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Chapter 191: Base Meeting

Zhang Xiao Qiang and Shangguan Qiao Yun strolled along the lake where a few ladies rested by the lakeside, with many more under the streetlights, stitching tattered and torn clothes. The streetlights were 100W incandescent light bulbs hung along the sides of the road by Zhang Xiao Qiang, and he had specially arranged for the ladies to stay around the villa. Their rooms did not have electricity at night, so they took the initiative to finish up their remaining work under the streetlights, while only those who were more agile and quick with their hands and had completed their tasks were able to enjoy the scenery by the lakeside.

There were many females in the base, the women from the chicken farm followed the two sisters under Old Frank, He Wen Bin’s two ladies and the other few increased the number by over a dozen, they saved 28 from the spring but five died, found another 37 at the gathering point at the foot of the mountain and finally, adding those that Three found scattered around, they had close to a 100 females and close to 300 males. To ensure the base stability and continuity, Zhang Xiao Qiang got all the females to stay around the villa, aside from those that were required to leave for work, no females were allowed to enter the male mess upon nightfall. Zhang Xiao Qiang was afraid that the vigorous men would create trouble. The men from the combat team members had the privilege of finding the ladies to talk and chase after them but the other men were prohibited from entering. For Zhang Xiao Qiang, there were no other choice, the ratio of male to female was too imbalance, almost a 3:1, thus Zhang Xiao Qiang treated it carefully.

Upon entering the valley, Zhang Xiao Qiang saw the few hundred strong men huddled close together in the empty space in front of the 5-storey building. A few glaring lights lit the entrance up as though it was daytime. Lu Ren Yi stood in the center with a table laid out in front of him. On the table, a hill of various items were placed out – tobacco, alcohol, hand towels, tea cups, toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, soap and even a few newer clothes and shoes. Lu Ren Yi held a white piece of paper and called for people’s names in solfege. One after another as names started to flow out of his mouth, robust men started to walk out of the crowd towards him. Their expressions were different, one of them immensely pleased as he looked to his left and right, another stared blankly at Lu Ren Yi, waiting for the announcement of his prize, another most probably never stepped into the limelight and cowered slightly despite standing at the front, avoiding the burning gazes he felt behind him. There was one that ignored the encouraging or envious gazes at him, but they were all gauging their position in the group, counting how many people would be called before their own. Some showed indifference to the entire team, they were calm and stable, merely observing the various goods on the table, calculating if they could gain some advantages.

Lu Ren Yi begun giving out the awards to the workers as Zhang Xiao Qiang walked past the group and quietly entered the door and headed up to the meeting room on the third floor. Zhang Huai An was the man responsible for the allocation of awards and made the ceremony resemble that of the 90s as they handed out awards to the model workers. After year 2000, companies hardly gave out awards and only mentioned the attention paid to hardworking individuals for them to be more aware and work harder, in hopes of being eyed and getting promoted.

Inside the meeting room, He Wen Bin, Old Frank and Zhang Huai An were already seated around the table waiting for him alongside Wang Le, Chef and Wang Chong seated on a bench by the side. Someone stood in the darkest corner of the room, hiding himself in the shadows, but Zhang Xiao Qiang knew that he was Guo Fei. On any ordinary day, it was already a challenge to catch a glimpse of him. Most of the time, he would leave with Three, to which Zhang Xiao Qiang had received countless furious feedbacks. Three complained about Guo Fei’s lunacy, pouncing onto zombies and hacking them down upon seeing any, preventing the Combat Team Members to have difficulties firing. Three no longer had the opportunity to use his acquired rifle, and it seemed that he had not even fired a shot from it before?

Zhang Xiao Qiang sat on his seat while Shangguan Qiao Yun sat at the side and looked at him quietly. Zhang Xiao Qiang knew that she was looking at him again, he was used to it and no longer cared. To him, it was impossible for their relationship to get any closer. As a male chauvinist believer, it was a taboo for him to reveal his weakest side to her.

The biggest and main priority of the base was the construction of the perimeter wall, thus Old Frank was the first to speak. He reported the day’s progress, then went through the entire plan in detail. Seeing the thick stack of A3 papers in Old Frank’s hands, Zhang Xiao Qiang immediately felt restless. It was not only him, aside from Guo Fei and Shangguan Qiao Yun, everyone else became equally restless.

