Chapter 194: Time
When Zhou Changwu saw all those familiar names, he was overwhelmed with emotion. They had spent so long investigating before finally uncovering those people that he practically knew every single name by heart.
But then, among all those names, he spotted several that seemed somewhat unfamiliar yet vaguely familiar at the same time. These were people they had investigated before but ultimately ruled out after finding nothing suspicious.
Yet now their names had appeared once again on the list provided by the Marshal. It seemed their investigation back then had not been thorough enough. Otherwise, these people certainly wouldn't have slipped through the cracks.
None of them doubted for a moment that there might be innocent people on the list Yu Lanfeng had produced.
After all, within this legion, the name and identity of Yu Lanfeng represented absolute authority and status.
Anything he produced was naturally genuine. Anything he produced was naturally the best. Any decision he made was correct and made for the sake of the legion and the Empire.
From a certain perspective, this way of thinking was indeed somewhat extreme. However, they hadn't been like this in the beginning. It was only because Yu Lanfeng had consistently proven himself capable of doing exactly that throughout all these years that they had gradually developed absolute trust in him.
Yu Lanfeng said, "The reason I'm giving you this list is because I'm leaving the handling of these people entirely to you. I have only one requirement: within five days, every single person on this list must be dead. During these few days, interrogate them for as much as you can get out of them. There's absolutely no need to worry about how much intelligence they know."
What Yu Lanfeng wanted was for all of them to die as quickly as possible.
As for everything else, he had never placed much faith in it to begin with. Who knew whether the information they confessed was true or false?
If it was true, they wouldn't be able to make use of it in the short term, and by the time they could, the intelligence might already be outdated.
If it was false, it would waste even more time because they would still need to verify whether the intelligence was genuine. That process might even result in unnecessary casualties.
Since that was the case, they might as well not bother asking for intelligence at all.
Simply killing them would be much easier.
Zhou Changwu immediately understood what Yu Lanfeng meant.
What none of them had expected was that when it came to their base, the Marshal would actually entrust such an important responsibility to them.
As far as they knew, the previous military bases had all been personally handled by the Marshal himself.
Did this mean their base was in the best condition and therefore made the Marshal feel the most reassured?
But they couldn't become arrogant.
Even if their situation was the best, the number of names on this list was still close to one thousand. That was by no means a small number.
If even one of them somehow slipped through the cracks and eventually climbed to a high position, wouldn't that cause tremendous damage to the military base?
Especially judging from this investigation, the sheer number of spies who had infiltrated every military base was astonishing!
However, Yu Lanfeng's legion could be considered the most powerful legion in the Empire, so it also had the greatest number of personnel. Each military base had an average of nearly one or two million people. Added together, the total number was truly staggering.
After Yu Lanfeng finished giving his instructions, he stood up and left.
He genuinely looked as though he had no intention of interfering with anything else.
Zhou Changwu and the others stood and watched Yu Lanfeng leave the office before heading toward his own lounge.
It seemed that during these five days, he really intended to remain in his lounge and wait for them to complete their task. Once they finished, he could move on to the next military base.
Yu Lanfeng returned to his lounge.
Only after seeing Nan Yu lying quietly on the bed without any sign that he had moved did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The fundamental reason Yu Lanfeng had handed the entire matter of dealing with the spies over to Zhou Changwu and the others was actually because he was unwilling to leave Nan Yu for so long.
What if someone infiltrated this place while he was away and tried to harm Nan Yu?
Wouldn't he know nothing about it?
Nan Yu was currently at his most vulnerable.
Yu Lanfeng couldn't leave him for even a moment.
He had left earlier only because he needed to assign the task, but that didn't matter. From now until Nan Yu regained consciousness, Yu Lanfeng would no longer let Nan Yu leave his sight.
Nan Yu himself knew absolutely nothing about any of this.
No one knew how much longer Nan Yu would need to recover, but Yu Lanfeng didn't care.
He would remain by Nan Yu's side for as long as necessary.
