A week has passed since the power came back online.
It was another relaxing day for Xiaoyun, sitting in the bench press while the three girls did jumping jacks—until his phone rang.
Although power has run out in the city, somehow, there is still a single bar of service.
"What up, Yezi?"
"Can you come to the front entrance of the Luoping community? There's... is a bus at the gate right now. Um... some dude just walked out of the bus.
Hey, hands up, this is private property! Stop right there before I open fire——"
Before Yezi finished talking, Xiaoyun heard only the sound of a phone being dropped before it went dead silent.
"Shit, I am coming right now. Just hold on."
As Xiaoyun hung up the call, all three of the girls got a little worried seeing him in a rush, switching into his outdoor clothes.
"What's wrong?" Leyan asked.
"Yezi is in trouble. I need to go help him."
As he ran out of the gym and got into his car, Yueyue quickly followed him into the car as the two watched them drive out of the garage.
---
"Who the hell are you guys?"
Yezi asked as he stood on top of the makeshift stairs that led to the security room roof, his rifle in hand pointing directly at them.
"We don't have any bad intentions. We just got out of the city," the man replied as he walked out, his hand raised.
"How many are on the bus?" Yezi asked out loud again.
"There are twenty of us. We just want a place to stay. My name is Renqin," the man replied.
"Lingang, go check on him, search him, and check the bus while you're at it. Don't be scared. I got your back."
A man in his early twenties with a security guard outfit walked up to the outsider, patted him down, and took the axe from his back easily.
"You don't mind me checking inside the bus, right? Nothing dangerous inside?" Lingang asked.
"Nope, you can go right in," Renqin replied.
Lingang took a glance at the bus and saw several families grouped up inside, looking a little scared.
"I'm here to verify if anyone here has any dangerous weapon..."
Despite Lingang trying to intimate a conversation, none of them said anything back as he entered the bus.
"Um, I am not a gang member or anything. I am a nice guy, yeah, a nice guy. You guys don't need to be so scared."
As Lingang said it out loud, the opposite happened.
All of them got even more scared, especially when they noticed Lingang's pistol on the side.
"Never mind... Mister Yezi, all clear!" Lingang yelled as he walked back out of the bus.
Hearing his answer, Yezi finally came down from the roof and headed over to where Renqin stood.
"How did you guys make it out of the city? Isn't it too late to leave at this point? The last time I went, I almost died." Yezi curiously asked.
"It's a long story, but we all lived in the same apartment building, and fortunately, one of us used to work as a bus driver, so we lived close by.
After the power ran out, we were able to rush to the bus and drive out. We didn't even have a direction to go to, so we just ended up here now," Renqin explained.
"I thought the road was blocked by all the cars jammed? And how did you guys get off without getting caught by the zombies?" Yezi questioned.
"The military went inside the city yesterday. They removed all the roadblocks and apparently were looking for some scientists.
Even helicopters and explosives were used, and we were able to use that time to run out to the bus station's garage."
Hearing Renqin's explanation, Yezi couldn't help but feel the man in front of him was extremely lucky.
"Damn, that's certainly some timing... Just curious, are you their leader?" Yezi asked.
"Um, I guess none of them wanted to lead and voted me to come out." Renqin awkwardly scratched his head.
"I see... the scapegoat... Ahem, one last thing, okay? Do you guys have your food?" Yezi asked again.
"Um... about that. We have been running out of food for almost a day now. Can you guys spare any food?" Renqin pleaded.
"You know food is hard to get. We can't just give it away for free," Yezi said, refusing Renqin's plea.
Suddenly, a car drove toward the entrance from the inside. Before they could react, the car had already stopped as the car door opened.
"What's the issue here?" Xiaoyun asked as the two headed over to Yezi.
"Some people got out of the city with the bus when the military went to a rescue mission for some scientist.
Long story short, now they want to ask us for food and a place to stay. His name is Renqin. He's the leader of those people on the bus." Yezi explained.
"Hm... Well, we do have several houses that you guys can stay in, and we do have some food."
Xiaoyun glanced at the bus and saw several families looking a little scared as they looked toward him.
