Chapter 63

On the second day, Fu Luo didn't have duty and slept for a full six hours before getting up for breakfast. She discovered that the brutal monthly schedule on the wall had been replaced with traditional, rustic sayings like "Happy New Year in January" and "Auspicious Qi Fills the Mountains and Rivers in February".

Fu Luo munched on a steamed bun and stood contemplating it for a long time in a posture of self-reflection. Back on Earth, she had never carefully read the words on the calendar, but now she felt that each line was lively and festive, giving a sense of the changing seasons and bountiful harvests. For a moment, she felt as if she had returned to the Earth's surface hundreds of years ago.

Times have changed, with huge farms replacing fields and terrifying machines replacing oxen and water carts, yet the ancient sayings remain unchanged, as if engraved in the genes.

Dong Jialing walked past her from behind, then solemnly walked back and said to Fu Luo, "I know a secret."

Fu Luo quickly swallowed the meat filling and waited piously to hear this secret.

Dong Jialing said, "Do you know why Yang Ning looks so handsome but is still single?"

Fu Luo felt the meat filling that had just slipped down her throat was a bit stuck.

Dong Jialing said, "Because he's a big country bumpkin."

Fu Luo: "..."

Dong Jialing said, "The plan I made up last night was just to liven things up. Although it does seem a bit bloody for the New Year, it's still better than this, don't you think? While fully embodying the aesthetics of violence, it can also boost morale. Even if it needs to be changed, it should be a bit more refreshing. He clearly has the face of a musician but does the work of digging sweet potatoes..."

Before she finished, Fu Luo quietly slipped away, worried that knowing too much would get her killed.

Perhaps it was the effect of Yang Ning's classically rustic auspicious words, but in the following week, the entire Second Department's work went exceptionally smoothly. First, they made first contact with the scattered Earth Allied Forces in space.

That day, when Fu Luo rushed to the conference room, she found that everyone was extremely excited, jumping and shouting around a communication terminal whose lid had not yet been sealed. Several communication soldiers were almost talking over each other to the other side, and the other side's reaction was not ambiguous either, with different voices speaking in incomprehensible foreign languages - and not even the same foreign language.

The translator was left out and couldn't get a word in. Listening to the noisy "fellow townsmen meeting" on both sides, who didn't even speak the same language, there was a helpless yet festive smile on his face.

Back in the day, on Earth, everyone was constantly scheming against each other, with ideological struggles every three days, protests and warnings about territorial waters and airspace every two days, and occasional trade disputes. They organized online armies to attack each other all day long. When "foreigners" were mentioned, it always felt like another way of saying "big fool".

But now, in the vast starry sea, hearing a human voice felt so intimate that one almost wanted to pounce on the source and embrace it.

Later, after repeated communication, they learned that this was originally a small group of remnants from the European Union who had been hiding around the outer solar system for more than half a year, doing nothing but "picking up people". They had picked up a small group of American troops, a small group of Russian troops, and a small group of African Union troops, forming a diverse, multinational hodgepodge.

When the two sides communicated, they both seemed unusually accommodating. As soon as Yang Ning's side proposed the plan for the Earth Alliance garrison network in the new solar system, the other side immediately responded positively. To show goodwill, after confirming the coordinates of this ragtag allied force, Yang Ning even had Zhang Liping from the General Staff Office bring some of the captured weapons and supplies to deliver aid to them.

Fu Luo heard the voices on the other end of the communicator choke with emotion, and for a moment, she felt a deep sense of empathy, which reminded her of the history of China sending winter storage cabbage to North Korea in ancient times.

With this, the first bright spot besides the headquarters appeared on Yang Ning's grand network map, like a spark on the vast grassland, ready to set sail with the east wind next year to reshape the rivers and mountains.

The second thing was the return of Ye Wenlin, which also represented the return of Dagger.

Yang Ning recruited a new vanguard for him from the frontline grassroots soldiers in the Second Department, training them through battle. Fu Luo served as a special correspondent for a period of time and, for the first time, observed up close how Ye Wenlin fought. She experienced the ease of the special forces captain and felt that Scoundrel Ye could be a perfect match with Yesi... no, they could bring out the best in each other.

