The six of them got back into the car and drove out of the alleyway before stopping at an empty street outside.
"Where are we going now?" Jixi asked as the two switched seat positions, letting Yezi drive this time.
"Scouting mission, as you said earlier. We are going to scout the main entrance of the casino." Yezi replied, his voice still sounding a little grumpy.
After driving for three minutes, an entire horde of zombies were right around the corner as they looked to the side.
"Holy shit."
Yezi immediately made a U-turn before driving in a random direction, trying to get as far away from the horde as possible.
But the horde quickly chased after them, and they could feel the ground tumbling a little from the amount of zombies behind the car.
"Fuck, there's the zombies that you guys are talking about," Yezi commented as he floored the gas pedal.
"Thank God the road is all empty," one of the soldiers commented, as he expected the road to be filled with car wrecks.
"Yeah..." Jixi murmured, seeming to have some flashbacks.
After driving around the block for twenty minutes, they finally lost the zombies behind them.
"Shit, did I just drive inside the city?" Yezi asked as he looked around, only to see skyscrapers surrounding them.
"I think so..." Jixi replied.
"Any of you know how to drive back?"
"I know. I have lived in the city for several years now. If you take a right turn and keep driving forward for a few minutes, then take another left turn.
We will be back on the city's outskirts... Then we can go back to where we were earlier," one of the soldiers replied confidently.
"Okay, tell me when I need to turn again."
One hour later...
After driving nonstop, avoiding all the different hordes that kept chasing behind them, they were finally back on the city outskirts.
"Holy shit, I'm never going in the city again. What was that fucking zombie? It just shot some green thing at the car?
And that giant zombie is throwing a rock at us." Yezi commented in excitement, with the other soldiers looking frightened.
"Um... sir, the car's back window is melted." One of the soldiers sitting in the back reported.
"Fuck." Yezi murmured after checking the rear mirror and realizing it was indeed melted.
"So that's how our helicopter got shot down..." Jixi murmured as he began to realize what had happened back then.
"Anyway, let's go back to our mission."
Yezi started driving toward the main casino again. But this time, he stopped right a street away from the hotel that was next to three shops, as the captive described it.
He drove to the other hotel across from the casino, behind the building, just far enough that people on the other side couldn't see them.
"Why are we stopping here?" Jixi curiously asked.
"What the hell do you even learn in the military? We are 'scouting,' so obviously, we can't let them notice us.
The casino is by the roof of all ten floors below it. Normal customers can only go up to the tenth floor, which is the only middle of the hotel."
Despite Yezi explaining it in an angry tone, Jixi didn't try to argue back as he watched him point over to the across the street.
"Are we going to this hotel building to see what's happening in the other hotel building?" One of the soldiers curiously asked.
"Bingo! It looks like we have some smart fellows here. What's your name?" Yezi asked as they exited the car.
"My name is Han Bang." The soldier replied.
"Good job, Han Bang."
After Yezi patted him on the back, the six of them began entering the extremely tall hotel, which had several zombies in the main lobby wondering.
After making quick work of them with their bats, the group headed straight up to the highest floor of this building, clearing the zombies along the stairways leading up to it.
When they arrived at the top floor, there was only one room on the fourteenth floor—a fancy presidential suite with a locked door.
But Jixi easily kicked it open, as the other four soldiers quickly cleared the entire room before finding it to be empty.
"Well, we're going to stay here for a week. You guys go down again to get the food and equipment up here."
As four soldiers headed downstairs, Yezi took out a binocular, looking across to the other side of the hotel tower.
"What do you see?" Jixi curiously asked.
"Many of the balconies on the regular floor held SOS signs, probably when the outbreak had just happened, and the hope of rescue still existed," Yezi explained as he continued to look up.
When his binoculars were on the twelfth floor, the curtains blocked all of the windows. But the light inside showed that they had power and people living there.
"Jixi, write this down: the enemy is on the twelve floors. They have light, power, and several shattered windows."
"Okay, write it down. Anything else?"
"Not yet. We will have to wait until they send people outside..." Yezi put down the binoculars as it couldn't see anything higher due to the angle.
"What if they don't send anyone out?" Jixi asked.
"They will... they already don't have enough food. Or else they wouldn't be trading people for food."
The four soldiers were backed with boxes of food. More importantly, it had a whole detachable telescope.
"Now we got professional equipment... Let go to the roof."
