Chapter 70

Discovering that keeping her mind busy was an extremely torturous thing, Fu Luo went back and forth, directing and acting out all kinds of possible situations she might face, afraid of missing a single one. She pondered each scenario one by one. Sometimes, when she was halfway through considering something, she would jot down a few notes on her portable reader, fearing she might forget.

Without coming from reality and returning to reality, one would never understand how miserable it would be once their dreams were realized.

Was there any job in the universe more "underpaid, overworked, and far from home" than an interstellar commander?

Only after sitting in this position did Fu Luo understand that while some people may indeed be born with a bit more wit than others, those who could remain unfazed and always respond appropriately even when Mount Tai collapsed before them, definitely did not just possess "wit". They must have pondered and considered countless times before others, in order to have that momentary flash of brilliance.

Fu Luo felt a bit of regret for thinking about it too late.

So... would Yang Ning, who had suddenly lost contact, die?

This thought suddenly cut in line amidst the chaos of her mental world, and immediately displayed a shocking destructive power, sweeping through like a thousand armies and scattering the train of thought she had just meticulously analyzed.

She recalled many things - at Madam Yang's birthday banquet, he shot down the assassin without blinking an eye.

On the first day reporting to the Ground Forces, without even a word of greeting, he rushed in and shot someone dead.

He also privately kept low-altitude mechs. As soon as they met, he overturned the forces of both the army and the security department, mercilessly seizing the No. 23 Signal Station.

And... when the Allied Forces suffered a major defeat and the fortress collapsed, the Second Department was like a lost child. It was he who led everyone bit by bit, stumbling along the way to build today's Saturn Fortress.

Fu Luo had once questioned him, been wary of him, and even feared him. In the end, she relied on him like everyone else in the Second Department, always having the illusion that Yang Ning was omnipotent.

Just like when she first enlisted, she felt that Yang Jinghe, General Jiang, General Chen Zhong, General Zhao Youxuan, they were all omnipotent. But then they left this world one by one, as fast as meteors that didn't have time to burn.

At this moment, Fu Luo suddenly remembered something. She realized that ever since the fortress collapsed, Yang Ning's whereabouts had become very predictable. As long as he wasn't personally going into battle, he was always either in the conference room or the command center.

In urgent situations, or when there was something that required the general staff to meet and discuss, Fu Luo could no longer be the first to rush to the conference room like she did back in the Earth Space Fortress.

No matter how swift her movements were, when she pushed open the door, she always found that Yang Ning was already there.

In her impression, Yang Ning was a person with a bit of mysophobia, quite particular about things in private. How much pressure did it take to turn him into an otaku who never left the command center day in and day out?

"Report, the curvature drive preheating is complete, the warship correction program is finished, and the warship status is good. Ready to depart at any time." The words of the quartermaster Dong Jialing brought Fu Luo, who had been sitting in silence, back to her senses.

Fu Luo was startled for a moment, trying to make herself look very certain and steady as she nodded to the quartermaster, "Okay, I understand."

However, Dong Jialing was silent for a moment at the door and did not leave. She walked in and took Fu Luo's hand, much to her surprise.

Fu Luo felt a chill on her wrist. She looked down in astonishment and found that the quartermaster had clasped a bracelet on her wrist, half an inch wide, made of platinum, with a smooth and luxurious surface, and a flower inlaid with colorful gems. Each petal was exquisitely carved. Fu Luo suspected that due to the loneliness in the military, Sister Jialing was treating her like a doll.

"Hey, this... this..."

"Don't worry, with Yang Ning gone, you're in charge. No one will dare say you're breaking regulations." Dong Jialing secretly winked at her and smiled, "This is one of my lucky charms. It can bring you good fortune."

"No, no, no, that... I mean this... this is a bit too precious," Fu Luo said, a little flustered and stammering.

Although Fu Luo didn't know much about accessories besides Teacher Robin's products, her eyes weren't crooked. She could tell the value of this inconspicuous bracelet from the craftsmanship and materials.

Thinking of her own bitter situation of being underpaid and overworked, Fu Luo silently mused, "If it's some brand name, maybe a year's salary wouldn't be enough to buy it even if I didn't eat or drink."

For a moment, she felt a certain kind of class camaraderie with the stingy Ye Wenlin. While recognizing the fact that she was a poor wretch, she tried to take off this precious thing.

Dong Jialing stopped her, "Once given to you, it's yours."

Fu Luo: "Although I know everyone has been very busy lately, if you so blatantly keep me as a mistress, what will happen when the war stops and the Disciplinary Control Committee investigates in the future?"

Dong Jialing extended her fingers, which seemed very sharp despite not having nails, and pointed at her forehead, saying, "The Earth is about to fall, and you still don't understand that money is an external object. Do you think it's glorious to become a stingy creep like Ye Wenlin? You need to know better."

Fu Luo: "..."

She saw the figure of the "creepy guy" Ye Wenlin flash by the door. Before he could stand steady, he was hit by an arrow. Then, without saying hello, he clutched his chest and silently walked away, leaning against the wall.

Fu Luo carefully raised her wrist and looked at it, saying with a bit of a persecution complex, "As soon as I receive the positioning signal from the first wave of reconnaissance ships, I'll have to set off. What if I accidentally knock off the petals if a fight breaks out?"

The quartermaster let go of her and suddenly asked out of the blue, "During the meeting, you told Ye that the United Nations Human Rights Charter is not foolish. What were you thinking?"