Nan Yu continued lying there quietly.
Yu Lanfeng walked over to the sofa in the living room and sat down. He then opened his optical computer and contacted Qin Wenxing, whom he had left behind at the Border Region One Military Base.
Qin Wenxing's face appeared in the video window.
When Yu Lanfeng saw the dark bruise at the corner of his mouth, he was somewhat puzzled.
"Went sparring? Why didn't you use a healing spray?"
Qin Wenxing nodded slightly.
"Yes, Marshal. I just finished sparring. I'll go to the infirmary nearby and spray some on later."
Yu Lanfeng looked at several things behind him.
Those were clearly furnishings from an office.
So Qin Wenxing had just lied.
Qin Wenxing definitely hadn't been at the training grounds just now.
However, Yu Lanfeng had no intention of interfering excessively with his subordinate's private life. He thoughtfully remotely controlled a robot over there and had it deliver a few things to Qin Wenxing's office.
No matter what, a vigorous young man like Qin Wenxing was bound to have trouble restraining himself.
Besides, there was certainly no need to worry about the other person's loyalty to the legion. At the very least, anyone Qin Wenxing liked would undoubtedly have already been thoroughly investigated by Qin Wenxing himself.
Yu Lanfeng quickly changed the subject and turned to official business.
"Nothing has happened at the Border Region One Military Base up to now, right?"
After looking through some of the footage Qin Wenxing had sent him, Yu Lanfeng said, "Explain."
Qin Wenxing said, "There aren't any problems inside the military base. Everyone who had issues has already been cleared out. The atmosphere is very good now, so when we go out to fight Ability Beasts, we can usually maintain the advantage. On the few occasions when we can't handle them, we deploy some relatively classified weapons. It's the previous Type 4. It's extremely fast, and as long as there's sufficient energy, it can fire continuously without limit."
Yu Lanfeng knew this model of weapon.
"The development was successful, and it's already been put into use? How effective is it?"
Qin Wenxing said, "The experimental data from actual use has already been compiled. I was originally planning to send it to you tomorrow."
Yu Lanfeng said, "There's no rush. Once you've finished organizing it, remember to send it to me tomorrow. I need to examine it carefully."
"Yes, Marshal. No problem."
Yu Lanfeng gave him a few more basic instructions before ending the communication.
On the other end, Qin Wenxing breathed a sigh of relief.
He helplessly raised his head and looked at the little ancestor standing in front of him.
"Anwei, is there anything else?"
Luo Anwei stared at him expressionlessly.
"Brother Qin? You're already trying to send me away?"
Qin Wenxing coughed dryly twice.
"Of course not. Don't you have plenty of things to deal with yourself? Hurry up and get back to work. You were only just rotated back from the front line."
Luo Anwei wasn't buying it.
"Brother Qin, remember to come to my lounge tonight. I'll wait for you. Otherwise, I won't sleep."
After delivering his ultimatum, Luo Anwei turned around and left.
By the time Qin Wenxing wanted to say something, he discovered that Luo Anwei had already left and had even thoughtfully closed the door behind him.
Fine.
It was his fault.
He had interacted with a few women while working and had also interacted with several Mental Power Users, but those had all been perfectly normal work-related communications and handovers.
Why was this kid so fond of getting jealous?
Still...
Go to his lounge tonight?
He would try.
The Marshal had just dumped another enormous pile of work on him. Whether he could finish it without staying up all night was still uncertain.
Fortunately, he didn't need to organize the experimental data himself. Otherwise, he really would have collapsed.
So much work.
There was seriously too much.
Usually there wasn't nearly this much to deal with, but now that the base had suddenly lost so many people, many vacant positions had been filled by others. Naturally, the new personnel needed time to develop proper coordination in their work.
During this period, delays and similar problems were bound to occur.
But Qin Wenxing was confident that he could properly train all these newly appointed people and ensure they wouldn't have the opportunity to make mistakes.
