9 Since my beloved wife said so, then I will work very hard!

There should be about fifteen thousand soldiers in a garrison, and how much soldiers left after the disaster, Zhiqiang did not ask the captain.

But, according the captain, the survivors that were coming to the base nearing twenty thousand numbers and this was still increasing until today, estimated to be manifold in the next few days. So they were really short of living quarters and foods.

Even though they were called as living quarters, they were actually some empty warehouses turned to living quarter. Zhiqiang could see one warehouse could house dozens of people. There was also a lot tents in any empty lot in the base.

Because of Zhiqiang's status as doctor, Captain Garcia was giving him a closer room to the infirmary. The room was smaller but looked more comfortable than any larger warehouses he saw. There were 5 bunk beds in the room. The layout of the room was similar with a student dormitory, but it was cleaner and simpler. Counting the total of bed, 10 people should be able to live in this room comfortably.

But after looking carefully, there was only one empty bed left in the room. The rest of them were occupied by someone.

The Captain frowned and turned to apologize. "I am sorry, Dr. Zhou. I will check other rooms to see if they have any empty bed."

Before Zhiqiang could even say anything, Dominick already warped his arm around his waist and refused the Captain in a smooth voice. "There is no need, Captain. We are husband and wife. Sleep together is a normal thing."

"Even so, there is only a small bed. For two adult man to squeeze together…" The female captain said hesitantly.

"It is no problem, Captain! It is much warmer to squeeze together!" Dominick cut in with a warm grin, preventing Zhiqiang who very much wanted to accept other rooms to say anything.

Seeing the two people were insisted, the female captain could only accept. Beside it would be difficult to prepare another room. After giving them some blanket, two packs of hardtack and explaining some rules in the base, the female captain was then leaving them to do her duty again.

"You sleep on the floor!" Zhiqiang immediately said with a glare at the blond man.

Dominick grinned and warped his arms on the younger man's waist even tighter. "How can you be so cold to me, beloved wife? It has been long since we sleep together," the man whispered seductively on the younger man's ear.

Ignoring a warm flush that was sneaking up at his ear, Zhiqiang kicked the man's legs in anger. "Who are you calling a wife, damn it?!"

You were the wife!! Your whole family was the wife!!

Zhiqiang shouted in anger internally. Beside when did they ever slept together?!!

"So cold, I thought we promised each other just now?" Dominick said with pitiful expression, making Zhiqiang wanted to slap his pitiful face with a shoe very much.

Zhiqiang crossed his arms with a huff. He sneered at the man coldly. "Stop making trouble! Why don't you go and find a work since you desire so much to be a husband?!"

Dominick immediately grinned brightly. "Alright, anything for my beloved wife," he said in teasing voice and then before Zhiqiang could react, the man stole a kiss on his lips and quickly exited the room, leaving the black haired man flustered.

"Damn it!!" Zhiqiang cursed in anger as he rubbed his lips in rough movement.

After calming himself down, Zhiqiang looked around the room. It was empty with only some bags and clothes on each bed. It seemed all the room occupants were working outside.

One of the rules in the base was you had to work to receive foods.

Because of the food shortage, the base would not provide foods every day to the survivor easily. According to the captain, the food warehouses in the base were perished. All grains and rice were infested and moldy. There were even a lot of fungus and they stunk so badly. Those corps had become poisonous. So the base only had dry food supplies like crackers, canned foods and instant noodles. Thankfully, the water mechanism in the base was still functional, though limited for usage.

All people in the base had to work to get a pack of food every day. The survivors would only get a few packs of food and blanket at the first day while next days the military would only give a pack of food for anyone who worked in the base.

Whether they wanted it or not, survivors had to find their foods on their own with working or finding foods from outside. Even the soldiers were the same as their job was guarding the base every day. So the survivors who complained about the rules were silenced by them.

Zhiqiang heard from Captain Garcia the first day after everyone woke up, a lot of mutated beasts were attacking the base. There were a lot of causalities at the beginning because of the sudden attack. But after the military took over their power back, the attack was eliminated. Even so, there was still a mutated beast that was occasionally attacking from outside. So the soldiers would patrol everyday outside the wall.

