After sitting in the security room for a while, Xiaoyun got a little bored and decided to head out to the store.
The store was located at 302, next to Yezi's old home and the same place where he saved Lily.
The house itself was heavily modified, with the gates removed and converted into a full-blown grocery store.
"How's business?" Xiaoyun asked as he walked up to Yuqi, who had become the store manager.
"Boring as usual... This job really sucks. Couldn't you find someone else to do this?" Yuqi replied.
"Well, unfortunately, we don't have any job for a CEO. And everyone else is already busy." Xiaoyun jokingly stated.
"Yeah, yeah. Move out of the way. There are customers in line."
Yuqi pushed Xiaoyun aside as a customer was waiting behind him to get ready to check out.
"Can I get a lettuce?" The customer asked as she dug inside her wallet.
"Here are your lettuces, ma'am. It will be five food stamps total." Yuqi replied as she handed the lettuce over in a bag.
As the woman handed the stamps over, she suddenly realized Xiaoyun was standing right next to her.
"Good morning, mayor!" The women nervously waved.
"Good morning."
After Xiaoyun waved back, the woman took her bag of lettuce and a can of beef and quickly left the store.
"Hey Qiqi, did anyone ask you for anything else to buy?" Xiaoyun asked.
"Let me think... Well, a few guys came here asking to buy cigarettes, but we didn't sell them.
Then, a few women asked if we had any pads. We didn't sell those either, but I just gave her some of mine...
Oh yeah, some of them asked if we sold soda or alcohol. I just sold the sodas at home at three food stamps," Yuqi replied.
"No wonder the soda at home was disappearing. Okay, you can keep selling them, but you should raise the price," Xiaoyun suggested.
"Why? Wouldn't people stop buying that if it is that expensive?" Yuqi curiously asked.
"Soda is a luxury, not a necessity. People will only buy soda when they are rich enough, so it doesn't matter what price we set it as if they want to buy it.
We might as well set the price higher to collect some of the food stamps back from them." Xiaoyun explained.
"I thought our CEO would have some basic economic sense." Xiaoyun joked as he gently patted her head
"Shut up. I just haven't used my brain for some time... It's all this job's fault for killing my brain cell."
Yuqi gently punched Xiaoyun in the chest as a protest, pushing his hand away from her head.
After another customer came in, Xiaoyun left the store to let Yuqi continue running it.
A minute's drive later, Xiaoyun was now all the way to mansion 309, where Yezi and Huayi now live.
As he entered the garden, Leyan was all alone working on the field, with her wide-brim hat covering all four sides.
Slowly, Xiaoyun approached Leyan before lightly tapping on her shoulder.
"Huayi, I'm busy right now, okay?"
Leyan didn't look back as she raised her hoe and bent her back a little, positioning herself to loosen up the soil by striking it down.
After Leyan's hoe was struck down, Xiaoyun decided to play a prank by breathing behind her neck.
"Hey Huayi, what are you doing——Honey! What brought you here?"
Leyan finally turned back and realized it was Xiaoyun, not Huayi.
"I have nothing else to do, so I'm just visiting places. What are you doing right now?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"Just loosening the soil. Huayi and the other women are taking a break right now inside the house."
As Leyan turned back and continued digging the soil, Xiaoyun was a little intrigued by the work.
"Babe, do you like doing this?"
"Yeah, it's super satisfying when you get to collect the fruit of your labor," Leyan responded.
"I see..."
Before Xiaoyun could ask if he could join in, his phone suddenly started ringing.
It was Yezi calling him.
"Hello? What's wrong?"
"Can you come to the front entrance? Bring Miss Leyan and her medical kit with you, too. It's an emergency."
"Okay, I'm coming."
As Xiaoyun hung up the call, Leyan immediately knew something was wrong, seeing his serious face.
"Leyan, there's a medical emergency right now. Let's go."
The two quickly returned to the car and drove home. After Leyan ran back into the house to get her medical kit and switched into her uniform, the two drove off to the entrance.
When the two finally arrived at the front entrance, there were crowds of people surrounding the stairs to the wall, with Yezi and the guard standing on top of the wall.
"Excuse me, everyone moves out of the way," Xiaoyun yelled out loud.
Immediately, the crowd dispersed to the side, letting the two walk up to the wall.
Two soldiers, one younger and one looking middle-aged, were standing outside the wall carrying an injured soldier on a basic stretcher.
"What's the situation?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"There's an injured person outside. But I'm not sure if I should let them in or not... What if they are bitten?" Yezi raises his concern.