After arriving at the roof entrance, Jixi simply kicked the door open, allowing them to start setting up the telescope.
"Okay, let's see what they have."
As Yezi took a peek with the telescope, he quickly readjusted it back to the twelve floors before starting to look up again.
Finally, the thirteenth floor did not have a curtain like the twelfth floor. Instead, several people were inside playing cards, each with a pistol or knife next to them.
After seeing nothing interesting, Yezi moved up to the fourteenth floor.
This time, several women were surrounded by a bunch of men, all naked as they lay on the sofa.
"I'm going to need eye bleach after this," Yezi murmured as he moved onto the fifteenth floor.
This floor only had one person on it. He was sitting in an office chair, seemingly thinking about something.
"That's the new boss I'm going to kill with my hand," Yezi murmured as he continued checking the floor.
To Yezi's surprise, he could see several crates of some unknown chemical, all in a different language.
"Anyone chemist or graduated college?" Yezi asked as he turned to five of them.
"I graduated college." Han Bang raised his hand.
"Perfect. Can you tell me what those chemicals are for?" Yezi pointed for Han Bang to look in the telescope.
"Um... those are to make TNT, if I remember correctly." Han Bang replied.
"How the hell did they get that in there..."
Yezi's face was in complete shock as the amount of crates he saw up there was more than enough to blow up an entire skyscraper.
"I don't know... perhaps they had some connection," Jixi replied.
"Okay, let me continue checking."
Yezi pushed Han Bang aside as he moved to the sixteenth floor, only to see almost twenty people tied up and three people standing there as guards.
The next two floors afterward were only to be covered in a curtain, with the roof way too high to see from their position.
"Write it down: they have hostages on the sixteenth floor. They only have pistols and knives and TNT."
Jixi nodded as he noted everything Yezi explained.
"Okay, we are done here. It's time to go back down."
Yezi and the six walked back down to the presidential suite, and time quickly passed as the moon started to rise in the distance.
"Now we just need to scout them from here. We need to note when they are driving out from the garage over there.
You guys are going to take turns checking it, okay?" Yezi pointed at the entrance of the hotel across the street.
"Yes, sir!" The four soldiers replied as they began making a schedule among themselves.
---
The next day.
Just as Yezi and Jixi woke up for breakfast, suddenly, one of the soldiers on watch duty came back down and yelled that something was coming out of the casino's garage.
The two of them immediately rush upstairs to the telescope, only to see a black sedan driving away.
Unfortunately, the window was all tinted, so nobody could see what was inside.
"Should we go follow them?" Jixi asked.
"Not yet. It's probably just a normal car driving outside. Han Bang, take the telescope and check if any of the victims have been moved from the sixteenth floor yet."
"Yes, sir." Han Bang returned to the telescope as Yezi and Jixi returned to eating his breakfast.
"Now we wait... maybe we can use this to find other settlements that are buying people and free those people as well," Yezi murmured as he opened one of the cans.
As Jixi sat back down and started eating, the door suddenly knocked, waking the other two soldiers who were sleeping.
"Wait, it's not Han Bang. It only has been five minutes. He wouldn't knock on the door without saying a word."
Yezi stopped Jixi from opening the door. His experience made him realize something was off, especially as the sound of someone knocking on the door continued.
The two soldiers, along with Jixi, immediately raised their rifles, with Yezi slowly opening the door before running back to them.
As the door slowly swung open, all four of them were a little stunned. An entire group of people stood by the doorway, all armed with different melee tools and weapons.
"Are you guys from the military to rescue us?" One of the women stepped up and asked as they noticed the camouflage clothes and rifles.
"Um, we are not from the military. We are just civilians who have formed a militia," Yezi responded.
The four of them could immediately tell the group of people looked a little disappointed, causing them to be even more alert.
"Oh, that's fine... But can you help us get out of here? We had run out of food for several days now." The woman pleaded, with her face looking as if she was about to tear up.
"Shit... look like we are having a change of plan. Here's some food for you guys right now. Jixi go call Xiaoyun."
Yezi directed Jixi as he pulled out his phone, thinking of how to report a new group of free labor to Xiaoyun.
---
Meanwhile, Xiaoyun was lying on the sofa inside the office, his eyes full of black circles as if he hadn't slept for days.
But it wasn't because of the girls.
Instead, Yezi's leaving caused Huayi to move in to sleep with Leyan, as she was too scared to sleep alone in a big house.