"I'm sure we can work something out. How about this: You guys work for Yezi, and you all can move into Luoping."
Xiaoyun finally came up with an idea, but he left it all to Yezi to deal with as he just wanted to enjoy life at home.
"But there's no way I can feed this many people——" Before Yezi could finish, Xiaoyun interrupted him.
"Don't worry, I can provide the food, but Yezi, can you make sure they have work to do? I don't want to waste food for free."
Seeing the confidence on Xiaoyun's face, Yezi reluctantly agreed to take them in.
"I don't mind some extra hands to help secure this place. I was thinking of going to the construction site near the outskirts to get some material for a small wall anyway."
Seeing Yezi accepting his suggestion, Xiaoyun turned his attention to Renqin, who still looked a little hesitant.
"Then is that a deal, Mister Renqin?"
After a short silence, Renqin nodded in agreement.
"Let me go inside the bus and tell them."
Renqin's face looked excited as he walked away back onto the bus, with Lingang walking back to Yezi.
"Xiaoyun, aren't you being too generous?" Yezi raised his concern.
"We can't always live in a small community like this. We are going to need to expand, and I think they are a great start."
Xiaoyun thought back to Yuqi's plan for expanding, and seeing them all with families made him feel a little bit more trustworthy.
"Whatever, as long as you can maintain the food supply... Just curious, how do you even get so much food?
I never saw you drive out a single time when I already drove into the outskirts five different times."
Seeing Yezi question him, Xiaoyun's brain keeps telling him to make up an excuse, but his gut feeling tells him to tell the truth.
"Yezi, can I trust you?" Xiaoyun suddenly asked.
"Wait, Xiaoyun, you can't say that to——" Before Yueyue could say anything, Xiaoyun held her back.
"Yueyue, just trust me, it's fine," Xiaoyun reassured.
Seeing the two looked a little conflicted about some sort of secret, Yezi walked up and patted Xiaoyun on the shoulder.
"You can trust me. If it weren't for you, I would have died a long time ago. Here, if you don't mind, can I call you Big Brother Xiaoyun?"
Seeing Yezi with a serious attitude and lowering his seniority, Xiaoyun's gut feeling was getting stronger and stronger.
"No, no, you are much older than me. I should be calling you Big Brother. You can call me Brother Xiaoyun."
"Well then, we are brothers! I haven't had a brother since back in the day... We probably shouldn't call each other that, though. Sound like some sort of gang or something——"
"Yeah, yeah, let's do that... Anyway, here's what I was going to show you."
Xiaoyun dragged Yezi over to a nearby tree so only the two could see as Yueyue and Lingang stood by the entrance.
As he showed an empty hand, Yezi was a little confused by it until a white light suddenly appeared in Xiaoyun's hand.
"What the... Wait, where did that pen come from? What kind of magic is this!"
Yezi looked extremely shocked as the pen just appeared after the light was gone, despite his hand not moving a single bit.
"Well, I guess you can consider it magic... Here, name something, and I can make it as long as I have touched it before."
"How about a water bottle and a can of black bean dace?" Yezi asked, his face looking even more excited than earlier.
"Here."
After a short second, both of the items appeared right in his hands, shocking Yezi even more.
"This is... INSANE! You know how much we can profit off of——I mean, imagine the people we can save from starvation. Wait, can it do weapons as well?"
"How do you think Yueyue and I both have guns? I only got one from a police officer lying on the floor."
Xiaoyun pointed over to Yueyue's belt, which had a pistol attached to it. Then, he pointed at his own pistol on the side.
"Also, please keep this a secret. I don't want others to know——"
"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone, even if someone holds me at gunpoint, I'll keep this secret until the day I die."
Before Yezi could swear on his life, Xiaoyun quickly pulled his hand back down.
"No need for that. I trust you, brother."
As the two walked back out from the tree, Renqin was already back out of the bus, standing before Yueyue and Lingang.
"We accept your deal as long as we can see the food tonight. Many of us haven't eaten for days." Renqin stated.
"Don't worry, you will get it tonight," Xiaoyun reassured.
