"I guess that is true... Then go for it. You can disband Qijing as a city. Just make a town under Guangzhou.

But make sure it transitions smoothly. Leifeng is already stretched out pretty thin when moving people to Foshan."

With Xiaoyun''s agreement, Yuqi immediately got to work and began making a letter.

"Ahem, I''m going to go to Foshan for a bit. I''m going to find a mayor that can manage there."

"Yeah, yeah. Go for it——Wait, actually, sign this letter first. I want people to know you''re the one who agrees to the idea."

"Fine."

Xiaoyun quickly signed the paper and then left the office before getting into his car.

---

After driving for a bit, Xiaoyun arrived at Foshan''s base.

At first, all of the soldiers that were stationed there were alerted until they saw his face.

They quickly let Xiaoyun pass, letting him drive straight into Foshan proper.

As he drove past the various buildings, he could see people with backpacks, salvaging whatever they could to get.

All of them were going in the same direction as his, towards the mayor''s building in Foshan.

When he arrived, all the nearby skyscrapers and hotels had already been converted to living spaces.

People were going in and out, with their faces full of hope as they carried their goods back into their buildings.

As Xiaoyun entered the mayor''s building, he saw several familiar faces, but none of them tried to stop him.

They all instantly recognized him as the man the soldiers had shown them when they came to liberate them from the underground.

After he arrived at the mayor''s office, a familiar face was already working at the desk.

"Hey, Lianzheng, it''s been a long time since we met again, hasn''t it?" Xiaoyun asked as he entered the room.

"Almost a month, or three weeks and one day to be exact... You need me to do something?"

Xiaoyun thought for a second, then nodded.

"I was thinking I needed someone to be in charge of rebuilding Foshan and communicating with the Guangzhou mayor.

A mayor for Foshan... But it seems like you guys already figured out who to pick?"

Lianzheng immediately understood what Xiaoyun was trying to imply and immediately backed down.

"Of course not, Mr.Xiaoyun. I''m just a temporary worker. I''ll step down if you want me to."

"No need. You''re the original person I had in mind for this. It''s just to make this more formal."

Xiaoyun paused for a second, then continued.

"In a few days, the mayor of Guangzhou, Leifeng, will contact you and start sending you some supplies and people.

Foshan can handle some influx to move in, right? It''s not much, just a few hundred thousand."

"F-Few hundred thousand?"

Lianzheng looked a little shocked, as if he never heard of such a large number of people within a single settlement.

"Yeah. But don''t worry, they aren''t going to come all at once. It''s going to be a gradual shift to repopulate the city."

"I''ll do my best to my ability, sir. Foshan can handle as many people being sent over as possible."

"Really?"

"Okay, you can go back and tell them to print a small bit to offset the amount."

As the office worker left the room, Xiaoyun got a little intrigued by what the two were doing.

"What printing? Offseting what?"

"The budget, duh... There are just too many traders that have been taking out currency and traveling up north.

It''s drying up the market''s cash flow, so I had to print some to ensure that there was enough in the market.

I don''t even get why they are doing that. It''s not like our currency can be used outside of our cities."

Xiaoyun thought for a second before a dark idea began forming inside his head.

"Maybe other settlements have used our currency as trading chips." Xiaoyun suddenly suggested.

"I doubt that. Who would use a foreign currency as their main currency for trade?

That sounds like suicide if I ever heard of it. We could literally change the currency at any moment, and they would be screwed."

Xiaoyun fell into silence for a second, but then he noticed a flaw in Yuqi''s argument.

"Wait, Yuqi, you are keeping track of how many food stamps have left our cities, right?"

"Yeah, you could call it that... At least a close estimate of it."

"Can you tell your border patrol to make sure no one brings over a certain amount?" Xiaoyun asked.

"What do you mean by that?"

Yuqi seemed a little confused by Xiaoyun''s point until he explained his worries.

"I''m worried that someone might be trying to do a trade war... If someone has a lot of our currency, they could overflow our markets.

Even if we have food rations and ID in place, they might just give the food stamps for free just to crash our economy."

"You''re saying one of our enemies is doing this?" Yuqi asked in a concerned voice.

"Maybe. It''s better to be safe than sorry... There''s no point in them holding on to that currency, as you said.

Everyone in the town knows that we print more food stamps into circulation once in a while."

Yuqi nodded in agreement as she quickly started making a letter to be sent to the border patrol headquarters.

As Xiaoyun looked at the map on the wall, he started to suspect something was happening in the dark.

The assassination attempt on him had made him paranoid once again, despite knowing it was more of a lone wolf attack.

"I''ll be back. I''m going to head over to Yueyue''s place to check something."

"Okay."

Closing the door and leaving the building, Xiaoyun''s head was still clouded as he felt he had lost control of things under him.

The feeling was becoming stronger and stronger as he began walking towards the Internal Security department.

There was almost no rational reason to doubt any of the people working under him.

Yezi and Yiming made no sense, as both of their age were much greater than his.

They weren''t going to have ambition out of anywhere in life, especially with how most soldiers reverently devoted to him.

Meanwhile, Yuqi and Yueyue practically had full control of Luoping in every inch of how the town functions.

More importantly, they were his wives, the only thing he had sworn in his life to protect.

It only left three influential outsiders: Renqin, Leifeng, and Lianzheng.

But all three of them could not keep their positions if it wasn''t for him handpicking them.