“Huh?”
Ning Wanqin froze for a moment. “Little Fei, if I remember correctly, we recruited only sixty thousand soldiers in total.”
“There are five commanders among us. Split evenly, each commander would have just over ten thousand soldiers. Why are you asking for thirty thousand?”
“Isn’t that a little too much?”
Ruan Fei replied calmly, “Not at all. Thirty thousand isn’t too many. I need at least thirty thousand soldiers.”
Ning Wanqin immediately said, “So you’re taking thirty thousand, and the remaining thirty thousand are supposed to be divided among the four of us?”
“Why should they be?”
Ning Wanqin was clearly unhappy as she spoke.
They were all sisters, and they had agreed to divide everything equally. Why should Ruan Fei get thirty thousand soldiers all to herself?
Did she think she was special?
Did she think she stood above everyone else?
Ruan Fei smiled faintly, her posture relaxed and composed, with an air of inscrutable confidence. She clasped her hands even more tightly behind her back and said, word by word, “Because I’m different!”
“You’re different?” Ning Wanqin sneered. “How are you different? What, do you have two heads and two shoulders?”
“Of course I’m different!”
Ruan Fei was provoked as well. Her voice turned cold as she said, “Madam has left. I’m now the person closest to Grand Commander Zhou Mengyan, and the main force standing in the way of Ren Tianye crossing the river!”
“I hold great power, and I’m highly capable!”
“I’m stronger than all of you, so…”
“I deserve to have more!”
“Thirty thousand. Not a single soldier fewer!”
“And the unit’s name must be changed to the ‘Wind Battalion.’”
“And you…”
Ruan Fei stared at Ning Wanqin. “Sister Wanqin, don’t say I’m not giving you face. Without Lu Chaosheng to rely on, you’re no longer of much use to us.”
“Especially now that you’re on my turf!”
“I advise you to obediently go deliver the message. Otherwise…”
“I, Ruan Fei, can’t guarantee what I might do!”
The threat was so blatant that Ning Wanqin’s face went pale with anger. Before this, whenever Ruan Fei needed her to do something, she had called her “sister” at every turn. Now that Ning Wanqin had finished all the tasks she was capable of doing, Ruan Fei wanted to turn her into a mere messenger!
Was she born to be a tool?
She had crossed the river to steal the letters!
She had crossed the river to persuade General Zhang Shi to defect!
She had crossed the river to deliver things to Lu Chaosheng!
And now, she still had to go deliver a message to Gu Qingyue!
Why… why was she the one suffering so miserably?
However, faced with Ruan Fei’s sharp gaze, Ning Wanqin had no way to argue. After all, she was beneath someone else’s roof. She gritted her teeth and said, “Fine. I’ll deliver the message for you.”
Only then did Ruan Fei leave with satisfaction.
Ning Wanqin, however, grew angrier the more she thought about it.
If they were going by merit, she should have been the most deserving of the five. So how had she ended up in such a miserable position?
She refused to accept it!
And if she refused to accept it, she had to think of a solution.
When people were desperate, their minds often worked with remarkable clarity. In barely an instant, Ning Wanqin thought of someone.
None other than…
Zhang Shi!
Zhang Shi had been the one she invited from the Jiangbei Fortress Cluster!
And that one million taels in banknotes had also been given to General Zhang Shi by her.
Although Shen Zhian had actually provided the money… she had personally placed it in General Zhang Shi’s hands.
Would General Zhang Shi forget that favor?
If not, then it was time to make use of that connection and seek his advice.
Once Ning Wanqin had made up her mind, she began packing her belongings and put on an appearance of preparing to go find Gu Qingyue and her all-female army. At the same time, under cover of night, she quietly made her way to Zhang Shi’s military camp.
At that moment, Zhang Shi was openly recruiting troops and talented people. Through Shitou, he had already summoned a large number of people. After testing them, Zhang Shi decided that they were suitable for use.
It wasn’t that these people were especially loyal to him.
Rather, they were desperately eager to join Lord Duke’s faction. In other words, they were natural allies.
Zhang Shi knew that his activities in the military camp would only grow more extensive in the future. Therefore, he could no longer test people as meticulously and patiently as he had with Shitou. He could only act more boldly and recruit people on a large scale.
