Atonement 01

Little Hei had become much more talkative than before, almost as if possessed by a chatterbox. Fang Zhiyi could barely understand this sudden change, but looking at its increasingly solid body, he knew that this was perhaps Little Hei's evolution.

To be honest, even now, he still did not understand what kind of species or existence Little Hei was, how many creatures like it existed across these countless worlds, or how they came to be and how they perished.

A bullet grazed Fang Zhiyi's cheek, embedding itself straight into the wooden board behind him.

The brief sting of pain snapped Fang Zhiyi back to reality.

"That was close, I almost had to restart immediately."

Little Hei frowned at him. "Boss, can you focus a little? We are in the middle of a battle."

Fang Zhiyi rolled his eyes at it in annoyance, but when he looked around, he was slightly dazed.

"Little Hei, the plot."

Little Hei hesitated a bit. "This time it might be a little troublesome."

"Cut the crap, the plot."

If one were to ask who the biggest traitor was after the war ended, Fang Zhiyi would definitely be on the list. In this war of aggression, as the police captain of Linlang City, Fang Zhiyi had practically defected to the enemy on his own accord from the very beginning.

It was not that he had never thought of resisting, but seeing the defending army fall in droves and crumble in defeat, the fear of death made him choose the path that benefited him the most.

Because of this, even when his father kicked him out of the house, he did not care. Instead, he thought the old man was just being stubborn. A person only lives once; if you die, you lose everything!

Fang Zhiyi was somewhat capable. Therefore, to consolidate their rule, the invaders from Yue appointed him as the brigade commander of a mixed brigade. Although he did not even have enough men to form a full brigade, and most of them were cowards who bullied the weak and feared the strong, they were more than enough to deal with the common folk. Fang Zhiyi was quite satisfied with this.

His active performance also greatly pleased the Yue generals, who repeatedly proclaimed him the "ambassador of peace" between the two nations. In the eyes of the other citizens of Han, Fang Zhiyi was the very epitome of a traitor.

Fang Zhiyi felt that these people simply did not understand life. He used to be just a lowly police captain, but today he had become Brigade Commander Fang stationed in Linlang. This was all because he had made the right choices.

The war continued. The Yue army marched south in droves to clash fiercely with Han. Because they were not fighting on their home turf, Yue's supply lines were strained, and the defense of the occupied cities in the rear was largely handed over to defectors like Fang Zhiyi.

This further amplified Fang Zhiyi's power. He began cooperating with Yue officials to ruthlessly hunt down Han resistance fighters, occasionally dealing with small Han units that came to harass them. To show his loyalty, Fang Zhiyi even increased the taxes on the people of Linlang City. Everything was just to secure his position and curry favor with the Yue higher-ups.

He once had a fiancée, but before Linlang was captured, his fiancée Lin Xiaoyao had fled the city with her eldest brother. By the time she appeared before Fang Zhiyi again, she had become a representative of the Han resistance armed forces, and her visit this time was solely to win Fang Zhiyi's support.

She was confident she could persuade Fang Zhiyi, but she never expected that the current Fang Zhiyi had long been blinded by power. He agreed on the surface, but immediately turned around and used Lin Xiaoyao. After gaining her trust, he reported everything to the Yue higher-ups, and a meticulously planned hunt commenced.

Even at the moment of her death, Lin Xiaoyao never thought her former lover would walk down this dark path to the very end. Unlike the angry curses of others, she only looked at Fang Zhiyi with mournful sorrow, a gaze that made Fang Zhiyi's blood run cold.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Every man for himself, don't you know that?" Fang Zhiyi tried to comfort himself, but whenever he closed his eyes, Lin Xiaoyao's mournful gaze would appear in his dreams, along with the accusations, curses, and disdain of the local townsfolk over the years. This caused him to suffer a mental breakdown.

However, what ultimately broke him was that when he tried to seek a moment of peace from his own family, he discovered that they had poisoned his wine.

Fang Zhiyi did not understand. He was clearly doing this to protect them. The Yue army was advancing triumphantly, so why were these people still so stubbornly misguided?

He did not die that day; he was saved by his subordinates. But after waking up, the orders from the Yue higher-ups sent a chill down his spine. They would not allow anyone to attempt to poison a loyal man like Fang Zhiyi, so the entire Fang family had to die, and Fang Zhiyi had to supervise the execution personally.

Fang Zhiyi's madness began right at this moment. Watching his family curse him with their dying breaths, the last string of sanity in his mind snapped. That Fang Zhiyi died completely, replaced by a thorough and absolute traitor Fang Zhiyi.

He began to grow paranoid, trusting no one around him and feeling that everyone wanted to kill him. Because of this, Fang Zhiyi killed many of his own subordinates, causing his already ragtag army to lose all morale, with everyone fearing for their own lives.

Eventually, due to a rebellion by a few subordinate officers, Fang Zhiyi nearly lost his life. He originally thought he could regain control of the situation through the Yue higher-ups, only to be told that he had lost the hearts of the people and that Yue had abandoned him as well.

After the war ended, some remembered this man, but no one knew where he had gone. People simply carved his name stroke by stroke onto the monument of shame, and his deeds were despised by all future generations.

"A traitor?" Fang Zhiyi held the old-fashioned rifle in his hand. "Doesn't he absolutely deserve to die? How did he die in the end?"

"Some say he went mad and fell to his death. Others say he committed suicide out of guilt. In reality... after Yue lost the war, they executed a batch of their former lackeys to cover up their crimes, and Fang Zhiyi was one of them."

Fang Zhiyi nodded.

"That is why I said it would be a bit difficult... This kind of character is very unlikable," Little Hei said.

Fang Zhiyi shook his head. "I have played all kinds of roles. A father, an emperor, a local thug, a Daoist priest, a warlord... I just haven't been a traitor yet."

"You've been a traitorous emperor before, haven't you?"

"That doesn't count. I had no choice in the matter."

"So are you preparing to... secretly get a batch of weapons and then surrender?" Little Hei pondered. "That direction is the most correct choice."

Fang Zhiyi was silent for a brief moment, then rejected the idea. "The original owner's actions warrant dying ten thousand times over. Surrender? Am I the kind of person to surrender?"

Little Hei did not quite understand what he was planning to do.

"Brigade Commander! They ran away!" a subordinate with a crooked hat ran over and reported. "It should just be a small guerrilla squad!"