After Yu Lanfeng ended the communication, he opened his work inbox and began reviewing the documents that required his personal signature, as well as reports that required his personal approval.
By the time he finished dealing with everything, the sky outside had completely darkened.
In other words, it was time to sleep.
Yu Lanfeng sat there alone while Nan Yu remained motionless on the bed.
If not for Nan Yu's faint breathing, someone might have thought a dead person was lying on the bed, while Yu Lanfeng was the devoted lover who refused to bury his beloved even after death.
Yu Lanfeng wasn't certain whether getting too close to Nan Yu would cause any fluctuations in his Mental Sea.
They had already confirmed that ordinary physical contact during the day caused no problems.
But while sleeping at night, Yu Lanfeng couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't unconsciously do something, so he quickly decided to sleep on the sofa tonight and let Nan Yu have the bed inside by himself.
It didn't make much difference anyway.
Whether Yu Lanfeng slept inside or outside, his vigilance would remain the same.
In short, any uninvited guest who came here would die.
Yu Lanfeng wouldn't give them any opportunity to explain themselves.
What Yu Lanfeng didn't know was that despite how well-managed this military base was, there really were people bold enough to secretly infiltrate his room that night.
Nan Yu remained completely motionless on the bed.
The two intruders were probably here looking for Yu Lanfeng because when they passed the bedroom and saw Nan Yu lying inside, they didn't enter.
Instead, after realizing that Nan Yu was the only person lying there, they exchanged puzzled glances before heading into the living room to search.
And there, they actually found the Marshal!
The Marshal was sleeping on the sofa!
Meanwhile, the person who seemed to be Nan Yu was sleeping on the bed inside.
That was what shocked them.
The Marshal was actually willing to sleep on the sofa while Nan Yu slept on the bed inside.
Although they weren't particularly familiar with Nan Yu, they still recognized him.
"What do we do? Should we wake the Marshal now?"
"Are you an idiot?"
"What? Boss, what do you mean by that? Of course I'm not an idiot. If I were an idiot, how could I possibly be paired up with you?"
"Forget it. I'm not arguing with you. We've already infiltrated all the way to his side, and we're even talking near the place where he's resting. Someone else might not notice us, but if even the Marshal couldn't sense something like this, then he wouldn't be the Marshal."
The instant he finished speaking, Yu Lanfeng sat up on the sofa.
"Do you two have any last words? You can say them now. I'll tell Zhou Changwu tomorrow."
"And while I'm at it... I'll leave your corpses intact."
If they had dared to open the bedroom door just now, Yu Lanfeng had already been prepared to burn them to ashes on the spot.
So the fact that they hadn't died immediately was something they should thank Yu Lanfeng for.
Previously, he had told himself that anyone who came here at night would be burned to ashes.
But now he found himself unable to act immediately.
Perhaps Nan Yu had influenced him.
Unless it was necessary, he wouldn't casually kill people anymore?
The two intruders clearly hadn't expected Yu Lanfeng's first words to be something like that.
They were stunned, and their nervousness even made them forget what they had originally intended to say.
They looked at Yu Lanfeng while trembling.
He was merely sitting casually on the sofa, yet they already found it somewhat difficult to breathe.
Fortunately, although they hadn't expected to die simply for coming here, they were already here.
Since they were definitely going to die anyway, they had to tell him everything.
"Marshal, General Zhou and his people started arresting people throughout the military base today. They're grabbing people indiscriminately. Many of them are our friends and comrades. We've been through so much together. There's absolutely no way they could've done anything bad."
"Yes, Marshal. General Zhou has always shown special attention to some of the younger people in the military base who are powerful and have great potential. At first, everyone thought he was a very good general. No one suspected him, and many people accepted his help. But..."
"Of those who accepted General Zhou's help, some are dead, while others have been crippled. The rest are either hospitalized at the large hospital in the rear, have been arrested, have been beaten to death, or are barely clinging to life without knowing how many days they have left."