She gained a lot from this experience.

Later, the Second Department ushered in an administrative reform, and everyone was surprised to find that the various functional departments of the Second Department were becoming more diversified, more and more like a miniature space fortress.

Fu Luo felt she heard the rumbling of the wheels of history.

In the blink of an eye, it was March.

"Kiddo, your math is so bad and you're such a spendthrift, does your mom know?" Yesi scolded Fu Luo in an accent he had learned from who knows where. He had gotten a pair of glasses and perched them on his nose in a pretentious manner, making his hooked nose seem even higher, as if it was going to pierce the sky. He nagged, "A total of sixteen pirate ships, ah, everyone knows that pirate ships are objects the size of a fart. You, for these fart-sized objects, you actually fired three short-range missiles for me!"

Fu Luo: "By that logic, the small warship I'm driving is also a fart-sized object..."

Yesi glared at her unreasonably: "Yeah, in such a fair battle of fart against fart, you fought like this, very glorious?"

Fu Luo could only bow her head and concede.

"Did you load the missiles yourself? Don't they cost money to make?" Yesi hysterically roared in her ear, "And! Missiles are powerful and will blast the enemy ship to bits! What about the food? The equipment? They all turned into bits, what are you robbing for?"

Fu Luo weakly explained, "The enemy firepower was too strong, I had to find a way to suppress the situation."

Yesi frowned and glared, his eyebrows seeming to fly off his face.

"Yes..." Fu Luo quickly admitted her mistake, "Only being able to suppress the situation with the help of missiles shows my lack of skill."

Although Yesi was already used to her dough-like calmness, he really had nowhere to go with what she said, so he unreasonably said, "Admitting mistakes after a few words, no guts at all, are you even a man!"

Fu Luo helplessly said, "What does guts have to do with being a man? That sentence has no logic, and besides, I'm not a man in the first place."

Yesi snorted, "Who says!"

"Quartermaster..." Seeing Yesi roll his eyes, Fu Luo added a more powerful piece of evidence, "People's Republic of China Resident Identity Card, do you want to see it?"

Yesi quibbled, "So what if you have an ID card?"

Fu Luo calmly pointed out, "Well, it's not really a big deal, but I heard you don't have one."

Yesi: "..."

After a while, Yesi suddenly said in a very normal tone, puzzled, "I find that you are less and less afraid of me."

Fu Luo glanced at him, "I was never afraid in the first place. Having come this far, what's there to be afraid of - afraid that Colonel Yang won't give me a raise and promotion?"

At this time, a young man in a technical soldier's uniform ran over in a hurry. Seeing Fu Luo's epaulettes, he quickly held his breath, "Madam!"

Fu Luo subconsciously looked around first, always unable to get used to being called that. She stammered, "No... ahem, no need to be so polite, what's the rush?"

"We have received a response from our country's comrades!"

Fu Luo was stunned for a moment, no longer bothering to banter with Yesi, and ran off.

The entire Second Department - no, now it should be called Saturn Fortress, was in an uproar.

This time it was real comrades, ones they could communicate with without translators, the Space Combat Third Department that had split from them and jumped together back then!

In the conference room, some were wailing and some were laughing and pounding the table. Yesi only took one look and immediately turned and left, saying he couldn't stand it, claiming that the noise he could tolerate was limited, and exceeding that limit tended to make him take revenge on society. Uh... this "noise" probably doesn't include the ones he makes himself.

Fu Luo was involuntarily affected by the atmosphere, and suddenly felt a surge of emotions. She wanted to join the crowd expressing their jubilation, but when she took a closer look, she found Yang Ning sitting inside, not even lifting his head, flipping through something, while Ye Wenlin was leaning against the wall in the corner, munching on sunflower seeds and using a small box to collect the shells.

Seeing the two role models so calm, Fu Luo also didn't want to appear too unsteady. She struggled to compose the joyful expression on her face and walked towards Ye Wenlin.

