Chapter 76

Saturn Fortress.

Fu Luo fled from Yang Ning's hospital room in a flurry, carrying the ridicule of the whole world with her.

Her mind was full of confusion and she didn't know what to do. She felt like she needed to find a tree hole to pour her heart out.

So Fu Luo first thought of the quartermaster Jialing. Sister Jialing invited her to have a bowl of handmade cream, said to be a new experimental product of the quartermaster. The experiment was not yet fully successful, it was sweet and greasy, clogging up the little white mouse Fu Luo from mouth to brain, and eating it made her liver and gall burst.

She didn't get a chance to pour out her heart from beginning to end, and could only silently return to her place to drink cold water to wash down the cream stuck in her chest that was difficult to swallow.

The second person she thought of was Ye Wenlin. But before she could open her mouth, upon seeing her sorrowful expression, Ye Wenlin laughed without rhyme or reason.

Fu Luo blankly asked, "What are you laughing at?"

Ye Wenlin said very happily, "I don't know either, but seeing you looking so miserable, I feel very happy. Isn't this inexplicable?"

Fu Luo understood. For Ye Wenlin, she herself was probably his comic relief.

She had the intention to blow Scoundrel Ye's head off with a gun, but then remembered that in the entire space fortress, there was only one such genuine special forces soldier, a limited edition item. If she killed him, he would be gone. So she could only leave very disheartened.

"I had a crush on this guy?" At this point, Fu Luo finally calmly recalled her secret feelings during her teenage years, and made an objective evaluation, "It's really a dark history."

But when she sat alone in her small dormitory, listening to the various noises from the universe day after day, thinking back to Yang Ning's words, she felt a sense of blankness and suddenness.

They were ants struggling to the death on a small island the size of a leaf in the vast sea.

Here, stars died over billions of years, meteors passed like fireflies in the blink of an eye, majestic warships lived and died in a day, and the love and hatred of a person's life was just a hidden story wrapped in an invisible grain of sand that no one cared about.

Since Yang Ning was unwilling to say more for some reason, what was the point of her digging for answers here? Fu Luo climbed into bed as if in a fit of anger, pulled up the covers, and thought fiercely, "Sleep, I still have to go on patrol duty in four hours, what the hell am I thinking, I'm already dog-tired."

Four hours later, the atmosphere in Saturn Fortress suddenly changed.

As usual, Fu Luo organized the internal affairs, debugged the communication equipment, assembled the weapons, and walked to the handover point to gather her team. The team was mixed with several new soldiers she didn't recognize, who saluted her.

People from the Third Department?

Fu Luo nodded, keeping a straight face.

Cao Kun and the others had just experienced that brutal hunt. Even if they were to be idle in the Second Department for a while, no one would say anything. But if he was a workaholic who requested to join patrols on his second day at the fortress, it was also understandable.

Because the war was tense, and able-bodied people wanting to contribute was reasonable and hard to pour cold water on.

Especially since they had openly detained the other party's officer the day before in the name of safety.

She was afraid Cao Kun couldn't wait to integrate his people into other departments before he even familiarized himself with the place.

Fu Luo took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. It's true, where there are people, there are jianghu.

"Warship fleet drive preheating..." Before Fu Luo could finish her sentence, she was suddenly interrupted.

"Lieutenant Colonel," the unfamiliar face said, "At present, the enemy situation is unknown, and pirates are rampant in the nearby area. The Major General suggests that we temporarily keep the fortress sealed and only send stealth reconnaissance ships to patrol within a safe range."

Fu Luo turned her head and stared at him. The other party's face first turned red, and after a moment, turned from red to white.

"Major General? Major General Cao Kun of the Third Department?" Fu Luo said unhurriedly, "Suggests?"

"Yes!"

"Hmm," she reacted calmly, and asked again, "What's your rank?"

"Entourage fleet chief liaison officer, equivalent to headquarters B-level..."

"Oh, B-level." Fu Luo smiled coldly, "Is it the rule of your Third Department to casually interrupt a superior's words? It's really an eye-opener."

The person was obviously prepared to face the question head-on, and saluted calmly on the spot, "Sorry, officer."

