Ji Wushuang hung up the call with Lu Qianqian.
The room fell silent again.
Only the ticking of the wall clock remained.
Tick, tock.
It was like a countdown to the end of her vacation.
Ji Wushuang held the cold satellite phone.
Lu Qianqian's voice still echoed in her ears.
"I need you."
Like a comrade's call from a distant battlefield.
She knew her vacation was over.
The peace of Tangzhou was like a brief, warm dream.
Now, it was time to wake up.
She had to go back.
Back to the real battlefield that belonged to her.
Back to the real battlefield that belonged to them.
Ji Wushuang walked out of her room.
Her parents were watching TV in the living room.
It was a new TV she had bought for them.
A family soap opera was playing on the screen.
Her mother was watching with keen interest.
Her father was dozing off beside her.
An ordinary, mortal night.
"Dad, Mom."
Ji Wushuang spoke slowly.
Her voice was soft, but enough to make both parents turn their heads.
"I'm going back to Jingzhou tomorrow."
She said.
The smile froze on her mother's face.
Her father instantly became alert.
"So soon?"
Her mother's voice was full of disappointment.
"I thought you could stay a few more days?"
"There's an urgent matter at the company."
Ji Wushuang could only offer this feeble reason.
"The project is launching. I have to go back."
Her mother fell silent.
She lowered her head, looked at her own hands, and said nothing more.
Her father sighed.
He patted his wife's shoulder, then stood up and said to Ji Wushuang,
"Work comes first."
"Go ahead."
"We'll manage things here at home."
His words were exactly the same as when he sent her off to join the army years ago.
Ji Wushuang's heart felt as if pricked, a sharp pain.
Still, she nodded.
That night, Ji Wushuang couldn't fall asleep for a long time.
She sat in the darkness for a long while.
Then, she picked up her phone and sent a message to Chen Lei.
"Are you free? Let's go for a walk."
Soon, Chen Lei replied.
Just one word.
"Okay."
They met by the abandoned railway tracks in the factory district.
The night was deep, the surroundings quiet.
Only the low hum of distant factory machinery and the chirping of insects in the grass.
Chen Lei arrived.
He was wearing a simple T-shirt and trousers.
"What's wrong?"
He asked, a trace of concern in his voice.
"Did something happen?"
"No."
Ji Wushuang shook her head.
"I'm leaving tomorrow."
Chen Lei's body stiffened slightly.
The night hid his expression.
He didn't speak, just took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.
The flame illuminated his sharply defined face.
It also illuminated a fleeting glimpse of loss in his eyes.
"T Country."
Ji Wushuang looked at the distant night sky and said softly.
"Our first project is in T Country."
"Seawater desalination, and mobile clinics."
For the first time, she proactively told him about her work, about Lu Qianqian, about that foundation called "Faraway."
About those people struggling to survive in poverty and war.
She spoke calmly.
As if presenting a report unrelated to herself.
But Chen Lei understood.
He understood the danger hidden beneath that calm, the weight of that ideal, and that compassion.
He listened quietly.
One cigarette burned out, and he lit another.
Only after Ji Wushuang finished speaking did he finally speak, his voice somewhat hoarse.
"Be careful."
He said, still these same four words.
Then, he paused and added another sentence.
"I'll be here for the family."
Simple words.
No plea for her to stay.
No complaint.
Only the deepest understanding and acceptance.
Yet, it was these few words that instantly struck the softest part of Ji Wushuang's heart.
In the army, she protected the nation.
She thought that was the greatest protection she could offer this home.
Out there, she guarded an ideal that could change the world.
She thought that was a grander responsibility.
But when she left,
This home was left empty.
It was this man before her.
Who, in his clumsy and silent way, filled the void she left.
Guarding the roots she most wanted to protect, yet had no time to tend to.
An unprecedented impulse surged in Ji Wushuang's heart.
She turned to face Chen Lei.
Looked at his outline, blurred yet incredibly clear in the night.
"Chen Lei."
Her voice was soft, yet unusually firm.
"Let's get married."
The air seemed to freeze.
Even the insect chirps seemed to vanish.
Chen Lei's hand holding the cigarette stopped mid-air.
He turned his head sharply to look at Ji Wushuang.
His eyes held disbelief and shock.
"You said... what?"
"I said, let's get married."
Ji Wushuang repeated.
Her mind was actually in turmoil; she didn't know why she said it.
Was it because of love?
She didn't understand what love was.
She only knew that being with this man felt safe.
Was it because she was moved?
Was it because she wanted to repay his years of devotion with a formal commitment?
Or was it simply because she was heading to a more dangerous battlefield.
She wanted to secure the most stable anchor behind her.
A home she could always return to, no matter what.
She didn't know.
She only knew that as she spoke the words, she felt no regret.
Chen Lei stared at her blankly.
His chest heaved violently.
A long, long time passed.
He finally found his voice again.
He threw the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it under his foot.
Then, he stepped forward, one step, then another, until he stood right in front of Ji Wushuang.
He was a little taller than her.
He looked down at her.
His eyes were bright, even in the darkness.
"Ji Wushuang."
He said, word by word.
"Look at me."
Ji Wushuang raised her head to meet his gaze.
"Tell me."
"Why do you want to marry me?"
"Is it because you pity me?"
"Or because you're grateful?"
"Or do you feel you owe me an answer?"
Each of his questions was like a sharp knife.
Cutting open the chaotic feelings in her own heart that she hadn't even sorted out yet.
Ji Wushuang couldn't speak.
She found she couldn't answer.
Chen Lei looked at her and suddenly smiled.
The smile was full of bitterness and self-mockery.
"I knew it."
He took a step back, creating distance between them.
"Ji Wushuang."
His voice regained its calm.
But beneath that calm was suppressed pain.
"I don't want your gratitude or pity."
"And I certainly don't want your sense of obligation."
He looked at her, his eyes holding an unprecedented seriousness and tenderness.
"You are Ji Wushuang."
"The girl who could leave everyone behind on the training ground."
"The soldier queen who would go to the ends of the earth for an ideal."
"Your world is vast."
"So vast that even this Tangzhou can't contain it."
"You don't belong here."
"You shouldn't be tied down by anything."
"Including me."
"Including marriage."
He took a deep breath, as if using all his strength.
"I refuse."
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