Ye Wenlin: "Want some?"

Fu Luo shook her head.

Before she finished shaking her head, Ye Wenlin had already anticipated it and retracted his hand - indeed, it was precisely because he knew Fu Luo wouldn't eat that he dared to be so generous.

"What are you doing here?" Fu Luo asked curiously, "Why don't you go over and take a look."

"Shh," Ye Wenlin said softly, "I'm making preparations."

"What preparations?"

Ye Wenlin had superb sunflower seed eating skills, his lips more nimble than a parrot's, and he wasn't afraid of getting blisters on his tongue. With two "clicks", he could spit out two seed shells. He said, "I'm preparing to pour cold water."

Fu Luo was very puzzled in her heart. She was about to ask, but held it back.

She felt that she had already risen to A-level, and as a half commander, sometimes it was not appropriate to be like when she first enlisted, having to get to the bottom of everything she didn't understand. She tried hard to build her own thinking: "Now that the people of the other space system have landed, it's like two handfuls of sand mixed together. There's very little space warfare can do, right?"

"Right." Ye Wenlin ate sunflower seeds with a solemn and serious expression, "Even if we re-establish a cosmic fortress and surround the Earth, as long as the enemy troops don't come up to engage in battle, we can't possibly take small ships to the surface and bombard our compatriots with missiles and cannons."

Fu Luo was silent for a moment: "There's also the unstable factor of the space pirate group, and our ground, naval and air forces. I believe the other space system's commanders are not having an easy time either - is it possible for us to invade the other star system?"

"I personally think it's unlikely. General Yang probably doesn't have that idea either. What's the use of invading that godforsaken place of theirs? To kill all their people on the ground? Those war maniacs don't care about the lives of the common people... No, their common people are also brainwashed war maniacs. Maybe if you kill them, they'll even feel they died heroically for their ideals."

Fu Luo was startled: "Wait, you called Yang... what?"

"General." Ye Wenlin said in an affirmative voice, "It's just a matter of formality. In reality, that's how it is. Don't you think it's more appropriate to call him that? It reminds us all that this time we're not leaving the fortress to carry out some military mission, but that there are only us left who can fight a life-and-death battle with the aliens."

Fu Luo stood shoulder to shoulder with him against the wall. Her earlier joy gradually faded. Amidst the boisterous crowd, amidst the good news of establishing contact with the Third Department, she somewhat understood the implication in Ye Wenlin's words - the Chinese Space Forces was now divided into the Second and Third Departments, probably the most intact armed forces in the Earth Allied Forces. These two groups belonged to one country, and being separated for a long time was certainly not appropriate...

So one day when they come together, who will call the shots?

"I'm worried about a more complex situation." Ye Wenlin's mouth was probably dry from eating sunflower seeds. He brushed off the seed shells in his hand, poured two glasses of water, and handed one to Fu Luo, "We've had it a bit too easy lately."

Fu Luo took the glass of water and took a sip, waiting for him to continue.

"Some things, when you feel like you're struggling at every step, although it's painful as hell, it's not very dangerous. But when you start to feel like everything is going smoothly, it's comfortable, but danger comes with it."

Fu Luo frowned, vaguely feeling that Ye Wenlin's words seemed to conceal some huge worry. At the other end, the emotions of hugging and crying in the communicator had begun to subside, and Yang Ning tried to communicate with the person in charge of the Third Department.

So the two stood side by side, lost in their own thoughts in silence.

But after not too long, Ye Wenlin finally couldn't stay serious anymore and decided to make some small talk.

He suddenly spoke up, dropping a bombshell on Fu Luo's head amidst the somewhat noisy background noise, "Hey, let's not talk about such pessimistic things. Let's chat - based on my observation, I find that your Colonel Yang seems to... ahem, treat you differently."

Fu Luo was full of question marks. It took her a full three seconds to react before she understood his meaning from Ye Wenlin's lewd expression with raised eyebrows and winks, combined with the context. She was instantly choked by her saliva, and nearly coughed her windpipe into a butterfly knot.