As the gate opened, Yezi instructed Lingang to lead the bus to 308 and 307, the two houses that were super close to each other.
"Thank you, Mr. Yezi. Thank you, Mr. Xiaoyun."
Renqin bowed down and headed back inside the bus with Lingang, leaving the three at the front entrance.
"I'm going back. You want to come over for lunch later?" Xiaoyun asked.
"I'm good. Huayi was already cooking lunch."
"Okay... But how about dinner? Come on, we're brothers now."
"Fine... Just this once."
"Great, I'll tell Ley——Ahem, Mom to cook the best meal."
As Xiaoyun and Yueyue entered their car again, Yezi got back up to the roof and watched them drive off into the distance.
---
As the sun sets and the moon slowly rises, Xiaoyun makes as much canned food, from beef to tomato, as possible to fit inside the car.
When Xiaoyun arrived at 307 with a carload of food, Renqin brought several people to help Xiaoyun unload the food.
When Xiaoyun was unloading the food, he could hear some standing inside the house whispering to each other.
"He's only one person. Why don't we just hold him hostage and take over the community? He looks like the leader, right?" the young man suggested.
"I mean, we have way more people than them... but they have guns." The other young man whispered back.
"He gave us food and shelter, and how do you want to thank him? How can my own son have such bad morals?"
An elderly man suddenly yelled out and started knocking on the two young men with a cane.
"Okay, okay, Dad. I'm just joking." The two of them apologized as they held their head with their hand.
Xiaoyun didn't think much of them as he turned his attention back to Renqin, who was laser-focused on the food being carried over.
"Okay, is this enough?" Xiaoyun asked as the car was now empty.
"Yeah, it's definitely enough for at least a week. Thank you so much." Renqin bowed down in gratitude.
"No problem, just remember that tomorrow you guys are going to have a lot of work for Yezi...
Also, you might want to make sure that some people here don't have any wrong idea... people change when they get too comfortable."
Xiaoyun warned as he felt Renqin's position could be taken by someone ambitious within the group, which was the opposite of what he wanted.
Especially after seeing Renqin look alone in the group, which meant he couldn't fulfill any crazy ambition even if he wanted to.
"Here's my phone number. If something goes wrong, you can call me."
Xiaoyun handed him a piece of paper and then left the house as the families began unpacking the boxes full of food.
---
At the dinner table...
Yezi and Huayi had just entered the house next to Xiaoyun on the right, with him being in the middle.
Meanwhile, the rest of the girls, along with Lily, were on the left side of the table.
As Leyan laid down the last dish on the table, she sat down next to Huayi as it was the only seat left on the table.
"Miss Leyan, how did you look so young? Your skin and wrinkles are all gone... How is this possible?" Huayi curiously asked.
"Oh, um, I just forgot to wash my face last time... Anyway, Xiaoyun, how was the trip to 307?"
Leyan changed the conversation as she couldn't make up an excuse for how drastic she looked compared to the last time.
"Most of them look like honest good people... but some of them are a little ambitious and are a little unhappy with their situation," Xiaoyun responded as he chewed on a chicken wing.
"There are always going to be a few bad apples. But as long as they're mostly good, we should be fine." Yuqi commented.
"So accepting them was bad then?" Nami curiously asked after hearing Yuqi's uncertain tone.
"I mean, we might be expanding a little too fast. Hearing Xiaoyun saying earlier that it's twenty people...
It's more than double our current size if we count the people we rescued from the gangs, and the people we rescued aren't even a hundred percent loyal either.
And that Renqin person sounds more like a figurehead. If things go south, he's the first one out.
We should have only allowed some in and some out instead of letting everyone inside since they might have formed groups," Yuqi explained her thoughts.
"But most of them are families. It would be ridiculous to separate them from each other. Besides, most of them would starve if we kicked them out." Yueyue argued.
"I'm not saying separating family members from each other. I'm saying selecting the right families to be accepted." Yuqi clarified.
"How about we separate them right now? They aren't even one family or anything. I doubt they would stick together anyway.
We could make it like a family unit to make them less grouped up than now," Nami suggested.
