Zhang Shi froze on the spot.
He thought to himself, Zhou Buzhang, you really have the nerve to make suggestions. How on earth did you come up with this?
This method was nothing but tying their own hands!
Were they trying to lose even faster?
However, Zhang Shi was no longer the inexperienced man he had once been. Even when faced with something this absurd, he could keep a straight face and remain calm and composed.
He did not rush to pass judgment on Zhou Buzhang’s suggestion. Instead, he first looked at Ruan Fei.
He saw the delight on Ruan Fei’s face growing more and more intense, as though it were about to burst forth. He immediately understood…
Ruan Fei had actually believed in such an absurd strategy!
“Wonderful!”
Ruan Fei kept bouncing excitedly, her pretty little face flushed red. “General Zhou Buzhang, you truly are no ordinary man. Only someone as brilliant as you could have come up with such a genius idea!”
“No wonder General Zhang Shi summoned you into the army.”
“This plan is absolutely perfect!”
“If we link all the ships, large and small, together, then our fleet will basically become one enormous stretch of flat ground. That completely eliminates the possibility of losing to Ren Tianye on the river!”
“We’ll turn the river into land and let General Zhang Shi use his Gale tactics to pin Ren Tianye down and pound him into the ground!”
“Pound him hard!”
The more Ruan Fei spoke, the more excited she became, and the more she relied on Zhang Shi. She turned to him and said, “General Zhang Shi, once everything is ready, all that will remain is for you to make your move.”
“You…”
Zhang Shi cut her off. “Don’t worry. In a situation like that, defeating Ren Tianye will be a piece of cake.”
Ruan Fei burst out laughing. “I knew it, General Zhang Shi. You can definitely do it! My contribution is finally going to come. I’ll make the whole world look at me with admiration!”
“That little Gu Qingyue will have to respectfully address me as Grand Commander whenever she sees me in the future!”
Zhang Shi nodded firmly. “Absolutely.”
“That little Gu Qingyue will have to respectfully call you Grand Commander!”
“Exactly…”
Zhang Shi paused. “There is one problem…”
“The same one we mentioned earlier…”
“Miss Ruan Fei, you’ll have to take command personally!”
“Otherwise, I feel that the Grand Commander is stubborn and self-willed. He may not agree to General Zhou Buzhang’s iron-chain-across-the-river strategy!”
Ruan Fei was full of confidence. “Don’t worry!”
“As for Brother Mengyan, I’ll take care of him!”
“If nothing unexpected happens, you’ll have good news within three to five days.”
“You and General Zhou Buzhang just wait.”
“I’ll definitely give you a pleasant surprise!”
As she spoke, Ruan Fei’s eyes sharpened. “And I’ll definitely give Ren Tianye a pleasant surprise too!”
Zhang Shi nodded heavily. “We absolutely must give Ren Tianye a pleasant surprise!”
“Oh, right, Miss Ruan Fei. I just remembered something else. Back when I was in Ren Tianye’s camp, quite a few of the men were also dissatisfied with him.”
“I was thinking that once I had established myself here, I would bring those men over as well.”
“Now, I feel the time is about right.”
“How about this? When we go to war with Ren Tianye, I’ll summon them to arrive that very day and deal a heavy blow to the morale of Ren Tianye’s army.”
Ruan Fei nodded. “Good, General Zhang Shi. That’s an excellent idea. Who are they? What are their names?”
“There are quite a few of them,” Zhang Shi said. “The one with the highest rank is named Wu Xingzhou. He used to be the garrison commander of Pingling Market in Yunjing, but was later forced to surrender to Ren Tianye. He has always remained deeply attached to Yunjing.”
“Fine!” Ruan Fei approved. “Then summon this Wu Xingzhou here. General Zhang Shi, you have full authority to handle this matter. I won’t interfere.”
“For now, I’m going back to think carefully about how to make Brother Mengyan willingly hand over command of the army to me.”
Willingly?
Zhang Shi was stunned again.
How the hell could anyone hand it over willingly?
Still, he believed that Ruan Fei had a talent for dealing with Zhou Mengyan. After all, professionals should handle professional matters.
Ruan Fei might know little about the affairs of the navy, but when it came to Zhou Mengyan, she was an absolute expert!
After respectfully seeing Ruan Fei off, Zhang Shi turned around and ran into Zhou Buzhang, whose face was likewise struggling to contain his delight. Their eyes met, and the two immediately burst into laughter.
“Brilliant, absolutely brilliant, General Zhang Shi! With this, it will be even easier for Lord Duke to seize the Yangtze defense line.”
