The end of the year was now less than a week away.
Xiaoyun was put on office duty as Yuqi and Yueyue went outside to plan for the New Year celebration.
Just as he started reading an accountant's report on this week's inventory status, someone suddenly knocked on the door.
Walking over to open the door, it was Yezi standing right outside.
"Hey Yezi, what brought you here today?"
Xiaoyun asked, signaling Yezi to take a seat in front of the desk while he went around the desk to sit in Yuqi's usual spot.
"Xiaoyun, I need to tell you a little secret." Yezi quietly whispered.
"What is it?"
"I rescued a person who was a dock worker at the city's port. He told me that there is a massive amount of raw material in the port.
But due to the outbreak, it was put on pause... I was thinking we should try to get as much of it out before someone else takes it."
Xiaoyun sat there in silence as he looked toward the map on the wall before coming up with a short conclusion.
"From here to the port is almost a thirty-minute drive on the other side of the city... Are you going to drive around the city outskirts?"
"Yes, that's what we're planning to do. We're going to drive the trucks that were found last week.
But we need more soldiers to pull this off, that's why I'm here to ask for your help... I just need a few more soldiers to help me with this plan."
"How much do you need?" Xiaoyun asked, his face had only gotten more cautious as he started having a bad feeling.
"Around two hundred soldiers on top of my fifty rescue team, so that it will be a two hundred fifty people operation——"
"What! That way too much. How many zombies are even located there? That's like almost everyone in the army."
Xiaoyun's face was filled with disapproval as he couldn't imagine a place that would need that many soldiers to fight.
"The port apparently has only a few hundred workers, so there wouldn't be too many zombies there.
But I need the soldiers to help me carry the material inside the trucks and stand guard in case more zombies come." Yezi explained.
"But that's almost two-thirds of our total soldiers. It's too risky to have that many people go out at once." Xiaoyun argued.
"We still have the militia as garrison... Besides, we have scouted almost the entire city's outskirts now.
There's only the occasional zombie horde coming out of the city. Also, it's only going to be same-day missions.
We will go in the morning and be back in the afternoon. Just a singular day, and we'll be out with all the raw resources from the port."
After a short consideration, Xiaoyun finally fell into temptation as the report in hand indicated the raw resources shortage was coming soon once again.
"Fine, I will allocate it... How about you just take all of them? I feel like you are going to need it."
As Xiaoyun gave his counteroffer and took out a blank sheet of paper, Yezi immediately bowed down in gratitude.
"Thank you!"
"No problem, we are brothers, you know... Just remember, safety first."
Xiaoyun quickly writes a short authorization for three hundred fifty soldiers, signing his signature before handing it over to Yezi.
"Here, you can go to Yiming with this paper... You'd better come back the same day of the mission." Xiaoyun warned.
Yezi nodded his head several times, reassuring Xiaoyun before leaving the room with the paper.
"Hm... Maybe it's time to expand the number of soldiers again." Xiaoyun murmured as he pulled out a separate report from the drawer.
"The town is currently 1432 people, with 350 soldiers, including Yezi's rescue team... That a 24% of the town's full-time soldiers.
Now, combined with the 500 part-time militia and reserves, that's almost 60% of people in the military."
The more Xiaoyun thought about expanding the army, the more he felt he was overemphasizing the military over the civilian population.
"I need more people... but where can I increase it drastically? Incentivize more births? No, it takes almost eighteen years for a fully adult, that way too long."
Xiaoyun shook his head as he looked for an alternative way for population growth.
"Maybe other towns? Hm... Maybe I should start sending a delegate to the countryside for them to join us?"
He thought about it for a second before rejecting the idea altogether. It just didn't make sense to him at all.
"Most of them are in the countryside for a reason... They would never want to live so close to the city."
Feeling the options a little limited, his mind started thinking outside the box.
"That leaves me with only two options... The city or the military? No, both are practically impossible.
The military is its own organization. They would never join us... And the city is full of zombies."
As Xiaoyun ran out of ideas, his mind started zoning out as he sat there in silence.
"I wonder if there are even any survivors left in the city... Almost six months since the outbreak, how can anyone still have food left and evade the zombies?"
After thinking about it more and more, he gave up as he shifted his attention back to the work at hand.
"Whatever, why am I even thinking about this? I can just cross that bridge when one comes to it, I guess..."
---
The next day...
Yezi left the town with five semi-trucks and almost twelve buses full of soldiers, as the entire town had just learned about it now.
"Xiaoyun, why didn't you tell us you are sending Yezi to this mission?" Yuqi asked with a hint of anger in her voice.
"If I told you that, you would have never let me sign that paper to let him," Xiaoyun replied, barely reacting as he sat in his side of the desk.
"If anything goes wrong, it's going to be your fault," Yuqi warned.
"I'm sure it's going to be fine. It's not even an overnight mission... By the way, where's Yueyue?"
