Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

"Other than Leifei's letter, is there anything else that needs to be reported to me?" Xiaoyun asked as he sat back down across from Houqin.

"There's one last thing... This is last week's logistic report."

As Houqin took out an entire separate stack of different files from the cabinet behind her, she only took one of them out from the bunch.

"No need to show me. Just tell me what's missing and what's needed to continue operating."

"Okay then... Um, we currently have enough copper and steel for a month before we run out."

"I'll make more of it next week."

Houqin flipped to the next page before freezing in place as she couldn't finish her sentence.

"And the food situation..."

"What about the food situation?"

"We're running out of canned food... There's not going to be enough rice either to send two separate army corps out of Luoping for more than a week."

"I'll find a way to make up for it. You don't have to worry... Anything else?"

"Gas. We are about to run out of gasoline by the end of this week. We don't have any more gas to transport anything."

"You should have told me this at the beginning when I came into this room."

Xiaoyun murmured as he quickly realized the number of shortages he was facing was starting to become overwhelming.

"Sorry... I-I thought you would want to hear the good news first." Houqin nervously apologized.

"Never mind. Just ignore what I just said... I'll talk to Yuqi later to deal with it. Just continue operation as normal."

"Yes, sir."

---

When Xiaoyun arrived in Yuqi's office, she was in the middle of making a phone call, her face looking extremely angry as she yelled back to the other side.

"I don't care how you do it. You need to break into that bank and take that machine back to Luoping."

Taking a seat across from her, Yuqi's anger continued as she yelled back at the phone once again.

"Just blow it up. I don't care if it is destroyed or not. And don't you dare try to keep that machine to yourself, your family is in Luoping."

As she threatened the other person on the phone, Xiaoyun started to get a little curious about who she was calling.

"God damn it, these idiots..."

"Why are you so mad? Who were you calling?" Xiaoyun curiously asked as Yuqi finally hung up the phone call.

"Just some salvage group... I need them to rip a machine that's capable of printing our currency."

"Oh shit, that's pretty important. Do you want me just to send in the military to help get that machine out?"

"No need. They can't print it without the material we have anyway... I'm just making sure that thing doesn't fall into the wrong hands."

"If you say so... Anyway, is everything in the cities going fine?"

"As fine as it could be... Actually, Xiaoyun, can you help me deal with something? I have been having this stupid problem that kept bothering me."

"What is it?"

Yuqi quickly opened her file cabinet, taking out a small document before handing it over to him.

"Your friends over in Hunan kept on harassing refugees who came towards our city. They always take everything they have as a 'fee' for traveling on their road."

"Really?"

Xiaoyun looked a little surprised as what she described sounded like something that a bandit would do.

"Yes, really. And whatever diplomat they send to talk to you, don't buy their bullshit. They are just defending themselves as individual soldiers' action."

"You already sent a complaint to them?"

"Mhm."

As Xiaoyun read the document in his hand, he could read hundreds, if not thousands, of accounts of refugees getting robbed while in Hunan.

"I don't think we can really do much... Even if I went there, they are just going to give me some bullshit answer as well."

"I thought your friends worked there?" Yuqi questioned.

"Yeah, but they aren't fully in charge. We just have to suck it up and just wait it out for now, I think."

The answer disappointed Yuqi a little, but she didn't really think too much about it as she took the file and put it back into the cabinet.

"Anything else that needs me to help with?"

"Of course, there are things that need your help. There are always things that need your help... Here."

As she went back to the cabinet and threw an entire stack of files over to his side of the desk, he was a little dumbfounded.

"All these problems need me?" Xiaoyun nervously asked.

"If you can't solve it. Then no one else can."

Opening one of the files on top, he was instantly taken aback by the report. Inside, it was a food report.

Although the food growth had been rapidly increasing, it was nowhere near the pace compared to the population growth they are facing.

The same issue that Houqin had shown earlier. But rather than just the military, it was the entire population as a whole.

"Food shortage again? Why does it feel like we never have enough food for everyone?" Xiaoyun murmured.

"Because there's always more mouths to feed and farming equipment is limited... If you read the second file, it will tell you why."

Taking a look at the second file, it was a report on fuel shortages. Or some may say there was no shortage, as fuel doesn't exist in the inventory.

"Where the hell did all the fuel go?" Xiaoyun asked in confusion.

"Your expedition in Shenzhen isn't free. How else do you think we can run those semi-trucks to supply your troops?"

Xiaoyun fell into silence as he didn't expect the military strains to be this severe, but he quickly noticed something off about the food statistic earlier.

"Wait, if we don't have fuel, how are we still producing that much food? None of the tractors should be working."

"A salvage group found a bunch of electric tractors in an abandoned factory, and I have already resumed some of the coal power plant to fuel them."

"Nice... I never knew electric tractors even existed."

"Me either. But we have it now... Just a shame we can't produce it." Yuqi murmured as she turned her attention to her monitor.

"Why not? We found it in the factory where it is made, right?" Xiaoyun questioned.

"Yeah, but this is the assembly factory. The actual factory that makes it is up in the Northeastern provinces."

"Oh..."

As Xiaoyun sat there in silence, his brain was thinking of a long-term solution to the whole shortage issue.

In his eyes, if he manages to resolve the fuel crisis, the food crisis would just go away on its own with all the heavy farm machinery kicked into full gear.

"I really need to get to Maoming, don't I?" Xiaoyun murmured as it appeared to be the only long-term solution.

"You know how far Maoming is? We aren't getting there any time soon." Yuqi pointed out as she started typing on her keyboard.

"You aren't wrong."

Unable to think of another long-term solution, Xiaoyun gave up as he started looking through the third file.

Inside was a progress report, one that stated improvements that he had requested to be done in the prisons.

Most of them had been implemented, but there were still a few issues that hadn't been resolved, such as finding a prison psychiatrist.

Putting it down and opening the fourth file, he was instantly surprised by the numbers inside.

It was the financial report of the government's budget for June, where they managed to spend five times the budget compared to May.

"Yuqi, are these numbers accurate? How the hell did we spend this much money in a single month?"

"All the subsidies aren't free."

'I know, but how are we going to keep up with this spending? There's no way we can afford all these budget increases."

"Yeah, I know."

Seeing her face looking so calm, Xiaoyun's mind quickly realized something was off.

"Aren't you scared of a massive deficit? What if we can't pay back the money we borrow from the banks?"

"We'll just keep printing more money. As long as we can keep the food price stable, inflation is just a fake number."

Xiaoyun fell into silence as what Yuqi said was true. Their currency was backed by food sold at the government store.

All they had to do was keep the price of raw food in the store artificially low. Everything else was up to the market to decide how inflation determined its prices.

"Liuqian told you this is a good idea?" Xiaoyun questioned.

"He told me not to care about the deficit. We're in an expansionary phase. It's the best time to go as negative as possible before the market reacts fast enough."

"Fast enough? What does he mean by that?"

Yuqi paused for a second before turning over, looking back at Xiaoyun right in the eyes as if she were looking at an idiot.

"If people start withdrawing massive amounts of money from the bank and use it to buy food, we are done for."