Although Fu Luo didn't understand what she meant, she still hesitated for a moment before answering seriously, "I just feel that it has been very difficult for humans to go from monkeys beating each other with wooden sticks to where we are now. Although on Earth, scam messages can still be received on mobile phones from time to time, and conflicts still occasionally occur between regions, the United Nations Human Rights Charter is already a condensation of the results of millions of years of struggle in the past. How can it be easily denied? Instead, the brainwashing uniformity of the other star system feels like a regression of evolution."

"Freedom," Dong Jialing said softly, "equality, order, security, morality, dignity."

For some reason, in that moment, Fu Luo sensed an aura of great hardship from the quartermaster—even though she still looked so beautifully youthful.

"Yesi thinks the charter is very foolish, because its restrictions have put our army's ground battlefield in a passive position. Some people also think flowers are very foolish, because the showy but insubstantial reproductive organs of plants cannot block the barrels of guns," Dong Jialing said. "But since ancient times, although our battles to protect that flower have occasionally fallen into danger and temporarily retreated, we have never lost. Do you believe it will really bring you good luck?"

Fu Luo was stunned and couldn't speak. Dong Jialing reached out a hand and smoothed her uniform collar, saying, "In the future, don't learn to curse like them. Winning battles has nothing to do with that. Look at Colonel Yang, he usually has the cultured and virtuous literary style, which doesn't affect his authority."

Fu Luo: "..."

The virtuous and literary Yang, the stingy and sleazy Ye...

The future of the allied forces is so worrying.

A moment later, the two people who were gossiping about their superiors behind their backs couldn't help but laugh at the same time.

At this time, the voice of the scout team leader sounded in the command center: "Report, no abnormalities confirmed within the safe range. Expanding the search distance to double the safe range, we unexpectedly captured the decay wave of a gravity bomb. Preliminary estimate is that the detonation point is relatively far from our fortress, not within a thousand times the firing range."

Fu Luo: "Can the travel time be estimated?"

The scout team leader paused for a moment: "It's difficult to get an accurate value, but I personally think that with the curvature drive activated, it's at least four travel times away."

Fu Luo's mind turned and she immediately understood. That was probably where Yang Ning lost contact with the command center. They must have been ambushed by the enemy.

But for what reason did Yang Ning not send any distress signal?

Fu Luo frowned. The next moment, she suddenly realized, remembering Yang Ning's instructions to seal off the Saturn Fortress in case of an emergency before he left. A thought flashed through her mind - perhaps the connection between the two sides was cut off by Yang Ning himself at that time.

As it turned out, she guessed it right this time. She could go back to Earth to gamble in the future.

From the bottom of his heart, Colonel Yang didn't really want to go save that money-losing Cao Kun at all, no matter how high-sounding he claimed to be.

Yang Ning had interacted with and was familiar with Cao Kun. Both professionally and personally, he considered this person to be a genuine good-for-nothing.

However, regardless of Cao Kun's intricate connections, the Second and Third Departments must be friendly and harmonious. Yang Ning knew very well that if he neglected the other party's distress signal, it would not only be an indelible stain on him personally, but also unreasonable. Since he had no choice but to accept, Yang Ning could only accept it gracefully and try to look righteous.

However, he was not infallible. Yang Ning did not expect that the ground had already reached this state.

Until that special "dragon's breath line" appeared.

Yang Ning's scalp tingled. He carefully observed after filtering out other information, just as Fu Luo had done that day.

There was more than one "dragon's breath line" representing the lurking giant ships. The two long energy lines were intertwined with each other, which meant that at least within the firing range, there were large fleets of giant ships lurking in two directions.

From the other party's posturing, Yang Ning judged that the lurking force in either direction was likely to be a behemoth with more than ten giant ships.

What does twenty giant ships and their full escort fleet mean?

To put it bluntly, it was basically the entire combat force of the Saturn Fortress - yes, including the small ships looted from the pirates over the past year.

This was no longer a "small handful" of troops. Generally speaking, this was known as "heavy troops pressing on the border".

Such a large fleet was definitely not aimed at the remnants of the Third Department, because no one in the world except a mentally ill person off their medication would use a guillotine to behead an ant. It was not even likely to be aimed at their limited cockroach rescue fleet that was slightly larger than ants, but...

"Attention all ships," Yang Ning's voice, calm to the point of gentleness, rang out, "Cut off all contact with headquarters, immediately, right now, at once."

He had no time to contact Wang Yansheng, no time to instruct Fu Luo. In that flash of lightning, Yang Ning had already understood the current situation.

Obviously, his private communications with Wang Yansheng had been leaked, and the Third Department had probably been targeted by the enemy for a long time.

The enemy had not driven them to extinction, probably in order to track down other remnants of the allied forces.

But the other star system's people might not have thought that the brief contact between the Third Department and the Second Department was through the relay system of the ground virtual network. The other party probably used various methods but could not track it, so they simply disguised themselves as space pirates. At this critical juncture of his secret plan with Wang Yansheng, they used the distress signal of the Third Department to lure out the Second Department.

In order for Wang Yansheng and the others' planned actions to proceed smoothly, the Second Department would definitely cut off contact with the ground virtual network and switch to the long-range communication system, which would be caught red-handed by the other star system's communication tracking technology.

The other star system's regular army had been dormant for a long time, and their reappearance in space this time was probably because the ground battlefield had fallen into the most dangerous situation.

Yang Ning knew that only when the other star system's enemies held the winning cards would they turn their attention back to space.

As long as they could eliminate these destabilizing factors, the controlled Earth people would be forever barred from space, and Earth would be in the hands of the other star system's people.