Just as the two got closer and closer, the office door suddenly swung wide open.

"Hey Yuqi, I got back the other report... Oh, um. Sorry. I-I didn''t mean to interrupt——"

"Shuli, you''re not interrupting anything... We''re just hugging each other."

Yuqi quickly pushed Xiaoyun away and sat back in her office chair.

"Yeah, We''re just about to hug. You want one?" Xiaoyun stretched his hand out in front of Shuli.

"N-No, thank you... Um, I''ll get to go get the other paper."

Shuli dropped the stack of paper she had been holding in front of Yuqi''s desk and quickly left the office.

"Why did Shuli look so scared?" Xiaoyun asked.

"Because you should have seen the face you were making... You look such like a pervert."

"What? That''s just a false accusation." Xiaoyun defended himself.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

As Yuqi began reading the stack of paper, she suddenly dropped the piece onto the floor with a shocked face.

"What''s wrong?"

Xiaoyun picked the paper back up and started reading it.

"A massive storm coming towards our direction... Wait, please tell me this is a joke, right?" Xiaoyun asked with uncertainty in his voice.

"I''m afraid it''s not a joke... You know the weather the past few weeks has been odd, right?"

Xiaoyun nodded in agreement as the weather everyone in the town had experienced drastically shifted from freezing to hot enough to wear shorts with no logical sense of seasoning.

"So I asked Renqin to investigate it... A few days later, he tells me he found several traders that had traveled throughout the country, and it''s not a rare pheromone here. It''s all over the place.

Then I consulted a few climate scientists who used to work as meteorologists, and they had been saying that the change in temperature was a sign of extreme weather incoming."

The two stared at each other briefly in silence until Xiaoyun spoke up.

"We need to be prepared for this," Xiaoyun stated.

"Yeah. And we have to hope it''s not a typhoon." Yuqi replied.

The two began coming up with a list of problems with harsher weather hitting the town.

After thinking for a bit, Xiaoyun came up with his highest priority.

"If it is a typhoon, we might need to temporarily evacuate most people into actual houses."

"But how are we going to get more houses? There''s a reason why we built small cabins.

We don''t even have enough houses to meet the demand." Yuqi immediately pushed back against the idea.

Xiaoyun thought for a second, then came up with an answer.

"Then we''ll just create more houses right now. I''ll pause the military operation until the storm is over.

We then use the soldiers to work under construction until it''s over." Xiaoyun suggested.

"Fine, I can''t stop you anyway... Just tell me what I need to do."

"You are going to need to lead five of the regiment..."

Ten minutes later...

"You got it?" Xiaoyun asked.

"I think so... just directing soldiers to dig storm drains throughout the entire town, right?" Yezi asked to make sure.

"Yeah. Yuqi will send someone to give you the exact build layout for it tomorrow." Xiaoyun explained.

"Okay, I''ll go prepare for it then."

Yezi left the field and headed towards the exit as Xiaoyun looked at the cloudy sky.

"It''s getting colder again..." Xiaoyun murmured as a cold breeze flew towards him.

---

When Xiaoyun announced the sudden change to the soldiers the next day, almost everyone was surprised.

However, after Xiaoyun explained his reasoning and all the signs that everyone had experienced with the weather, they eventually accepted the fact and went along with the new job they had been given.

Rumors started circulating as the weather started to get more and more drastic every day that passed.

Combined with soldiers building stronger houses and storm drains throughout the town, it further confirmed the rumor to be true.

Eventually, as everyone began to pick up pace, Xiaoyun finally publicly announced a weather warning within the next few weeks.

Immediately, the first thing that was being impacted was the food prices. It started skyrocketing as restaurants and private stores used it as an opportunity to profit from it.

When Yuqi learned of it, she quickly ended the food supply to all private businesses that jacked up the price and set a fixed price on all food sold in government-owned stores.

And soon, August was coming to an end as another week passed.

"I can''t believe we can build all this in a week," Xiaoyun murmured as the brand-new storm drains that run through the entire town were right in front of him.

"I can''t believe it either. I thought this wouldn''t be finished when the storm hits." Yuqi said softly.

"Where does this storm drain lead to?" Tianci asked curiously.

"Down to the edge of the town, where a half-empty lake is located," Xiaoyun replied as they continued walking down the road.

"Is everything prepared?" Yuqi asked as she looked over to Shuli.

"I think everything is mostly prepared... We prepared emergency shelters in the warehouses in case some cabins couldn''t withstand the storm.

But all the new houses that had been built are still not fully completed or have passed inspection, so we haven''t moved anyone inside them yet...

We have also loosened the food quota so people can stock up on more food and increased the food stock in the store." Shuli replied.

Suddenly, just as they were about a minute away from returning home, rain started pouring down from the sky.

"Let''s hurry back before it gets worse."

As they rushed home, everyone was already already at home.

"What took you guys so long?" Yueyue curiously asked as she closed the door after they walked in.