With Huayi in the house, the other two girls also refused to let him into their room, citing that they weren't feeling well.
The sudden withdrawal left him unable to sleep for almost the entire night, only surviving on coffee and four hours of sleep.
"Ugh, I'm so tired," Xiaoyun complained.
"Why are you so tired? Didn't you not sleep last night?" Leyan curiously asked.
"Looking at him, probably suffering from withdrawal," Yuqi answered it for him.
"Yes, please! Let me just do it once. I can't do it myself. I tried, but it didn't work," Xiaoyun pleaded.
"Come on, we are in the office. There are people outside working right now. Get a hold of yourself."
Leyan pointed at the people outside the room who had just been hired as accountants and resource managers as the town had grown by over a hundred people.
Before Xiaoyun could plead again, his phone rang. As he picked up the phone, it displayed Jixi's phone number.
"Hello? Jixi, what's wrong?"
"Boss, we might need a bus to come here and pick us up."
"What? A bus? Why do we need that?" Xiaoyun asked.
"The hotel we are staying in has over thirty people here. Yezi thought that since Mrs.Yuqi always talked about not having enough people, he promised that we would bring them to town."
"Okay, can you tell me the exact location?"
"Um, the hotel is across from the casino that we are spying on, and we can see Songjia company from here.
It's the second-tallest hotel next to the tallest one on the outskirts. Oh shit, what the hell are they doing."
Suddenly, some screams could be heard, mixed with several bangs, before the sound of the phone being dropped ended the call.
"Shit... I'm going out for a bit. I'll be back in the afternoon."
Xiaoyun quickly ran out of the room before they could respond, not giving them a choice or even asking what was happening.
"I really hope they aren't in trouble..." Leyan murmured, knowing something bad was happening.
"Maybe I should have stopped him... whatever. Let them sort it out." Yuqi didn't show as much care as there wasn't much the two could do now.
---
As Xiaoyun ran on the street, Yueyue was on duty patrolling the town, as she still hadn't accepted the store job.
"Hey, where you going?" Yueyue asked as he stopped Xiaoyun.
"Going to drive a bus right now," Xiaoyun replied as he shoved Yueyue's hand away and kept running.
"Wait, you don't even know how to drive a bus!" Yueyue yelled as she started running behind him.
Just as the two kept running, the bus stopped right in front of Xiaoyun, dropping people off at work.
"Wait, wait."
The bus driver seemed to hear Xiaoyun's voice as it stopped, waiting for Xiaoyun to catch back up.
As Xiaoyun stepped inside the bus, he was a little surprised to see Renqin sitting in the driver's seat. But he didn't think too much about it.
"Hello Xiaoyun, long time no see. You taking the bus?" Renqin curiously asked, but Xiaoyun didn't answer as he turned his attention to the passenger inside the bus.
"Everyone, please get out of the bus. You guys can go to Yuqi for compensation. The bus is temporarily under military use."
None of the passengers questioned Xiaoyun as they all headed out of the bus, with Renqin also attempting to get off.
But Xiaoyun held him back, not letting him leave the driver's seat.
"Wait, Renqin. I need you to drive the bus," Xiaoyun asked urgently.
"To where?"
"I need you to drive to the city outskirts. It's the second tallest hotel on the outskirts near the Songjia skyscraper——"
"Hell no, that's too dangerous. I'm not going back to the outside world. That place is a hellscape." Renqin interrupted as he rejected Xiaoyun's proposal within seconds.
As Xiaoyun tries to convince Renqin, Yueyue finally catches up and walks inside the bus.
"Wait, Xiaoyun. You didn't tell me you wanted to go outside." Yueyue angrily asked as she heard his last few words.
"It's urgent, okay? Yezi is in trouble. Please Renqin. Just once, okay?" Xiaoyun pleaded again.
After a short silence, Renqin backed down.
"Fine, fine, I will drive there... I think I know what you are talking about."
As Renqin finally started the bus back up, Yueyue immediately stopped it again.
"Wait, you guys can't just drive there. Let me call Yiming to get more people, at least." Yueyue pointed out as she pulled out her phone.
Renqin turned over to Xiaoyun, who nodded in agreement after a short consideration.
"Mr.Yiming, can you hear me?"
"Yes, Yueyue, what do you need?"
"Can you call the militia——I mean the soldiers to get to the front gate? It's an emergency."
