"Li Zhen, what the fuck is that emergency message? Tell me that was testing or some system malfunction."

As Xiaoyun yelled through the phone, a loud siren was blasting through, coming from far in the direction of Guangzhou.

"I’m afraid nukes had been used, sir."

Dead silence.

Xiaoyun couldn’t speak up. His lips ran dry. He couldn’t believe his ears. He couldn’t believe the words that came out of his police chief’s mouth.

But then, he noticed something. Li Zhen’s voice sounded way too calm for an actual nuclear strike inbound towards them.

"You’re joking, right?"

"I’m not joking, sir. A nuclear weapon had been detected... But fortunately, it has not been used towards our direction."

"Thank fucking god. You could have said from the beginning. Why are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"Sorry, Governor. I just learned about this a minute ago as well. One of our police officers had already gone to fix it..."

---

The emergency message left almost everyone across every settlement under Xiaoyun’s control in full panic.

Everyone was genuinely believing a nuclear strike was inbound and that they were about to die, until the update message finally went through.

All of the initial chaos from it was quickly contained as Xiaoyun deployed the entire police force and the army reservists onto the streets.

For the entire night, the streets were dead silent. Tanks and armored trucks were constantly driving by to maintain a set curfew.

Only when the morning came did all the police officers and the soldiers disappear from the streets.

Everything seemed to have returned to normal, almost as if last night was just a nightmare dream out of nowhere.

In the early morning of the next day, Xiaoyun was standing in front of the press, explaining what had happened the previous night.

---

"Good morning, citizens. I’m here to address a big concern that you might have noticed last night if you had a phone with you or a TV on.

It was a loud emergency message broadcast out of nowhere. It stated that a nuclear weapon was inbound and to take shelter immediately.

Seeing that I’m able to speak to you here today, the nuclear strike did not happen here. Or anywhere in the country for that matter."

As soon as Xiaoyun finished the first part of his speech, he could feel all of the people in the press letting out a small sigh of relief.

"To clarify, the message had come from a detection system. More specifically, it’s a pre-outbreak autonomous satellite system meant to detect nuclear weapons. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Based on the data we had received, nuclear weapons had been used. We do not know the exact location, but it is nowhere near us.

I repeat, the nuclear strike is nowhere near us. Everything is safe, and we’ll give further updates when more information comes."

"Now, any questions?"

Within seconds, all of the journalist raised their hands. Xiaoyun picked one of them in the very front.

"The one form Luoping Daily."

"Were there any injuries or accidents caused during the chaos? And will this happen again in the same way?"

"There were fortunately no injuries, and there was minimal chaos. We had also switched the automatic system to require manual verification."

Xiaoyun paused for a second, then continued.

"The manual verification is to avoid causing panic... And I’m going to be real with you for a second, a nuclear strike is the least of our concerns.

We still have zombies on our doorstep and unfriendly neighbors that pose a real threat to our settlements.

So please, remain calm. We have a 24/7 team monitoring the situation and will send out the message as needed."

"Thank you, sir."

"You, Guangzhou Sunsets"

"Mr.Governor, sorry if I’m misunderstanding this. But if there’s no nuclear weapons used near us, was this detection system giving a false alarm?"

"Not exactly. The system originally seemed to be meant to detect any use of nuclear weapons around the globe.

So, it’s not just locating our own country. You could say it was a false alarm to wake people up for nothing, or you could say it did its job to warn people."

The answer confused the reporter a little, but he didn’t question it as Xiaoyun moved on to the next person.

"You, Shenzhen Weekly."

"Mr.Governor, will there be any direct or indirect effect from a nuclear weapon used on Earth?"

"Um... I’m going to be frank with you, I don’t know the exact effect. We currently have experts estimating the potential harm.

For now, I can say this. We’ll try our best to mitigate any harm that comes from this, and we’ll do our best to prepare our citizens for the worst.

Just as the journalist nodded his head as thanks, several journalist immediately raised their hands next.

But Xiaoyun took it as a signal to leave as Yuqi’s assistant stepped in to end the press release.

---

As Xiaoyun walked inside the administrative building, Yuqi was standing at the main lobby in her work suit.

"Thank god that was a false alarm." Yuqi murmured, her face still looking a little more stressed than usual.

"Mhm. But we’re going to have a lot of work to do for the next few days... Ruined our weekend plan for nothing."

"We should still be thankful. At least we’re still alive... Babe, you know how scared I was waiting in the basement?"

Once inside the elevator, the nervousness began to ease from Yuqi’s face as it traveled up to the top floors.

"I should be the one shitting the bed. You wouldn’t want to hear how loud the air raid sirens went off in the cities."

"We have an air raid siren?"

"Of course we do... If it wasn’t for one of the police officers who happened to be a former worker there, we wouldn’t even know where to turn it off."

Exiting the elevator, the office floor was already filled with workers busy making phone calls with a whole sheet of paper in front of them.

"Morning, Governor."

As soon as one of the workers said it out loud, all of the workers turned around to look at the two of them.

"Morning. Sorry for making you all work on the weekend."

"No problem, sir."

Xiaoyun didn’t speak up any further as the two of them headed inside Yuqi’s office, closing the door to cut off the noise.

"Hey Xiaoyun, did the satellite data really not tell us where the nuclear weapon was used?"

"Li Zhen is going to send you a report by the evening about it."

"Can you not just tell me now? You already met him last night, didn’t you?" Yuqi questioned.

"I don’t know either. Quite frankly, I’m not even sure the guy who turned the sirens off knows how to read the data either."

"Then how would the evening report tell me anything?"

"They already requested the IT department and the telecommunications department to analyze it."

"You could have said that at the start." Yuqi grumpily murmured.

"Mhm."

As Yuqi turned on her monitor, floods of emails immediately popped up. More than she had ever witnessed at once.

Every single one of them was either from city mayors to village elders to department heads, all asking the same question.

"You need me to help you respond to them?"

"I’m good... Xiaoyun, have you prepared the speech you’re going to give before you leave Luoping?"

"Crap. I mean, do I really need to make a speech when like half the town knows what’s happening?"

"They might know the upcoming military operation. But they don’t know you’re leaving for the capital afterward."

"Right. That. I’ll go work on that. Call me if you need me to help with something."

"I’ll will."

With Xiaoyun out of the room, Yuqi turned her full attention back to the email response as she read through the sender’s concern one by one.

"Hmm... How should I respond to this?"

After staring at the monitor for a whole minute, an idea popped into her head. She began typing on the keyboard as the response slowly took shape.

"Deputy Governor, can I come in?"

"Yes, you may."

As the door opened, it was her secretary holding a folder. Its cover name was blocked off with a piece of black tape.

"Deputy Governor, I found the project plan you had asked me to look for."

"Great. Put it on the table. I’ll read it later myself."

With the door closed once again, Yuqi glanced over to the folder for a second before looking back over to the monitor.

"Maybe I could incorporate the response with this project idea... But where can I get the money for this?"

The more she thought about it, the more her mind conflicted. In the end, Yuqi turned around and grabbed the folder.

Inside was a single piece of paper. A project name written in bold font at the very top as the title.

"A bunker in every city and village..."