Chapter 660: Surprise
[V6C190 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
Nighteye herself hadn’t noticed this. With her temperament, she wouldn’t pay it much attention even if she did. She truly enjoyed these days of peace, and the only thing that made her restless was her concern for Qianye. However, such longing and worry were the most fascinating parts of life.
Nighteye merely smiled after hearing Nanhua’s praise but didn’t take it very seriously. Meanwhile, she kept on talking with the latter.
Nanhua was quite the chatterbox. She discussed anything and everything while giggling from time to time. Apparently, she was quite the spritely little girl. It was just that she was born arrogant, and a place like Blackflow City, to her, was inferior even to a frontier stronghold—it was practically inhospitable. The citizens of the city, including the hunters and mercenaries who made a living here, were commoners who had nothing to do with her. The only reason she was living here was Song Zining. She was naturally quite delighted, now that she had found someone she could chat with.
As they continued their conversation, Nanhua suddenly said, “Do you know? Not just in Blackflow City but the entire county, the only ones I look up to are Zining, Qianye, and now, you. I don’t feel like talking to any other person!”
Nighteye also knew, by now, that Nanhua was the princess of a remote vassal nation. These countries were attached to the empire in name but actually functioned independently. Such countries were usually located around warring regions, where the empire used them as fences to buffer the dark race onslaught. Hence, although they weren’t exactly revered, they weren’t inferior to imperial aristocratic families in terms of strength. One could imagine how prideful Nanhua had been back in her country. Such words were more or less the highest praise she could offer to another person.
Yet, Nighteye merely smiled. That was all.
Back in the vampire race, her status was supreme and only second to the Holy Son Edward. In terms of bloodline potential, she wasn’t inferior to the latter at all. It was widely accepted that the Queen of the Night’s bloodline was stronger than the Black-Winged Monarch’s, but the purity of Edward’s awakened bloodline was fairly limited. Meanwhile, Nighteye had been accepted as possessing the Black-Winged Monarch’s complete bloodline. Nighteye’s potential was relatively better.
To compare, only a few princes, princesses, and other top-ranking characters of great status and talent, like Zhao Jundu and Song Zining, had the right to be discussed alongside her. For the princess of a small vassal nation to meet Nighteye, it would depend on the latter’s mood.
But Nighteye had long since left these things behind. Her current identity was Qianye’s woman, a young lady looking forward to a peaceful and ordinary life.
Nanhua said after a while, “Zining is quite concerned about you. He especially sent word a while ago, asking me to check if you’re doing well. He actually asks quite often about you and the majority of his letters are talking about you.”
Nighteye hadn’t noticed the peculiarity in Nanhua’s voice. She merely asked, “Oh, Zining wrote? Any news about Qianye?”
“I heard he’s really awesome. His achievements are so glorious that he has suppressed most of the veteran experts.” Nanhua’s eyes lit up at the mention of Qianye, but they were soon filled with complicated emotions after seeing Nighteye’s expression.
“He isn’t injured, is he?” Nighteye’s concern clearly wasn’t his contributions.
“I didn’t hear anything about that, but don’t worry, Qianye’s so powerful that even Zining admires him so much. What can ever happen to him? You have to worry about something else, though!” At this point, Nanhua covered her mouth and giggled oddly.
Nighteye was puzzled. “What must I worry about?”
Nanhua said with a smile, “Of course, you have to worry about others taking away your Qianye! There seem to be quite a lot of people who fancy him recently.”
“Ah!” Nighteye was somewhat surprised. The thought had never crossed her mind. However, she soon replied with a smile, “Isn’t it good if people like him? But Qianye won’t change.”
Nanhua said, “You seem quite confident. Ah, but you do have the right to be confident. I can’t think of anyone else who is a good match for him.”
Nanhua talked for quite a while before finally leaving.
After returning to her residence, her maid delivered yet another letter from Song Zining. The contents of the message inquired about Nighteye as usual. This caused a shadow to descend upon Nanhua’s countenance. However, Nanhua couldn’t help but get a certain subtle feeling after thinking about Qianye.
Whether he was in Blackflow City or anywhere else, Song Zining would always be a dazzling existence. But when standing beside Qianye, people like Nanhua could feel that the latter was like an iceberg. Only a small part was revealed on the water surface, while the portion below was completely unfathomable. Moreover, that visible tip alone was only slightly dimmer than Song Zining.
Nanhua couldn’t help but feel a certain apprehension when she was in front of Qianye.
Meanwhile, Song Zining was pacing about restlessly in the airship cabin. With how fast the airship was, they would arrive at their destination in half an hour. Yet, this short period was already making him impatient.
Song Zining sat down at this desk and began writing a letter, the opening of which was once again Nighteye’s condition. But after writing a couple of words, he tore the paper with a rueful laugh. That was because he had just sent a letter a while ago. Writing another one would allow people with intentions to guess his thoughts.