When Old Frank moved onto the progress of the gutters, Zhang Xiao Qiang could no longer hold it in and interrupted Old Frank:

“Old Frank, I know you well, regardless of what task it is, you never whine or complain, what’s that term to call you? The one about the ox? Oh, right, you have the vigor of an ox. I am most at ease with you and will no longer question anything with regards to the perimeter wall. I trust you, but you don’t have to be so involved into the matter, otherwise, what are those professional engineers for? I’m not saying that you’re in the wrong or you’re bad, but you’re in a leader role now, right? You just have to eye on the progress properly, yes......in all, just understand that I have trust in your work...”

Zhang Xiao Qiang’s approval towards Old Frank caused Old Frank to turn dizzy, he looked at Zhang Xiao Qiang with excitement across his entire face. A solemn emotion stirred in him, as though he had become a soldier with unwavering loyalty. At that moment, if Zhang Xiao Qiang asked him to jump down from the third floor, he thought that he might actually open the windows and jump straight down. Seeing Old Frank’s excitement, Zhang Xiao Qiang assumed that he was about to speak, so he quickly turned to Zhang Huai An.

But what about Zhang Huai An? Upon meeting Zhang Xiao Qiang’s eyes, he immediately began his report on the manpower numbers. They had accepted a new batch of 120 people, 63 males and 57 females, the oldest man being 37 years old and the youngest 15 while all the females were below 40. This new batch of people underwent through the same procedures as Zhang Xiao Qiang’s previous captives as they mixed with the construction workers and the locals. The ladies were all blue collar workers in a small food processing plant and were trapped in the factory after the outbreak until the men, who were looking for food, found and saved them. Due to their numbers, the men did not really cherish them. After every meal, the leftovers were handed over to the ladies, if they could not find sufficient food, the ladies had to starve. After the apocalypse, aside from allowing the men to vent on them, the ladies could not do anything else, so they could only endure through their hunger until Three and his men found a few of their men scavenging for food and tracked them till they found the entire group.

“Boss, the base population is close to 500 already, they valley is kind of full and the consumption of food has had a stark increase. Although Three said that he can retrieve some back daily, it will not make ends meet. There is still some stock left, but no one can say what can happen in the near future. Do you want to consider stopping Three from bringing more people back? Even if you still want to bring more survivors back, you can consider only females, honestly, we have too few ladies still...”

Zhang Huai An continued on the situation of the population and consumption, he could be considered He Wen Bin’s assistant and knew the situation in the base. Although he did not know the numbers on firearms and the amount of stockpile, but with the few hundreds wiping out bags after bags of rice, he started to worry. He became afraid that Zhang Xiao Qiang might become soft and bring back any scattered survivors and cause the valley base to collapse.

Zhang Xiao Qiang thought for a moment and shook his head. He looked at Zhang Huai An and He Wen Bin and spoke up: “If the valley can’t hold anymore people, get them to stay on the mountain. If the mountain is full, get Old Frank to hollow out the mountain. If food is insufficient, we need to go out and look for more food. What we are lacking now isn’t food but manpower. When the wall is finished, we can start to grow crops and produce. Provided we have the opportunity and find some animals for labor, we still need to cultivate and take care of them....”

Zhang Xiao Qiang resolved Zhang Huai An’s worries, then looked at Three: “Three, you still have to go out and look. If there’s one, take one, we have too few members in the combat team, the 30 military engineers might be a good choice to add into the group. Equip them with guns tomorrow and as for the ammunition, it will remain the same, you will have control over them permanently, and tightly, aside from that...”

Zhang Xiao Qiang turned and looked at Wang le, who stood up and spoke up: “We have produced a total of 50 blades made out of steel plates from vehicles, 50 shields made out of thin steel plates meld together where rifles out of 50m cannot penetrate through. Brother Cockroach, we only managed to manufacture 20 odd hunting crossbow, the reason being the materials are extremely hard to obtain, but as for the hunting arrows, we have produced about 1700.

Zhang Xiao Qiang nodded his head, then continued to talk to Three: “Your team has to learn cold weapons, in some places, you will not be able to alert the zombie hordes and can only rely on cold weapons to take care of the zombies. Pay close attention in protecting your own lives and leaving a way out, every dead survivor is a huge loss for us...”

Three nodded his head. After completing his instructions, Zhang Xiao Qiang became thirsty. He took up the cup of water prepared for him, only to see that the Fat Chef looked uneasy, so he nodded his head at him.