Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

"You're right. Maybe I did put too much expectation on them."

With Leyan backing down to the sofa, Xiaoyun's mind was now at ease.

"Of course I'm right. When was I ever wrong? I'm the most clever guy out there."

"Yeah yeah... Don't get ahead of yourself now."

As Xiaoyun looked towards the kid with a smug face, Leyan couldn't help but move closer to pinch his face.

"Honey, you're so cute."

The answer suddenly sent a chill down his spine, almost as if his mind was predicting that something bad was about to happen.

"Ahem, don't call me cute."

Despite shoveling Leyan's hands away, Xiaoyun quickly noticed that her innocent smile was starting to look increasingly like a smirk.

"Oh, I almost forgot, I'll pick up Lily later today."

"Why all of a sudden?" Leyan questioned.

"You were busy upstairs cleaning, and she needed someone to go to her teacher's talk."

"Your schedule won't conflict?" Leyan questioned again.

"Don't worry about it."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Fine... I guess you can go instead——"

"Mom! I'm hungry!"

"Okay, okay. Mommy is coming."

Leyan instantly got off the sofa before taking a seat on the floor, taking Qiaolan up in her arms.

"Hungry!"

"Hungry!"

With both Yongyi and Lianrong chiming in, Leyan's mind quickly decided to pick up Lianrong next.

"Honey, can you take care of Yongyi?"

As Xiaoyun got up from the sofa and picked up Yongyi, his mind looked a little lost as he watched Leyan lower her dress.

"Why are you just staring at me? Go to the fridge and get the bottle of milk."

"Oh, right."

---

After another ten minutes of chaotic babysitting, the two could finally take a little break on the sofa again.

This time, all the babies were in their living room cribs, peacefully sleeping just like Bingbing, Wenwen, and Xuanhua the whole time.

"You dumbass, what make you think you could just feed cow milk straight to kids?"

"Sorry. My brain short-circuited..."

Seeing Leyan rolling her eyes, Xiaoyun's mind quickly started to look for excuses.

"How am I supposed to tell the difference between them? I never knew you guys had a whole separate fridge for breast milk."

"Uh-huh, as expected from a clever guy."

"I'm being dead serious. I just wasn't used to seeing baby bottles before..."

As Xiaoyun's face turned to the side out of embarrassment, Leyan quickly noticed a little bulge forming down below.

"Actually, when we were raising Qiqi and Yueyue, we barely ever needed to store breastmilk at all——"

"That's because we had a two-year break between them rather than having six babies at once."

After a short silence, Xiaoyun finally turned back around to admit defeat.

"Okay fine. I'm a dumbass. My bad. You're right. I'm not that clever."

"Mhm, that's what I thought... Let me reward you a little since you have been so willing to admit a mistake."

The sudden grab caught Xiaoyun a little off guard, as he didn't expect her to be so outright.

"Geez, you're so big down here already——"

"Oh shit, it's almost eleven. I need to head out now. Save the reward later tonight."

As Xiaoyun rolled over to the side to evade her grasp, Leyan only watched rather than stop him from leaving.

"Have a safe trip!"

---

As Xiaoyun walked down the streets, his back was still a little chilled from Leyan's eyes earlier.

It was almost as if a predator was looking at a small, innocent prey, despite him being the stronger one.

"It has only been a few days... Do they want it that badly?"

After walking down the streets for a bit, Xiaoyun suddenly decided to take the bus to work instead.

"Pay here, please."

Seeing the money box on the side and the QR code on the side, his mind was a little blown away.

"How much?"

"One food stamp or ten NRC, please."

"NCD? What is that?"

"How could you not know about NRC——"

Xiaoyun's question finally made the bus driver turn around, looking over to him right in the face.

"M-Mr.Governor?"

"Good morning. Ahem, so what's NRC?"

"The new currency's name."

"What does it stand for?"

Xiaoyun's genuinely confused face caught the bus driver a little off guard, not expecting that something so basic wouldn't be known to him.

"Um... I think it stands for National Recovery Credits."

"He's right. It does stand for National Recovery Credit. Oh, and I worked for the bank!"