“Absolutely!” Zhang Shi was equally excited. “With Ruan Fei’s help, how could this puny natural barrier of the Yangtze possibly stop Lord Duke?”
“There’s no time to lose. I’ll write Lord Duke a letter right now and report everything that happened here in detail, so he can make preparations in advance!”
Zhang Shi immediately picked up his brush and began writing. In no time at all, he had finished the letter and handed it to a trusted aide, who hurriedly carried it across the Yangtze and delivered it to the military camp, placing it directly on Ren Tianye’s desk.
Ren Tianye was in the middle of gathering his generals to discuss the coming assault on the Yangtze defense line. When he saw that the letter had been sent by Zhang Shi, he was quite eager to read it and quickly opened it.
He read it word by word.
Then…
He was completely dumbfounded.
“Lord Duke, what’s wrong?” Wang Ming asked softly from beside him.
Wang Ming was not the only one curious. The others were also eager to know what General Zhang Shi had written.
Lu Chaosheng, Chen Liang, Pei Jingzhi, Wu Xingzhou, and the others all craned their necks forward, trying to see the contents.
Only then did Ren Tianye come back to himself.
The corners of his mouth immediately became impossible to suppress.
Harder to hold down than an AK.
“Iron chains across the river…”
“The navy defending the Yangtze actually plans to use iron chains across the river—and this Ruan Fei is the one leading it? This Ruan Fei truly is… a divine figure on the same level as Gu Qingyue!”
Ren Tianye gave Ruan Fei an extremely high evaluation.
He then handed the letter to the others.
One after another, they finished reading it. Every expression looked exactly like Ren Tianye’s had moments earlier.
“No, I recognize every single character in the letter, but when they’re put together, I suddenly can’t make sense of it… The Yangtze is a natural barrier precisely because their navy is absolutely stronger than ours. By doing this, aren’t they using their weakness to attack our strength?”
“They’re linking all their ships, large and small, into one mass… That’s a perfect opportunity for us! We can simply use fire attacks. One blaze and the whole lot will go up. Wouldn’t victory come effortlessly?”
“Exactly. A fire attack will settle everything. No matter how powerful Zhou Mengyan’s navy is, what can it do? We’ll still defeat them with ease.”
“Lord Duke, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We must hurry and prepare some fire oil, then wipe them out!”
…
Everyone began talking at once, but most of them immediately thought of using fire. Ren Tianye had reached the same conclusion.
The enemy’s large and small ships would all be linked together, making them a perfect target for a fire attack. When the wind fanned the flames, a raging inferno would sweep across the river. No matter how strong Zhou Mengyan’s navy was, it would still be burned to ashes.
Most importantly…
The two banks of the Yangtze were plagued by northern or northwestern winds all year round.
Ren Tianye would not even need to borrow the wind’s help!
“The conditions on this battlefield are simply perfect!”
“Perfect to the point that I can hardly believe it!”
Ren Tianye let out a heartfelt sigh.
e, Immortal Body, Transmigration, System, Progression Fantasy, Academy Setting, Third-Person Perspective. Alternate Title: Transmigrating into a High Martial World and Reading Live Comments. Bad news: I transmigrated. This is a terrifying high-martial world, and my original, pathetically weak body fell into a coma and never woke up. Good news: I got a Popularity Points system upon arrival. I can see live comments and even create an unkillable alternate identity. Starting out, the alternate identity has all stats at 1. The system tells me that to grow stronger, I must participate in the plot, gain popularity points to allocate stats and grow stronger, and ultimately awaken my original body. And so, carrying my original body on my back, I officially entered Huaqing Academy, where the story's protagonist resides. From that moment on, Chen Guan kicked the original plot to pieces. Live Comments: [Doesn't anyone find this mysterious coffin guy creepy? He can summon indescribable grey misty hands.] [Is this guy a hero or a villain? What kind of onion became a spirit?] [By the way, does anyone know who's in the coffin? Shouldn't the debt for saving his life be repaid by now?] [According to unofficial histories, the person in the coffin was Chen Guan's first love. Their love was once passionate and earth-shattering, but they were separated by life and death due to worldly circumstances. What a star-crossed pair.] ... Years later, the world knew of a demon god born from a coffin, shrouded in grey mist, impossible to gaze upon directly. His foremost divine emissary often wielded a scythe, reaping lives like the god of death. As war approached, facing former friends and a boundless sea of enemies, Chen Guan merely raised his scythe. "Would you like to dance as well?"
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?”
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
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."
