Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

"Um, I never drank that before... I only drink dark coffee."

"I\'ll take it."

Xiaoyun made a coffee mug that appeared out of nowhere, then made a cup of dark coffee on the table.

"Here, it might be slightly more bitter than you expected," Xiaoyun warned as he handed the coffee mug over.

"It\'s fine. I drank all different kinds of coffee when I was back in the office." Yuqi reassured him as she lifted the mug.

After taking a small sip, Yuqi immediately put the mug back down.

"Whew, this is more bitter than I expected."

"Told you. I don\'t add sugar to it since the bitterness wakes me up."

Xiaoyun proceeded to grab his coffee mug and make himself a cup of coffee.

"Coffee without sugar? That sounds so awful." Yuqi couldn\'t stand the thought of it as she always had drank coffee with sugar.

"Can I have a sip?" Yueyue got a little curious.

"Sure, here," Xiaoyun smirked as he handed the mug over.

"Honey... Yueyue had never drunk coffee before. You\'re going to ruin her first experience." Leyan decided to speak up.

"Come on, it\'s not that bad. Look, Yuqi is already getting used to it." Xiaoyun pointed towards Yuqi, who had already drunk a quarter of the mug.

Yueyue hesitated for a second but accepted the offer and took a sip.

"Ugh, coffee tastes so bitter!" Yueyue almost spits it out as she hands the coffee back to Xiaoyun.

Leyan got up from her seat to get some water for Yueyue.

"Here, wash your mouth for a bit."

After the debacle ended, the four went back to eating.

Just as they were halfway finished, Wuli and Shuli finally came to the kitchen to eat.

"Good morning!" Wuli excitedly sat down in her seat, full of energy.

In contrast, Shuli sat down silently with no energy like the other three.

"Hey, Wuli and Shuli. How did you sleep last night?" Leyan asked.

"Pretty well. It\'s probably the most sleep I\'ll get before the mission tomorrow." Wuli explained.

As the six of them were eating at the dining table, the people in the guest room started walking into the kitchen.

First, it was Lily as she sat with no energy and started eating slowly.

Next, it was Tianci, who walked into the kitchen with a very energetic look, but her mind seemed to be preoccupied.

Lastly, Kate and Anna walked out of their room and into the kitchen together.

"Are you guys okay? You all look so sleepy." Leyan asked as she noticed all four of them could barely keep their eyes open.

"I\'m fine. I\'m not sleepy. I\'m just a little tired." Tianci replied as her face suddenly started blushing.

"We\'re fine too. I-I think it\'s just the bed that need some time to get use to." Kate replied, with Anna nodding in agreement.

But both their faces were blushing as well as they nervously looked down at their food.

Meanwhile, Lily didn\'t think much of it and replied honestly.

"You guys were so loud yesterday. I could hear it all the way from the guest room... What were you guys doing so late?" Lily complained.

Xiaoyun started choking on the noodles, and all five started blushing as they all realized that Kate and Anna would have heard it as well if Lily had heard it.

Not to mention, it also explains why all three of them looked sleepy.

"Oh, um, I\'ll keep it down next time," Xiaoyun apologized as the other five were too shy to speak anymore.

As everyone ate their food in an awkward silence, Nami finally came downstairs and walked into the kitchen.

"Good morning everyone..." Nami waved at everyone with barely any energy put into it.

"Hey, Nami, did you sleep well last night?" Leyan curiously asked.

"Yeah, but I just woke up super tired for some reason," Nami replied with no energy in her voice as she began eating the noodles.

"You can go back to sleep if you want," Leyan suggested.

"But I\'m hungry... I\'ll go back to sleep after I finish this."

As Nami started eating the noodles, Lily suddenly asked a question.

"Sister Nami! Why did you guys do it yesterday? Brother Xiaoyun didn\'t want to tell me."

"Do what? And at what time?" Nami asked as her brain was too tired to process what Lily was asking.

"Last night! You guys were partying or something?" Lily asked curiously.

All six of them, including Xiaoyun, kept giving Nami eye signals for her to make something up.

