Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Ad-hoc jobs were usually reimbursed immediately.
In the late afternoon before signing off, Lu Chuan returned to the office to get a reimbursement of the 780 yuan from Finance.
The zombies carried the boards. Lu Chuan didn’t own the company and he wasn’t a saint, he wouldn’t just work for free. Based on the boards’ weight and measurements, five yuan per floor was the market price.
On the flip side, Lu Chuan had helped the company save a third of the cost.
If they wanted to continue working with Zhang Depeng and his men around, they would end up gritting their teeth while paying 20 yuan per floor.
“Finance Lin, I’m afraid there’s a problem with this amount.”
While Lu Chuan was waiting for finance to do a verification, a chilling voice called out. A fat man in his thirties walked over, picked up Lu Chuan’s reimbursement form, and looked at it.
“Five yuan for each floor, and with just six boards, it costs 780 yuan? Lu Chuan, there’s something wrong, isn’t there?”
The fat man in his thirties sneered and flicked the reimbursement form in his hand.
This fat man was Wang Guangji. Strictly speaking, he was Lu Chuan’s direct superior and was in charge of the engineering department. His other identity was the boss’s brother-in-law, and with this identity, he felt confident in the company and thought of himself as someone with high status.
Ever since Lu Chuan refused to conspire with him, Wang Guangji had been targeting him.
Finance Lee glanced up and said, “Manager Wang, with regards to Little Lu’s reimbursement form, the market price is indeed five yuan per floor.”
“What market price? As the manager of the engineering department, would I not know about the market price? The market price has adjusted to three yuan per floor. Finance Lee, reimburse him three yuan per floor. Heh. I won’t accept this kind of behaviour of exploiting market loopholes to cheat the company of its money. For this, Lu Chuan, you are required to write me a report and 100 yuan will be deducted from your salary to serve as an example.”
Wang Guangji sneered as he reached a conclusion.
Lu Chuan had been looking at Fatty Wang silently with cold eyes.
When Lu Chuan didn’t say anything, Wang Guangji became even more smug, and said, “You have nothing to say? If it wasn’t for the old man in the company, just this fake reimbursement would be enough to fire you.”
“With a pig like you in the company, it won’t be long before you drag it down.”
Lu Chuan’s words made Wang Guangji jump. “Lu Chuan, don’t you want this job anymore?”
“Fatty, continue to be an as*hole manager and don’t mess with me, otherwise you will regret it.” Lu Chuan glanced at him fleetingly, treating him as thin air.
“You, you…” Wang Guangji was infuriated.
In the entire company, Lu Chuan was the only one who dared to address him in such a manner.
…
780 yuan, nothing less.
After withdrawing the money, Lu Chuan left. As for what the fatty thought, Lu Chuan didn’t care.
After returning to the rented apartment, in the face of the row of five zombies, Lu Chuan felt his head ache.
The rented apartment wasn’t big, and with the five of them, there was barely any space left. Seemed like he wouldn’t be able to rent this apartment any longer; he would need to consider getting a suite to address the zombies’ accommodation.
On the other hand, there was another issue that made Lu Chuan’s head hurt—the zombies’ identities.
Five zombies that weren’t registered in the national household registration system around him were prone to problems in the long run.
But getting them an identity under such a strict household registration system in China would be extremely difficult.
Unless… he could find a powerful person with influence to easily handle a registration and identification. Something that was difficult to him may just be fixed with a sentence from someone with such power.
“I’m just a small citizen, how is it possible for me to know someone like that?”
Lu Chuan laughed bitterly. At this moment, it wasn’t possible to settle the registration issue for Uncle Zombie and the others.
Dinner was settled at the fast food restaurant below the apartment, while Uncle Zombie and the others stayed hungry.
It was only the second day of the experiment. He would have to observe another one to two days to know how much they depended on food.
…
Inside the rented apartment, the five zombies in human form sat upright.
Inside the room, Lu Chuan disappeared.
The night skies in the apocalypse were extremely blue after five years of purification, lack of industrialization, and nature’s restoration. Glancing up, a bright moon could be clearly seen hanging clearly in the sky.
“Crisis…”
Lu Chuan had just arrived in the biochemical plant when a frantic red message appeared in his brain.
Crisis: Activating the biochemical plant will passively attract certain zombies with special sensors. Zombies that are of the same level as the biochemical plant will attack it. Occurance of zombies one to two levels above the biochemical plant is slim.
