Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

"S-Sister Leyan knows everything!"

Seeing Tianci avoid answering Yuqi's question only made everyone at the table even more intrigued than before.

"Yuqi, even you don't know about it?" Xiaoyun questioned as he looked rather surprised by something so important to be missed by her.

"Know what? Did something happen to Houqin? I just talked to her over email a few hours ago."

"Email? How? How could a dead person send an email—"

"She's what!"

Xiaoyun's sudden outburst made everyone take aback. Still, he didn't apologize for it as he turned to Yueyue.

"I-I didn't mean to say s-she's dead. I-I don't know anything... P-Please ignore what I just said earlier."

"Yueyue, just tell me the truth. Please."

As Xiaoyun grabbed onto her shirt collar, everyone could see his face growing ever more desperate for an answer.

"Yueyue, just say it. Stop beating around the bush." Shuli murmured as she herself started to get tired of the secrecy.

"No wonder she was missing from the meeting..." Wuli quietly murmured as her mind drifted back to the day prior.

"Tianci, can you really watch your husband endure the pain like this?" Nami questioned as sympathy began to swing over to Xiaoyun.

"One of you guys just say it. Stop staying silent like this. You guys can't hide the truth forever."

Kate argued as her face looked a little fed up with the three's hidden secret from everyone at the table.

"One lie often requires thousands of lies to cover it..." Lily quietly murmured as she sided with her boyfriend.

"When did our family turn into a cloud of mystery? Can we not even trust each other and tell the truth?"

As Xiaoyun voiced his frustration, both Yueyue and Tianci continued to look down towards the table in shame.

They couldn't argue back at all. Yet, they still chose to remain silent, as if there was something greater that held them back.

"Leyan, you really shouldn't be hiding secrets away from your husband. Especially when you already promised him... The truth will set you free if—"

"Fine, fine. I'll say it. Houqin isn't dead."

Leyan finally gave in as Anna's attempt to speak in broken Chinese pushed her over the edge. She paused for a second before resuming.

"Yueyue doesn't actually know the full picture. All she knows is something happened to her. Only Tianci and I know what happened to her."

"I want to hear it out of your mouth. What happened?" Xiaoyun immediately demanded once again.

"If you all want to know the truth, follow me."

---

As everyone followed Leyan out of the house and into the backyard, they were confused about where she could be leading them.

"Why are we here?" Nami curiously asked.

"Because Houqin is down in the basement... Just to let you all know, she doesn't want any of us to see her."

The floor opened, revealing the dark entrance down to the basement as all the staircase lights remained barely illuminated.

"I'm breaking my promise with her by letting you in. I hope you don't regret it." Leyan warned as she stopped.

"I won't."

"Very well... What are you all looking at? Turn around and head back out. He's the only one going down there."

"What? You can't do that."

Despite all of Xiaoyun's wives siding with Yuqi, Leyan stood in the way, blocking them from entering the basement's staircase.

"Too bad. You'll see them when they come out... Now stop bothering them and let them sort it out themselves."

None of them argued back, as if they knew what she had said was the truth. Still, they were a little annoyed from being unable to witness it.

---

As the basement door closed from behind, Xiaoyun was now all alone, walking down the dark staircase by himself.

He wasn't surprised, as his wife's conversation from earlier was constantly echoing down the entire way through.

"So long... There's the door."

Once Xiaoyun was at the giant metal door, he quickly walked over to the combination lock before his finger froze at the keypad.

"Crap. I never set the password myself... But how did Nami enter this building at first?"

Closing his eyes, he began thinking back to the past. A key memory soon popped up as his finger started pressing down on its own.

With a few beeps, the metal door was unlocked. But what happened next forced him to cover his eyes with his hands.

A sudden bright light flashed right into his eyes. What was once a short, dark hallway was illuminated to the brim.

"When the hell did they add these lights to this exact hallway?"

After getting used to the brightness, he soon noticed a CCTV camera in the top right corner that also wasn't there in the past.

The whole place had been set up to make sure something inside didn't escape, as the camera only pointed towards the wooden door.

"Weird."

Xiaoyun didn't think too much into it as he continued walking down, heading over to the wooden door at the end before pushing it open.

"Tianci, didn't I already say I'm not hungry? Why did you come—"

As the muffled voices cut short, a person was sitting in front of an office desk with a computer monitor displaying a big spreadsheet.

They were completely covered with clothes from head to toe. Even their face was covered with a gas mask, albeit without the air filter.

"Houqin?"

"No. I'm not Houqin. You're mistaken. Please leave this room." The person in the gas mask coldly answered.

"I know your voice. Why are you covering yourself like this? Houqin—"

"I'm not Houqin. Which part of my sentence is confusing you? If you don't leave, I'm going to call..."

The muffled voice fell into silence, as if she just remembered the person before her owns the place she's currently in.

"Call who? Tianci? Leyan?"

The room fell into silence as neither side spoke up. A tense atmosphere started to build up as Xiaoyun couldn't see any emotion from her.

Soon, one side couldn't handle the pressure.

"Can you just leave me alone? Please? I don't want you to see me right now..." The voice answered as the muffled voice grew weaker.

"Why not? Is there something wrong with your face?" Xiaoyun asked as he took one step forward.

"Please. I don't want you to see me in this state."

The plea was completely ignored as Xiaoyun took another step forward. Then another. And then another.

"Houqin. I don't care what you look like."

Xiaoyun stopped for a second as a thought flashed into his head. That unsent message on her phone.

"I just want to tell you something."

"Stop, please. You're only making it harder for the two of us. Don't walk any closer, I'm really begging you."

"I love—"

Just as Xiaoyun was halfway through the sentence, the person before him took off their gas mask. He was stunned beyond belief.

A hideous face.

It was so rotten that it looked straight out of a corpse, with patches of exposed flesh that would make any grown man scared.

The same face he had witnessed hundreds, if not thousands, of times on the battlefield.

An unmistakable zombie face. One that didn't belong to any human even in the worst possible burn accident.

"Now tell me, do you still love me?"

"I..."

Xiaoyun hesitated. His heart felt repulsed from just looking at her face. There was almost zero resemblance to the old face.

Her uncombed hair was all over the place, with the only recognizable thing being her voice, which in itself sounded slightly dampened.

"Please don't come back ever again—"

As Houqin grabbed onto her gas mask, her eyes widened in shock. Xiaoyun had suddenly run forward and kissed her.

A rotten, greenish lip up against a soft, red lip.

"There, is this enough to prove I still love you? Or do I need to stick my tongue inside your mouth?"

"Y-Y-You!"

Her voice started stuttering over and over again, as if she couldn't believe what Xiaoyun had just done.

"What? You think I'm going to dump you because you look ugly now? What makes you think I'm this shallow of a man?"

"Y-You aren't scared?"

"Scared? I... I can't lie. I'm a little scared. But seeing you're able to talk to me, that's more than enough."

"That's it?"

"Yeah. Do you expect me to turn around and run away like a girl? Or maybe I do this little trick—"

"Ah!"

Houqin immediately raised both of her hands, covering her head as a pistol suddenly appeared in Xioayun's hand.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

"Relax. There's no bullet in here. I'm not crazy enough to kill my girlfriend." Xiaoyun murmured as he stopped pulling the trigger.

"Y-You asshole!"

As she got up from her seat and punched him in the chest, Xiaoyun let out a small giggle as the mood finally softened a little.

"Yeah yeah, I'm the asshole... Now do you mind explaining what happened to you?"

"You don't remember it?"

As Houqin stopped her fist, her bloodshot eyes stared right into his, seemingly as if she was trying to tell if he was lying or not.