Zombie Apocalypse: Creation-Chapter 731: Trimming the Numbers
The reassurance finally calmed down Yuqi’s voice as she only let out a small grumble sound before speaking up again.
"Did Chengyi and Pinli agree to join your army?"
"Nothing can’t be solved with a small bit of food... Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, the army we’re incorporating might be bigger than a usual army corps size."
"Not happening."
As Yuqi hangs up on the other side, Xiaoyun let out a small sigh as he looked towards the soldiers happily eating the food on the tables.
"Maybe I do need to cut back the number of soldiers..."
"Xiaoyun, you aren’t going to come eat?" Chengyi asked out loud as he casually waved towards him in his seat.
"I already ate before coming over. You guys can enjoy your meal."
---
As the noon quickly flew by, Xiaoyun was back inside the logistics department, with Houqin sitting in her usual seat once again.
"Hey Houqin, what is the exact total number of soldiers under our command right now?" Xiaoyun suddenly asked.
"600,000 soldiers on active duty, and 120,000 soldiers under reserve contract... Including the workers transporting the logistics, we have around 940,000 total."
"We have 220,000 people working in the logistics department alone?"
The number shocked Xiaoyun a little as his mind couldn’t really wrap around why the logistics department would even have that many workers for.
"Only 20,000 are actual logistics staff working in offices managing the supply route across different cities and the front lines."
Houqin stopped her work for a second, looking over to Xiaoyun as she spoke up again.
"The other 200,000 are in various roles, like trucking workers, medical support, engineering units, communication, and signal units.
Also, things like drone operators, military base janitors, special construction units, zombie intelligence groups, combat reporter—"
"Okay, that’s more than enough I needed to know... That’s definitely not the right angle to cut in."
As Xiaoyun stopped Houqin from listing more jobs, he was stuck in a little dilemma that seemingly had no good solutions.
"Cut what? Is there something wrong with the military budget again?" Houqin curiously asked, looking back at him with a confused eye.
"Well, I told Yuqi that we were going to fully incorporate the Changsha troops that came with us into the 6th Army Corps."
"I thought we still have some extra money lying around that we didn’t allocate for yet from the Donggugan and Shenzhen sale."
"About that... I had to use some of that money to pay for calling a reservist to duty. The bigger issue now is that Changsha’s army is a lot bigger than I had imagined."
"How much bigger?"
Seeing Xiaoyun hesitating and awkwardly scratching the back of his head, Houqin started having a bad feeling.
"175,000... Just slightly enough to add to the 6th Army Corps and make a new 7th Army Corps."
"What?"
As Houqin fell into complete shock, Xiaoyun started to realize the problem might be a little bigger than what he could tackle.
"Hey, I seriously didn’t expect that big of a number either until I contacted Yiming a few minutes ago."
"Miss Yuqi would never agree to this," Houqin murmured as she finally recovered from hearing such a big number.
"I know. That’s why I was thinking where I could cut back. There has to be a way to incorporate Changsha’s army into our pre-existing infrastructure."
"Commander, why don’t you just reject some of them? We don’t have to let all of them join our army."
"I... I didn’t think of that. You might just be onto something."
The more Xiaoyun thought of Houqin’s suggestion, the more he began to realize how naive he had been in thinking of incorporating the entire Changsha army.
"Command, I can guarantee that at least two-thirds of those soldier will quit on their own if you give them a retirement option."
"Two-thirds? You’re stretching it way too far." Xiaoyun argued back.
"I had talked to several of them while I was in Changsha. They are in the military because there are no other jobs.
Once they see how rich Guangzhou is, they’ll flood into the labor market... I’m sure Miss Yuqi would be overjoyed seeing you help with the labor shortage."
After a few seconds of silence, Xiaoyun jumped out of his chair in complete excitement as he almost rushed over to the other side to hug her.
"Oh my god, Houqin, you’re a genius. How come I didn’t think of that? I’m going to call Yiming to do that right now."
"Wait, Commander. Before you call Houqin, can I conduct a consensus on these soldiers first before you let Yiming select the best?"
Xiaoyun thought about it for a second, then nodded in agreement as he couldn’t see any harm in doing it.
"Sure, go for it. Make sure you tell Yiming to select the best of the best. Better if you collaborate with Yuqi to register them in the government database."
"Will do, sir."
As Xiaoyun leaned back onto his chair, his mind was now more than relieved as it seemed there were no more problems facing him.
All the chaos set off by Zhongxiong’s sudden death seems to have had its dust settled for real this time.
"I’m finally going to have a free weekend..." Xiaoyun quietly murmured to himself as he couldn’t wait for an actual break.
"What free?"
Houqin curiously asked as her attention shifted back to the work on her computer, typing on the keyboard for some sort of email.
"Nothing."
As the two of them sat in the office with only the sound of the keyboard typing, Xiaoyun’s brain suddenly remembered something.
"Houqin, I almost forgot to ask you this... Do you feel better now?"
"Feel what better?"
After just a minute of silence, Houqin’s typing stopped once again as her face started to blush redder and redder.
"I-I feel a lot better now. T-Thank you for asking." Houqin nervously replied as she shyly scooched forward, hiding herself behind the monitor.
"That’s good to hear... Have you done a doctor checkup of any sort?"
"I haven’t."
"You should."
"I don’t want to..."
As Houqin tried to respond as quietly as possible, Xiaoyun’s ear was still able to pick up the subtle voice.
"Why not? Are you scared that there might be something wrong hidden in your body?"
This time, Houqin only nodded her head as a response. Not a single word came out of her mouth as she started typing away on the keyboard.
"Then you definitely need a checkup more than ever. I’m not joking, your body is critical to your health."
Seeing her continue to type away, Xiaoyun could start to feel she was having a clear disdain for having a doctor’s checkup.
"Hey, are you listening to me? You really need to do a doctor’s checkup. I don’t want my employee to discover a hidden wound years later."
"Commander, I don’t want a doctor checkup. Is that the answer you want to hear out loud from me?"
As Houqin raised her voice in frustration, Xiaoyun suddenly got up from his seat before walking over to the other side.
"Absolutely not. You’re coming with me... This is an order, I don’t want to hear any more excuses from you."
"I... I’ll do it later. Let me just finish this work first before—"
"I said, this is an order. You’re coming with me. NOW."
With Xiaoyun refusing her arm go freely, Houqin finally gave up trying to stall as she turned off her monitor before getting up from her chair.
"Why are you sighing for?" Xiaoyun curiously asked, noticing her quiet sigh as soon as he let her go free.
"Commander, what are you going to do with me if the doctor diagnoses me with the virus still inside my body?"
"In your body? Then we can... use blood to do as many times as it takes. You don’t need to worry about me giving up on you."
Despite Xiaoyun’s reassurance, the annoyance on Houqin’s face remained as she took one step behind him before stopping again.
"Why aren’t you following me?"
"Commander Xiaoyun, why do you care about me so much? This is more than what a boss is supposed to do for their employee."
Houqin’s sudden question caught him a little offguard, but he quickly recovered as he walked all the way back to the desk before walking her to the door.
"My bad, I shouldn’t just call you an employee anymore... Here, do you want to be my girlfriend? Is that the better term you like to hear?"
"Huh...?"
As she stood still, Xiaoyun quickly grabbed her by the hands before opening the door to bring her out into the hallway.
"Unless you don’t want to be my girlfriend. But I don’t think you have a choice at this point... Might as well accept your fate at this point."
"M-Me, Y-You g-girlfriend?"
"Mhm... I’ve realized I don’t want to let you go. You can call me selfish, but I couldn’t care less."
