When Xiaoyun woke up, Yuqi was still asleep.
Xiaoyun check the clock and it was already eight o'clock, so he woke Yuqi up as she hate being late to work.
Yuqi and Xiaoyun looked at each other as both of them could smell each other's sweat and can see the stain on each other's body from last night.
"Lets go take a shower." Yuqi suggested.
"Good idea." The two got out of the bed and went to the restroom.
By the time the two got downstairs, it was almost nine o'clock.
All of them were already off to work, even Lily was off to school.
"All your fault you dummy! Now we are late." Yuqi punched Xiaoyun on the shoulder.
"Yeah yeah, I just couldn't hold myself after seeing your beautiful body in the shower." Xiaoyun remembered her doubt on her own body last night.
"S-shut up, your flattering won't work on me." Yuqi's voice sounded angry but her face's smile tell Xiaoyun that it worked.
The two started eating the breakfast left on the table.
By the time they got to the office, they were thirty minutes late.
"What took you two so long?" Yueyue was already at the office chair working.
"This dummy just couldn't hold it in the morning." Yuqi complained as she sat down at the main desk.
"Yeah he always does that." Yueyue thought back to the few days ago.
"Hey its not my fault you all are so sexy." Xiaoyun complimented the two.
"Shut up." The two both yelled as if they can see through Xiaoyun's tactic.
"Whatever, I'm just telling the truth." Xiaoyun went back to work.
---
As the clock approaches noon, Xiaoyun suddenly got a phone call.
"Yiming what wrong?"
"Can you come to the gate right now? An higher up want to talk to you."
"Okay I'll be right there." Xiaoyun hung up the phone.
"You guys can go eat lunch together later, I need to go do something." Xiaoyun stood up and left the office.
When Xiaoyun arrived at the gates, he could see Yiming standing on the wall.
Xiaoyun walked up the stair and looked down. It was only a single Jeep style car in front of the gate.
"Yiming why you call me here?" Xiaoyun asked.
"Apparently he want to talk to you. He showed me his military rank and everything. So I think he is legitimately wanting to talk to you." Yiming replied.
"Well then lets go talk to him." The two walked back downstairs and signaled the bridge to be lowered.
The man walked forward to Xiaoyun and Yiming.
"You are the mayor?" The man looked at Yiming.
"No he is." Yiming pointed at Xiaoyun.
"Oh what a young mayor." The man stretched his hand out for an handshake.
"Thank you, I get that a lot." Xiaoyun shook his hand.
"I assume you saw or heard about the bombing run near the city few days ago?" The man let go of Xiaoyun's hand.
"Yeah, the massive zombie horde from the city was completely crushed at the exit of the city outskirt." Xiaoyun replied.
"Can I ask how many people live in your town? Sorry if this sound a bit out of nowhere." The man asked.
"Just several families group together, like around one hundred people." Xiaoyun gave him a vague number
"Really? That little people built a seven meter wall stretching this long. You sure you remembering it right?" The man question Xiaoyun again.
"Oh right I almost forgot, I think the number is around five hundred. Sorry I have kind of bad memory" Xiaoyun still gave a lower number, but the man seem to believe it this time.
"Wow that is probably the biggest town I had heard. Most of the town I had visited are only around one hundred people max." The man complimented Xiaoyun.
"Other towns? Can I ask how many towns are there?"
"I know of around one hundred different towns that had been established outside the city. Most of them are on the countryside. You know, rural villages." The man paused for a second, but then continued.
"You are the closest town I had seen, you are almost next to the city. It's really impressive." The man complimented again.
"Well its got a very easy point to defend with the steep hills and the forest that blocks most of the entrances. Anyway I'm sure you are not just here to compliment me all day right?" Xiaoyun got an little impatient.
"Well, we currently have a food shortage and we were wondering if you have——"
"Any food to spare right? Well I got a lot of food, but we can't just give it to you guys for free." Xiaoyun interrupted him.