"Marshal, I know you definitely won't believe us based on just a few words. After all, whether in public or in private, he always presents himself as absolutely flawless. But that doesn't mean he's truly a good person."
Yu Lanfeng asked, "Do you know who chose him to become the general responsible for managing this military base?"
The two fell silent for a moment before answering.
"You personally selected him, Marshal. We know that. We also know there were four other people competing with him at the time."
Their reminder vaguely brought those other four people back to Yu Lanfeng's memory.
How should he put it?
All four were very capable.
But the first lacked an overall strategic perspective and couldn't become a leader.
The second had far too violent a temper. That wasn't good either. He could easily offend people, which would ultimately weaken the military base's cohesion.
The third had too soft a personality. Whenever someone else acted forcefully, he would easily give in and follow their lead.
That was even worse!
As for the last one, it truly was a pity.
Everything about him had been excellent. In terms of strength, he had even surpassed Zhou Changwu at the time.
But just when Yu Lanfeng was about to choose him, the man had suddenly encountered an enormous group of mutated beasts while fighting on the front line.
To protect his teammates and comrades, he had ended up...
In any case, that man was currently staying in the large hospital at the rear of this military base.
Yu Lanfeng said, "That incident was indeed suspicious. I personally led the investigation back then. We discovered that the group of Ability Beasts they encountered while returning to the military base after the battle had appeared entirely by coincidence. I observed their movements through satellite surveillance and discovered that there was a particularly intelligent, relatively small Ability Beast leading the group."
"They bypassed many of the front-line battle zones along the way and quietly slipped inside the defensive perimeter. That's why the team encountered that group of mutated beasts. There were no human factors involved."
"Marshal, we know all of that. The investigation report was made public back then, and we read it too. General Zhou couldn't possibly have tampered with the Ability Beasts. That simply wasn't possible. But couldn't he have tampered with the other side?"
Yu Lanfeng frowned slightly and turned to look at them.
"You mean they secretly tampered with that team's personnel? Did they plant their own people among them, or drug them?"
"After investigating for all these years, we located two of the sixteen survivors from back then, and we managed to learn the truth from one of them."
"Actually, we didn't know anything about this at first. It was only because one of them accidentally let something slip while drinking. We didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but after the gathering ended and we returned to our lounge, the more we thought about it, the more uncomfortable it felt. In the end, we decided to investigate General Zhou."
They spoke as though it had been nothing particularly significant, but Yu Lanfeng knew better.
Secretly investigating a general for evidence of his crimes while everyone in the military base was under that very general's control...
Just thinking about it was enough to understand how difficult that must have been.
"For all these years, we've always followed General Zhou's lead. Whatever he told us to do, we did. Gradually, the two of us became his trusted subordinates. But even though we were his trusted subordinates, we were still the two most peripheral members among all of them."
"Our identities were enough to intimidate most other people at the military base, but whenever we were around General Zhou, the two of us were still at the very outer edge. Whenever there was some troublesome and time-consuming task, he'd hand it over to us. Basically, we were convenient tools he could use whenever he wanted."
"But fortunately, over all these years, we managed to use that position to gather quite a lot of evidence."
Yu Lanfeng accepted the chip from them.
He then took a completely blank spare military optical computer out of his spatial button and inserted the chip directly into it.
He began examining everything they had collected bit by bit over all these years.
And he discovered that he might genuinely have misjudged someone.
Some things could be fabricated.
But other things were impossible to fake.
For example, there were actual photographs and videos that had been recorded, complete with audio of the conversations taking place at the time.
He could clearly hear what the people inside were saying and what they were discussing.
And every single time, the person sitting in the seat of honor was Zhou Changwu.
If the sharp-eyed, arrogant man with a condescending expression in these videos really was the same Zhou Changwu who always behaved with utmost respect toward Yu Lanfeng, then the two intruders were indeed right.
Zhou Changwu was extraordinarily good at acting.
A natural-born actor.
If he had entered the entertainment industry, he might have become Best Actor without much difficulty!