Fu Luo lowered her head and was silent for a moment, "Prepare the reconnaissance ship."

The liaison officer of the Third Department seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. He had hinted before that he knew that Fu Luo, the "pirate killer", was not a difficult character to deal with. She was young, not talkative - not eloquent, but not deep and shrewd either, had a mild temper, and was the most normal among the high-level officers of the Second Department.

The next moment, however, he was shocked to see Fu Luo take off her gloves on the spot, remove her ear-mounted communications, and loosen her collar, "Tell the first reconnaissance team to gather here immediately, Major General Cao ordered them to patrol within a safe range."

The Third Department liaison officer said in astonishment, "But Major..."

Fu Luo stopped walking, turned her head, and looked at him with infinite patience.

The liaison officer composed himself, "I thought this patrol mission was led by you, Major. We've all heard about your heroic deeds in leading troops to the rescue, and wanted to learn more from you..."

Fu Luo gave him a smile.

"I'm sorry, I'm not responsible for teaching, nor for reconnaissance. We have internal instructors and reconnaissance troops," she said politely and amiably, "I only kill."

Earth.

When Wang Ergou brought back a child, everyone was stunned.

The teenager had the unfortunate child tucked under his armpit, walking in awkwardly, innocently and impatiently saying to Auntie Chun, "Why is this thing crying all the time?"

"..." Auntie Chun asked, "Where did it come from?"

Wang Yacheng, "Picked it up."

After getting along for a long time, Auntie Chun already knew what kind of goods Wang Yacheng was. She mustered up her greatest patience and said to Wang Yacheng seriously, "You know children can't be picked up randomly, right? Return it to its family."

Wang Yacheng shrugged, "There's nowhere to return him to; his father is dead."

With that said, Wang Yacheng caught a glimpse of the TV embedded in the wall. Their garrison point was hiding in plain sight, situated right next to the occupied zone, only 300 meters away. With an ordinary toy telescope, one could clearly see what the people in the occupied zone were rationed for breakfast and receive all the media information from within the occupied zone.

A news segment was playing on the screen above, and coincidentally, it was about the place where the explosion occurred that afternoon. The footage didn't capture the innocent homeless man who got caught up in it or the little kid who was now wailing loudly. Instead, the camera was focused on the other side of the collapsed wall. Watching it from a bystander's perspective, Wang Yacheng felt incredibly lucky to be alive.

"Right here," Wang Yacheng said, "See that blocked wall? His dad was behind that wall. Before he died, he threw the kid out, and he himself got fried."

Auntie Chun frowned slightly but didn't respond, because the news continued.

The news anchor from the other star system continued their usual method of light signal communication. Instead of speaking, they just faced the camera, engaged in a staring contest with it, emitting long and short light signals. After being mechanically translated, it was read out in a flat, wooden tone for the people of Earth to hear.

"According to reliable sources, this was a terrorist incident that occurred outside the safe zone. The suspect is believed to be an Earth-based terrorist. Currently, no relevant organization has claimed responsibility..."

Wang Yacheng was stunned for a moment, then jumped three feet high, "Are they fucking saying that we did this?!"

"Shh," Auntie Chun raised a finger, "Watch carefully, calm down."

Wang Yacheng couldn't calm down. His whole body turned into a firecracker. He thought the title of "terrorist" was cool, but he didn't think it was cool for the shameless enemy to throw this kind of slander on them.

"This is impossible. Everyone knows it's impossible for us to have done this. If it's not a conspiracy by the other star system, then it's those damn pirates!"

Seeing that Auntie Chun was ignoring him, Wang Yacheng raised his voice again, "Why would we go and bomb our own place, our own people? Are we sick? Only fools would believe it!"

Auntie Chun silently moved her gaze to him, and Wang Yacheng, who was all bark and no bite, automatically shut his mouth.

Auntie Chun bent down and picked up the crying child, coaxing him in an unpracticed manner. She instructed her subordinates to find some medicine, dilute it, and apply it to the child's wounds.

After that, everyone fell into silence.