Zhiqiang suddenly realized their trip from Manhattan to the base was truly lucky, as they only met a dangerous thing once.

There were a lot of works that survivors could do in the base, such as creating defensive walls, chopping trees, helping in infirmary, cleaning the base, logistics job, gathering resources, guarding and so on. He as doctor, of course, would receive a pack of food every day as payment for his works.

Since the captain led him to this room because of his status as doctor, then the occupants of this room must be at least had an important status, not like the normal survivor who had to sleep on the thin mattress and floor together in large warehouses.

Therefore Zhiqiang decided to trust the captain and place his backpack on the bed. Even though not a lot, there were still some foods, waters and his medical kit in his backpack. In the apocalypse times, these things were important. So Zhiqiang could not help but worry about his things was stole by someone.

He arranged the blanket on top of the backpack, make it so there was someone who owned the bed now, but not to overly obvious that he had something in the backpack. He looked at the room once more before deciding to work in the infirmary immediately.

The old doctor immediately greeted him with a warm smile that turned to even more excited when he heard Zhiqiang was a surgeon from NYC Hospital Center. The old doctor was the only military surgeon left in the base, so his job was twice than other doctors. He immediately gave him some of surgery works to him.

Almost all severe patients in the infirmary were caused by beasts and building ruins, while the rest were only some normal illness like flu, fever, diarrhea and so on. The ones with beast injuries were mostly soldiers who had guarded outside against the beast. They need at least some suturing in their injury and a few even needed a small operation.

The infirmary was large, but it was because they used warehouses beside it to make a larger patient rooms. Even so, it was still packed with a lot of patients. They separated the patient room into two types, one that needed a serious treatment like a suturing and operation, while the other room for normal illness.

Zhiqiang mostly treated people with severe injuries.

After asking around while working, Zhiqiang finally received a confirmation about how much days had passed since the rains stopped.

It had been twelve days since the rains stopped on Sunday.

Counting the days after he woke up, it meant he had been unconscious for seven days when the apocalypse came, while other people was waking up after the eight day.

Then he also heard from the old doctor that there was one person in the military who woke up in the eight day, only after seven days like him.

It was Colonel Andrew Williams, rumored to be one of strongest and youngest candidate who could become a General.

Because of him who woke up earlier, the military could understand the situation quicker and smoother. Evacuation operational become less confused and disorderly, only also because of Colonel Willams's plans that the base could eliminate the beast's sudden attack on the first day successfully.

Furthermore, Colonel Williams was one of people who had strong mutant ability. There was no concrete confirmation, but the old doctor heard a lot of people often discussed him having a strong body like a stone and a fast speed like panther

A lot of people called Colonel Williams as the strongest soldier in the military now.

Ever since he saw other people were waking up a day later than him, Zhiqiang had been thinking about this.

He suspected that the people who woke up earlier would have a stronger mutant ability than the later people. Other than they had faster evolution mutant genes in their body, they also had one extra day to stabilize their mutation earlier.

However, Zhiqiang was not conceited thinking that only him and Dominick that was stronger than everyone else. Since he and Dominick could wake up faster than other people, then there should be another people who could wake up earlier too.

Now, this Colonel Williams was confirming his conjectures.

Zhiqiang was interested to know just how much stronger the colonel was. Please do not mentions him who only had a superfast recovery body, Dominick had a super strong body like an iron!

Even a mutated beast could not bit him. He even suspected the beast's teeth were crushed when it bit the man that day because he heard a crushing sound from the bit.

Different from them, his superfast recovery body was only benefit in self-healing. He still could not fight against mutant beast one by one forwardly like Dominick and he also could not use it to heal other people either. So this mutant ability was only his life saving card. The wounds he received from the beast a few days ago were even already healed now. There was not even a scar left on his chest!

Also, there was one more thing that he confirmed from the old doctor about this disaster. The apocalypse was estimated to be happened in every place in the world. Because the military could not contact other military garrisons outside NCY.

