Almost everyone in the world who understands Chinese is focused on this piece of news.

The camera cuts to a lively discussion studio where several well-known space military experts are guests. When they speak about this issue, their tones unanimously become very subtle.

"It's not an easy thing for human civilization to develop to where it is today. I think for any race, the continuation of civilization is the first priority. Similarly, for any government, how to let its citizens live a better life is much more important than political propositions and historical contradictions."

"As for whether to negotiate or not, it's hard to say at the moment. After all, it's a matter between the two sides, and we don't have effective communication with the other star system yet..."

"If a battle is evenly matched, it will inevitably be protracted, which will be a huge blow to the economies of both sides."

"I think if this war really happens, it will be very regrettable. As we all know, the universe is as vast as it is desolate. There is no race more closely related to us than the humans of the other star system. Perhaps the two sides attacking each other were neighbors, friends or even relatives three generations ago."

The experts seemed to be competing with each other in their expressions of concern for the country and its people. The screen is full of the dawn of peace, but they are reluctant to speak their minds, leaving the public with only a point of intense controversy.

Then, the camera cuts again and starts to play expert opinions and street interviews from other countries and regions of the world. Whether it was a sign of global unity or the result of the news editors' intentional misdirection, the whole world seemed to have a cryptic attitude of "don't fight if you can avoid it" and "but it's not up to me to decide".

"Wang Yizheng," Fu Xiaoxin leans forward, staring at the TV screen with an almost hungry expression, without blinking, "so from the looks of it, the trend of negotiation is very clear now, right?"

Without waiting for Wang Yizheng's answer, she starts explaining on her own: "We learned in our military theory class back then that in a war, the advantaged party advocating negotiation is called 'negotiation', while the disadvantaged party advocating negotiation is called 'surrender'. But now we are only ostensibly at a disadvantage, but actually have the upper hand - the Earth's defense shield has been reactivated, and General Zhao's sneak attack has successfully revealed the enemy's level of technology. They are not stronger than us and can't even make jumps. The other star system is all man-made and resource-poor. The longer the war drags on, the more advantageous it is for us, right? They were muddying the waters at first, but now they must be at their wits' end. The possibility of negotiation is very high. Maybe the S-level combat readiness status can be lifted next week!"

Fu Xiaoxin is a busy engineer with a stable income. Usually, she doesn't even bother to care about the news of the city, let alone the star system, the Earth, or the country.

This person, who can't even clearly state the cosmic coordinates of the other star system, has now become a strategic expert in order to convince herself. She is desperately trying to grasp some clues to comfort herself that the war does not exist.

For Fu Xiaoxin, the war seems to have become "the elephant in the room".

Wang Yizheng shakes his head. He stands to the side holding his phone - on the face of this man who is completely unable to live with humans and seems destined to only marry a missile, there is now an indescribable anxiety. He listens to what the person on the phone says and his expression darkens in an instant: "Okay, thank you, I understand. Sorry to trouble you."

Only then does Fu Xiaoxin realize that she has gone a bit too far. She raises her head and asks softly, "Haven't found your son yet?"

Wang Yizheng plops down beside her, elbows on his knees, face in his hands.

Wang Yacheng let Fu Luo go without staying to be scolded. Who knows how long this miserable youth had planned before seizing this opportunity to run away from home, leaving only a free and easy note.

"Am I really that much of a failure?" After a long time, Wang Yacheng rubs his chin hard and says hoarsely, "...I'm sorry, I should have set more passwords."

If Fu Xiaoxin were still his wife, she would have vented all her worries and anger on Wang Yizheng. When faced with something unbearable, blaming each other is the right of legal spouses. However, they no longer have this relationship after all.

After a peaceful breakup, they are just a little more familiar than ordinary acquaintances, not even close friends.

At this time, they sit together in vain, unable to even blame each other to release the pressure.

Fu Xiaoxin feels a cold stone pressing on her chest. After holding back for a while, she finally manages to put on the considerate attitude of an adult and gives Wang Yizheng a polite but useless consolation: "It's okay, we'll definitely find him. Yacheng is still young, where can he go? He'll naturally come back when he runs out of money."

Wang Yizheng looks haggard.

After a while, he says in a low voice, "But Luo Luo is not young anymore. She has a place to go and probably doesn't have the problem of running out of money."

Fu Xiaoxin's eyes instantly turn red as if they are about to drip blood.

Wang Yizheng turns his head away, not looking at her, and once again says indistinctly, "...I'm sorry."

The two finally realized that any conversation between them would only cause their emotions to collapse further, so they fell silent in tacit understanding.

Fu Xiaoxin has never felt her living room to be so big and unfriendly. She and Wang Yizheng are like two cold stone statues, sitting separately at each end of the sofa. Beside their ears, except for the sound of the TV, it is as silent as a tomb.

The sunlight moves inch by inch on the window lattice. This is a famous advertising slogan put out by those crazy real estate developers in order to drive up the price of ground-level housing - "Sitting at home, you can see the sunlight moving inch by inch on the window lattice." This sentence later became the lifelong dream pursued by many young people.

However, at this moment, looking at the window lattice she had dreamed of owning, Fu Xiaoxin only smelled the scent of seemingly stagnant, sticky time.

After some time passed, Fu Xiaoxin said, "Luo Xiaobo just called me. He said there are a lot of orders now for the 'General' series that Luo Luo shot, and they even printed more posters, especially the last one - if everyone in the world hoped for no war, would it be impossible to start one?"

Wang Yizheng clenched his jaw tightly, and after a while, nodded heavily.

