Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

"That sounds like a pretty good job. Sitting back and not needing to fight at all." Xiaoyun commented as he took another sip.

"Yeah, but then you have to deal with all the paperwork. Being a bodyguard for that man is more like a butler."

"Really? How come?"

Just as Pinli was about to answer, his look changed. His mouth remained shut as he looked towards the side in shock.

"Hm?"

Turning to the side, Xiaoyun was a little surprised to see two men standing right at the rooftop door.

A young soldier and a very old military officer, looking even older than Yiming with his lingering white hair on the side.

"You are?"

"I'm Colonel Zhongxiong... You're what people have been talking about, Governor Chen?"

"Temporary governor. I wouldn't dare to call myself governor without government approval."

The old man let out a chuckle as the two of them both got up from their seat before he walked any closer.

"Let's not pretend there's a government left in this country, shall we?"

Xiaoyun didn't answer back. His mouth remained shut as he didn't want to give off the wrong message.

"You're a careful man, Mr. Chen."

"So so... Mr.Zhongxiong, since we want to be straightforward, when will the missile launchers be delivered?"

"It's right below you."

Xiaoyun got a little confused by the answer until he looked over to the street below—five whole missile launchers on top of a small truck.

"I would like to thank you for your army's assistance."

"It's not worth mentioning... Wen Pi's army is the one that did most of the heavy lifting."

Zhongxiong didn't say anything else, watching the two in silence before turning around over to the exit.

"I'll leave you two to enjoy your food... Chengyi, you don't have to follow me right now."

"Thank you, sir."

As Zhongxiong exited the rooftop, Xiaoyun suddenly got a little concerned for the old man.

"You two sure he's going to be fine on his own?"

"He's not that old... Xiaoyun! Long time no see. It has been a while since we last met."

"Long time no see, indeed."

As Chengyi reached over for a hug, Xiaoyun didn't reject it. After a short moment, the two separated.

"What brought Zhongxiong to come over?" Pinli curiously asked as Xiaoyun handed a foldable chair over.

"We just finished fighting the zombies in the countryside... How did the fighting go in Changsha?"

"Pretty well. We only lost around a hundred soldiers. A lot less than what Gangzhen had predicted."

"That's good to hear... Hey, let me have a little drink."

"It's mine!"

As the two of them begin to fight over the beer in hand, Xiaoyun couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic.

The little laugh also made both of them stop, looking a little embarrassed as Pinli handed the bottle over in the end.

"You guys don't have to fight over it. I can just give you another bottle instead."

Watching Xiaoyun reach into his backpack and take an entire bottle of beer, both Pinli and Chengyi were dumbfounded.

"Xiaoyun, how do you have so much stuff in your backpack?" Chengyi curiously asked.

"I just carry a lot of stuff."

Both Pinli and Chengyi remained silent, staring at his face as if they noticed something was up.

"Xiaoyun, you are really bad at lying, you know that?"

Seeing Chengyi agreeing with Pinli's point, Xiaoyun let out a sigh before lifting his beer into the air.

After a massive sip, he put the beer back down. His eyes looked back at the two of them with a hint of confusion.

"Is it really that obvious?"

Seeing both of them nodding at the same time again, Xiaoyun couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed.

"What made it so obvious?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

The two of them didn't answer back right away, opting to look at each other for a second before turning back to him.

"Another bottle of beer."

"Fine."

Xiaoyun didn't bother hiding it at all this time as he threw two bottles of beer straight into their hands, causing the two of them to have their jaws drop in shock.

"What the..."

"X-Xiaoyun, w-where did this come from?"

As Pinli and Chengyi questioned the beer in their hand, they still couldn't believe it was real. But the weight on their hand told them otherwise.

"Just think of it as a magic trick... Now, can you two tell me why it was so obvious?"

The two of them took a second to recover, accepting the fact that Xiaoyun had just created two beers out of thin air.

"Xiaoyun, do you notice how short your response is when you get a little nervous?"

Pinli's answer made Xiaoyun freeze for a second. His mind did not really understand why a short answer would be obvious.

"Let me remind you of something... Xiaoyun, do you remember when Mingxu invited you to BBQ?" Chengyi asked.

"Yeah. What about it?"

"A few days before that, we invited you to another BBQ as well, right?"

After Xiaoyun nodded, Chengyi continued.

"For that one, you have a full-blown explanation that you were busy with work and homework, right?"

"Mhm."

"But then, when Mingxu invited you to the BBQ before the outbreak, you just gave a no as an answer, right?"

"Mhm..."

"All three of us know you wanted to go just from that... You could have given an actual explanation, but you just said no."

"But I actually didn't want to go..."

Both Chengyi and Pinli fell into silence, their mind seemingly to have been caught off guard by his answer.

"Huh? Really?" Pinli curiously asked.

Seeing Xiaoyun looking at them with a straight face, the two only got more confused until a smile suddenly appeared on his face.

"I'm just kidding. You guys were right. I did actually want to go. I was just done with homework the day after."

"You..."

Pinli couldn't finish his sentence, so he let out a sigh. Chengyi looked just as annoyed as him.

"You actually made us think we failed to read you."

"Hehe..."

As Xiaoyun let out a small chuckle, the two of them felt even more embarrassed that they couldn't read through the lines earlier.

"Hey, you owe me another beer now. That's extra for tricking us like that." Pinli jokingly demanded.

"Yeah, that's one extra beer. That was so much emotional damage to our hearts." Chengyi demanded next.

"Okay, fine."

As Xiaoyun threw another bottle of beer into their hands, both of them still looked a little shocked, as there were five beers before them.

"X-Xiaoyun, how do you do this?" Pinli asked, repeating the same question he made earlier.

"I told you, it's a magic trick. Don't worry about it."

Seeing Xiaoyun unwilling to tell the answer, neither of them pressured him to say it. Instead, they turned their attention to the food.

"You made all this?" Chengyi curiously asked.

With Pinli pointing his finger over to Xiaoyun, all he got as an answer was a poker face as if it was just another magic trick.

"You really are a living legend..."

---

The next day...

As Xiaoyun woke up, his eyes felt a piercing light shining right onto his eyelid. His neck felt a little sore as he slept on a hard surface.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. But the sun immediately forced him to close them again before turning his head to the side.

"Shit, I drank too much yesterday..."

After rubbing his temple and taking a deep breath, Xiaoyun felt much better as he examined his surroundings.

Right before him was the hardwood table he slept on last night, with both Chengyi and Pinli still sleeping on the table with drool coming out of their mouth.

"I haven't gotten drunk for so long... When was the last time I actually got drunk?"

Looking over to the corner, Xiaoyun saw bottles upon bottles of empty bottles on the side, some even on the edge of rolling off the building.

At the same time, the cold wind quickly made him more awake as he checked his phone.

"Whew. Only seven o'clock. I should probably head down soon... Chengyi, Pinli, wake up."

As Xiaoyun shook both of their elbows, neither of them showed any signs of waking up at all.

Their snoring got even louder, almost as if they were both enjoying sleeping on an extremely uncomfortable table.

"Hey, wake up. Breakfast is ready."

"Breakfast? What breakfast?"

Pinli finally showed some signs of being awake, slowly rising from the table and rubbing his eyes.

"It's almost seven-thirty. I'm going to need to head back to Luoping now."

"Already?" Pinli asked, his voice sounding extremely sleepy as he struggled to keep his eyes open.

"Yeah. You two are fine staying up here, right? I'm going to leave now, okay?"

"We're fine..."

Seeing Pinli fall back onto the table with his eyes closed, Xiaoyun gave up trying to wake the two of them up again.