No one knew what had happening to the world yet. No one also knew what had happened when all human was unconscious for a week, or eight days to be precise, not counting the people who wake up after seven days. People did not even understand how they could survive after unconscious without any nutrition intake for a week.

All people knew was the world had changed when they woke up. All living things in the world were mutated. Even though not every human had mutated, it had been proved human should have a potential to mutate.

The military called this disaster, eight days of blank state when all human were unconscious and the world was changing as Blackout Incident.

..

When Zhiqiang came back to the room in afternoon, Dominick was already sitting on the ground outside the room. Their room was in the first floor so there was a bit empty yard outside it. After approaching him, Zhiqiang could not help but black lined as he saw what he was doing outside the room.

Dominick was skinning a mutated beast carcass.

"I thought you were working, not hunting." Zhiqiang commented in flat tone.

Dominick only blinked innocently at him. "I was working to feed my beloved wife."

Zhiqiang rolled his eyes at him and sat beside him to watch him works. "Where do you get that? We can exit and enter the base freely?"

"Maybe, I just walked outside and entered it again without much trouble." Dominick replied in vague words, causing the black haired man to narrow his eyes at him suspiciously. This pervert must have done something to be able walk around freely.

Dominick only grinned with harmless expression at him.

The beast in the man's hand was a mutated snake. It was larger than normal snake, but certainly a lot smaller than the mutated dog. It was almost two meters long and about twenty centimeters wide.

"You know we cannot eat all of them for dinner right?" Zhiqiang wondered as he saw meats. It was certainly a lot for two peoples.

"Then, we save them for breakfast." Dominick hummed.

"No, I don't think we can." Zhiqiang refuted suddenly, causing the blond man looking up at him.

Zhiqiang then decided to explain his suspicious.

At the first day he woke up, he found a corpse of old man. From the state of the corpse, the old man should have died for more than two weeks. But today after he asked the old doctor, it turned out it was only a week since he was unconscious. That meant only one thing, the corpse was rotting a twice faster than normal.

Which meant bacteria and microorganism were mutating a lot faster than human. Therefore all food and carcass that was infected by them would be rotting a lot of times faster than normal. It was one of the reasons all raw foods he found was already expiring.

Zhiqiang did not know for sure how long the meat would last before rotting since the last time they ate mutated beast, they immediately finished them quickly without any leftover. But he suspected it would not last longer than a night. Worst, it had only about two hours before it started rotting.

"I see…my beloved doll is so smart." Dominick praised with a bright smile as he rubbed Zhiqiang's hair.

A red flush immediately filled the black haired man's face. Zhiqiang slapped the offending hand away and glared in anger. "I am not a child!!"

"Who said you are a child?" Dominick asked back suggestively as he looked boldly at the black haired man's body.

Zhiqiang sneered coldly at the man. "Just finish the meat quickly so we can eat!!"

Dominick chuckled amusedly but he still continued his skinning. After a while, he threw away the wastes and started cutting the meats. Zhiqiang took out the leftover charcoals they had from their bag.

"Excuse me…?"

A low delicate voice suddenly was heard beside them.

Zhiqiang looked up from his charcoals and saw a seeming Asian descent female stood up before them. She looked to be in early of her twenties in her ages. She had a long pretty black hair and cute oval face. A dimple was seen on her left cheek as she smiled brightly once she saw Zhiqiang looked at her.

"Yes?"

The Asian girl immediately walked toward them with an excited voice. "Hello! I am sorry to disturb you both. Are you from Chinese? My name is Jiang Ying Yue. I just wanted to ask you both something!"

Zhiqiang blinked in surprise as the Asian girl was saying the words so fast. She sure was an excited girl. "Alright, my name is Zhou Zhiqiang." He replied as courtesy.

"Zhi from 'will' character and 'qiang' from 'strong'?" Jiang Ying Yue immediately said without being asked "My Jiang is from 'river' word and Ying Yue is means reflection of the moon!"

"I see…" Zhiqiang nodded awkwardly. He could not handle a bubble girl type like her the most.