"Then I'll listen to the busy tone again." Fu Xiaoxin said in a voice like she was talking to herself. As if possessed, she opened her phone and dialed Fu Luo's number, listening word for word once more to "the number you have dialed is currently on another call".

She finally broke down amidst the unchanging mechanical voice, abruptly standing up, tightly covering her mouth, and taking big strides back to her own room as if fleeing in panic before Wang Yizheng.

Only Wang Yizheng was left in the living room, listening to the news anchor asking the whole world in an aggressive tone: "Can the trade and civil exchanges between the two sides increase the chips for peace talks? If humans on both sides are really dragged into the abyss of war, who exactly is the culprit?"

It was so...vast and pale.

At this time, Fu Luo frowned in the airport waiting area - just within these 48 hours, the pro-war faction implemented the principle of "pacifying the inside before resisting the outside". While engaging in battle, they purged the political and military circles of various countries with lightning speed. How could it be that in such a short time, right after declaring war, the peace faction could control public opinion and make mainstream media do a complete 180-degree turn?

Absolutely impossible!

Fu Luo couldn't help glancing at Yang Ning. Major General Yang, a staunch pro-war advocate, showed no surprise at all. He stood up very calmly, "Our special ops are ready to set out, let's go everyone."

Fu Luo wore her heart on her sleeve. When a question arose in her mind, it clawed at her like a cat. But seeing Yang Ning's look of "I understand everything without needing to say it", and the other colleagues also remaining silent as if they hadn't seen the news at all, even if there was a Godzilla in her heart, not just a cat, she could only hold it in.

"Conceal your abilities on the first day of reporting." Fu Luo thought uneasily.

She kept quiet and followed behind the others, boarding the special ops vehicle, but her mind started racing - if Senior Brother Ye was here, what would he think?

She was now part of the Space Combat Command Centre - although just a rookie D-level soldier - but vastly different from frontline troops who truly followed orders. Since she ended up coming here by a twist of fate after all, even if she wasn't exceptionally outstanding, she at least had to do her best to avoid causing trouble for others.

Fu Luo tried her best to imitate Ye Wenlin's way of thinking.

Ye Wenlin had said before: "All decisions made now and in the future have precedents to draw from. Hold up a mirror to look back, and human history can be summed up in two phrases of four characters: 'experience' and 'lessons'. As long as that small group of leaders and their huge think tanks aren't all idiots, there are patterns to everything they do - either learning from experience or guarding against lessons."

"Choosing which period of history to use as reference depends on what the crux of the current situation is."

So what was the crux? Was it "war" or "peace"?

No, impossible. There's no reason for a war to conclude at the very beginning, unless the previous high-profile conflict was a false alarm dud.

A false alarm involving the deployment of at least hundreds of battleships? A dud that painstakingly almost bit into Earth's "vital point"?

It was clearly well-planned.

Fu Luo felt that if even a young and foolish new soldier like herself could see this, the decision-makers couldn't possibly be unaware. In other words, even if the pro-war faction really all transformed overnight from wolves waiting to drink blood into peace doves, the initiative for war or peace was not in Earth's hands.

Then...

At this moment, a dark shadow suddenly flew towards her. Fu Luo snapped back to reality and reflexively grabbed it. Opening her hand to look, it was an eye mask.

Yang Ning glanced at her, "How's your physical condition? The special ops vehicle has acceleration regulators, but the effect is very limited. It's not as comfortable as civilian models. If you feel you won't have adverse reactions, I suggest you rest a bit while we are still within the safe zone of the protective shield to conserve your energy."

Fu Luo: "Uh...yes, sir."

Seeing that she didn't have any extra questions, Yang Ning raised his brows in some surprise. He had been waiting the whole way for Fu Luo to be unable to hold back from asking, but didn't expect this young junior sister to be much more composed than he imagined.

Back then, the genius of the special forces Ye Wenlin was also intercepted by Zhao Youxuan on the way to reporting. Facts proved Zhao Youxuan was right to intercept him.

Yang Ning smiled slightly. Amidst the suddenly increasing acceleration, he put on his own eye mask and closed his eyes to rest.

He would go further than Zhao Youxuan. Someday, he would go further than anyone else in the world.

But Fu Luo suddenly had a flash of insight in her mind. Wait, conserve energy? Did that mean there would be a tough battle outside the protective shield?

She suddenly thought of the crux of the situation Earth currently faced - internal unrest!

The military violently suppressed the peace faction, but the people didn't buy it. A century of rapid economic development widened the gap between rich and poor, triggering an eruption of various social conflicts. The social values of peace, democracy and economy as the central focus could not easily transform into war values. Only by completing this transformation could Earth and the other star system truly be evenly matched.

This was probably...a premeditated scheme led by the propaganda department to pave the way for what was to come.

Fu Luo couldn't fall asleep in the special ops vehicle. Although she was a relatively open-minded person, her heart really wasn't that big. She was like a child who just gained intelligence, repeatedly examining her own thoughts, so focused that she ignored all the discomfort from the excessive acceleration and weightlessness, as well as the countdown to leaving the protective shield.

When she came back to her senses, she had already reached true space. The space fortress clusters that seemed shockingly extraordinary every time she saw them appeared before her eyes.

At this time, the wreckage had been cleared away. The major fortresses of the Earth Allied Forces connected in a line, a scene of solemnity.

Anyone who came here to take a look would understand that the "peace talks" dominating the headlines on the surface were just an illusion doomed to shatter.

For Fu Luo, everything happened in a compressed timeline. She never imagined that from the moment she reported for duty to the time she adapted and personally participated in the war for the first time, only a mere twenty minutes had passed.