Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

After a minute of silence with Yuqi typing away on the computer, Xiaoyun finally realized what warbond she was speaking of.

It was the money that he raised a few months back, back in April, for the military parade and the surge of recruitment payment.

"Oh, that. I completely forgot about that war bond... Wait, I thought I still had a few months before I needed to pay back."

"We would have had a few months... If our currency hadn't changed." Yuqi answered as she let out a small sigh.

"Huh? What does that have to do with our new currency?"

"Your warbond was issued with the old currency. Am I going to pay them back with the old currency as well, then?"

"Oh right... Make sense."

"Now I have to let those bonds mature early or else they'll have way too low of an exchange rate using the old one."

"You don't need me to help you with it?" Xiaoyun offered.

"No. I can do this one myself... Can you just go somewhere else? I need to think in silence."

"Okay. Call me if you need my help. I'm going to check with Yueyue. Love you, darling."

"Love you."

---

Driving on the streets, Xiaoyun could see significantly more people on the street this time, way more than when he entered the city earlier.

All of them were in groups of five with a trash bag and various tools meant to pick things up from the ground.

Getting closer to the city exit, one of the lanes was closed off with tape—several workers carrying their equipment with construction carts.

The same uniforms he saw a few days earlier, back when he was forced to take a detour with the veterinarian.

After driving for a bit, Xiaoyun finally arrived back in Luoping.

As he parked the car and exited, he was surprised to see Yueyue and a young man wearing the most casual clothes standing right by the intelligence office.

"Good morning, boss."

"Morning, Renqin. What are you two standing outside for?" Xiaoyun curiously asked, locking his car before walking over.

"Thinking about where to expand the space so we can fit two departments at once... Renqin, do you think just behind here is good?"

"The back exit would be exposed to the main street and the building across. I don't think that's a good idea." Renqin responded.

"Valid point... Xiaoyun, what do you think? Where should I expand towards?" Yueyue asked as the three of them walked around the intelligence building.

"I don't know. I'm not really an expert in this. You probably should ask some engineer for advice first, though."

"They told me all three of the directions are fine since all the nearby buildings are empty already."

"Emptied?"

Xiaoyun looked a little surprised, as he remembered several of the nearby buildings were restaurants and stores that had a lot of customers.

"Yeah. They moved over to Guangzhou or to the commercial district since this area has been labelled for office blocks only." Yueyue answered.

"Office block? What? When was this area changed?"

"Last month. They had been moving out their stuff and just finished a few days ago... Anyway, why are you here?"

"Just wanting to check up... Renqin, is the work transfer going fine?" Xiaoyun asked, turning his attention to the silent man behind them.

"It's going fine, sir. I'll be able to finish transferring all the over by the end of the month and take my leave."

"That's a lot sooner than we had initially promised."

"There's no reason to delay something when all of the work is transferred." Renqin calmly answered.

"Fine. You really wanted to be out of this job, don't you, Renqin?"

Hearing Xiaoyun's disappointed tone, Renqin didn't say anything back. Remaining silent as the three of them walked around the entire loop.

"Yueyue, are you ready to handle the new workload?"

"Yeah. I think I'm almost good to go. Just need to remember all the keywords and I can fully graduate."

As Yueyue stopped at the entrance, she suddenly turned around fully to look Xiaoyun right in the eyes.

"Xiaoyun, do you trust me?"

"I... I would have no one else to trust if I don't trust you. What kind of question is that?" Xiaoyun questioned.

"I don't know. I just wanted to ask. Ahem, anyway, what brought you here today?"

"I just want to check up on you and get a report of how everything is going recently——"

"Sorry, boss, I have to take leave." Renqin interrupted as his phone suddenly rang.

"That's fine."

As Renqin walked off into the distance, Yueyue brought Xiaoyun inside the intelligence office before heading straight to her office.

After the two of them sat down across from each other, Yueyue quickly turned on her computer and started opening her drawers.

"What are you looking for?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"Looking for my report so I can show you what I've done over the past few weeks... Where did I last leave it?"

"You can just verbally tell me about it. You don't have to explain every detail to me."

"No, no, that's not good enough... Here it is. Have a look at it before I explain what each of them is."

With a stack of paper handed over, Xiaoyun began reading it one by one. As he read further and further down the stacks, he was a little shocked.

There were hundreds, if not thousands, of criminal cases. Almost every single one of them was convicted with a green stamp on the right.

"Holy shit, how are there so many criminal cases? Is something wrong with our settlements?"

"Not exactly. I mean, there are a lot of crimes. But most of them are relatively harmless."

Yueyue paused for a second, then continued.

"It's all just cases of theft, shoplifting, or labor violations that the worker refuses to press charges."

"It's still no good. I need to talk to Yuqi later about this."

"No need. Yuqi already knows about this... She told me this is more of an unemployment issue that will go away on its own."

Reading the little note on the right, Xiaoyun quickly noticed why Yuqi wasn't so concerned.

Most of the cases were all first-time offenders, with extremely recent time of entry. And most of the items stolen were often necessities.

It was clear that the crime itself wasn't the problem. Rather, it was the lack of ways to earn money that led to people stealing.

"I still have to talk to her later about this."

---

As Xiaoyun continued reading down the list of cases, he soon stumbled onto the more serious ones with actual case descriptions rather than just a short tag.

The first one was a middle-aged man who entered Guangzhou almost a whole year ago, a refugee who was caught dealing drugs.

The second one was very similar, except they were higher up on the ladder in terms of crime, working as a drug smuggler underground.

The next ten people were all a part of the same drug operations. At the very end of the case was the boss who had been caught just three days ago.

Thousands of pounds of drugs were seized, with pictures attached alongside the house they operated in just a few miles outside of Luoping's border patrol.

"God damn. Why are people still doing drugs in the apocalypse? Could they really have nothing else better to do?"

"I know. These criminals deserve the worst. I already asked for the death penalty with the judges."

Xiaoyun nodded in agreement, approving of Yuqi's choice as he flipped to the next page in the file.

To his surprise, it was a foiled spy operation—specifically, a spy from Jiangxi who wanted to poison the water supply.

"Jiangxi, Jiangxi. They really like to meddle in our affairs... That stupid king is not going to see what hit them."

Seeing Xiaoyun's face starting to turn more and more grim, Yueyue quickly added a new detail to de-escalate the situation.

"Wait. Just because the person is from Jiangxi, it doesn't mean they're from there. We don't have solid proof someone was behind it."

"No solid proof. So you guys had some proof?" Xiaoyun pressed, noticing the small detail in Yueyue's answer.

"Um... Well, they have a very heavy Jiangxi accent, according to a restaurant server who served their food in Luoping.

That's really the only detail we have of them since they were killed while trying to sneak into the water treatment facility."

"No other details? No previous records of any sort?"

Seeing Yueyue shaking her head, Xiaoyun had no other choice but to put his idea of revenge on the back burner.

"They are lucky to get away with this."

Turning his attention back to the paper, Xiaoyun began reading the last three pages of the case report.

Once again, the very top title shocked him as the report exposed a massive smuggling operation involving an senior head of department at the very top.