"Fine, whatever."

As Tianci shifted her attention back to the food, Xiaoyun''s heart suddenly skipped a beat.

For some reason, his mind felt a little guilty about sitting in someone else''s backyard and enjoying a barbecue.

After a while, he suddenly got up from his seat and turned towards the exit.

"Ahem, I''ll be back later. You guys don''t have to wait for me today."

"Where are you going?"

Leyan questioned as she held onto his arm, refusing to let him go anywhere.

All of the girl''s attention turned towards him as well, all looking a little curious as to why he was going out this late at this point.

"Hou Qin called me earlier."

"Didn''t you say it wasn''t an emergency?" Yuqi questioned.

"I just have a bad feeling. I''ll be back after I go meet up with her."

As they watched Xiaoyun leave the backyard, the only sound was the sizzling sound from the grill.

"You two can stop now," Huayi ordered, and the maids quickly followed suit with it.

"Who''s Hou Qin? Where did Xiaoyun go?" Lily curiously asked as she brought all six of the babies with her.

"Just some military stuff——Anyway, come here, Lianrong."

---

As the sun set on the horizon, Xiaoyun was walking down the logistics office''s hallway.

Several staff were still working in their offices, with various kinds of workload on their desk.

When he walked into the main office, he saw Hou Qin sitting there, working on some paper.

"Commander?" Hou Qin sounded a little surprised as she looked over to the doorway.

"I changed my mind. Just tell me what you called me for right now."

Hou Qin didn''t say anything as she started looking through the files on her desk before taking a small envelope.

"General Yezi sent this mail over. And he also sent over a radio message earlier reporting the same info."

As Xiaoyun accepted the envelope and opened it, his face suddenly shifted darker and darker.

It was the loss that Yezi''s army had endured, being over almost 300 total in the past month.

More importantly, one of the losses was an entire company being trapped in the metro with zero chance of survival.

After standing still for almost a minute, Xiaoyun finally spoke up again.

"Hou Qin, can you send a message over to Yezi——Actually, scratch that. I''ll go there myself."

As Xiaoyun headed towards the exit, Hou Qin immediately got up from her seat.

"Commander, are you going to Zhaoqing alone?"

"Don''t worry about it. I know how to use a map... If my wives showed up and asked, tell them I went over to Guangzhou for a mission."

Seeing Xiaoyun determined to go alone, Hou Qin said nothing besides saluting him as he left the office.

---

As Xiaoyun entered his car, he immediately drove straight out of Luoping before getting straight onto the highway.

Mingxu he... He was forced to shell the entrance."

Seeing Yezi looking a little lost for the first time, Xiaoyun didn''t say anything besides patting him on the back.

"I should have realized it. The city itself had way too few zombies compared to its original population.

There was no other place to have them other than the metro. Qingyuan is literally the same scenario——"

"As the commander in chief, I order you to take a week of temporary leave. You will return to your post after the break."

Yezi wanted to argue back, but after seeing the serious look on his face, he relented.

"Yes, sir."

As Yezi left the tent, the two colonels from earlier suddenly peeked their heads out from the tent flaps.

"You two, go order the other colonels to come here. I want to hear the progress report."

"Yes, sir!"

With everyone gone, Xiaoyun turned his attention to the map as he noticed all the progress already made.

The entirety of the northern entrance was cleared, with progress being made inching further inward of the city.

However, the nearby countryside was a completely different story, as only less than a tenth of them had been cleared so far.

After waiting for almost ten minutes, the two colonels finally came back with the other two colonels.

"Xiaoyun?"

"Commander Xiaoyun," Xiaoyun murmured as Mingxu and Ningjing were right before him.

"Sorry——Ahem, Colonel Mingxu reporting to duty," Mingxu stated out loud as he saluted Xiaoyun.

"Colonel Ningjing reporting to duty."

"Where''s the fifth one——never mind, I remember now."

Xiaoyun waved his hand just as the two older colonels were about to speak up.

"Can each of you report your job assignment and your strategy?"

The four colonels looked over to each other before the most senior one stepped up.

"I''m assigned to clearing the rural countryside. But General Yezi ordered me and Ningjing to swap earlier.

My strategy involved sending the soldiers to the rural countryside, based on the map, and clearing them that way.

We have been relatively slowed down due to the lack of vehicles, but we have been gathering fuel and vehicles."

Xiaoyun nodded as he turned his attention to the second colonel.

"I''m assigned to set up defenses for Wuzhou, both in the Northern and the western flank from Guangxi.

We have already set up several checkpoints and sent out scouts to make sure we have advanced warnings before they arrive.

And we''re also maintaining the gains we had made in the Northern part of Zhaoqing."

Xiaoyun nodded as he turned his attention over to Ningjing.

"I''m assigned to clear the city''s valuable target. We had taken control of the three main entrances, allowing Bai Bing to set up defenses.

Currently, we are advancing towards the southern part and further Northwest to encircle the city and take it under our control."

Hearing Ningjing''s answer, Xiaoyun got a little concerned as it looked extremely ambitious.

More importantly, it wasn''t even included in the plan that Yezi submitted in the past.