Zou Yue contacted the realtor and informed him that he was in need of a renovator for his new house. The realtor was quick and hooked him up with a local renovator and mason.

The house was to be painted interior and exterior, and there were slight modifications to be done.

He made a brief call and gave him the details of the plan. The contacted person was talented and was able to arrange everything according to his wants.

A few days later he made a visit with a picnic basket full of sandwich for everyone. The man who drove him to this place and introduced the realtors was working on his electrical circuits. “You must be multi-talented, uncle?”

“Call me Bohai, I’m not that old.” He grumbled as he soldered some wires to the electrical circuit.

Zou Yue handed him a sandwich..

The pond in the middle of the house was emptied out and as per his instruction the cemented layers were plastered with tiles so that it would be easier to clean in the future.

There was still a small pool of water at the bottom. But it was crystal clean. He did not think much of it. Usually when an area is being cemented they soak it up with water to solidify the cement and to strengthen it.

“This is good. What of the railing,” he glanced up at the open ceiling. There were a lot of huge steel rods popping up from the side and it was nailed to the sides of the building.

“Would it be possible to attach solar panels to the part of this roof?”

“It’s possible.” Bohai mumbled while chewing on the sandwich.

“Can it be attached to the inside of the railings?”

“It can be, but we have to do the wirings on the inside to protect it from the weather,”

“Okay then, let the wiring be inside. By the way, when you are fixing the solar panels can I come and watch. I would like to learn how to fix it.” Zou Yue glanced at him with a small smile.

Bohai glanced at him curiously and nodded. “You are weird young man; nowadays people are not interested in these things. They hire us and let us do the job. But why are you so invested in this?”

“Because this is my house. I want to know how everything in here operates.” Zou Yue shrugged. But the reason was because he wanted to be able to handle any problems that might arise in the future.

“Hmm… planning to make our jobs obsolete huh?” Bohai chuckled and patted his back “anyway, the solar sheets wild arrive in a month right? I’ll give you a call when we are doing the job. Get back home.”

“Am I being chased out now?” Zou Yue laughed and waved at him.

The rural area was really far from the place he was staying, so it took almost four hours travel to and fro.

Zou Yue took a cab and reached home by evening. By then, he was tired as hell.

“Yue baby, come eat your dinner,” his mother lovingly called him.

Zou Yue just nodded and ate the food robotically. After a few mouthfuls, he went back to his room.

The soft bed beckoned him, but he had other words to do.

“stocking… I need to stock up on non perishables.”

He sat down in his chair and wrote down a list of things they might need.

“Rice, oil, canned meat, noodles, dries peas, soya beans, lentils… all of those will last longer, right? Should I ask my mum for more suggestions,” he ran out of the room to his mother, who was cleaning up the table. “Mum, what non-perishable foods do you use for cooking?”

Surprised by the sudden question, she fell silent. After two minutes she pulled herself together and whispered, “rice, pickled vegetables, pickled eggs, noodles, what more do I use….”

“Pickled goods!! How could I forget that!! Thank you, mum,” he hugged, kissed her and ran back to his room, leaving behind his stunned mother.

“This sweet kid, he is reverting back to time he used to be as sweet as candy,” she mumbled as she cleaned up with a wide smile.

Zou Yue wrote down the things he was going to buy in bulk and the amount he would have to buy and stored it in his shelf.

He obviously could not buy it now. If he did, he would have no place to store them out of his parent’s sight. “Wait I can book a warehouse to keep my stuff and late on when the construction work is finished I can move it back to my attic,”

The brown diary caught his sight.

“I should send this to Mu manager and peng peng,” he mumbled and flipped through the book. It had a detailed illustration of all the zombies and mutated beast he had witnessed in his life as well as the beast he had heard about from others.

The illustrations were not clean, but it was at least identifiable.

“Maybe I should convert it into a Pdf and upload it to Amazon,”

Right then his phone rang loudly, startling him a bit. He picked it up. “Manager Mu?”

“Yue! Thank god, why didn’t you attend my call before?” he shouted.

“You called?” he took the phone and checked the notification. In fact, there were twenty call notifications on his phone. “Sorry manger Mu I was out on an errand so the take your call,”

“That’s all right. Listen, Zou Yue you have stumbled upon a gold mine ah!!” the manger happily laughed on the other side.

“I don’t understand thing,” Yue arranged the noted for the things he needs to order tomorrow.

“You silly kid, where did you get that book you gave us?”

He paused “why do you ask?”

“Someone got to know of it and is willing to buy the copyright for almost fifty thousand dollars!! Fifty thousand!! How amazing is that,” manger Mu happily went on ranting to him.

Zou Yue frowned slightly. “How did they get to know of it?”

“Donno, they are willing to be anonymous, and they are willing to buy it and any other books you have written. Isn’t that crazy?”

“I don’t wish to sell it though,” he bluntly whispered, and plopped onto the bed.

“WHAT! Yue, this is a chance of a lifetime. I’ve never even seen a successful author sell his book such a high price.”

“I don’t wish to sell the copyright because I want to make it a free book.” Zou Yue pulled the covers over his chest and closed his eyes. “If that’s all. I will talk to you later.”

“Wait, wait, do you have any demands? These people are insistent on buying Yue. Just name your price,”

He thought for a while and whispered, “I want my book to be printed and freely distributed to everyone. I want it to be marketed in social media and any kind of media attention they could afford. If they are willing, I am willing to see. Both the volumes of my book,”

“Huh!!!”

“Good night manager mu. See you later.” Zou Yue disconnected the call and switched his phone off.

He rolled over and glanced out the window. “Who might this mysterious person be?”