Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

Inside the cafeteria, it was mostly what Xiaoyun had expected. Or rather, it was the same as the one he went to across the administrative building.

The only main difference was the food—only a small bit of rice with peas and a meat patty on the side.

Listening in to the nearby prisoner, the only reason for the meat patty being here in the first place was the fact that it was a Friday.

"Is the food really supposed to be this bad?"

As Xiaoyun took a bite of the meat patty, his mouth was overwhelmed by how salty it was. Yet all the nearby prisoners had no problem eating it.

"What do you think prison food is supposed to taste like? They're lucky we aren't just feeding them porridge."

Jianyu's answer rubbed him the wrong way, but he didn't have a way to argue back.

---

After an hour lunch that made most people sit there with nothing much to do, the bell finally rang again.

"Everyone out of the cafeteria, except for those on cleaning duty today."

The moment the guards opened the door, the prisoners began flooding out into the courtyard, Xiaoyun included.

In the courtyard, it was all just an empty dirt field, with nothing much to do other than chat with other people.

"Couldn't you guys give them a basketball or something?" Xiaoyun curiously asked as he watched them standing ideally underneath the sun.

"They're going to break it in less than a week... Every equipment we put in the yard, they broke it within a month."

Xiaoyun fell into silence once again. He quickly realized the prisoner earlier hadn't told him the full story.

Still, he didn't get mad at it as he began walking up to another lone prisoner standing near the side.

"Hello, I'm a journalist. Can I interview for a short moment?"

---

When the day was almost over, Xiaoyun was at the prison exit with his notebook filled with words.

He had interviewed hundreds of prisoners and guards—even the guards in the watch tower and the two wardens in the prison office.

"Thank you for your help today, Miss Jianyu."

"No problem. You can come visit any time."

"Will do."

As she opened the door for him to leave, he was once again in the long hallway. This time, the guard was a different person who didn't even talk to him.

Through the hall and into the courthouse lobby, he just couldn't help but feel like he had been disconnected from society for months.

The sun was already setting on the horizon, signaling to him that he had only been around the prison for about six hours.

"The prison really skew with your perception of time... No wonder it feels so weird."

---

The next day...

When Xiaoyun arrived at the administrative building with Yuqi, he handed her the notebook he had written while visiting the prison.

"Here's the report you want. I talked to a lot of different people in prison to gather their feedback."

"You writing notes? That's surprising."

As Yuqi opened the notebook and began reading it, she soon fell into silence as she flipped page after page.

The more she read, the more intrigued she became, as twenty whole minutes had gone by in complete silence.

Only when she put down the notebook did she look back at Xiaoyun. Her face looked a little proud as her eyes looked a little different than usual.

"Xiaoyun, has anyone told you that maybe you should be a great journalist?"

"Not the first person who had told me that. But thank you for the compliment... So what do you think about this report?"

"I have no problems with it... The concerns from these interviews are all definitely valid. It's just a resource restraint that we have to deal with."

"Yeah... What are we going to do about it then?"

Yuqi sat in silence as her eyes started narrowing closer and closer together before she suddenly opened wide.

"I don't know."

"You serious? That's the response you're coming up with?" Xiaoyun questioned, his face looking a little disappointed.

"What? Why am I supposed to come up with an answer to this? All the resources are already spread thin.

I got nothing to address something as low as prison... Why don't you rank these problems and then address them yourself, Mr.governor?"

"Fine, I'll do it myself then."

As he exited the office with his notebook in hand, Yuqi let out a smile as she turned on her monitor to get ready for today's work.

"Time to check some emails..."

---

When Xiaoyun entered his own office next door, he quickly grabbed the office phone before calling Yuqi's secretary.

"Hello? Can you gather ten people from the office who are free right now? I need some workers to help me with managing something."

"Give me a second, sir..."

After waiting in his seat for ten minutes, the door finally got a little knock.

"Come in."

As Jianlin and ten other office workers entered, Xiaoyun handed each of them a printed sheet of the outline he had written last night.

"Here's the things that I needed you guys to do. I grant you full authority to carry it out and split yourself into groups to address this."

"Sir... Are you sure ten people are enough for this?" Jianlin questioned as she looked over the long list of tasks they needed to do.

"You can hire some people to help you with it. Just make sure to give me or Yuqi a progress report every once in a while."

Jianlin hesitated for a second, but she still nodded in the end as the ten of them quickly separated into smaller groups to deal with the workload.

"Mr.Governor, how much money are we allowed to spend on these issues?" One of the workers curiously asked.

"About a quarter million in a year... I'll visit the prison myself to check on your guys' progress in the future."

After seeing the ten of them nodding in agreement and exiting with the paper, Xiaoyun waved them away as he turned his attention to Jianlin.

"Next week is the stock market opening... How many people had signed up for the IPO for their company?"

"About two thousand four hundred thirty-two... At least since the last time I checked yesterday."

"That's a lot higher than I had imagined. Are all of the companies going through heavy scrutiny and examination?"

"We already have a task force dedicated to checking their balance sheet and examining the on-the-ground situation."

"That's good... Wait, have you set up security for the grand opening?"

"Um... Isn't the police enough?"

"Nowhere near enough. It's too important an event for something to go wrong. I'll manage the security myself. You can go now."

Jianlin quickly exited the office as Xiaoyun took out his personal phone before freezing in place.

He thought of calling Lingang at first, but thinking about his wedding, he dialed Han Bang's number in the end.

"Han Bang, are you free on July 1st? I need one or two of your divisions to tighten up security for the day."

"Of course, sir. I'll call them up to get ready."

As the phone call ended, Xiaoyun looked out the window. Right next to the bank was a newly renovated building.

An office building that was owned by a real estate business before it went bankrupt, while Leyan was in charge of Songjia Group.

"Hopefully nothing goes wrong..."

"Of course, nothing is going to be wrong as long as I'm here in Luoping."

As an invisible figure suddenly revealed herself right in front of his eyes, Xiaoyun was a little surprised to see Yueyue in his office.

"Couldn't you just come in here normally?" Xiaoyun grumpily asked as he got a little scared for a second.

"Don't you think this is cooler?"

"Nope. Anyway, what are you here for? Is there something you need to report?"

"Yep... There might be something weird going on with Shenzhen. At least based on the report I had gathered."

Yueyue quickly took out a picture from inside her pocket, which instantly caused Xiaoyun's eyes to widen the moment she handed it over.

It was a picture of rows upon rows of buildings covered in red. Almost unbelievably red to the point that it almost looks like blood.

"What the hell is this?"

"It's a death zone... At least that's what my agent had reported after talking to a few refugees from the north."

"A death zone..."

As memories of the conversation with Wu Min flooded his mind, Xiaoyun quickly realized how severe this threat was.

"Does Yiming know about this?"

"He certainly does, at least since yesterday. One of the soldiers who reported it to him happens to be an agent."

"Of course, this kind of stuff has to show up just as everything couldn't possibly go wrong from here."

Xiaoyun sat in silence as he stared at the picture in his hand. He just couldn't leave it there, considering Wu Min had mentioned how dangerous this was.

The ability to spawn an infinite number of zombies was just ludicrous in his eyes.

Yet, the fact that the military in the North couldn't conquer the capital tells him how truly difficult it was to deal with this thing.