CHAPTER 715: MAJOR LAN’S RETURNS

"You got the paper?"

A man in a soldier’s uniform immediately approaches Xianlin the moment he steps out of Yezi’s tent.

"Yeah, I got it." Xianlin quietly replied, his face looking oddly irritated as if he had done something he didn’t want to do.

"Nice. Finally, we can go to Luoping and meet your commander-in-chief."

Walking down the road, the two of them soon arrived at the entrance of a very spacious parking lot with several semi-trucks unloading crate after crate.

"Hey, it’s not distribution time yet. Tell your Colonel to wait for a bit."

A woman wearing a full blue uniform quickly stopped the two, with all the guards nearby quickly gathering up to her.

"I’m on my off-duty. Here’s my paper... I need a ride back to Luoping fast, and I was wondering if you could arrange it for me."

After reading the paper that Xianlin had handed over, the woman stared him in the eyes before looking back over to her guards.

"You can sit in the back of his semi-truck after we unload everything." The woman offered as she pointed over to one of the guards.

"Thank you, Ma’am."

"Don’t call me ma’am. Call me, sir."

"Yes, sir!"

As the guards quickly went back to unloading the crates from their trucks, the guard who was assigned to drive them waved his hand towards them.

"Hey, you two, help me unload some of the stuff. Unless you want to wait until the evening."

The two of them thought for a second, then quickly walked over to the guard, who pointed them to go inside the truck.

Without needing instruction, they began carrying one crate at a time, from the very inside of the semi-truck to the dollies.

After stacking four crates on top of each other, the guard began pushing the dollies towards the small warehouse in the distance as the two got a little break.

"You okay, Wen Zhang?" Xianlin asked, noticing his breath panting a lot heavier than usual.

"I-I’m fine."

"You can take a break if you want."

As the two waited for the guard to come back, they soon got a little bored as they watched the other trucks offloading much faster than they were.

They were all streamlining the process, from the beginning to the end of the warehouse, as none of their hand stopped for a single moment.

Their truck only had one person with a single dollie to carry the crate, which forced them to wait for one person to go back and forth.

Fortunately, they only had eight crates left, which means just two more rounds of this before being done with it.

"Sorry for the wait, went to the bathroom."

The guard apologizes as he took way longer than any of the other guards to come back from an empty dollie.

"It’s fine."

---

Three hours later...

As the sun pointed towards the middle, their truck was long finished with unloading. But none of the trucks were allowed to leave.

One of the trucks was stuck in a recounting error, forcing what was supposed to be an hour’s work to be three hours’ work.

"Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to delay you guys for so long." The woman apologizes as the guards begin entering their semi-trucks.

"It’s fine."

Xianlin murmured the same answer again as he began to grow a little numb and exhausted for the day.

"Okay, everyone, you can get it going now!"

As the trucks began to drive off, both Xianlin and Wen Zhang quickly realized something was wrong.

"Wait, wait, wait, we didn’t get on the truck yet," Wen Zhang yelled as he desperately tried to make one of the trucks stop.

Unfortunately, none of them heard him as they all drove straight out of the parking lot, going straight on the highway in the distance.

"Miss, why did you make them go? How are we going back to Luoping?" Xianlin questioned as frustration began to brew.

"Relax. I’m letting you guys get in my car as an apology for the delay... You guys should be happy you aren’t sitting in a trailer oven."

Both of them froze for a second, but they quickly bowed down in gratitude as they began to realize how dumb their request had sounded earlier.

"Thank you so much," Xianlin said out loud as the two of them followed her further down into the parking lot.

"Mhm... Did no one tell you guys that the new policy for approved transport is either long-haul buses or APCs?"

"No one had told me that. I had always sat in the back of the semi-truck with no problem before." Xianlin answered.

"Probably because it isn’t peak summer heat. It’s the middle of August right now. No one should be forced to sit in the trailer of a semi-truck."

"I see..."

"Wait, why did you suggest we were going to sit in one of the guard’s trucks earlier, then?" Wen Zhang quickly asked.

"In the back of the semi-truck doesn’t mean the trailer section... You two were about to unlock one of them and hop inside, weren’t you?"

Both Xianlin and Wen Zhang awkwardly scratch their head as she manages to predict exactly what they were thinking of doing earlier.

"Anyway, here’s my car... It’s a little small. You two are sitting in the back." The woman warns as she clicks her car key.

They looked towards the small blue Sudan in front of them, then turned to each other for a second before opening the car door.

"Why are you two still standing out there?" The woman curiously asked as she already sat inside the driver’s seat.

"W-We just need to whip the sweat off our faces. Don’t want to get your car all dirty." Xianlin replied as he wiped with his clothes.

"It’s fine. I don’t own the car anyway. I’m going to give this back to the government when I drive back to Luoping."

Both men finally went into the car at the same time through the same door, causing a sudden clanking sound as they sat at the same time.

"What’s wrong with you two? One of you could have just gone inside the car through the other door."

"Sorry. Our brain is just a little past out from all the heat." Wen Zhang replied as he slowly nudged the air with an open palm.

Seeing the door closed, the woman didn’t bother questioning them again as she started up the car engine.

"Wear your seatbelt."

---

Meanwhile, back in Luoping...

"Commander, when is Miss Houqin coming back?"

A worker curiously asked as she happened to encounter Xiaoyun on his way to the main office in the logistics building.

"She’s still busy negotiating some deal. She’ll be back no later than... Monday." Xiaoyun answered.

Before the worker could ask any more questions, Xiaoyun had already left as he opened the main office door and entered.

"Good evening, Commander."

"Good evening... Have the Russians finished making the bombs yet?" Xiaoyun asked right away as he took a seat right across from the temporary department head.

"They finished making the bomb already. But they’re currently struggling to link the trigger mechanism when attached to the plane."

"Did they give a date on how long that’s going to take?"

"It should be completed by Monday... Also, Commander, Yezi had sent you a letter this morning."

As the department head handed him a letter, Xiaoyun quickly opened it and started reading it in silence.

After sitting there for a whole minute, he finally put it back down. His face was completely relieved from a stressed look.

But at the same time, he was a little annoyed on the inside. All of his work for the past week was rendered useless by the letter.

There was no emergency. There was no need for the bombs. There was no giant mutant that was going to attack them.

He had burned through all of the money he had spent on preparing for the worst-case scenario, only for it to be a nothing-burger.

"For fuck sake. Not again."

"Commander, is there something wrong?"

"You can get ready to go back to your original position. Houqin is going to come back by tomorrow morning."

The answer confused the temporary department head a little, but she didn’t question Xiaoyun’s decision.

"Yes, sir. I’ll start preparing for it——"

"Actually, it might not be tomorrow. But just get ready to transition the job back to Houqin."

"Yes, sir!" The department head said out loud again as her face didn’t look jealous of the job at all.

Rather, her face looked happy that she was going to leave soon. She had been through hell for the past few days trying to make it up to the new job.

"Ahem, almost forgot. You can lower the alert warning back down to the base level first while you’re at it.

There’s no need to rush the bomb anymore, either. You can write an email telling them they can take their time."

Xiaoyun’s sudden shift of narrative confused the department head a little, as he had never told her the reason behind the emergency in the first place.

"Is the emergency over?"