Dark Night Squad

Bai Yaoyao called everyone inside to talk.

Peiqi showed everyone around the specially renovated conference room. Its long table gave it quite an impressive feel.

Everyone found a seat, leaving the head of the table for Bai Yaoyao.

"Boss? What exactly is going on? Nearly two billion in strategic supplies?" Dada Juan was the first to settle into a seat and raised a hand obediently like an elementary school student.

"Are we going to fight those R Country bastards? Then we shouldn't be setting up our base in H City, right?" Xiaomi offered a guess.

What had happened to Shinichi Sato and the Yasukuni Shrine clearly had Sister Yaoyao's fingerprints all over it. Nobody knew what was going on or why she kept going after R Country lately.

"Yeah, Boss, why did you suddenly call everyone back? I haven't finished my mission yet," Xiao Shiliu asked as well.

"Quiet. Let Yaoyao talk." Fat Brother squinted his tiny eyes, still holding a jianbing wrap. Ever since Sister Yaoyao had told him the apocalypse was coming, he had simply given up dieting. After all, there were plenty of delicious foods he would never get to eat again.

Bai Yaoyao took a deep breath and said, "Starting today, none of you can leave this house. Can everyone do that?"

"What about our missions?"

"We're dropping them," Bai Yaoyao replied.

Everyone except Fat Brother drew in a sharp breath. Back when Master was still around, he had told them that they could refuse a mission, but once they accepted it, they had to finish it. If Sister Yaoyao no longer cared even about that rule, something truly serious must have happened.

"No problem!"

"Same here."

"I can do that too."

"Woof, woof, woof!"

Bai Yaoyao studied each of them seriously. The stakes were too high. If even one person still intended to go out, she would say nothing today.

The organization had a rule: anyone who wanted to settle down and start a family had to leave automatically. So the twelve people and one dog present today, herself included, were all single without exception. None of them had families, either, so they had no other ties to worry about.

They were the most important and closest people in one another's lives.

"What I'm about to tell you might sound unbelievable, but it's all true.

"In about a month or two, the apocalypse will arrive. Along with extremely hot weather, sixty percent of humanity will turn into zombies. At the same time, many plants and animals will mutate.

"Some of the surviving humans will awaken abilities after falling unconscious. They'll be called Ability Users, and they'll be humanity's main force against the zombies.

"That's the situation. Does anyone have any questions?"

Bai Yaoyao gave them a brief explanation.

The entire conference room fell silent. Nobody wanted to believe it was real, but everything Sister Yaoyao had done recently, along with her serious demeanor just now, made it clear that she wasn't joking.

The silence stretched on for a long time, with nobody speaking.

"Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof!"

In the end, the dog broke the deadlock first.

Everyone watched Sister Yaoyao casually pull a big bone out of thin air and toss it away. "Go eat outside. Stop making noise."

The dog grabbed the bone in its mouth and immediately darted outside, on guard against anyone trying to steal it. My rotten owner finally did something nice for once. I knew it! My owner still loves me!

"As you all saw, what I just used was a spatial ability," Bai Yaoyao explained.

"Wait, Sister Yaoyao, how do you know all this in such detail?" Xiaomi looked utterly stunned.

"I died and was reborn three months before the apocalypse," Bai Yaoyao admitted.

They were all her own people. They had grown up together for twenty years and fought back-to-back

for ten. There was nothing she couldn't tell them.

"Sister Yaoyao, I wanted to ask, um... well..." Peiqi hemmed and hawed for ages without getting it out. Bai Yaoyao tapped the table and glanced at her. "Just say it."

"Um... what did dying feel like? Did your whole life flash before your eyes? Did you think of me?"

Nobody had expected that to be the question Peiqi had spent so long struggling to ask.

"For fuck's sake, Peiqi, stop talking."

"What kind of question is that?"

Bai Yaoyao smiled, but still answered seriously. "I died too quickly. I didn't have time to think."

"Yaoyao, you said sixty percent of people will become zombies. Does that mean roughly half of us here turned into zombies?" Lulu asked.

Everyone fell silent at that...

Bai Yaoyao glanced at Lulu, feeling a little sad. Lulu had been the first to turn into a zombie in her previous life. Hiding her emotions, she said, "That's the official statistic. Generally speaking, healthy people are less likely to turn. People who are injured, sick, or have weak immune systems are the most vulnerable."

Seeing that Bai Yaoyao had sidestepped the heart of the question, everyone understood. Finding out this early wasn't necessarily a good thing.

So they all had the sense not to press her for details.

"We still have a little over a month. The reason I gathered everyone ahead of time is that I discovered something different between this life and my previous one. Someone who should have appeared at a certain time never showed up.

"I don't know what went wrong. I was afraid something unexpected might happen and worried that the apocalypse might arrive early, so I brought everyone together this soon."

"Understood. From now on, we need to exercise properly and get ourselves into peak condition. No staying up late or keeping our days and nights reversed. Anyone who's injured needs to recover as soon as possible, too," Fat Brother summed up briefly.

Xiao Dai looked from one person to another, then pouted. "Sister Yaoyao, Fat Brother, does that mean we won't get to eat KFC anymore?"

Xiao Dai was the youngest in the organization, only sixteen this year. He had started at seven, yet his mission success rate was second only to Bai Yaoyao's. In Master's words, he was born to be an assassin.

It was just that... he really loved junk food.

Bai Yaoyao immediately produced a kids' meal complete with a toy. "Go ahead. There's more if that's not enough. Enough for you to eat until you're sick of it."

"Sister Yaoyao, I want shredded pork in garlic sauce over rice!"

"I want garlic crayfish!"

"I want pork and scallion dumplings!"

"I want pizza!"

"I want an ice cream cake!"

"I want king crab! Five of them!"

"Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof!"

Bai Yaoyao had gone numb. Like a server bringing out dishes, she tossed a serving to whoever placed an order.

Bai Yaoyao had expected today to be a fairly solemn occasion. Surely everyone would spend some time feeling lost and down after hearing the news. She had never imagined things would turn out like this. It had become a full-blown feast for the organization, livelier than their New Year gatherings.

Looking at the table piled with food from all over, Bai Yaoyao found it oddly festive, especially with the dog's face blatantly declaring, You should count yourselves blessed to dine with me...

She simply took out a serving of fish with pickled mustard greens for herself.

Bai Yaoyao glanced at Fat Brother, who gave an unobtrusive nod. Then she understood. It wasn't that everyone didn't want to know whether they had turned into zombies or awakened abilities. They had chosen to avoid the subject.

Oh well. This is good, too. Whatever's coming will come. Spending this last stretch of time relaxed and happy isn't a bad thing. Last time, Lulu and Little Brother Xuan might have turned into zombies because they were badly injured. This time, they'll have time to recover properly.

Could the outcome be different...?

The urgency in her heart grew stronger and stronger. Bai Yaoyao simply couldn't sit still anymore, so she researched everything ahead of time, bought round-trip plane tickets, and made another trip to R Country.

She went on a massive "shopping" spree-the kind where everything cost nothing.

On her last visit, she hadn't known when the apocalypse would arrive. Though she detested the country, many of those grievances had nothing to do with ordinary people.

This time, the apocalypse was clearly just around the corner. Taking so many supplies wouldn't have much impact.

After all... you'll be wiped out soon.

After leaving the mess behind, Bai Yaoyao immediately returned home and stayed quietly in the Villa with her companions, never going out again.