Chapter 493: We Hold Our Ground

“001? That’s Wang Yun! The Wang Yun!”

“He’s finally out. I’ve been waiting for this moment!”

“This is the best time to strike! Gather everyone, we move out now!”

Every inspector’s control room erupted into chaos.

Capturing Wang Yun would earn a direct reward of 500 points.

End the match. End the program. Simple as that.

With each point worth a million yuan, that meant five hundred million was on the line.

All thirteen countries. All thirteen inspection teams. In that moment, they had one common target.

“They’ve made their move. Should we begin as well?” asked Wu Mingyu in the Dragon Kingdom’s inspection room, turning to Wu Yaoming and Zhao Youcheng.

The Dragon Kingdom had once fielded many captains—now, only three remained. The others had all become fugitives in this season’s game. Those fugitives knew their tactics inside and out, which would make them significantly harder to deal with.

“No rush,” Zhao Youcheng said calmly. “Forget Wang Yun for now. We’ll deal with him later. The program’s rules have changed this time. It runs on a fourteen-day cycle. Our priority right now is simple. Secure our score. If we can capture at least a third of the fugitives, we’ll extend our team’s survival window. That’ll give us more than enough time later to take Wang Yun down.”

His reasoning was sound.

Everyone was laser-focused on Wang Yun early on. That meant the other fugitives would be largely ignored.

So why not capitalize on that? They could sweep up the rest and secure a top-three ranking while everyone else wasted resources on a nearly uncatchable man.

Then, once things settled, they could face Wang Yun properly on their own terms.

“As expected from Elder Zhao,” Wu Mingyu nodded in agreement. “That strategy works. Let’s do it.”

Wu Yaoming followed with a nod of his own.

“In that case,” Zhao Youcheng said, “let’s hold off a bit longer. We’ll wait until most of the 500 fugitives have landed before making our move. In the meantime, let’s study the layout of the Lidao Island.”

He unfurled a large map across the table.

Lidao Island was vast, roughly the size of a full province back home.

But unlike provinces in their homeland, which were dense with buildings, shopping centers, and heavy population flow, Lidao Island was something else entirely. Located in the Northern Hemisphere, it was mostly lush greenery and surrounded on all sides by the ocean.

That, at least, made it easier to track fugitives.

Once they landed, it required transportation to reach another city.

But none of them had identification, and they only had 200 yuan on them. Without eating or drinking, the most they could manage was reaching the nearby Tuer city.

Tuer City was part of Lidao and was only a little over a hundred kilometers away. Even if they made it to Tuer, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge for the program inspectors to track them down.

Still, due to limited mobility, most fugitives would likely stay within the capital of Lidao Island.

Some might pause there, trying to earn a little money.

But that, too, would be difficult.

This season of the show had a massive influence, especially here.

So if a suspicious-looking stranger showed up on the street begging for change, they wouldn’t just fail to earn anything; they might even get reported.

The locals were obsessed with the program.

But what Zhao Youcheng and the others didn’t know was that there was another team thinking exactly the same way.

This team hadn’t yet been introduced by Mr. He. They were from a small country called Zhilihui.

Unlike the other inspection teams, they weren’t a noble clan or elite academy. Zhilihui was tiny. Globally known for having the best public safety records. The kind of place where people didn’t lock their doors at night.

Its police force was the most relaxed in the world and also the lowest-paid.

Their national crime rate barely reached one percent annually.

Zhilihui was so small, in fact, it was a third smaller than even the Lidao Islands.

The country only had two seasons—a six-month summer and a six-month winter.

Six months of daylight. Six months of night.

The participants they’d sent to this game weren’t trained elites. They were ordinary citizens, hand-picked from the general population.

They were true amateurs.

Even more amateur than some of the fugitives.

Of the ten-person team, five were designated as captains. But their appearances were average. Their physiques was ordinary.

Their inclusion felt like filler. Even the program barely gave them screen time.

But this very group, overlooked and forgotten, was thinking just like Zhao Youcheng.

“I’ve been watching. Of the thirteen inspection teams, ten have already deployed,” said a man with cropped hair, standing about 1.7 meters tall. He stepped into the room.

His name was Soran, one of Zhilihui’s captains.

“The other three?” he continued. “One’s still prepping, looking for supplies. And one is holding position, just like us.”

“If I had to guess,” added another captain, Fuselia, “that team must be from the Dragon Kingdom.”