Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

"Is it really that profitable with that high of a tax?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"Hell yeah. I mean, if it isn't profitable, they would have ended it a long time ago. You're from Luoping, aren't you? All those stuff being sold in different shops are all from Guangdong."

Seeing Xiaoyun nodding in agreement, Lee continued his rambling.

"I wish I had the money to salvage the group myself one day, you know... Being able to sit at the top and collect money."

"The permit is free, no? Why would you need money to form a salvage group?"

"Free? Where did you get that information? It costs like 500 food stamps upfront to get a permit, and then hire all the workers to run it."

Hearing Lee's explanation, Xiaoyun quickly realized his policy was being turned upside down.

"Where do you get the permit?" Xiaoyun suddenly asked.

"In the military building. Just ask one of the officers, and they'll bring you to the commander...

Anyway, it looks like the tour is over. If you want a tour of the outside, you'll probably need to hire salvage groups to give you an insight into that.

I need to go back to work now. It was nice knowing it, um... sorry, I kind of forgot you guys' names."

"My name is Songming, and this is Kate. It was nice meeting you too, Lee." Xiaoyun clarified.

Kate looked confused at Xiaoyun but didn't ask why he didn't use his real name after realizing he was trying to hide his identity.

"Nice seeing you, Mr.Songming and Miss Kate. Hope we'll see each other again."

As Lee walked back to the long hallway to the office, the two stood in the half-empty central area on the first floor.

"What are we doing now?" Kate curiously asked.

"Going to see Han Bang."

Xiaoyun immediately turned around and headed towards the exit, with Kate quickly following behind.

A few minutes later...

"Sir, you cannot enter——"

"Here's my permit."

Xiaoyun handed the permit he got earlier to the soldier at the front entrance, who looked stunned as the permit said full access, which was the same level as the highest commander in the outpost.

"Uh... Sorry sir. You can go. Sorry about that."

After the soldier handed the permit back, Xiaoyun suddenly got an idea.

"Do you know where Han Bang is?"

"Commander Han Bang? He's outside clearing a few of the buildings on the far eastern side of the city since there's a report of zombies being there."

"I see... Which floor is his office in?" Xiaoyun curiously asked, not noticing his threatening tone at all.

"T-The highest floor," the soldier nervously answered.

"Okay. Thank you. Keep up the good work."

As the two headed towards the elevator and entered it, the soldier let out a sigh of relief.

But the soldiers who were on break sitting on the side were extremely intrigued by what happened as they watched the whole conversation unfold.

"Yo, who was that person?" One of the soldiers walked closer and asked.

"I don't know. But he got a full access permit," the soldier who had been holding Xiaoyun back earlier replied.

"Full access permit? Old Qin must know what happened. Does anyone know where he's at?" Another soldier asked out loud.

"He's at gate duty today, right?" A different soldier yelled out.

"Shit. We'll know when he comes back then..."

---

After getting all the way to the top floor, the two walked out and entered a hallway.

The hallway only had three rooms: one indicated a meeting room, one a document room, and the last a commander's room.

Without any hesitation, Xiaoyun entered the document room first, curious about what it contained.

The room was an ordinary room, with only file cabinets and a big table with chairs.

As Xiaoyun pulled out one of the documents and started glancing over the titles, Kate quickly removed all the other documents and laid them down on the table without needing to ask at all.

"Inventory documents... Financial documents... Equipment documents... Kate, can you find the permit document?"

"Of course."

As Kate began searching the various documents on the table, Xiaoyun began taking a short glance at the one in hand.

"Financial report summary: Revenue has been positive for the past few weeks, with the rising cost of food and transporting goods to Luoping. We need to lower the cost, either through more vehicles or by looting more gas stations..."

After reading the entire financial report, Xiaoyun moved on to the inventory report, which showed food and other necessary items for survival stockpiled for at least a month.

Lastly, he moved on to the equipment report, which was just an account of how many weapons Han Bang's army had.

