Quincy, leaving behind only a trail of blood and a spreading puddle of urine on the ground.

Evelyn Ford frowned, picked up the dead man, and threw him into a large iron drum nearby. Ronan Kendrick returned from the lab with a bucket of Corpse-Dissolving Fluid and poured it over the body. The fluid went to work, and a thick smoke billowed up. Half an hour later, only a few bones remained in the drum, too dense to be corroded.

The prisoners watched this from a distance, so terrified they were pissing themselves.

With the addition of these forty-nine laborers, the hundreds of acres of medicinal fields could probably be harvested in no time.

The laborers had to work sixteen hours a day. Several tents were pitched next to the medicinal fields, with four men to a tent. ’Though they’re laborers, I can’t exploit them too excessively. I’m still counting on them to continue farming later on,’ Evelyn thought.

Ethan Dawson and Miles Vaughn stayed near the laborers’ tents to supervise. At first, everyone was relatively obedient. But after a week, some started getting lazy. Others tried to escape, and even attempted to snatch Ethan Dawson’s and Miles Vaughn’s guns.

Neither of the two men was soft-hearted. Evelyn Ford had told them that if anyone tried to cause trouble, they were to be executed immediately, no report necessary. After they executed five men in a row, the remaining laborers were truly terrified and finally gave up on their schemes.

After all, being alive meant a hot meal. Death was just a bullet to the head, followed by being tossed into the corpse-dissolving drum to have all traces of you erased.

This place was bizarre. There was no sun during the day, no blue sky, just a vast expanse of white overhead. At night, there were no moon or stars. It was as if they were locked away in some unknown place, unable to leave without permission.

Furthermore, whenever they even thought about escaping or resisting, a sharp pain would pierce their abdomens, as if they had been afflicted with some kind of debilitating curse.

Evelyn Ford wasn’t worried about these laborers. They were in no position to stir up any real trouble. After a few troublemakers had been executed in front of them, they were pretty much suppressed. She figured that after a little more time, they wouldn’t even need to be supervised anymore.

Evelyn Ford made her rounds at the maternity medical tent every day. Iris Miller had reached her due date and wanted Evelyn to deliver her baby, but Evelyn had been busy lately. So, she asked Dr. Turner to help deliver Iris’s baby if she wasn’t available. Dr. Turner readily agreed.

Another month passed. Half of the medicinal fields in the space had been harvested. The soil in the cotton fields had been tilled, and once the plots were marked out, the seeds could be sown.

The base needed some medicinal herbs recently, so Ronan Kendrick and Liam Sterling made a delivery. The patients who had been taken to the grassland were separated by gender and placed in isolation.

Meanwhile, there was bad news from the orphanage: the child who had been sent there had passed away.

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