"Please, our commander is not bitten. He's just been shot. We're begging you to please save him."
Seeing the two soldiers hopelessly begging them, Xiaoyun's heart softened a little.
"Lingang lower the bridge." Xiaoyun ordered.
"Xiaoyun, that's too risky. We can't just——"
"Just lower it," Xiaoyun ordered again, interrupting Yezi from finishing his sentence.
The two gate guards hesitated for a second, as Yezi was clearly unwilling to open the gate, but Yezi backed down at the last second as he signaled them to open it.
As the draw bridge lowered, the two soldiers quickly rushed inside with the injured soldier still on the stretcher.
Leyan and Xiaoyun quickly guided them over to the security room, putting the injured soldier onto the table as Leyan started unpacking her medical kit.
"How did he get injured?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"He got caught in a crossfire when some unknown group fired on us." The young soldier explained.
"Bullet wound... Do any of you know any basic first aid?" Leyan asked.
"I do." The older soldier raised his hand.
"Okay, get ready to assist me. You guys can wait outside, don't come in until I tell you so."
---
Outside the security room, the crowd was long gone as they went back to work.
But Xiaoyun, Yezi, and the young soldier were now standing outside, waiting for the operation to finish.
"What's your name?" Yezi curiously asked.
"My name is Li Gantian." The young soldier replied.
"You guys came from the city?" Xiaoyun asked.
"No. But we were on a mission to the city." Gantian responded.
"Going into the city... Isn't that just a suicide mission?" Yezi pointed out.
"It wasn't a suicide mission. We were fully prepared to take back a portion of the city. It was going fine until our helicopter got attacked by something.
After we lost air support, we couldn't hold them back... That's when we got separated and got hit in friendly fire." Gantian explained.
"Whoever thought of thinking they can retake the city must have been dropped in the head."
Yezi laughed as he had seen firsthand how many zombies were in the city days after the outbreak.
"Hey! How dare you disrespect the general like that?" Gantian got mad after seeing Yezi laugh.
"The city has over ten million people in it. You guys were probably only fighting a fraction of it if you think a helicopter is enough."
Yezi's statement made Gantian fall into silence, as Gantian himself knew there was no debate against the truth.
"Ahem, where are you guys from?" Xiaoyun asked, trying to de-escalate the situation.
"We're from the southern theater——Hey, I can't tell you that."
Gantian instantly shuts his mouth as he realizes he is now slipping too much information to a stranger.
"How is the military right now? I'm not asking for military plans or anything. I'm just asking if we are going to get rescued as civilians. That's all." Yezi asked innocently.
After a short silence, Gantian spoke up again.
"I honestly don't know... we had lost contracts from all the other theaters, and our phone signals had been getting worse every day.
We couldn't even contract different army groups stationed in different cities... I'm not sure if we can even organize a rescue mission for anybody.
We can barely defend ourselves. Wait, you baited me! You——"
"I didn't force you to say any of that information. You gave it up yourself. Anyway, why would you guys try to retake the city if you can barely defend yourself?
That retaking the city back wasn't the truth, was it?" Yezi questioned.
"Yeah, it wasn't. The stupid general wanted to save his family stuck in the city and sent us to die... Wait, you baited me again!"
This time, Gantian was seriously mad as he took out his gun and aimed it right at Yezi with his finger on the trigger.
But Yezi wasn't scared a single bit as all of the guards aimed their pistol at Gantian, not even bothering to raise his hand or move his rifle.
"You are the one who's talking and couldn't control yourself. We didn't force you or anything." Yezi repeated his statement from earlier.
Realizing Yezi was right again, Gantian slowly lowered his gun back down as the nearby guards let out a sigh of relief.
"Yezi, enough. Don't make the job hard for Mr.Gantian... You want to eat something?" Xiaoyun asked as he handed a bar of chocolate over.
"Thank you."
Gantian didn't hesitate as he finished the whole bar in a single bite, swallowing it down within seconds as if he hadn't eaten for the day.
"Here, have another one."
Xiaoyun handed him another, seeing Gantian still looking a little hungry.
"Thank you so much." Gantian bowed down in gratitude as he ate the next chocolate bar, much slower this time.
"No problem. You said earlier that something shot the helicopter. Do you remember what it was?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"Um, I think it was some sort of green projectile from somewhere. It was so fast that by the time we noticed it, the helicopter was already crashing," Gantian explained.
"That green projectile is probably from some sort of zombie mutation... Now we got zombies with long-range weapons?" Xiaoyun sighed as he thought of the possibility of fighting zombies that have a gun.
