Zhang Xiao Qiang’s vehicle was not at its original position. After he asked around, he found out that Shangguan Qiao Yun had driven it in the chicken farm. It seemed that she had recovered. He walked towards the farm, while the screams and begging for mercy resounded from behind him. They had been in the scene long enough to know that one would get one deserved.
The generator in the chicken farm roared to life, as lights shone out from Yang Ke’er’s room. The light lit up the ground outside, which was no longer as clean as when they had left in the morning. Instead, there were all sorts of debris, and broken wooden stakes and shattered glass. There was even some puddles of water.
At this time, Zhang Xiao Qiang’s thoughts were occupied by Yang Ke’er and Yuan Yi, as well as that new burden Shangguan Qiao Yun. He was not a magnanimous man, adding on to the precious nature of the rainwater, if he could save on it he would save as much as he could. He had long since treated the rainwater as a prized heirloom, to be left to his future generations together with the Beast Horn Spear and the seeds. He valued the importance of having descendents, and had no thoughts to take his stuff out to save the rest of the world. As long as his family was fine, it was enough. As for humankind? What did it have to do with him? He wasn’t Pavel Korchagin!
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Steel_Was_Tempered Took me a good 10 minutes to find this)
Yang Ke’er and Yuan Yi had been cleaned up and were lying on the beds, sleeping. Shangguan Qiao Yun had switched out of her clothes as well, and was sitting on the sofa, with one hand supporting her chin, as she zoned out while staring at the bed. Some of her stray strands of hair covered her forehead, while one half fell across her shoulder and the other hanging. Her nightgown reached her knees, and her slender calves were smooth like jade, with a pair of red cotton slippers with rabbit heads. Beside her feet, there was a basin of slightly cloudy water, and 2 towels were submerged in it.
She seemed not to have notice Zhang Xiao Qiang entering the room, just staring blankly at the feet of the bed. It was unclear what she was thinking of, and his gaze was blocked by her hair, hence, he couldn’t see her expression.
He walked up to her and tapped her shoulder gently, without using much force, hoping to stir her from her stupor. All of a sudden, her entire body jerked forwards, and she fell forwards across the sofa without moving.
Zhang Xiao Qiang stared agape, looking at his hands. Her current posture was extremely strange. It was like the comical pose of Stephen Chow in his movies, her head tilted to one side, with her right arm stretched up in a 90 degree angle, her left downwards 45 degree towards her own waist. One of her legs was straight out, the other slightly bent. Her nightgown had been pushed up towards her waist, and her tender thighs and pink-lace underwear were revealed for the world to see. Zhang Xiao Qiang closed his mouth and flipped her over, and saw that her eyes were close, her eyeballs moving slightly under her eyelids. Her breathing was stable, apparently, she had dozed off.
Seeing her in this state, Zhang Xiao Qiang was truly speechless. Such a beauty actually had such disregard for her sleeping habits. She was comparable with that Yang Ke’er.
Thinking about her, his heart skipped a beat. Didn’t Yang Ke’er also feel like sleeping the first time she slept, what if…? Zhang Xiao Qiang helped adjust Shangguan Qiao Yun’s posture, before finding her a blanket. He turned around and saw Yuan Yi with her eyes opened, looking at him. He walked over to her and took her palm gently in his. He looked at her with concern, as though to enquire her condition.
“I’m thirsty.” She spoke up with some difficulty, her body slightly tense. It was the first time she had asked Zhang Xiao Qiang to fetch her water. She was still unused to it, and felt a little apprehensive until she saw Zhang Xiao Qiang standing up to do it without any complaints. She then relaxed. Seeing him help her get water, her heart felt quite sweet, and her dry throat didn’t seem so bad.
