Chapter 1048 - Diplomacy Before Violence (1/2)

Ren Xiaosu still had a lot of potatoes in his possession, but he did not let the refugees have them. It was not that he did not have any compassion but that he could only lead them to the Prosperous Northwest if they remained hungry.

When was a person most irrational? Was it when they were experiencing complete starvation? No.

Rather, it was when a person was completely starving and realized they were about to have something to eat.

Ren Xiaosu felt from the bottom of his heart that the Zhou Consortium did not care whether these people lived or died. The Wang Consortium also treated them as a weapon, and the Qing Consortium could not take them away either. Therefore, the only way for the refugees to survive was to head to the Prosperous Northwest.

He would not let these people starve to death. Once the steam locomotive arrived in the Northwest with them, Ren Xiaosu would immediately distribute potatoes for everyone to eat.

At that time, not only would he have saved their lives, but he would also earn a lot of gratitude tokens.

His gratitude tokens had already broken past the 8,000 mark, and he was only a step away from unlocking the third weapon. Ren Xiaosu felt that with his life-saving efforts this time, he could earn one gratitude token per refugee rescued at the minimum.

Meanwhile, there were several hundred thousand refugees in the vicinity of the Zhou Consortium, so he should at least be able to lead a 100,000 of them to the Prosperous Northwest, right?

With a 100,000 gratitude tokens, he might even be able to unlock the fourth weapon!

Thinking of this, Ren Xiaosu started looking at the refugees with a burning gaze.

However, when the refugees heard they needed to follow Ren Xiaosu, they started hesitating. After all, this chaotic world was fraught with danger. Any normal person would instinctively consider if there were a plot behind Ren Xiaosu giving them the potatoes and offering to bring them elsewhere.

”Where do you want to take us? Is it far?” a young man asked hesitantly.

Ren Xiaosu grinned. ”It's not far; it's at most a day's journey.”

Everyone figured that if they could get there within a day, it should at most be 70 to 80 kilometers away, right? After all, they could not walk fast in their current condition.

But what they did not know was that when Ren Xiaosu said they could get there within a day, he meant they would be traveling in the steam locomotive. The Zhou Consortium was more than 2,000 kilometers away from Stronghold 144 in a straight line, so even traveling by steam locomotive would take them 23 hours to get there.

To be honest, it would be unrealistic to expect they could return to the Central Plains by themselves after they were brought to the Northwest. It could even be said there was absolutely no turning back.

At this moment, Ren Xiaosu said, ”There's thousands of you here. Even if you want to leave midway, you can just return anytime. How can we stop everyone with just the two of us?”

Now he needed to coax these people onto the steam locomotive. When the steam locomotive started moving at a speed of 120 kilometers per hour, Ren Xiaosu did not believe anyone would have the courage to jump off the train.

If they really had the courage, they would not have stayed here and starved themselves to this state.

The refugees looked at one another. They were still very worried that Ren Xiaosu was a human trafficker who would kidnap them to sell to bandits.

Everyone was making wild guesses about his identity. In short, they felt that Ren Xiaosu and the Great Hoodwinker's motives were not honest.