Someone changed the channel. There were only a few media outlets left in the non-occupied areas of Earth. Most channels had been shut down, and only a few stations directly under the Propaganda Department remained, still diligently fulfilling their duties.

There were those solemnly broadcasting the Central Committee's nth document, those analyzing the war situation and strategy, and those reporting on the space war and ground battlefield. There was even a station that brought in a group of fearless sociologists to set up a huge sand table in an open-air studio, simulating "what would happen when intelligent species with high IQs are trapped on the same small island and forced to share a place's survival resources."

In the end, they cited classics and spat out a conclusion - if the species could genetically merge, then after a long period of unrest, a new species would form. Cultures would devour each other. In the short term, the side with a more masculine cultural attribute would gain an overwhelming victory, but in the long run, the side with a more feminine cultural attribute would slowly reveal its advantages until it finally devoured the other side.

But if the species couldn't genetically merge, the situation would be different.

One of them would become the inferior species.

Two kinds of "humans" couldn't exist on the same planet. If two kinds of "humans" existed, then one of them must be an "animal" that could be raised, domesticated, hunted, and eaten.

On one side, they were desperately instilling the idea that "your lives are always threatened by space pirates and even domestic terrorists, and surrendering quickly if you don't want to die is the only way." On the other side, they were inciting that "if you surrender, you're no longer human."

As the ground border disputes and battles became more and more heated, the battlefield of public opinion was also filled with smoke.

Auntie Chun took the child to the kitchen, wanting to make him something to eat. Wang Yacheng thought for a bit and, for some reason, followed her in and even closed the door behind him.

Auntie Chun wasn't surprised. She stuffed the child into Wang Yacheng's stiff hands and started to make a bowl of milk paste.

"Actually, I've always wanted to ask," Wang Yacheng said, "Auntie Chun, you're actually from the government, right?"

Auntie Chun spoke frankly, "That's right, I'm from the Security Department, Director Wang's direct subordinate."

Wang Yacheng didn't expect her to be so candid and was momentarily stunned.

"I know you must have figured it out because your dad is Wang Yizheng. You've seen all kinds of soldiers since you were young." Auntie Chun tested the temperature of the milk paste, walked over, had Wang Yacheng hold the child's arms, and positioned the little one to face her. Then she scooped a spoonful of milk paste and put it into the child's mouth. "Do you know why I sought you out?"

Wang Yacheng shook his head.

"I heard that your dad has been trying to ground you since you were young, but you two have been fighting wits for so many years, and you still managed to escape from the experts countless times. So I knew you must have learned a few tricks."

Wang Yacheng listened in a daze.

Auntie Chun extended a finger and tapped his chest, "Let me tell you, kid, even if they sling all kinds of mud at us, it has nothing to do with our mission. Smearing someone or whitewashing someone, making the people believe something, that's the job of the Central Propaganda Department. Our battlefield is somewhere else."

After saying that, she took out an address from her pocket and handed it to Wang Yacheng. She leaned in close to his ear and whispered, "This is what you should be focusing on."

Ten days later, Wang Yacheng walked onto the desolate street with a kid on his back who kept gnawing on his head. He had the face of a juvenile delinquent and an expression of resentment towards society.

He skillfully switched modes of transportation to prevent others from following him. Finally, he arrived at his destination in an alert manner - a hidden kindergarten.

No one paid attention to him. The kid was just his prop, a cover for his real purpose. Wang Yacheng wiped the wet saliva off his ear and exchanged glances with the gatekeeper. The information on his special ID card flashed on the card reader. The other party brought him in, passed through the small courtyard, and went straight to the back kitchen.

This was originally a matter for the Security Department, but in a recent cyber information war, a portion of the Security Department's personnel list was leaked. It was temporarily unknown how much was leaked, and a large number of personnel needed to be transferred urgently.

Wang Yansheng had no choice but to mobilize his "terrorist army" that he had secretly built up for a long time.

This time, Wang Yacheng and his team's mission was to escort a group of people to a location designated by the Security Department.

However, when he pushed the door open and saw the mission targets at that moment, Wang Yacheng felt that even if aliens landed on Earth again, he couldn't be more shocked.