"Of course, we wouldn't steal from the civilian. However the rifles you have up there aren't what you can normally get in the country." The man warned.
"Are you trying to blackmail me?" Xiaoyun raised his voice.
"Me? No no, but we can register towns to be designated safe area to avoid you know, a plane in the sky accidentally dropping a bomb somewhere." The man raised his voice as well.
"Fine, how much food do you want?" Xiaoyun folded.
"Just half a ton or so will be good." The man replied.
"What! That is crazy. There's no way I can give you that much." Xiaoyun refused.
"I'm just saying, if an entire division showed up seeing an foreign military intervening in home soil, I can't guaranteed what will happened next." The man threaten again.
"There's no way you can represent an entire division." Yiming chimed in.
"How do you know old man?"
"You are only an Platoon leader."
"Ah so we got a former soldier here." The man realized his bluffing was getting exposed.
"Well I'm going to be honest with you, my superior is only a leader of a battalion. But I wasn't lying about the safety zone. They are planning to bomb the city soon. You would really want me to mark you as safety zone."
"What? Isn't there still civilian inside the city? How can you do this?" Xiaoyun face was in complete shock.
"That not up to me, you would need to ask the general." The man shrugged.
"Bullshit, they don't have enough bombs to bomb the city. I remember correctly most of the air division and ammo was sent to the capital when the outbreak happened." Yiming pointed out his lies again.
"Oh we got an insider, can I ask what's your former rank sir?" The man asked.
"None of your business." Yiming refused to answer it.
"How about this, I give you ten boxes? Your car can't even hold that much." Xiaoyun pointed at the back of the car.
"Fine, just load as much as you can. Then I will call my superior that you are in the safety zone." The man went back inside the car.
Xiaoyun told the soldier bring the boxes of canned food here.
After ten minute, an pickup truck with exact ten boxes was here.
The soldier loaded the food into the car and went back to the wall.
"You happy?" Xiaoyun asked.
"Yes I'm happy. Let me get out my phone." Xiaoyun could see the man taking out a satellite phone.
"Hey Tianci, yeah its me. I got an truck full of food. You mind marking the town we named 233 to be safe zone? Yeah the one next to the city. Okay I'm driving back right now." The man hung up the phone.
"Well you guys are in the safe zone now. Just make sure you guys don't go near the city. Although we aren't bombing it, I heard that something is happening in the city with some zombies. Apparently there has been some sort of zombie leader inside it."
"How you guys know that if you can't go inside the city?" Xiaoyun asked.
"With satellite duh." The man pointed up in the sky.
"Anyway I need to get going now. Good luck to your town." The man drove off.
"Why do I feel like we just got robbed?" Xiaoyun mumbled.
"Because we did, we just got extorted... I never expected the military to be run like a bandit camp." Yiming let out a sigh.
"Oh well, it wasn't that much food anyway. No need to cry over spilled milk I guess." The two entered back to the town.
---
When Xiaoyun got back to the office, it was already one o'clock pass noon.
"Where did you go?" Yuqi asked as she sat on her chair.
"Being forced to go pay protection fee." Xiaoyun replied.
"By who?" Yueyue curiously asked.
"The military. I guess they are running out of food so they had been demanding food from every town. Which included us." Xiaoyun explained.
"Isn't that extortion? Why don't we just fight back?" Yueyue suggested it without thinking.
"You remember few days ago the ground shaking? That was a single bombing run by them. We aren't strong enough to fight them, not even close." Xiaoyun immediately rejected that idea.
"Oh." Yueyue realized how naive her idea was.
"I hope we don't have to fight them... our enemy are still the zombies in the cities." Yuqi stated.
"Yeah you right, we shouldn't be infighting in a crisis like this." Xiaoyun looked down as he finish speaking.
Progression! Simple straight forward! You might be wondering why the volume is named 'clearing' city outskirt. You will know soon.
Anyway *sigh*, the bonus chapter is finally dropping again.
Bonus chapter count:10