The warehouse settlement was not what Lin Feng expected.
It was not safe. It was desperate.
Pier Seven was a vast, echoing space of rusted metal and concrete. The survivors, maybe sixty of them, huddled in a fortified corner. They used shipping containers as walls. The air smelled of unwashed bodies, boiled grain and fear.
Lao Chen introduced him to the settlement head, a weary-looking woman named Captain Luo. She had been a port administrator. Now, she rationed water.
"New mouth to feed," she said, looking at Lin Feng's clean office clothes with a hint of contempt. "You work. Everyone works. Scavenge duty is at dawn. Guard duty is at night. You fail, you get half rations. You steal, you get exiled."
Lin Feng nodded meekly. "I understand."
Mei assigned him a space. It was a square of concrete marked with tape, next to the latrine trench. A thin blanket was his only furnishing. This was his new home.
He watched. He learned.
Resources were the only topic. The settlement's stockpile was pitiful. A few sacks of rice from a flooded container. Barrels of murky rainwater. A pile of scrap metal and wood, carefully sorted.
Scavenging teams went out each day. They returned with less. Sometimes, they did not return at all.
A man argued with Captain Luo. His scavenging team had found a cache of canned food. A roaming [Stoneback Bear] had attacked. Two people died. They retrieved only five cans.
"Five cans for two lives!" the man shouted, his voice breaking.
Captain Luo's face was stone. "Calculate the calorie yield. It was a net loss. Don't go back there."
This was survival math. Life had a caloric value. Lin Feng understood numbers. This equation was horrifying.
His own secret numbers were different.
Sitting on his thin blanket, he focused inward. He opened the Idle Apocalypse System.
His first zombie, Z-001, was still scouting. It had reached the supermarket. The map had cleared. The building was marked with a resource icon: [Medium Food Node].
But it was also marked with danger. Three red dots pulsed inside. [Hostile - Feral Ghoul]. Stronger than goblins. Faster.
Z-001 waited at the edge of the map. It had a standing order: Avoid combat.
Lin Feng had 58 Idle Points. He looked at the Asset Production menu.
[Deploy Basic Zombie Clone]
[Cost: 25 IP]
[Upkeep: 1 IP/day]
He could make a second. He had the points. More importantly, he had a plan.
He selected the map. He zoomed out. Two blocks east of the supermarket was an industrial park. Old machine shops. The system scan labeled it: [Rich Metal & Component Node].
It was also crawling with red dots. [Hostile - Steelbite Rats], [Hostile - Corroded Slime].
A perfect AFK farming zone. Too dangerous for humans. Irrelevant to zombies.
He selected the deploy command. He placed the spawn point in a shadowed alley near the industrial park.
[Deploying Zombie Clone #002...]
[Cost: -25 IP]
[Current IP: 33/100]
On the map, a new green dot appeared. Z-002. It stood motionless, awaiting orders.
Lin Feng assigned its first task. Not combat. Farm.
[Task Assigned: Z-002 - Farm Resources (Metal/Components)]
[Priority: High Yield, Avoid Combat]
The green dot began to move. It shambled into a broken-down garage. The command log updated.
[14:32:01 - Z-002 is farming.]
[Loot Acquired: Rusted Steel Pipe x1, Copper Wire Coil x1.]
[14:35:17 - Z-002 is farming.]
[Loot Acquired: Bent Aluminum Sheet x1, Simple Bearing x2.]
A slow, steady trickle of metal. The settlement's most coveted resource. And it was flowing into his hidden cache across town, every minute, for free.
A voice broke his concentration.
"Not helping with the water ration?"
It was Mei. She stood over him, holding two buckets. Her expression was unreadable.
Lin Feng flinched, his eyes snapping open to the real world. "I... I was just resting. The walk was long."
"You look well-rested," she observed. Her eyes didn't leave his face. "Most new people are shaking. They can't sit still. You're just... sitting."
"I'm tired," Lin Feng said, the weak excuse sounding hollow even to him.
Mei said nothing for a moment. Then she nudged one of the buckets toward him with her foot. "Rest is a luxury. Water duty isn't. Take this to the cooking fire. Don't spill it."
She walked away, not looking back.
Lin Feng let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. She notices too much. It was a problem.
He carried the heavy bucket across the compound. He saw the reality of the settlement up close. A child with a hollow cough. Two people arguing over a torn blanket. The blank, exhausted stares of those on guard duty.
They were starving in slow motion.
He returned to his spot. Night was falling. A single electric lantern, powered by a hand-crank, cast long shadows.
He checked his systems.
Z-001 was still holding position. The ghouls in the supermarket hadn't moved.
Z-002 had been farming for hours.
[Total Loot from Z-002:]
[Low-Grade Metal x41]
[Electronic Components x12]
[Simple Mechanisms x8]
[Idle Points Generated: +18]
His IP was back up to 51. His hidden cache was filling with metal. The very resource he needed to unlock the Basic Workshop.
A parallel existed. The settlement struggled for a single steel pipe. His zombie had gathered forty-one units without risk.
He was living two lives.
In this life, he was Lin Feng. The meek, useless office worker. A drain on resources. Suspected by a sharp-eyed scout.
In the other life, he was the Commander. An unseen force gathering wealth and power from the most dangerous places in the city.
The divide was his armor. It was also his prison.
Captain Luo's voice rang out in the cavernous space. "Listen up! Scavenging assignments for tomorrow. Team One: Lao Chen, Mei, attempt the northern residential blocks. Look for medicine. Team Two: Zhang Wei and Union crew, you have first claim on the old machinery depot. Team Three..."
She listed names. Lin Feng was not on any team. He was deemed too weak for specialized duty. He was assigned to general camp maintenance. Sorting scrap. Cleaning the latrines.
The man next to him, an old dockworker, spat on the ground. "Ha. Latrine duty. Welcome to the bottom, kid."
Lin Feng just nodded.
Inside, he was calculating. Zhang Wei's "Dragon Tiger Union" was being sent to the machinery depot. That was his territory. His zombie's farming ground.
A conflict was coming. Not with monsters. With humans.
He closed his eyes. On his mental map, he saw his two green dots. One waiting. One working.
He sent a new, silent command.
[Z-002: Change farming priority.]
[New Priority: Stealth. Maximum stealth.]
[Avoid all contact. Even if it means lower yield.]
The zombie in the alley adjusted its pattern. It moved slower. It stuck to deeper shadows.
Lin Feng opened his eyes. He looked at the settlement's meager fire. He looked at the hungry faces.
He pulled his thin blanket around his shoulders. The public Lin Feng shivered in the cold.
The Commander checked his resource totals one more time and allowed himself a single, silent thought.
_I am not at the bottom. I am in the foundations. And I am building._