Before this.
Inside the Prison.
Rick slowly raised his hand and caressed Lori's abdomen, which was now considerably swollen.
"Oh!"
Rick moved his hand away from Lori's abdomen, feigning surprise.
"He/She's kicking me."
"Yes, he/she can feel you now."
Lori tried to put Rick's hand back on her, but Rick dodged her.
Under Lori's puzzled gaze, Rick pulled out a mini Q-shaped piece of fabric from under the pillow behind him. Looking closely, it was actually a onesie.
Lori showed a knowing smile, and the atmosphere between them was extremely harmonious.
Until a head suddenly poked in from the doorway, Carl's face revealing a similar charm to his father's.
"Dad, Michonne warned us, maybe you should come and see."
Rick chuckled: "Perhaps Shane and the others caught some more wild game. You know, since Daryl and the others left, we haven't had any fresh meat."
At Carl's urging, Rick walked out of the Administrative Building to the open ground.
But the moment he saw Michonne's serious expression, his heart couldn't help but skip a beat.
Rick suddenly had a bad premonition.
Especially after Michonne repeated what Shane had just said.
Rick took Michonne's radio and tried pressing it a couple of times to inquire.
"This is Rick, respond if you receive."
No sound came from the other side.
"Hey, Shane, can you hear me?!"
Rick intensified his tone, but still heard no reply.
Rick suddenly felt a weight on his chest, especially after hearing Michonne relay the message, 'Bury my body and my badge together.'
The comfortable days seemed to have made this lion lose some of his vigilance.
But the moment he realized Shane was very likely in trouble, Rick's gaze instantly sharpened.
He suddenly turned his head, a hint of suppressed emotion in his eyes.
"The army hasn't returned either?"
"Except for Glenn and Maggie, but they don't know what happened either."
"Notify everyone, prepare for battle!"
"Block off the back half of the Prison cells; we need to enter a state of readiness!"
"Gather all children and elders; do not allow them to step out of the house shelter."
"Lock the main gate tightly; it can only be opened when you hear my command."
Rick walked quickly, his speaking speed also increasing, until he reached a peak and then suddenly paused.
Rick stopped and turned to look at Michonne.
"Prepare for battle. Although Shawn hasn't returned yet, a war is about to begin."
…
In the jungle.
Shawn put his arm around Shane's, watching the shocked expression on his face, and laughed.
"Yes, you heard correctly, I brought back over a thousand people this trip."
"They will either join your army or be laborers for the Camp in the future. In short, we no longer need to be like before."
Firepower is military strength, and manpower is also military strength.
A gathering place of a thousand people means that the Prison faction, led by Shawn, no longer needs to find ways to avoid many situations.
The time for the young sprout to grow has passed; now is the period for the future sky-reaching tree to grow wildly!
Shane was still a bit dazed, seemingly unable to believe any of this was real.
Shawn was indeed a qualified leader and a strong person in his eyes.
But he had never imagined that Shawn, having only been away for a mere month, would bring back a settlement of over a thousand people to fill the population gap of the Prison.
So what did all their efforts for so long amount to?
Did it mean they worked hard enough?
This was a surprise, but Shane still needed time to accept it.
Especially when he arrived at the convoy's resting place and saw the other half of the Zealots and the people from Alexandria, Hospital, and other Communities.
Shane's brain completely crashed.
Shane swore that in his entire life, this was his most undignified moment; he didn't know whether his heart should be 'pounding' or temporarily stopped.
He gazed at the long convoy, with people standing all along its sides.
Almost every lead truck, when opened, had its cargo compartment completely filled with supplies.
There was food, water, appliances, weapon parts… Shane even saw boxes of large-pack diapers inside!
"Did you rob an entire supermarket?"
Shane was already stunned, uncharacteristically dazed, and asked subconsciously.
Shawn: "Huh? How did you know?"
He patted the truck bed with a smile.
"All the supplies in the vehicles were basically taken from a large supermarket."
"We were lucky; that was a sparsely populated area. We didn't encounter any strong enemies entrenched there when we went, so we just took everything back."
When Shawn explained, he directly omitted 'Wichita Sisters.'
Shawn hadn't even exerted himself back then, and they were already scared and ran far away.
Now they probably don't even know where they are surviving in the cracks; it's not worth mentioning.
"Wait, you still have so many doctors and nurses?"
"These are… complete sets of medical equipment??"
Shane's gaze swept over, and he saw the doctors and nurses in the crowd who hadn't changed into casual clothes.
Opening the cargo trucks next to them, they were all filled with professional medical equipment wrapped in soft cloth, cotton, or bubble wrap.
Shane even saw professional Hospital beds inside, the kind with nursing functions.
You know, the medical benefits Rick, the Deputy Sheriff, received after being shot back then couldn't compare to this.
Watching Shane's expression change, Shawn chuckled inwardly.
This was the value of a Hospital with the 'Memorial' designation.
Not to mention that the Hospital's technology and equipment could rank among the top in the United States, but at least it was the city center Hospital in Atlanta, absolutely incomparable to Hospitals in places like King County and the suburbs.
If it weren't for many pieces of equipment being destroyed since the apocalypse, and Dawn's authoritarian rule indirectly leading to a sharp decrease in the number of doctors, perhaps Shawn's gains would have been several times what they are now.
However, what's in hand is what's yours. Shawn was already very satisfied with his current gains.
"Let's go, back to the Prison!"
Thinking of this, Shawn was in a great mood and got into the fire truck with Shane.
The few people Shane had been pursuing were, of course, firmly tied up by the Zealots and directly thrown into the back compartment of the fire truck.
Without rushing to ask about the situation of those few people, Shawn drove while asking about the changes in the Prison during his absence.
First, Maggie was pregnant. In fact, she already had signs before Shawn left, but it only gradually became apparent later.
When Glenn and Hershel found out, they were both ecstatic.
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