But the girl did not seem noticed as she kept talking. "I am so happy to see another Chinese! I am here with my college friends! We are in the BM College in Manhattan when the disaster came. Then we met the army in the road when we tried to walk home." She pointed at four youths in a tent not far from behind her when she said 'friends'. Two youths looked Asian descents while the other two was Caucasians.

"We are separated with our family. So we thought maybe our family would be in the military base like us. So I have been asking a lot of people if they see our parent!" The girl continued to say as she looked hopefully at Zhiqiang. "Do you see any Chinese on the way to the base?! because we cannot find them anywhere in the base."

"Sorry, I don't see any Chinese yet before you." Zhiqiang shook his head in negative.

The girl immediately looked so broken. "Really? I am really worried about my parent."

"Just wait a few more days. Maybe they would show up." Zhiqiang could only say a few simple comfort words.

"Yes. I am just so worried, you know? What about your family? You have had found them?" The girl asked. Then she blinked at the handsome blond man beside Zhiqiang as if she finally realized his presences. "Oh you are?"

Dominick immediately flashed the girl a breathtaking smile that caused the girl to blush red.

"Dominick Black, Zhiqiang's husband." He said in his low seductive voice. Even the name of Zhiqiang was sounded so smooth and appealing in his voice this time!! There was no more weird tone like the first time he said them.

Zhiqiang suddenly felt an urge to slap the psychopath hard to call his name like that, ignoring warm itches that he felt in his ears. Beside since when this pervert could say his name smoothly?!

"Oh?!" The girl gasped in surprise. A red flush suddenly was covering her face.

"You are married?!" She asked in high pitched voice that sounded like a delight squeal. The girl quickly covered her face with her hand and turned away to squeal discreetly as if she could not hold it anymore.

Zhiqiang narrowed his eyes at the girl, suddenly sensing a bad feeling from the girl's action.

The girl quickly coughed to cover her strange action. But the blush was still on her face as she discreetly looked at the two handsome guys in front of her. She then noticed the meat that the blond had been working on since a while ago.

"Is that fresh meats?!" She asked in surprise. "Where did you get them?! I thought all raw foods from the military were rotting?!"

"Dominick was hunting them from mutated beast outside." Zhiqiang decided to explain, to prevent the psychopath saying anymore weird things.

"On your own?!" She asked in shock. "So cool!! You must be so strong!!"

"No really. It is just a mutated snake, weaker than the carnivorous beast we had seen." Zhiqiang said in vague words, unwilling to expos Dominick's true strength.

The girl nodded in understanding, but her eyes were watching the meat in envy.

Seeing this, Zhiqiang suddenly thought of something. "Do you want some? For your friends too?" he offered.

"Really?!" The girl's eyes immediately brightened.

"Not for free, of course. You can exchange them with pack of hardtacks, canned food or instant noodles. You also needed to eat the meats quickly since it will be expiring fast." Zhiqiang explained. For him dry rations were more precious since they were limited, whereas Dominick could hunt raw meats anytime he wanted. The dry rations also had a long resistant as long as he did not open the pack. The bacteria would only infect after he opened the packs.

"Really?!" The girl asked even brighter. "T-then wait here!! I will get my friends!!" The girl immediately said and ran toward her friends. The girl excitedly told her friends before they were entering the tent and bringing their rations toward them in excitement.

The snake was almost two meter long, so there were a lot of meats enough for all of them. Zhiqiang traded a half of their meat for five packs of crackers and five canned foods. The college group then carried their meat together to their tent in excitement.

"You just sold my meat." Dominick then commented drily beside him.

"I thought you said it was meat for your beloved wife." Zhiqiang just sneered at him and packed his dry rations safety in his backpack.

Dominick blinked at him in surprise. He stared at the black haired man for a moment before pulling him in his arms and hugged him tightly.

Zhiqiang yelped in surprise and quickly struggled, but the blond man only hugged him even tighter in his iron arms, preventing his from any escape.

Zhiqiang stopped his struggles and glared at the man. "What are you doing?!"

Dominick just curled his lips in delight. "I am just hugging my beloved wife."

Damn it, this pervert! Zhiqiang cursed in irritation.