"Okay, I will do that right now."
As Yueyueh hung up her phone, Renqin didn't waste any time and started driving the bus towards the entrance.
Two minutes later, the soldiers were already at the front entrance when the bus arrived.
"Get on the bus," Xiaoyun waved at the soldiers as the bus opened its door, getting ready to explain the emergency mission.
---
After taking several wrong turns and with a miracle, it avoided the zombie horde and arrived at the hotel.
However, it was the wrong one.
Renqin drove right in front of the casino, which led him to drive another loop before finally getting to the right one.
Xiaoyun pulled out his phone and started calling as everyone waited patiently for it to connect.
"Jixi, you there?" Xiaoyun asked as the call finally went through.
"This Mr.Xiaoyun?"
An unfamiliar woman's voice asked, surprising Xiaoyun a little. But he quickly recovered his composure.
"Yes. Who are you? Where is Jixi and everyone else?"
"If you want your friend to be safe, come up by yourself without any weapon. We can see you." The voice replied.
Xiaoyun hesitated for a second but answered it in the end.
"Fine, just don't hurt them. I will go there myself."
As Xiaoyun hung up the phone, Yueyue immediately held him back, not letting him go as all of the soldiers, including Renqin, watched it unfold.
"You can't go there yourself." Yueyue pointed out as she blocked the exit to stop him from getting off the bus.
"I promised Huayi that Yezi would come home safely. This is an order, Xiaoyue, stay back."
Xiaoyun forcefully moved Yueyue to the side, showing zero leniency as he left the bus by himself.
"Ugh! This idiot!"
As Yueyue sat down in defeat, none of the soldiers knew what to do until Renqin reminded them to follow Xiaoyun's order that was given.
---
When Xiaoyun walked into the hotel lobby, he took out his phone and called again.
"I walked in alone like you wanted it. Which floor are you on?"
"The roof."
Xiaoyun hung up again and began heading towards the roof. But when he arrived at the door, it was already open.
A whole crowd of people were standing there, some armed with swords and some with axes or bats.
Some are even armed with rifles from Yezi and the soldier, with all six of them being tied up on the floor.
"What do you want?" Xiaoyun asked, showing zero fear on his face despite all of them pointing the rifle at him.
A woman looking to be in her late thirties stepped up from the crowd before pulling out Yezi's pistol after noticing Xiaoyun's gun on the side.
"We heard you wanted to attack the hotel next door?" The woman asked.
"Yes, Last week we killed several of their henchmen that came to threaten our town. We also rescued several people that they kidnapped in an RV.
So we are planning to attack them to rescue the rest... Are you guys a part of that group?" Xiaoyun asked, but the woman didn't answer.
"I don't trust you. How can you prove that you saved those people?" the woman demanded.
"Let me make a phone call right now."
As Xiaoyun reached to the side, the atmosphere immediately got a little tense. But it quickly cooled down as he pulled out a phone and began dialing a number.
"Hey Yuqi, can you get the record on the people we saved from the RV? Yeah, can you get them to your office and answer this phone?
Oh, does one of them work in the office right now? That's perfect... Okay, I found some people who know you. Can you explain how they treated you?"
Xiaoyun threw his phone over to the woman, who caught it one-handed before turning it on speaker mode.
"Hello?" The girl on the other side asked.
"Qi Ai, is it really you? Oh my god, I thought I would never see you again! Are you okay?" One of the women at the back asked excitedly.
"Yeah, I'm fine, Mom. They had treated me extremely well. They saved me from those kidnappers. Where are you guys——"
Before the phone call continued, the woman in the front ended the call and threw the phone back to Xiaoyun.
"Sorry for the misunderstanding. We have several people who they kidnapped, so we are just taking extra precautions."
The woman signaled her crew to untie Yezi and the soldier before apologizing to Xiaoyun.
"I should have never fallen for an innocent-looking woman. How could I fall for the classic blunder——"
"It's okay. Everybody makes mistakes. Don't be so harsh on yourself." Xiaoyun interrupted Yezi as he gently patted him on the shoulder.
But Yezi, Jixi, and the four soldiers still seemed disappointed with themselves as they all now stood by Xiaoyun's side.
"Well, unfortunately, we can't return these rifles to you," the woman said, as her men still had them all pointed at Xiaoyun.
"It's all good. You can keep it... All I care about is them getting back home alive. Come on, let's go home."