"Isn't that a little too early? They are going to push back against it. Maybe when we get to know each other first, then they will be friendlier."
Leyan argued against Nami's idea as she knew how close-knit certain people are, especially considering they had just survived together.
"Anyway, it's not our problem. That's for Yezi to deal with. I only promised about the food." Xiaoyun joked as he pushed the conversation to Yezi.
"Hey, I'm sitting here, you know?"
Yezi wiped down a little sweat as he didn't even think of all the things that the girls had brought up.
"Oh, right. I almost completely forgot about that... Haha... Anyway, what do you think about them, Yezi?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"I am leaning more toward Miss Leyan's plan... Also, Xiaoyun and Yueyue, do you two want to come to the construction site on the city's outskirts tomorrow?
It's going to be in the early morning, so I can put them to work in building the wall right after breakfast." Yezi offered.
"Sure, I can go. More things I can create in the future, consider how much material a wall is going to take."
Xiaoyun murmured as he hadn't touched every single building material to create in the past.
"I'm coming with you," Yueyue stated, not giving Xiaoyun a choice.
"Can we go too?" Yuqi and Leyan both asked at the same time.
"Sure, an extra pair of hands always helps." Yezi nodded.
"Are you two sure? It's going to be a lot of heavy work," Xiaoyun warned.
"Yeah, I am ready! My body has been training for a week now. Even Yueyue was impressed!"
Yuqi stretched her biceps, which were barely visible since her body was still extremely slim compared to even Leyan.
"She sure impressed me. She went from being able to lift single-digit kg to almost being able to lift her weight in less than a week." Yueyue commented.
"How about Ley——Mom?" Xiaoyun curiously asked, changing his answer at the last second as it almost slipped out again.
"Mom? She is even more impressive. She went from only lifting half her weight to her weight... not to mention she is much heavier——hey, why did you hit me?"
Leyan knocked on Yueyue's head before she could finish, interrupting her from finishing her sentence.
"Watch your mouth," Leyan warned as her face blushed.
"Oh, I almost forgot to tell you something, Xiaoyun. I had been seen to be getting strong, even though I barely exercised at all.
Huayi over here got a little stronger as well despite literally doing no exercise at all," Yezi pointed out.
"Hey, I go do gardening work every day now, okay? Don't say I'm that lazy!"
Huayi angrily knocked on Yezi's head, making him retract the statement as he apologized to her.
"Huh, everybody is getting strong despite not working out at all... Hey, Xiaoyun, do you think it's the virus thing?" Nami suddenly asked.
Everyone at the table turned to Nami as if she just brought up some sort of breaking news.
"Hm... maybe you are right," Xiaoyun responded as he thought more about it.
"What? How's that possible?" Yueyue asked, still unable to believe that the virus was helping them to survive.
"Well, let's just say this zombie outbreak is airborne and can travel through the air and survive in the air for super long.
Assuming it can survive in the wind as it moves with the wind, everyone on earth is already infected——"
"What? Then how are we not zombies?" Yezi interrupted Xiaoyun as he couldn't believe he could be infected.
"Let me finish, so this virus apparently has around like 1% infect turn rate to become a zombie. I am not sure what the actual percentage is here.
Anyway, just because you are infected doesn't mean you will turn into a zombie. The issue is that when you do turn into a zombie and bite someone, they then have a 99.99% turn rate to zombies."
Xiaoyun stated as he thought back to the information he read down in the basement of the house.
"So what I am getting at is that this virus is making everyone stronger, and it's making training even more effective than usual. Did I say it right?" Leyan asked.
"Yep, it's exactly like that." Xiaoyun nodded.
"So it's like steroids, but it's in the air for everyone." Yezi dumbed it down for himself.
"Yeah, you could think it like that as well." Xiaoyun nodded.
After the conversation ended, everyone was already full, as they had been eating the whole time.
"Thank you for the meal, Miss Leyan." Yezi and Huayi both stood up in gratitude.
"No worry, if you like it, you can come more often," Leyan replied.
"Will do."
As the two walked out of the house, Xiaoyun closed the door and went back into the living room.