"I found it. Here it is."

After Kate handed the document to Xiaoyun, she began putting all the other documents away.

"Zhongshan, Haoyun, Fei Fei... Only three salvage groups, huh... Kate, can you carry these four documents?"

"Of course."

As Kate put all the other documents back into the cabinets, Xiaoyun took out his pen and began writing down ideas in his notebook.

"Why did Han Bang put a cost to this? Or did his soldiers do this behind his back? Wait, the permit system was already out before he was here...

So it's one of the majors that was assigned here that did all this, right?" Xiaoyun murmured as the two headed back into the hallway.

With the permit document in hand, Xiaoyun entered the meeting room and sat in the middle.

Slowly, he began reading the permit records page by page, with Kate putting the four documents that Xiaoyun selected onto the table.

---

"Good job everyone. Just a month or more, and we'll fully clear Guangzhou."

Han Bang excitedly spoke out loud as he stood along with several high-ranking soldiers and administrators.

"It's all thanks to your leadership, Commander Han Bang! Give us a year, and we'll clear Guangdong!" One of the majors excitedly joined in.

"That's still too early... Also, don't give me the credit. I had only been here for less than two weeks. You're the one that did all this before me." Han Bang pointed out as he held the doorknob to the meeting room.

"No, no, no, sir, if it weren't for you coming here, we would have never gotten so many more resources directed to us."

"Then you should be thanking Commander Xiaoyun for that——"

As Han Bang opened the door to the meeting room, his brain froze for almost an entire minute.

"How's it going, Han Bang?" Xiaoyun asked calmly, showing no sign of anger or upset at all.

"G-Good."

As Han Bang unfroze and entered the room, all the other soldiers began entering the room as well.

To no one's surprise, all of them have the same reaction as Han Bang, as they immediately recognize Xiaoyun sitting where Han Bang usually sits.

"Good evening, everyone. I'm sure you are all surprised to see me here."

Seeing all of them nodding a little, they were still a little stunned. Xiaoyun didn't wait for them to recover, so he immediately moved on to the serious stuff.

"I just want to say a good job, everyone. You guys really cleared much of Guangzhou in detail.

It is amazing how fast you guys are deep-cleaning this city of zombies. I'm shocked to see that the map coverage is fully cleared and secured.

I was fully expecting it to take at least half a year and thinking we'll need to clear Foshan before we can secure Guangdong."

Hearing the compliment from Xiaoyun, all of the soldiers held up their chin proudly.

"However... Han Bang, can I ask who carried out the permit system here?" Xiaoyun asked as he raised his voice.

After a short silence, one of the major raised their hands.

"I carried it out... I was the one responsible before Mr.Han Bang was here."

Seeing a middle-aged man standing up, Xiaoyun puts the permit document on the table.

"Can I ask why you raised the permit cost to 500 when the policy stated that the permit to create a salvage group is supposed to be free?

And I never mentioned the tax to be all the way to eighty percent, only fifty percent... Can I ask where did all the money go?"

The major stood in silence for a long period, then answered.

"I tried implementing a zero-cost one as told, but it was just causing so much chaos to the point that the soldiers couldn't handle it.

If I don't implement a cost to entry, it will just harm everyone since everyone was trying to do it themselves... As for the high taxes, I raised them because the salvage groups were so profitable that everyone joined them.

If I remember correctly, I sent back a document about this to Luoping a few weeks ago... Did the commander not receive it?"

Hearing the explanation from the major, Xiaoyun slowly eased the tone on his face as he began to understand his perspective on the actions he took.

More importantly, he could vaguely remember getting a document from the Guangzhou outpost, but he was too lazy to read it, so he handed it over to Yuqi.

"Hm... Good job. But one last thing: where did all the money go? I don't see it being reflected on the financial reports."

The major froze as if he were guilty of something but quickly recovered as he looked over to his peers for help.

However, none of his peers said anything as they nervously looked to the side to avoid eye contact.