Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

Just as the two got closer and closer, the office door suddenly swung wide open.

"Hey Yuqi, I got back the other report... Oh, um. Sorry. I-I didn't mean to interrupt——"

"Shuli, you're not interrupting anything... We're just hugging each other."

Yuqi quickly pushed Xiaoyun away and sat back in her office chair.

"Yeah, We're just about to hug. You want one?" Xiaoyun stretched his hand out in front of Shuli.

"N-No, thank you... Um, I'll get to go get the other paper."

Shuli dropped the stack of paper she had been holding in front of Yuqi's desk and quickly left the office.

"Why did Shuli look so scared?" Xiaoyun asked.

"Because you should have seen the face you were making... You look such like a pervert."

"What? That's just a false accusation." Xiaoyun defended himself.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

As Yuqi began reading the stack of paper, she suddenly dropped the piece onto the floor with a shocked face.

"What's wrong?"

Xiaoyun picked the paper back up and started reading it.

"A massive storm coming towards our direction... Wait, please tell me this is a joke, right?" Xiaoyun asked with uncertainty in his voice.

"I'm afraid it's not a joke... You know the weather the past few weeks has been odd, right?"

Xiaoyun nodded in agreement as the weather everyone in the town had experienced drastically shifted from freezing to hot enough to wear shorts with no logical sense of seasoning.

"So I asked Renqin to investigate it... A few days later, he tells me he found several traders that had traveled throughout the country, and it's not a rare pheromone here. It's all over the place.

Then I consulted a few climate scientists who used to work as meteorologists, and they had been saying that the change in temperature was a sign of extreme weather incoming."

The two stared at each other briefly in silence until Xiaoyun spoke up.

"We need to be prepared for this," Xiaoyun stated.

"Yeah. And we have to hope it's not a typhoon." Yuqi replied.

The two began coming up with a list of problems with harsher weather hitting the town.

After thinking for a bit, Xiaoyun came up with his highest priority.

"If it is a typhoon, we might need to temporarily evacuate most people into actual houses."

"But how are we going to get more houses? There's a reason why we built small cabins.

We don't even have enough houses to meet the demand." Yuqi immediately pushed back against the idea.

Xiaoyun thought for a second, then came up with an answer.

"Then we'll just create more houses right now. I'll pause the military operation until the storm is over.

We then use the soldiers to work under construction until it's over." Xiaoyun suggested.

"I'm sure that will be a massive help." Yuqi let out a sigh of relief upon hearing Xiaoyun's answer, but another problem arose.

"But I'm more worried about the food situation," Yuqi mentioned as she passed another piece of paper to Xiaoyun.

"What's wrong with the food situation?——Wait, what happened here?"

Xiaoyun pointed at the sudden shift from having a neutral food production that could keep up with demand to being deep in the red as the deficit had become insanely high.

"Some of the plants died from the sudden shift in the weather. Not to mention there are more people in the town now.

Also, seeds and fertilizer had been harder to come by... I know you can create more of it, but you are already occupied with the factory.

So I didn't want to bother you about it... Babe, don't worry about it. I'll think of a solution eventually."

Xiaoyun's ego wanted to say he could do both. But his mind accepted defeat as his brain was already hitting the limit of needing to make all the fuels for the cars and the raw material for the factory.

"How about growing food indoors?" Xiaoyun suggested.

"We are already directing resources on building new houses for the newcomers. We don't have the manpower——"

"We have enough people if we use the soldiers as construction workers. We can just split it like a third of them there... And I'll talk to Yezi about it when he returns."

Xiaoyun interrupted Yuqi as he reiterated the pause on military operation.

"You sure?" Yuqi asked as if she wanted to make sure Xiaoyun really meant it.

"I'm sure of it. We have a bigger problem on our hands. The zombies can be on hold for now." Xiaoyun muttered as he finalized the decision.

---

When Yezi returned from the city, his face had a massive smile as if he had just hit a jackpot.