Besides…
Whenever something happened and the matter reached Grand Commander Zhou Mengyan, Ruan Fei would find a way to suppress it. That saved him a great deal of trouble.
With that thought in mind, Zhang Shi looked at the more than twenty people standing before him.
“You aren’t commanders in the army, but you’re all officers, personal guards, or people in similar positions. You have a certain amount of status.”
“I’m deeply gratified that you’re willing to pledge allegiance to Lord Duke. However, we must still act cautiously. As far as outsiders are concerned, if no one discovers anything unusual, then so be it. But if anyone does notice something, you must say that you’re loyal to Miss Ruan Fei. Understood?”
Most of them didn’t really understand, but they were all obedient.
They shouted in unison, “Understood!”
“Good!” Zhang Shi nodded in satisfaction, then sent them off to act separately. With so many people in the military camp, who knew how many would eventually be influenced by Lord Duke? In the future, they would form the foundation of his power along the Yangtze defense line.
The moment the group had left, Shitou returned.
“General—no, Deputy Commander, Ning Wanqin is here to see you. She says she has something to ask your advice about.”
“She wants my advice?”
Zhang Shi was stunned, then found the situation somewhat amusing.
Previously, he had relied on his aggressive whirlwind tactics and been virtually unstoppable, becoming almost synonymous with ferocity. But precisely because his whirlwind tactics were so powerful, he had stopped using his brain much after arriving in Yun capital. As a result, he had lost to Wang Ming several times and had been reminded repeatedly by Lord Duke.
But now…
It seemed that everything had completely reversed itself.
That realization greatly boosted Zhang Shi’s confidence.
He said, “Go and bring her in.”
Before long, Ning Wanqin entered and explained the situation.
“General Zhang Shi, Ruan Fei is far too overbearing.”
“I treated her as a sister, yet she acts as though I’m her servant.”
“This is only the beginning. Who knows what sort of orders she’ll give me in the future?”
“General Zhang Shi, you have to help me!”
“After all, you were able to come to the Yangtze natural defenses because I personally crossed the river to find you.”
She was attempting to use her favor as leverage.
Zhang Shi didn’t mind. His mind was turning rapidly. The results of all his recent studying and diligent research—using the information he had obtained from the Demon Suppression Bureau—were gradually beginning to show.
Zhang Shi invited Ning Wanqin to sit down and personally poured her a cup of tea. Then…
He let out a heavy sigh.
“Alas, Miss Ning, to be honest with you… I’m not having an easy time under Ruan Fei either.”
“What?” Ning Wanqin was shocked. “General Zhang Shi, you were someone we invited here. How could that be?”
“Alas!” Zhang Shi sighed even more deeply. “The main problem is that Ning Wanqin is far too overbearing.”
“After I helped her force Madam out, she became Grand Commander Zhou Mengyan’s favorite. In the military camp, she has the final say and dares to order everyone around. How could she treat me any differently?”
“After all, I’m a surrendered general!”
“Even if she treats me badly, what can I do about it?”
Ning Wanqin was stunned.
She had never expected General Zhang Shi to be in the same predicament as her.
So Ruan Fei really was… an awful person!
Before they achieved their goals, they had all been sisters.
But afterward, she treated them all as her servants?
That was too much!
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
e vast world of cultivation, where he becomes the master of the Heavenly Ruins Sacred Hall, a dying old man with barely a tenth of his former cultivation remaining. He is immediately confronted with a deadly crisis: his subordinates have rebelled, and his protectors are forcing him to abdicate. At the critical moment, the system descends from the heavens: [Ding! The host has been detected facing a life-or-death crisis. The system is now officially activated!] [As a gift, you have received the Supreme Beginner’s Pack and awakened the ultimate cheat: ten thousand years of pure cultivation essence every second!] Yin Tianjue: “Wait… ten thousand years of cultivation every second? That’s six hundred thousand years a minute, and in one day… I can’t even calculate it. Either way, I’m already invincible!” You’re a peerless prodigy rarely seen in ten thousand years? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re an undying ancestor who has guarded a sacred land for countless ages? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re the strongest chosen one, blessed with heaven-defying destiny? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. From this day forth, I have only one thing to say: “I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. Now, how exactly are you supposed to deal with that?”
