But people are truly greedy creatures; his thoughts now are completely different from back then.
At that time, he only hoped to learn something from Xu Nuo, get along well with him, increase his favorability, so that in times of crisis, Xu Nuo would help him out of respect. That would have been more than enough.
However, as Xu Nuo made concessions for him step by step, he realized that his greed far exceeded what he initially thought.
He now actually hopes to stay with Xu Nuo, or rather, to stay with him for the long term. It's not just because Xu Nuo is a powerful ally, making life easy and worry-free with him around.
Rather, unknowingly, Xu Nuo has become his emotional and spiritual support. With Xu Nuo by his side, he feels like he doesn't need to fear anything.
With him, he's slowly forgotten the betrayal from his past life, allowing him to focus on moving forward wholeheartedly, even with his seemingly inadequate support-type ability. He feels hopeful about the future and believes he won't end up as miserably as he did in his last life.
He had never voiced these feelings to Xu Nuo before, so asking such a question now even surprised himself.
He watched Xu Nuo, his heart beating fast, waiting for an answer. But seeing Xu Nuo's silence, he eventually swallowed hard and turned away as if he had never asked.
What he didn't expect was that after a long while, when he thought Xu Nuo definitely wouldn't answer, Xu Nuo suddenly said, "At least for now, I haven't grown tired of you, and I've promised to teach you Daoist techniques.
Moreover, I don't think someone who strives to make themselves stronger would give up so easily like those people. Therefore, I think I won't abandon you."
Park Su understood that for Xu Nuo, this might be the highest form of praise. In essence, as long as he kept striving and didn't give up on himself, Xu Nuo wouldn't easily abandon him.
Thinking about this, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but curl up, "Yeah, I won't easily give up on myself anymore, even if my ability's attack power isn't enough, I'll keep training to make myself not so useless." So, you'd better stay by my side all the time. Of course, he only dared to think this last part; he was too embarrassed to say it out loud.
Xu Nuo, naturally unaware of Park Su's inner thoughts, just heard him say this, patted his head lightly, and gave a hum of affirmation, "Not only will you become useful, but you'll soon find that your ability isn't as bad as you think."
With that touch and those words from Xu Nuo, Park Su felt his heart beat faster. He swallowed hard, hummed in acknowledgment, and turned his head to look at Zuo Xiong and his group in the encirclement to distract himself.
Xu Nuo also shifted his attention to those people, watching the situation over there, and suddenly sighed, "I really don't want to save them."
Park Su was taken aback by his words and turned to look at Xu Nuo, "What do you mean by that? You're not thinking about rushing in to save them, are you? Didn't you tell me not to go save them before? Why are you thinking about saving them now?"
Xu Nuo sighed again, "For me to step in and save them, that's definitely not feasible. First, these people are too much of a liability. If I save them, what if they cling to me? Dealing with so many people is just trouble.
Second, I'm not one to repay evil with good; I really don't want to save people who tried to kill us yesterday.
The reason I set up a backup plan in the formation was because I thought you wouldn't bear to see such a scene, so I did it.
Had I known you could be this ruthless and not care about them, I wouldn't have bothered. So now, the question is, should I activate this backup plan to kill some of the zombies, giving them a chance to escape, only to gain a bunch of enemies?"
Park Su gave a wry smile; he felt that when Xu Nuo said this, there was a hint of grievance in his tone. The atmosphere seemed a bit off, Master! And this sounded like a probe, was he treating him like an idiot?
But from what Xu Nuo said, the reason he made this backup plan was entirely because he was concerned about his feelings, which made Park Su feel a bit sweet inside. He hadn't expected Xu Nuo to care so much about his thoughts.
Then he looked at the situation over there again and said, "No matter what your backup plan is, I don't want to give any advantage to Zuo Xiong and his group. If these people survive, they'll definitely blame all this on us.
Why should we take the blame and still have to save them?
Moreover, if we save them right in front of them, they'll definitely latch onto us, using the same excuse from yesterday to bind us. Even if we use your formation to save them without them seeing, he'll take all the credit for himself and blame all the reasons for the encirclement on us.