But Nami was just too tired to notice it, so she replied without much thinking as she already had taught sex-ed to her in private.

"We were just having sex with Xiaoyun... I-I mean, we were just watching a late-night movie!"

Nami immediately changed her response as she realized three other guests were still in the house.

"Can I join?" Lily excitedly asked.

"No, it\'s an adult only," Nami replied as Lily had made her more awake.

"Ahem, I\'ve got to go to a meeting now," Xiaoyun mentioned as he got up from his seat.

"Me too. I have to go to your mandatory meeting." Yuqi got up from her seat.

Yueyue, Wuli, and Shuli also got up from their seat as they had to attend the meeting.

"Tianci... can you go with Xiaoyun today? I\'m a little too sleepy." Kate asked.

"Hm? Oh sure, I can do that." Tianci snapped out of her imagination as she accepted the request and walked toward the doorway with Xiaoyun.

"I\'m going to take a break today too... Thank you, Mrs.Leyan. The breakfast was great." Anna finished the rest of her food and returned to her room.

---

It was already ten o\'clock when the five arrived in the administrative building.

When they walked inside, everyone was already there waiting.

"Took you long enough. Did you have diarrhea or something?" Yezi joked.

"Nah, but I was just seeing——never mind." Xiaoyun changed at the last second as he realized it wasn\'t really appropriate for him to joke back like that.

"Ahem, the official meeting starts now." Xiaoyun cleared his throat as he took a seat at the center.

One hour of report later...

"Yuqi, can you summarize what everyone had said?" Xiaoyun asked as he had completely forgotten what everyone had said after hearing so many different reports.

"Sure."

Yuqi pulled out the notes she had taken the whole time and started reading them.

"Our city population is almost seventy thousand people, with five thousand of them being newcomers that had just moved in recently from the war. There has also been a large influx of migrants from different cities and provinces that have been put into the newcomer category.

The health department is currently over capacity by ten percent as many of the newcomers have some illnesses that were untreated when they are outside. They are requesting a new expansion to the hospital and more hiring as they are severely understaffed."

Xiaoyun noted it in his head this time as Yuqi moved on to the next one.

"The construction department is currently building as much housing and expanding in all three directions. They had been contracted to build five more factories in the upcoming months...

Currently, they have been breaking even rather than losing money... Which is rare when every department we had set up was meant to lose money so far." Yuqi added her thoughts at the end.

"The next department is the trade department. They had seen a drastic increase in outside traders visiting our towns and trading goods for food and weapons...

An interesting note is that the trading department had requested to grant the ability to let certain people leave town to gather goods in the city."

"Isn\'t gathering goods from the city done by the military?" Xiaoyun asked as he remembered that every department could give a list to Yezi, and he\'d organize soldiers to go out and find it.

"Yes... but they only requesting that civilians with a permit get the right to do so... since we are only trading with traders that get here, rather than trading with other settlements."

"Hm... Valid point. I\'ll consider it."

Xiaoyun didn\'t outright agree to it as he felt it could endanger the town\'s stability and give way to outside influences.

"Okay, the next thing is... The commercial department. They had reported a decline in growth as some shops have closed down due to the recent raw resource price hike from the military action you took last week.

But to make up for it, five new factories, as mentioned earlier. They have been leased to private individuals who intend it to be a textile factory." Yuqi explained.

Xiaoyun nodded as he noted it in his head.

"The next three departments are..."

Yuqi proceeded to explain all the overcapacity in the education sector, from the newcomers who had kids to the overcapacity of other new departments such as the sanitary that Yuqi had recently established.

"Okay, okay. So all of them are caused by the newcomers we moved in last week, right?" Xiaoyun asked.

"Yes, we\'ll need to expand all of them if we were to keep up with demand," Yuqi replied.

"Very well. I trust you can handle those... I\'ll consider the trade department one later."

With all the reports out of the way, all the majors let out a sigh of relief as they didn\'t get why Xiaoyun even invited them here in the first place and was getting bored.