Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

When Xiaoyun arrived in the logistics office in the afternoon, Houqin handed Xiaoyun the same picture that Yueyue had shown earlier.

Inside Yiming's report, he pointed out the increasingly higher number of zombies every block he tried to clear within Shenzhen.

He had cleared the majority of the outer area of the city, with only the western side of the city center itself being the only area left remaining.

Surprisingly, he didn't request reinforcement or anything. The only thing he asked for was the increased supplies of artillery shells.

It was clear to Xiaoyun that Yiming was going to attempt to blow up the corrupted building, or at least create a line between the safe area and the death zone.

"Commander, what are we going to do?"

"Nothing. We're going to stay put... But put Yiming's request in a higher priority if he requests any other supplies. That's all."

Houqin nodded, accepting Xiaoyun's order as she quickly noted it down on a piece of paper before Xiaoyun had a question.

"Houqin, do you know how many people know about this?"

"Um, most of Yiming's army would likely know about it at this point. But it hasn't been publicly disclosed to anyone else yet."

"Good... Try to keep it down until next month. I don't want this news to interrupt the upcoming grand opening, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

With the biggest hurdle out of the way, Xiaoyun shifted his attention to the smaller problem he had set for Houqin.

"How's the gender bias report? Have you found anything different with it?"

Houqin remained silent as she sat still for a second before walking over to her cabinet to take out a piece of paper.

"Commander, this is the list of disciplinary actions I have taken against the staff who were mentioned in the report.

And I already have a talk with the rest of the logistics department to fix it... I'm sorry that this happened under me."

Seeing her bowing down in apology and admitting fault, Xiaoyun was a little surprised as she didn't attempt to argue back at all.

"So all of the findings in the report were true?"

"Yes. Some of the female staff showed some biases toward... a certain gender. But I already removed the biggest offender from their positions."

"That's good... No need to be tough on yourself over this. Just be more careful in the future."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, is there anything else you need to report to me before the weekend break?" Xiaoyun asked.

Houqin shook her head.

"Great. Also, I might be gone from the logistics department for the next week. Just call me if it is an emergency you can't decide on."

With Houqin nodding in a chowledgement, Xiaoyun exited the logistics office.

---

The weekend quickly flew by as the final week of June arrived. The temperature had dropped back down to what it was when the month started.

It was still hot enough to sweat after standing underneath the sun for five minutes. But nowhere hot enough to cook eggs in broad daylight.

There was a drastic increase in people going to Guangzhou, with every single hotel and apartment near the city center being filled with visitors.

Most of them were from the other cities Xiaoyun controlled, but some were outsiders, traveling traders who didn't have citizenship.

Across the different cities, there was a record level of companies signing up with the government, all advertising on the streets looking for workers.

A business boom, as Liuqian described it. Every citizen who had just the smallest amount of wealth was trying to make it big.

All they had to do was hire enough people, own a factory that was almost offered practically for free by the government, and make some product that was sellable.

Considering how big the shortage was in consumer products, every product that was made was instantly sold in stores.

The drastic population increase had just created a massive market demand, not to mention the stimulus that Liuqian and Yuqi had created as an extra boost.

Every refugee was getting free money with no strings attached—ten NRC credits per day per person for the entire week.

Of course, this wasn't coming without a cost.

The government's inventory started rapidly decreasing, with more and more companies and factories requesting various raw supplies to make more products.

Every single harbor under their control, every cargo container was emptied. Everything was being given away to meet the increased supplies quota.

Jobs were being created left and right. Even the government was forced to expand to keep up and required employees to work overtime to meet the financial boom.

Unemployment had, for the first time since Guangzhou was first cleared, dropped to a record low of 10% across all cities.

All of these boosts were set up for the biggest event, the one place that was about to open at the end of the month.

---

"We actually managed to rip the entire Shenzhen stock exchange over to here?"

Xiaoyun questioned in shock as he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Workers were setting up a massive pile of machines on different parts of the wall.

"Not the entire thing. But most of the important functions to set one up... It took a lot of money to get a salvage group to risk sneaking these out of Shenzhen."

Yuqi answered as she looked a little puzzled by the sheer amount of units that needed to be installed.

"I can see that..."

As the two of them continued walking past the various sections of the building, they could see blue-collar workers renovating the building.

Further up the floors, they encountered rows upon rows of white collar workers sitting in cubicles, setting things up for tomorrow.

"Should we delay it until tomorrow?" Xiaoyun raised his concern, feeling the workers were being pushed to their limit trying to catch up to the deadline.

"All the news and the advertisement stated at the end of the month. We can't delay this, or else everything will be pointless."

"I guess."

After walking up to the fifth floor, the two of them were a little surprised as they met someone who they didn't expect to be there.

"Hey Nami, what are you doing here?"

Yuqi curiously asked as they approached her cubicle, which was surrounded by a bunch of men all wearing glasses.

"Just helping set up some of the equipment... What are you two doing here?"

As Nami answered back, all of the men quickly dispersed back to their cubicles the moment they realized who the two of them were.

"But weren't you a bank teller? When did you work with technology?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"Well, the entire Securities Regulatory Commission is short on staff, so Liuqian promoted me to be a project manager here since I have some computer science knowledge."

Neither of the two questioned it, but they felt a little weird seeing Nami, a short woman, working with a bunch of men with receding hairlines.

"Good luck with your new job," Xiaoyun murmured.

"Thanks."

As the two of them let her go back to her work and headed towards the staircase, all of the men instantly surrounded her cubicle once again.

"Shifu Nami, you know the governor and the co-governor?" One of the men curiously asked.

"Of course... Anyway, I got the thing working now. You guys can check if your computer shared information with the local server."

"Shifu Nami, how do you know them? Can you introduce me to them?" One of the man with their head almost bald asked.

"Keep dreaming. Everyone, go back to work. We still have a lot of things to do before tomorrow comes."

As Nami dismissed everyone from her cubicle, her mind felt a little excited as she looked at the people working below her.

"This is the chance to prove myself..."

---

When Xiaoyun and Yuqi arrived at the top floor, they were met with a old man, chatting with Liuqian on a coffee table.

"Speak of the devil, here they are... Let me introduce them to you. This is the governor. Mr.Chen."

"Good afternoon, Mr.Governor." The old man murmured.

"Good afternoon."

"And this is the young student I was talking about earlier. She's the co-governor, Mrs.Chen, but you can call her Yuqi."

"Are they married together?"

"You really have a sharp eye. Yes, they are married... Oh, I almost forgot to introduce him to you guys.

He's one of my co-workers back at Tsinghua University. You guys can call him Doctor Lin, or just Old Lin.

He's the best person I could find as the head of the Securities Regulatory Commission. He has years of experience in this field."

"Nice to meet you, Doctor Lin," Xiaoyun said out loud as he reached for a handshake with him.

"No need to call me Doctor Lin. Just call me Muxie, or just Old Lin."

After the short handshake, Yuqi quickly walked up to give him a handshake before they took a seat across from Muxie and Liuqian.