"I doubt it is long-range or even any weapon at all. They drove a helicopter in the city, so any zombies that looked a little green in the building could have jumped on top of the helicopter to crash it."
Yezi rejected Xiaoyun's idea, as he knew how close some helicopters fly when trying to assist ground units.
"I hope so..."
As the three fell into silence, it was interrupted by a scream.
"Fuck! My leg! It hurts!"
The three of them quickly turned to the window, only to see the injured soldiers were now awake.
But with nothing they could do, the three turned their attention back to the wall.
"Enough of asking me, how about you two? The map didn't show there was supposed to be a wall here." Gantian curiously asked.
"What do you think, smartass? It's to stop zombies from getting in. Isn't it obvious——"
"Yezi, remember you said you had moved past that?" Xiaoyun warned, sounding much more serious this time.
"My bad. Sorry." Yezi apologized.
"We built this wall to protect this town," Xiaoyun explained.
"Interesting... how many people are here?" Gantian curiously asked.
"Just several families that escaped from the city," Xiaoyun replied, not wanting to state any more information than needed.
The conversation fell into silence until Xiaoyun decided to speak up again.
"Where do you plan to go now after the injured soldier is fixed up?" Xiaoyun asked.
"After Yiming is fully healed, we will probably try to find our way back," Gantian answered.
"I wouldn't go back if I were you. It's only a matter of time for them to send more soldiers again to another suicide mission." Yezi commented.
The atmosphere fell into silence as Gantian didn't want to respond to Yezi's comment until Xiaoyun decided to suggest something.
"Before Yiming is fully healed, would you mind if I can hire you guys as security guards?
I will pay you guys for food and provide housing. I just wanted a professional like you to protect this town."
After a short consideration, Gantian gave his response.
"We don't have anything better to do in the meantime. We can——"
Before Gantian could accept the offer, the door to the security room finally opened.
His attention was instantly shifted to Leyan and the middle-aged soldier who walked out.
"How's Yiming?" Gantian urgently asked.
"He's fine. But he won't be able to move for at least a month. After that, he might need physical therapy to start walking again." Leyan replied.
"Thank you so much, doctor."
The two soldiers bowed down in gratitude towards Leyan as they both thought their comrade was going to die.
"No problem, Xiaoyun. Can you drive me back home? I'm getting a little tired."
"Sure. Yezi, can you go give them a place to stay for now?"
"Okay."
As the two got back inside the car and drove off, Yezi was now stuck as the two soldiers stood right before him.
"Fuck..."
---
After dropping Leyan back home, Xiaoyun drove back to the security room, only to find Yezi gone.
"Hey Gantian, where is Yezi?" Xiaoyun asked.
"He left with Lingang... He just told us to stay here." Gantian replied.
"This guy... Oh, I almost forgot to ask, what's your name?" Xiaoyun asked as he turned to the middle-aged-looking soldier.
"My name is Jixi." The middle-aged soldier responded.
"Hello, Jixi, would you two like some food? I just brought some fried rice back home. It might be a little cold, though."
Xiaoyun took out two containers from his backpack, which he just created on the spot inside the backpack.
"That's fine. Thank you, Mr.Xiaoyun." Gantian happily accepted the offer and began eating the fried rice immediately.
But seeing Jixi eating the fried rice, Gantian stopped and put the container back down on the table.
"What do you want?" Jixi cautiously asked, his face showing distrust towards Xiaoyun.
"Nothing. You guys look like you haven't eaten for a long time. That's all." Xiaoyun replied with a genuine smile.
After a short standoff, Jixi eventually opened the fried rice and started eating it even faster than Gantian.
"Do you guys want somewhere to stay for the night? You can't just sleep in the security room. I can give you guys a place to stay," Xiaoyun suggested.
The two thought about it for a second but shook their head.
"Come on, your injured comrade can't just sleep on the table either. He needs a proper bed to rest on." Xiaoyun suggested again.
The two hesitantly looked back to their comrade, then nodded in agreement.
After the two finished eating, they carefully put their injured comrade into the passenger seat as Jixi and Gantian squished inside the front passenger seat.
Xiaoyun drove the car straight to 310, as it was the only place that was still emptied with no other families.
"Inside, there are several bunk beds that you guys can sleep in. If you guys have any problems, just call me or come to 303."
"Thank you, sir. You are really generous. I'm sorry for questioning you earlier." Jixi bowed down apologetically toward Xiaoyun.
"No problem, I always help people in need... See you guys tomorrow." Xiaoyun waved goodbye as he left the small house.