"She's too tired from last night after somebody went a little too hard on her. She's still catching some sleep... She's coming later."
As Yuqi rolled her eyes, Xiaoyun couldn't help but feel a little targeted.
"Hey, not my fault she decided to wear stockings and taunted me with it," Xiaoyun argued.
"Ah, so some pervert's kink is stocking. Looks like my mom and I should start wearing them as well." Yuqi teased.
"You're gonna regret doing that tonight." Xiaoyun threatens.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Time to go back to work."
Yuqi dismissed the threat as the two of them shifted their attention back to the stacks of paper that had been lying on their table.
---
Meanwhile, somewhere in Guangzhou...
Yezi had been stuck inside a bus for an hour and a half instead of the originally planned thirty minutes due to the truck being much slower than he had expected.
Still, they arrived at the front entrance of the port just before the sun had risen to the middle of the sky.
After clearing a few zombies standing outside the gate by a small team, all of the soldiers began exiting the bus as they got into formation.
With a short speech by Yezi, all the soldiers readied their rifles as they all stood in several horizontal lines in front of the entrance.
The moment he took out a megaphone and turned it to max volume, a piercing beep sound traveled across the entire port.
"You bastards! Come to the front if you want to die!"
As soon as he turned off his megaphone, a loud howling sound could be heard coming from beyond the gates.
A zombie horde could be seen in the distance, running straight towards them as more and more started gathering near the port's entrance.
Several soldiers quickly took out their makeshift grenade from the base, throwing it over the gate's fence as the zombie reached the iron bars.
After a loud explosion, most of the zombie horde were blown to pieces, with the one that survived being shot dead by the soldiers.
"Go go go!"
Half of the Soldiers quickly pushed the broken gates aside, letting the vehicles drive straight into the port as Yezi continued advancing with the other half.
The army soon reached the middle of the port. Yezi finally stopped for a second to allow the soldiers from the back to catch up.
"Everyone, remember the plan."
Yezi spoke through the walkie-talkie as soldiers got into groups of four among themselves, heading towards all four directions of the intersection.
---
A few hours later....
After looking through containers docked at the port, one of Yezi's team finally found the raw material they were looking for.
"Everyone, come back to the center. We have found the payload, over."
As more and more soldiers came back into the middle, Yezi's walkie-talkie suddenly got a transmission.
"This is Captain of Unit Three. We need backup. There's a mutant zombie up north. Our rifle can't penetrate through the zombie's head——zzzss."
The walkie-talkie was cut short by static noises, and the last sound was some sort of zombie growling sounds.
"Shit."
Yezi quickly pressed the transmission button again, speaking through the walkie-talkie as he gave out his order.
"Units one to twenty, switch to your K98K. Units fifty to sixty, switch to your AKM. Everyone else, ready their rifle and be ready to precision fire."
As more and more soldiers gathered in the middle, Yezi finally decided to march north to confront the mutants.
The moment Yezi and the soldiers saw the mutant in the distance, they were a little stunned.
It was almost three meters tall with an inhuman amount of muscle in its arms. So much muscle that its have to walk with both its hands and legs.
Everyone could see the head of their fallen comrade and the blood being splattered all over the floor as the mutant chews on their bodies.
"Everyone, spread out!"
Yezi was the first one to recover from the shock as he yelled out loud, snapping the soldiers back to reality as they quickly spread out.
"Precision fire! Aim for the head!"
Although some soldiers still held down their trigger, no one could blame them, as the only thing on their minds was to kill whatever was in front of them.
At the same time, the mutant zombie seemed to be much smarter than usual as it raised its arm to block bullets from hitting its head.
It was starting to move forward as more and more bullets kept firing at it, only to deal little to no damage to its wide, muscular arms.
"Crap...Everyone who has an explosive left, throw at it now!"
Five of the soldiers who still had a makeshift grenade threw it at the mutant, with three of them landing directly on top of the mutant's head as it exploded.
A large dust cloud covered the area where the mutant stood, as not a single person could see what was inside.
"Everyone, hold your fire."
As the smoke slowly dissipated, everyone could see the mutant still standing there. But both its arms were now severely damaged as they fell to the ground.
"Everyone fire! Full auto!"
Before Yezi even finished talking, everyone had already pulled their trigger, holding it down as endless bullets flew right towards the mutant.
This time, even though there were no muscle arms to block the bullet, it was only creating a small dent in its head.
But with more and more bullets hitting the same spot over and over again, it soon seemed to have worked.
The mutant went from standing still to falling all the way to the floor on its back, with zero movement from its body.
Everyone instinctively stopped their rifle as the mutant looked dead. Still, Yezi didn't dare to tell someone to walk up.
After three whole minutes had passed, Yezi finally directed a small team to check.
"Units fifty and fifty-one, go check on its corpse."
The two units carefully approached the mutant body, their hand holding their rifle, ready to fire at any moment.