As a person from the back of the bus pointed it out loud, Xiaoyun nodded in gratitude.

"Thanks."

After taking out three brand new notes and putting them into the money box, Xiaoyun started walking further into the bus.

To his surprise, the bus was almost empty, with only one person being the one who had yelled out earlier.

"Governor, this is your first time taking the bus?" The middle-aged man curiously asked as the bus started moving.

"Yeah. The car broke down today."

"No wonder."

As Xiaoyun took a seat across from the middle-aged man, his mind suddenly got a little curious.

"Do you take the bus every day?"

"Yeah. How else would I go to work in Guangzhou? It's like a thirty-minute walk from Luoping."

"I see. Is the bus usually this empty?" Xiaoyun curiously asked again.

"If you came here an hour or two earlier, then it would have been jam-packed."

As Xiaoyun nodded in acknowledgment, he quickly noticed the middle-aged man seemed to have a question of his own.

"You want to ask something? I'll try my best to answer it."

"Governor Chen... Will the average citizen like me be able to buy cars in the future?"

"Of course. I'm actually thinking about opening up car restrictions... But you know how hard it is to get fuel, right?"

The middle-aged man nodded, his mind understanding the difficulty that Xiaoyun faced.

"Here, let me give you a little reassurance... By the end of this year, there will be a new mode of transportation other than just buses."

"Thank you, Governor."

"No problem... Nice chatting with you, I'm at my stop now."

---

As Xiaoyun hopped out of the bus, he was just a few steps away from the military base's entrance.

"ID, please."

After taking out the ID and scanning it, the soldier immediately saluted Xiaoyun.

"Good morning, Sir!"

"Good morning to you, too."

Entering past the entrance, Xiaoyun was met with more soldiers and office workers, all saluting towards him.

Some even seemingly left their offices to salute him, forcing him to salute back as he continued down the hall.

After walking and arriving at Houqin's office, Xiaoyun knocked and waited.

"You may come in."

As he opened the door, Houqin was sitting in front of her computer, typing an email.

"You have something to report?"

Xiaoyun's voice immediately made Houqin flinch a little as she turned her head over to the doorway.

"Yes, Commander."

After waiting for Xiaoyun to take a seat, Houqin continued.

"This is the newest zombie mutant report."

"Zombie mutant report?"

Looking down at the file she had handed over, Xiaoyun opened it and started reading through it.

Inside the document was a detailed recollection of various kinds of zombie mutants. Many of them were already familiar to him, like the tank, jocky, hunter, and charger mutants.

The less common ones were the witch mutants and the invisible mutants, with a few newer ones that he had personally never seen before.

"Zombie mutant that can spit acid?" Xiaoyun murmured as he read the newly labeled mutant, spitter.

After reading through all the new mutants, he quickly noticed he was only halfway through the report.

Flipping to the next section, the information presented before his eyes immediately raised the alarm.

There were hundreds of reports of soldiers being injured, with all of them being initially reported as soldiers' carelessness.

However, further investigation revealed that the zombies' behavior was rapidly changing, almost as if they were adapting to humans' tactics.

From zombies hiding in corners despite making noises to lure them out, to even running away to form groups.

Some of the soldiers' accounts even reported zombies and mutants collaborating in coordinated attacks against military outposts.

"Are the zombies on drugs or something?"

As Xiaoyun continued reading down the soldier's accounts, his mind was just too blown away by the information.

It just didn't make sense to him that the average zombie could mutate this fast within the last few months.

"I don't think so. At least all of the lab reports had shown negatives... It just seems the zombies are naturally evolving."

"Really..."

Putting down the report, Xiaoyun sat in silence for almost ten minutes as his mind tried to process all the different accounts.

The zombies were rapidly becoming stronger, much stronger than the ones he had faced before on the battlefields.

If something weren't done, it would eventually cause more casualties than he was willing to take.

"What do Yiming and Yezi think about this threat?"

Houqin paused for a second, taking her hands off the keyboard, before pulling out an envelope from the drawer.

"They had jointly written this together for you."