Since all the blame goes to us and all the credit to them, why should I save him? After all, I'm not a saint, I can't do that. As for these ordinary people, I initially thought there was no harm in saving them, but like you said, they're not my responsibility, and they haven't paid me protection fees.
The protection fees were given to Zuo Xiong, so he should be the one obligated to save them. If he's not saving them, why should I? Not to mention, with how unclear their thinking is, I'm afraid I might end up being dragged down to death while trying to save them.
So, even if we really want to save them, it should be when Zuo Xiong has completely disappointed them. I think when they reach the depths of despair, someone might finally wake up and start to fight back."
"Let's intervene then, when they've lost all hope. If we went to save them now, they'd probably complain we took too long, which would be frustrating, right?"
Hearing him say this, Xu Nuo flicked his forehead. "Not bad, you've grown up. You don't feel sorry for them anymore!" Park Su touched the spot where he was flicked, feeling a strange sensation in his heart, and casually said, "I feel more sorry for you; if you were wrongly accused by them, that would be even more frustrating."
After realizing what he had just said, Park Su gasped, "D*mn, why does that sound so ambiguous?"
He quickly turned to look at Xu Nuo, only to see his fox-like eyes looking at him with a smile, which made Park Su's heart beat faster and his face flush, so he turned away, no longer looking at him.
He focused all his attention on Zuo Xiong and his group, then, thinking something was off, he asked, "Were you testing me with what you just did?"
Xu Nuo didn't deny it and nodded directly, "Yes, I was afraid you'd keep doing stupid things, so I tested you to see if you've learned anything after all I've said and after showing you this scene. Looks like it was effective. Keep it up."
Park Su was speechless, choked by his words, and turned away, no longer engaging with him.
As for Zuo Xiong and his group, they had finally decided to break through and escape. As for the ordinary people behind them, he had no intention of managing them in the first place, and even less so now.
Of course, facing so many zombies, just him and Zhu Xianhou couldn't escape safely, so while fighting, he conveyed his thoughts to Zhu Xianhou and the nearby ability users.
Most importantly, he made it clear that they weren't unwilling to save people, but with so many zombies around and more coming, and being dragged down by those behind them, at this rate, no one would get out.
If they left first, when the zombies dispersed, there might still be a chance to save a few more people.
Even if they couldn't come back to save anyone, at least they could save some while ensuring their own survival, which would be considered doing their utmost for these ordinary people.
Among the ability users, there were many who were already tired from fighting.
Even those who initially wanted to save people were getting annoyed by the constant dragging from behind. Considering they had saved quite a few people already, and the reasoning was sound, they agreed to Zuo Xiong's plan.
Soon, the ten of them formed a small phalanx, no longer caring about the ordinary people being attacked, focusing solely on breaking out in one direction.
Although they weren't as fast at killing zombies as Park Su and Xu Nuo, with their numbers, they weren't slow either. In just fifteen minutes, they managed to carve out an escape path.
Once out of the zombie encirclement, they ran without looking back, showing no intention of returning to save anyone as they had claimed.
Some of the smarter ordinary people, seeing their actions, realized they were about to break out and escape, so they followed closely, and a group of them managed to escape with them.
However, more people were still trapped in the middle of the zombies. Seeing the ability users and their companions leave without looking back, they screamed and cried out in even greater despair.
Xu Nuo, seeing this scene, sighed, "How about it? Should we act now? I'm afraid if we wait any longer, there won't be any living people left in this encirclement. I don't mind, but do you really want to keep watching?"
Park Su, seeing Zuo Xiong leave without looking back, nodded, "Go ahead. The zombies here have already been reduced by almost half by them; dealing with the other half won't be hard. As for whether they can escape on their own, that's up to them. I'm not set on saving them; I just think it's a waste to let so many zombie cores go to waste. You know, I used up all the cores I collected for my breakthrough yesterday. And didn't you say you're preparing for a breakthrough too? It's good for us to stock up on more cores."