"Why are you smiling so much?" Xiaoyun asked as he approached Yezi's car.

"You wouldn't believe how many zombies we killed today. We could almost kill two hundred thousand zombies in a single day!"

"Wait? How?" Xiaoyun's face was surprised as he couldn't believe Yezi's claim.

"Well, the area you picked was mostly elderly and younger kids living in the older parts of the city. So most of the zombies there weren't as strong." Yezi explained.

"I see——"

"At this rate, we can fully clear the city by the end of the year... Or at least all the zombies that aren't in a horde or mutants." Yezi interrupted Xiaoyun from finishing as he was just too excited to hold it in.

"Well, that's great to hear... But I'm going to need to put this on pause." Xiaoyun finally revealed the plan.

"Wait, what? Why?" Yezi's face was in disbelief as soon as the word came out of Xiaoyun's mouth.

"There might be a storm coming from the sea. I need every hand possible to work on construction right now."

"Storm? Come on, we live pretty inland, right? And we are even way above sea level compared to the rest of the city.

Are you sure you are not just overreacting?" Yezi tried to persuade Xiaoyun to change his mind.

"I already decided. There's no point in clearing the zombies if our home gets blown away into pieces." Xiaoyun rejected Yezi's attempt instantly.

A long silence started as Yezi refused to accept that all the hard work the soldiers had put in would be on pause once again.

But eventually, he accepted it as he realized Xiaoyun's point was more logical and valid.

"Fine, I can't stop you anyway... Just tell me what I need to do."

"You are going to need to lead five of the regiment..."

Ten minutes later...

"You got it?" Xiaoyun asked.

"I think so... just directing soldiers to dig storm drains throughout the entire town, right?" Yezi asked to make sure.

"Yeah. Yuqi will send someone to give you the exact build layout for it tomorrow." Xiaoyun explained.

"Okay, I'll go prepare for it then."

Yezi left the field and headed towards the exit as Xiaoyun looked at the cloudy sky.

"It's getting colder again..." Xiaoyun murmured as a cold breeze flew towards him.

---

When Xiaoyun announced the sudden change to the soldiers the next day, almost everyone was surprised.

However, after Xiaoyun explained his reasoning and all the signs that everyone had experienced with the weather, they eventually accepted the fact and went along with the new job they had been given.

Rumors started circulating as the weather started to get more and more drastic every day that passed.

Combined with soldiers building stronger houses and storm drains throughout the town, it further confirmed the rumor to be true.

Eventually, as everyone began to pick up pace, Xiaoyun finally publicly announced a weather warning within the next few weeks.

Immediately, the first thing that was being impacted was the food prices. It started skyrocketing as restaurants and private stores used it as an opportunity to profit from it.

When Yuqi learned of it, she quickly ended the food supply to all private businesses that jacked up the price and set a fixed price on all food sold in government-owned stores.

And soon, August was coming to an end as another week passed.

"I can't believe we can build all this in a week," Xiaoyun murmured as the brand-new storm drains that run through the entire town were right in front of him.

"I can't believe it either. I thought this wouldn't be finished when the storm hits." Yuqi said softly.

"Where does this storm drain lead to?" Tianci asked curiously.

"Down to the edge of the town, where a half-empty lake is located," Xiaoyun replied as they continued walking down the road.

"Is everything prepared?" Yuqi asked as she looked over to Shuli.

"I think everything is mostly prepared... We prepared emergency shelters in the warehouses in case some cabins couldn't withstand the storm.

But all the new houses that had been built are still not fully completed or have passed inspection, so we haven't moved anyone inside them yet...

We have also loosened the food quota so people can stock up on more food and increased the food stock in the store." Shuli replied.

Suddenly, just as they were about a minute away from returning home, rain started pouring down from the sky.

"Let's hurry back before it gets worse."

As they rushed home, everyone was already already at home.

"What took you guys so long?" Yueyue curiously asked as she closed the door after they walked in.