It was then she saw Zhang Xiao Qiang bring the bottle labeled “84 Disinfectant, Do not drink.” and was slightly taken aback. However, as he opened the bottle to feed her, she didn’t question him, and opened her mouth to take in the contents obediently, her heart thinking: “Disinfectants shouldn’t kill people right?” Right now, she only had blind faith towards Zhang Xiao Qiang, even if he wanted her to kill herself, she would not hesitate to do so. She had no other thoughts, to her, she was living for his sake by now. As long as he wanted her, she would follow him till death. If he didn’t want her, she would lose all reason for living, and be no different from a zombie.
“There’s no bleach smell though? Taste a little sour in fact.” Yuan Yi couldn’t help but wonder when she tasted it, and she looked towards him with puzzlement, it was obviously not the disinfectant, why would he write that?
Zhang Xiao Qiang saw the questioning look, and didn’t say much, he just continued to feed her the water. As to whether she would gain anything from it, he didn’t even care. To him, she had done all she could, as long as she was willing, Zhang Xiao Qiang was ok.
She looked at him quietly when she finished drinking and watched him help to tuck her in, before heading to the sofa to smoke. She just looked at him until she was overcome by exhaustion and fell asleep.
Zhang Xiao Qiang woke up from his dreams and found that he had slept the entire night on the sofa. As he stood up, his entire body felt sore, as though his limbs had been petrified. When he saw that the women still had not yet woken up, he went out.
The moment he went out, he saw He Wen Bin, Three, and Frank all waiting for him. The moment they saw him, they stood up to greet him. He motioned for them to be seated, and started speaking. He didn’t like such forced pretenses and preferred peace and low-key. He disliked having to look at others from an elevated standpoint, and even more so, being looked at like that.
He Wen Bin’s expression was not so good, although his wound had stopped bleeding, the pain was still present. He could only sit one side and not speak. Frank wasn’t that fluent in conversation, and thus, wouldn’t be of much help. It was down to the glib Three to report.
After the events of yesterday, including the night revolt, the total manpower had been reduced by half. 30 cowards had been reduced to 15, and Brother Long’s subordinates suffered even heavier casualties. Other than Vulture’s 7 henchmen, there were 4 from He Wen Bin’s so the total made up 14 including the 3 of them in front of Zhang Xiao Qiang now. Adding on the survivors and Chef and Wang Le, there were about 30-odd men, while the women only numbered about 10. When they came to this topic, Three began to ask earnestly about the snake-waist woman who had followed them back.
“Brother Cockroach, what to do with that woman who followed you guys back? Send her to you? What about the other 8?”
Zhang Xiao Qiang pondered and decided to abandon Brother Long’s way of doing things. The women were now an equally important resource, they can be considered a strategic resource for multiplying in the future. If a base wanted more humans to fight in the future, it couldn’t just be decided by only guys. Like this, the women also didn’t need to be maintained, they could also contribute. Now, the urgent thing was to settle the whole lot of them, after Yang Ke’er had recovered, he would leave. After all, WH City was his goal.
“Get the woman who came back to take care of He Wen Bin, while the rest of the women are to train with the men from today on. They don’t have to kill the zombies, as long as they can run and move in times of danger that would be great. All men are to begin training, even for those cowards. Any operations in the future, they are all to take part!”
Up to this point, he remembered how some of them crumbled the moment he crashed in last night, and how they might potentially affect morale, and looked to He Wen Bin: “Next time, the men are to split into 2 teams, the combat team and the reinforcement team. The combat team is in charge of fighting, the reinforcements are to handle driving, transport of materials, medical treatment and all other activities.”
As manpower was scarce, he was also at a slight loss on what to do moving forward. One truly did not know the value of rice until one was poor. Now, he could only temporarily implement measures and protocols. He then continued: “The reinforcements are to split into further 2: The 1st type is the combat service team, they are to strengthen themselves to help move spoils of war and maintain equipment, handling the daily livings of the rest. The other group will be purely service, inclusive of the women. Normal day to day chores and treatment of injured personnel will be their duty.”
At this point, Three could not help but ask: “What if the combat team wants the women, what do we do? You’re gonna let them hold it in?”
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