However, the unrest in his heart grew in intensity. He thus ignored his injuries and began calculating the heavenly mysteries. Despite the obvious signs of uneasiness, the divination of the Three Thousand Flying Leaves Art returned completely hazy without any particular direction.
They were on the void continent where the two factions were fighting fiercely both on the ground and in the void. And behind the curtains, the diviners from both factions were fighting in a distant, invisible battlefield. There was chaos everywhere around the floating continent and throughout the void. Even Lin Xitang himself might not be able to produce results without serious preparation, to say nothing of a wounded Song Zining.
The other outcome was the decrease in the experts’ instinctive sensitivity to danger.
Song Zining respired deeply, forcing himself to calm down and rearrange his thoughts. After serious contemplation, he still couldn't find what was wrong. He also realized that he had lost his calm from being over concerned. It was precisely because he knew how important Nighteye was to Qianye, and just how sensitive her identity was, that he had lost his usual level-headedness.
The entire airship jolted as they began decelerating amidst the loud roar of the engines. Knowing that they had arrived at their destination, Song Zining calmed himself down, adjusted his appearance, and walked out of the cabin unhurriedly. Regardless of the situation, the seventh young master had to be perfect in public.
Qianye also walked out of his room after noticing the deceleration.
The warship had stopped at a relay base at the borders of the Zhao clan territory. Here, they would unload the wounded and return to support the fortresses with fresh troops and supplies.
Qianye was greeted by a busy scene after walking out of the airship. A group of soldiers approached the warship in an orderly formation, while the rest awaited the arrival of other vessels. Resources were piled up into small mountains beside the airship port with dozens of trucks shuttling back and forth to load them. A few high-ranking officers simply picked up some of the supplies that were left behind and carried them onto the airship.
There was someone waiting to guide Qianye to his room and to get a physical checkup. Qianye was considered heavily injured at the moment, but, in truth, most of his wounds had healed. He was only deficient in blood energy and origin power.
Hence, Qianye canceled the infirmary visit and only requested a cultivation chamber to recover his origin power.
That officer left swiftly to make the necessary arrangements. A jeep whistled past at this moment with Song Zining and Zhao Yuying waving at him from within. Unlike Qianye, these two needed to lie obediently in the hospital for a couple of days.
At this moment, Zhao Yuying’s aura was weak and her face, pale. The weakness she had been suppressing all this time had finally started showing. Even she couldn’t endure losing all her origin power and half her blood in one go.
Qianye felt as though something had crashed into his heart. By the time he came to and was just about to wave back, the jeep had already gone pretty far.
The Zhao clan people moved with great speed and efficiency. The cultivation chamber had been prepared before half an hour had passed.
Qianye followed the officer through half the base and finally arrived at the training area. He had just gone through the gates when an orderly ran over and hurriedly saluted Qianye. “General Qianye, the fortress has fallen! General Zhao Junfang wants you to join the strategy meeting!”
Qianye was astonished and could hardly believe his ears. “Fallen? The last line?”
“It is indeed the last line fortress.”
Qianye cried out, “Impossible! It’s only been such a short time!”
It had been less than three hours since their retreat from the second line fortress. They were traveling by air, while the dark race army was marching on foot. They would need to spend over an hour on the road. This meant that the third line fortresses had only lasted an hour or so even if the dark race army had marched forward without regrouping and launched an immediate attack.
In response to Qianye’s doubt, the orderly said assuredly, “The report isn’t wrong! Please join the meeting immediately!”
Qianye followed the orderly to the main building, his misgivings growing ever more intense along the way.
Disregarding all other factors, Qianye was well aware just what kind of accomplishments he had accrued in the last two defensive battles. He had gone all out with the killing, slaughtering more high-ranking dark race warriors and superior experts than every other person combined. To be entirely frank, Qianye had single-handedly doubled the dark race army’s losses.
With such losses, even a duke’s army would be in pain right now. It was impossible to claim that their fighting power hadn’t decreased at all. On the other hand, the Zhao clan’s third-line defensive force was the most powerful. With the bolstered defensive force and the attacking party being weaker than anticipated, it shouldn’t have been a problem for them to hold out for a day at least. How could they have fallen in one hour?
The Zhang clan army simply didn’t have the time to cover much distance and was still in a perilous situation.
After arriving at the meeting room, Qianye saw that Zhao Yuying and Song Zining had both arrived. Additionally, there were a couple of other imperial generals. The person in charge was a lieutenant general with white hair. Qianye recognized him as the base commander, Zhao Junfang. The man was from the Fire Beacon Corps, one who had assisted Zhao Weihuang closely for many years. He was extremely well-known, even in the Fire Beacon Corps where so many talents were assembled.
At this moment, he was reading a battle report with an ashen expression. Moments later, he banged the report onto the table and roared, “A useless brat who only knows how to discuss war on paper! Disrupting our Zhao clan’s important matters!”