Success Condition: Keep the zombies outside of the alloy walls of the biochemical plant and do not let any touch the wall. The reward will be an existing product of the biochemical plant or a random item from the plant’s mall.
Failure Condition: Zombies touch the alloy wall of the biochemical plant. The punishment will be for the biochemical plant to drop by one level.
The fiery red message, coupled with the crisis warning and flashing skulls, shocked Lu Chuan. The crisis mission that appeared in his mind had caught him off guard.
“Zombies are coming?”
Lu Chuan frowned.
Lu Chuan felt like a god in the biochemical plant as he could sense everything.
For instance, missions and the detailed information for a task would automatically appear in his mind when he thought about it. He could know everything while sitting in the boss’s chair.
A paragraph in the supplementary explanation: The biochemical plant is impenetrable, and failure will only reduce the manufacturing level.
Lu Chuan was truly relieved by that paragraph.
It wasn’t scary to fail in the beginning. Lu Chuan could easily hunt down the fragments of three ordinary zombies.
What Lu Chuan really looked forward to was the reward for a successful defense.
A random item from the biochemical plant’s mall. This reward made Lu Chuan very excited. The items in the mall varied in value, but the high-valued items were calculated in the billions. If he managed to get one, he would become rich overnight.
As compared to the cost of failure, Lu Chuan was more concerned with success.
This sort of crisis mission would only become a threat at the later stage. When the time came, zombie fragments would be difficult to obtain and every drop in level would be devastating.
Countdown to the zombie attack: 9 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds.
A countdown appeared in his head.
The strong sense of crisis made Lu Chuan feel nervous.
The mission only had a hint that there would be zombies attacking, it didn’t indicate the number or type of zombies. The words literally meant that the zombies would be the products of a level-one biochemical plant such as zombies or zombie dogs.
Ten days seemed like plenty of time, but Lu Chuan felt an urgency.
Funds: 107,315.
With 100,000 yuan, he had just enough to manufacture one zombie.
It wasn’t realistic to rely on himself to defend, he would have to depend on the zombies. But he only had 100,000 yuan now, which was far from enough.
Zombies that travelled to modern times couldn’t be brought back to the apocalypse era, which meant that Uncle Zombie and the others wouldn’t be of any help.
“Manufacture one zombie.”
Lu Chuan calmed himself down, and despite the fact that it was already dark, he made the plant manufacture another zombie, named it Zombie 03, and sent it out of the factory.
Zombies 01 and 02 were still carrying out Lu Chuan’s instructions mechanically, moving things again and again. They had limited intelligence, and the instructions for them to execute must be discounted.
For instance, some of the things they brought back were completely useless. If Lu Chuan didn’t supervise them, they would carry useless items such as chairs and counters back to the plant.
Lu Chuan checked the warehouse and had mixed feelings about the fruits of the two zombies’ labor.
“The first order of business is to get sufficient funds and manufacture a certain number of zombies.”
Lu Chuan pondered and decided this was the most important task.
Secondly, he would have to activate the other product in a level-one biochemical plant: zombie dogs.
The power of an ordinary zombie was far lower than that of a zombie dog, and their lethality was greater than ordinary zombies’, regardless of speed or strength. Zombie dogs focused on biting; they would approach at a swift speed and start chomping.
A zombie’s running speed was much slower than a human’s but a zombie dog’s speed was faster.
It was easy to deal with just a single zombie dog, but once the zombie dogs formed packs, their power would be deadly.
…
On the construction site…
Zombie 03 was still staggering. It was night time which made a zombie’s vision much blurrier. They could only rely on their sense of smell and hearing, not their sight.
Making use of this fact, survivors only needed to cover their scents and avoid making noises at night. Even if a zombie passed them, they might not be able to detect them.
With the zombies’ poor eyesight, the dark nights allowed the survivors to be active.
The staggering Zombie 03 would trip over objects occasionally or bump into walls before making a turn.
The zombies manufactured from the biochemical plant area had almost the same ability as an ordinary zombie. The only difference was that they could receive and execute Lu Chuan’s instructions.
Lu Chuan’s goal was a building more than 300 meters away from the construction site.
In these ten days, Lu Chuan wanted to comb through the surrounding one-kilometer radius to collect funds.
In such a short period of time, he could only rely on the apocalypse.