Although Yu Lanfeng already had a general idea of the situation, his expression didn't change as he watched everything from beginning to end.
Afterward, he used several advanced methods to verify that every photograph and video included among the evidence was genuine and had not been falsified.
Only then did he remove the chip.
"I'll keep this with me for now. You two can go back. I'll secretly assign someone to investigate this matter. If anything comes up, I'll ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) contact you."
Yu Lanfeng directly exchanged communication numbers with them using the optical computer he had just used to examine the evidence.
Then he told them to leave.
"Since you've handed this matter over to me, from this moment onward, neither of you is allowed to investigate it any further. No matter what you see or hear, don't deliberately look into it. Otherwise, you might put yourselves in danger. Understood?"
The two nodded.
"Thank you, Marshal. We hope you can obtain justice for them."
Yu Lanfeng watched them leave.
Then he looked around and confirmed that no one was currently paying attention to this area before returning to his room.
Actually, there was one thing they hadn't mentioned earlier, but it was included in the evidence.
Zhou Changwu was using the authority Yu Lanfeng had given him this time to eliminate his political enemies.
The moment Yu Lanfeng saw the list of people who had already been arrested, he understood.
Zhou Changwu hadn't been arresting people entirely according to the list Yu Lanfeng had provided.
Of course, what made the situation even stranger was that sometimes he had followed Yu Lanfeng's list exactly.
So what was going on?
Yu Lanfeng began comparing his own list with the list of people Zhou Changwu had arrested.
He discovered that the five additional people who had been arrested were all officers.
However, he wasn't yet certain of the exact reason.
No matter what was happening, he had to intervene.
It seemed he was about to become busy again.
Fortunately, he didn't necessarily have to leave the lounge. He could simply summon people here and speak with them outside the door.
Yu Lanfeng could even remotely control a robot and have it move around the military base on his behalf.
That would be much more convenient.
It was just that...
He had previously said that he would hand complete authority over this matter to Zhou Changwu.
Not even a full day had passed, yet now he was already preparing to forcefully intervene again...
It didn't matter.
He was the Marshal.
Whatever the matter was, he had the final say.
Besides, he couldn't possibly believe everything those two men had said based solely on their side of the story.
Among this so-called evidence, aside from several photographs and two or three secretly recorded videos, everything else—whether their verbal claims or the written information contained inside—could theoretically have been fabricated.
The hardest part for them would have been fabricating everything so that the story remained internally consistent from beginning to end while also connecting it to things Zhou Changwu had genuinely done.
Otherwise, they really wouldn't have been able to tie all of this to Zhou Changwu.
Yu Lanfeng lay back down on the sofa to rest.
Before long, he slipped into a light sleep.
When he woke the next morning, he walked over to the bed as usual and examined Nan Yu.
He didn't know whether it was his imagination, but he felt that Nan Yu's complexion seemed slightly better.
Although his face was still just as pale, the Mental Power circulation between Nan Yu and the Nianshen Grass was continuing.
And when Yu Lanfeng carefully examined the Nianshen Grass nestled between Nan Yu's hands, he wasn't sure whether his eyes were deceiving him or his memory was wrong, but...
Had the Nianshen Grass grown just a tiny bit larger?
Yet when he looked at it more carefully, it seemed exactly the same as before.
There was no need to rush.
Only one night had passed.
If there really were changes, then after another few days, when they left this military base and headed toward the next one, he should be able to see a clear difference.
Yu Lanfeng desperately looked forward to Nan Yu waking up.
Seeing that it was about time, he was just about to contact Zhou Changwu and tell him to come over.
But before Yu Lanfeng could contact him, Zhou Changwu unexpectedly came to see him on his own initiative.
Yu Lanfeng opened the door and let him inside.
The two walked into the living room while the people outside remained where they were instead of following them in.
It seemed they intended to stand guard outside.
But that was only natural.
Yu Lanfeng looked at him.
"General Zhou, did you come to see me because you've encountered something you can't resolve?"