Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



The room turned silent for a moment at Wang Chao's words before everyone burst out laughing. Wang Chao raised an eyebrow and looked at me. Rolling my eyes, I nodded my head at his unasked question. Yes, this is the way it always went right up until they were being ripped apart by the very zombies they didn't believe existed.

"I find it that hard to believe that there are enough zombies to form a horde any bigger than a hundred bodies at most," said one of the guys sitting across the table from us. He eyed the five of us before turning his head away like we were unimportant.

"I didn't say that it was a single horde," said Wang Chao as he looked down at his nails. "It is multiple hordes, all together, in a number big enough to wipe out this base in a matter of hours. But what do I know?"

"Not possible," argued the leader of the group beside us. "The zombies aren't capable of the intelligence needed to do something like that."

"Really? Then you have come across the zombies before?" asked Liu Yu Zeng as he turned his head to look at the man speaking.

"Well, no, but we all know that they are just mindless creatures that are looking for a meal," said the man as the top of his ears started to turn a light pink color.

"Ah," said Liu Yu Zeng nodding his head in understanding.  "If that is the case then they don't need us. Let's get back home, if we hurry we can get back before Li Dai Lu eats the last peach crisp," he continued looking at me with a wink.

Wang Chao didn't say anything but simply stood up. Liu Wei and Liu Yu Zeng followed, scraping their chairs back on the floor. "Now, now, don't be so hasty," said the guy at the head of the table. "It is true that there are zombies coming, and it is also true that our scouts can't determine their numbers. Besides, as some of the last humans, it is our responsibility to fight whenever possible to rid the world of this infection."

Liu Yu Zeng let out a slow clap. "Rousing speech," he said, continuing his applause. "But it means nothing if you don't even know how to fight the zombies in the first place."

"I am pretty sure that everyone here knows that you just slice off their heads," said the man beside us.

"Ah, ignorance is such bliss. I miss that. I really do," said Liu Yu Zeng as he came to stand beside me and Chen Zi Han.  "But at least I know why you get so cranky dealing with new people. I think we should make the grump the face of our group. Let him deal with the stupid people," he continued as he looked at me.

I let myself relax enough to allow a smile to pass through my lips. Leave it up to my guys to try and make things better, even if they don't understand what was wrong. "False knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance," I said repeating one of those inspirational quotes I had once come across. The men grunted in agreement before turning to the head of the table.

"Are you going to listen or are you going to die?" asked Wang Chao like he was asking how the man preferred his coffee.

"Nice to see that some things haven't changed," came a woman's voice from the doorway. "Sorry I am late to the meeting, healing really takes a lot out of me, as I am sure you know."

I closed my eyes, trying to keep down my temper. Not only was I dealing with Chen Zi Han's soulmate running around this fucking place, but now I have to manage to not kill Zhao Jia Li. Life really liked to throw curve balls when you least expected it.

"I am surprised that they let you out," said Liu Wei as he took off his glasses and proceeded to clean them with a handkerchief that he had pulled out of thin air. Once he had determined that his glasses were clean enough, he placed them gently on his nose and pushed them into place.

"Country K's Naval Base thought that it was only fitting for them to offer my services so as to ensure victory," said Zhao Jia Li as one of the men beside her pulled out an empty chair and helped her sit down. Pretty sure it was the same guy that carried her out of the gym when she discovered her healing powers. I wondered if he enjoyed playing second fiddle to Wang Chao.

"Are you only offering your healing services?" asked Liu Yu Zeng with a slight smirk on his face. "I mean, I heard your other… skills… were impressive as well."

I almost bit my tongue off to keep from laughing at the expression of shock on her face. But I guess being treated like a goddess for so many months meant that no one ever talked back to her in such a manner. "How dare you!" snarled the second male lead as he put his hand on his waist and onto his gun.

"What? I mean, I had heard that her combat skills were second to none. That was why she was made a Captain and given her own team. Right?" Liu Yu Zeng asked as a look of confusion crossed his face.I think you should take a look at

"Yes," said Liu Wei, his deadpan expression didn't give anything away, but I knew he was just as good at pressing buttons as his younger brother was. "Combat skills."

There was an awkward silence as the men looked around. Zhao Jia Li was the only woman sitting down at the table, and I could tell that it made the men uncomfortable. Now, I wasn't standing because I cared about the comfort level of the cannon fodder. I was standing because I needed to be touching Chen Zi Han right now.

"Let's get on with the meeting, now that everyone is here," said the guy at the head of the table. H.O.T? No, that spelled hot, and no matter how close in age he looked to me, he was not that attractive. What other name should I give him? Ass? That worked too,

'He is Major General Deng Jun Hie,' said Wang Cho in my mind.

'Major General? Does that mean that he outranks you?' I honestly had no idea how rankings worked, but with so many flipping military people around, I probably should start paying attention. Maybe I would once they lived long enough for me to care about them.

'Hardly,' said Wang Chao with a decisive snort. 'He is two ranks lower than me.'

'So does that mean that you are the highest rank possible?'

'No, there is still one more higher than me, a Full General,' he said with a shrug like that wasn't pretty impressive at 29.

'27. I've had the rank for two years now,' he said with a smirk. Stupid man.

"I think that it is safe to say that out of all of us, Wang Chao has the most experience fighting the zombies, so I think we should listen to him in this matter," said Zhao Jia Li as she blinked her eyes at Wang Chao.

I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth.

"After all, he was the one who introduced us to our powers at the Naval Base. Not to mention, he was the one to teach us how to harness it."

"I think that there is a difference between teaching you how to use your powers and fighting zombies," sneered the guy across from us.

Stretching my neck from side to side, I could see my temper rising like the red bar on an old-fashioned thermometer.  This was why you never bothered holding a meeting like this. Everyone in here thought that their way was the only smart one, and wouldn't listen to anything contrary. Really, the only thing that would determine the outcome was to throw each one of them off the wall and see who managed to come back in.

You can't strategize against a zombie because they know all of our tactics. Especially those hordes that had zombies from the military in them. They knew what we were going to do before we would even do it. And with this many zombies coming, there would be more than a few with military-type tactics. Hell, there would probably even be gamers in the masses that would act like this was a first-person shooter game.

"How would one of your special forces team try to take out this base?" I asked, not really reading the room or even really remembering that I wasn't alone with the guys.

"That is classified," sneered Zhao Jia Li like I was gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

"Okay," I said, nodding my head. I tried; they refused. Now I didn't have to feel bad when they all died. T -5 days and all that.