Denton had just finished talking when Francis suddenly fell over. There was a loud thud. Francis actually fell pretty cleanly. Even Denton had nothing to say. Everyone went silent for a moment. After about ten seconds, Shane suddenly burst into laughter. The more he laughed, the louder he got. "Hahaha! This guy is so interesting!" He clapped his hands while laughing, as he had just seen something super funny. "Colonel Sutton!" Alger yelled, as he had just remembered his role. The shout scared Francis, who was pretending to faint on the floor, making him twitch. "Caroline, what should we do? Without a few hundred pounds of gold, Colonel Sutton won't get up!" Alger said. His eyes were dodging, and his tone sounded like he was reading lines someone had taught him. Right after he said that, the "unconscious" Francis suddenly sat up. He smacked Alger on the head a few times, annoyed. "What few hundred pounds of gold? What did I teach you? Didn't I say a few tons? How did you turn that into a few hundred pounds?" Alger looked like he was about to cry. "Colonel Sutton, how could Caroline possibly bring out a few tons of gold? A few hundred pounds sounds more realistic! If you say tons, no one will even try!" Francis got even angrier. "That's the starting price! You have to aim high so there's room to bargain! You're so dumb!" The two clearly hadn't planned well. Now they were arguing right there in front of everyone. Caroline crossed her arms, watched them for a moment, and sighed. "Alright, I get it. Stop pretending. The floor is cold. Get up. Let's talk." Francis grinned when he heard her. He jumped up from the ground, and while he was moving, a flash of strong abs showed under his shirt.He looked very smug. With a cocky smile, he said, "Hahaha, every dog has its day. Come on. I'm easy to negotiate with. Let's talk somewhere else." The ant swarm had left. Shane was temporarily under control. Blake was dead. Everything had settled—for now. Francis looked happy, almost glowing, like the base wasn't destroyed at all. But the more Caroline looked at him, the more uneasy she felt. Why do I feel like Colonel Sutton is planning something again? When they entered a room, Francis happily tossed a list at her. The move felt very familiar. Back then, Caroline, Tyler, and the others had also thrown a list at Francis. But when she unfolded it, she realized the paper was blank. It was empty. "Hahahahaha!" Francis slapped his thigh and burst into loud laughter. "Caroline, I can't believe you were actually scared! Did you really think I'd make you pay for the base?" Caroline kept a straight face and nodded honestly. She had really thought she'd need to compensate them. She had already prepared herself to spend a lot of money. Francis waved his hand and said proudly, "I may be slick and experienced, but I still deal with things fairly. If it wasn't for that earthquake and those mutated army ants chewing up the whole base, Shane shaking a little would never be enough to destroy our official base." He lifted his chin even higher. "This base wasn't built with new technology after the apocalypse. This is ancient engineering passed down from our ancestors for thousands of years! Our old structures may have rotten materials, but the frames still stand strong. These buildings survived countless disasters over thousands of years. This base isn't that fragile." Caroline agreed with him. She always felt that Caswana's culture was deep and brilliant, especially their carvings and buildings.But she still believed Shane really did cause the base to break, so she never planned to push the responsibility away. Francis probably said all that because Nathaniel ordered him not to make things hard for them. But Caroline wasn't unreasonable. She waved her hand and took out a pile of canned food and meat from her storage space, stacking them high in Francis's office—so high that the room was basically full. These were the cans the military had been sending to her, plus the meat she had requested earlier. "These things were all given to me by your people," she said. "I don't need all of it right now, and more canned food will come later. Raven and I have enough. So take these as a small compensation for the damage to the base."