The First Order

If Yan Liuyuan did not have the nanomachines, he would already have died, and Xiaoyu and Wang Dalong might even have been implicated. It seemed precisely because of this reason that his strength did not increase like the others after becoming a supernatural being. The world was apparently preventing him from abusing his power.

That was supposed to be his shortcoming, but Ren Xiaosu had helped him mitigate it. It was not an exaggeration to say that his fate had been changed.

Xiaoyu did not say anything. She could sense the beast in Yan Liuyuan’s heart that had previously been restrained by Ren Xiaosu was about to crawl out and start attacking people. But she did not know how to stop it. She only knew that Yan Liuyuan shouldn’t become like that.

A moment later, the neon sign hanging above them suddenly crashed down due to a loose screw.

Yan Liuyuan once again pulled Xiaoyu and Wang Dalong aside and avoided the accident.

Xiaoyu asked softly, “Who was it this time?”

“Big Sis, don’t bother yourself with this,” Yan Liuyuan answered.

“Can you stop killing people?” Xiaoyu said to Yan Liuyuan.

“No.” Yan Liuyuan shook his head. He thumped his chest. “Something’s weighing heavily on my chest, and it makes me very uncomfortable, yet I can’t seem to get it off my chest.”

Xiaoyu suddenly started crying. “Liuyuan, stop it. I’m not worthy for you to do all this for me. Let me bear the responsibility since it was my own fault.”

Yan Liuyuan looked at her stubbornly. “No, you’re worth it.” Then Yan Liuyuan reached out and wiped her tears away. “Don’t cry. I’ve already killed her for you, and I’ll send her family members to hell with her.”

Xiaoyu did not know what to do anymore. Without Ren Xiaosu around, there was not a person who could restrain Yan Liuyuan.

Seeing Yan Liuyuan’s murderous rage getting stronger, Xiaoyu hugged Yan Liuyuan tightly. “Don’t you remember what your brother said? Don’t let the sorrows of our era become your sorrow as well.”

Ren Xiaosu’s name seemed to have a strange, magical effect on Yan Liuyuan. The words touched a soft spot in Yan Liuyuan. After Xiaoyu said that, Yan Liuyuan finally started to calm down.

The wife of the Public Order Division’s director was killed in a car accident, and the accident caused quite a stir in the stronghold. Someone even told the director his wife had only dashed out onto the streets because she was looking for someone who had argued with her at school.

The director of the Public Order Division flew into a rage in his office and vowed to punish the murderer severely. He even wanted to seek out the student and parent who had hit his wife at school!

But before he could conduct a thorough investigation, Yang Yu’an summoned him to the Yang Consortium’s manor and gave him a dressing down, claiming that he did not discipline his friends, family, and wife properly. Yang Yu’an even said that as the director of the Public Order Division, he could not differentiate right from wrong. If he caused any further trouble, he would be removed from his position as the director of the Public Order Division. When Yang Yulan reprimanded him, Yang Yu’an spoke pompously.

However, the director of the Public Order Division knew there had to be a reason for this. Yang Yu’an was definitely not someone who would reprimand him because of “justice.” This matter must have affected the interests of Yang Yu’an!

It was only then that he calmed down and recalled what had happened. Then he remembered someone saying it was a refugee who was the cause of the matter!

Wait a minute, there weren’t that many refugees in the stronghold.

There were probably less than ten refugees who had gotten into the Yang Consortium’s stronghold over the years, so it would definitely be easy to find out who it was. However, there was one young refugee who had been enjoying the limelight recently.

No, wait! There was also a group of refugees who had come into the stronghold recently!

When he finally got someone to investigate the matter and found out the truth, he was shocked to discover the young man who had quarreled with his wife was actually Ren Xiaosu’s younger brother! After finding out about this, he immediately understood why Yang Yulan was not on his side this time.

However, his first reaction was not to risk his position as director of the Public Order Division, nor was it to take revenge for his wife. He just mentally cursed at her for being such an idiotic woman. Afterwards, he instructed his subordinates to stop investigating the matter. Whatever happened at the school was wholly unrelated to the traffic accident. That stupid woman had brought it upon herself for failing to obey traffic rules, and her death had nothing to do with anyone else.

Once the case was concluded, the entire stronghold flew into an uproar. Those who were in the know understood why the director of the Public Order Division had bowed his head in regards to the investigations. As for those who did not know, they thought he had been looking forward to his wife’s death and getting a promotion since a long time ago.

What surprised everyone most was that the director of the Public Order Division actually headed to Yan Liuyuan and Xiaoyu’s place to apologize to them. However, Yan Liuyuan kept their door shut and did not have any intentions of meeting him.

The principals also came down to their place. However, Wang Fugui was the one who met them to handle Yan Liuyuan’s and Wang Dalong’s withdrawal from the school.

Eventually, everyone in the inner circle caught wind of this matter. So it turned out that the refugee, Ren Xiaosu, was actually a protégé of Zhang Jinglin. It was no wonder Ren Xiaosu could recommend Xu Xianchu to Stronghold 178.

Meanwhile, the bandit extermination group Ren Xiaosu was part of had just arrived at the first stronghold on their journey. Everyone was to use a half-day to do quick repairs and maintenance work here before they continued north.

After entering the stronghold, Ren Xiaosu did not do anything other than visit gold shops using his official identity as part of the bandit extermination task force and exchanged his gold for the devalued currencies of the Li Consortium and the Qing Consortium. But as he was in a hurry, he did not manage to trade too much.

During this period, Yang Xiaojin also disappeared for a while. It seemed she had gone to meet up with the Saboteurs’ planted spy here. And Zong Cheng remained behind with the convoy and happily waited for the others to return. He was a polite, talented young man who was confident in himself yet friendly to others.

On the way here, he had tried talking to Ren Xiaosu and Yang Xiaojin. While Yang Xiaojin couldn’t care less, Ren Xiaosu and Zong Cheng almost became blood brothers, the way they chatted.

There were more than 60 people from the Zong Consortium who were traveling with them, and they were split between the two military transport trucks. The Zong Consortium’s people were in charge of basic tasks like cooking for the journey.

The nanosoldiers portrayed a sense of superiority and only showed a nice attitude to Yang Xiaojin, Ren Xiaosu, and Zong Cheng. When the normal soldiers talked to them, they would ignore them.

Ren Xiaosu found an opportunity to ask Yang Xiaojin, “Hey, why is everyone so interested in Stronghold 178? Is it because they’re great at combat?”

Yang Xiaojin explained, “In modern warfare, no matter how good you are at combat, you can’t fight if you don’t have money. There are four military factories in the vicinity of Stronghold 178 that are extremely vital. And you might not be aware of it, but there are more than 30 kinds of minerals found in the territory controlled by Stronghold 178. Their grain reserves are ranked first among those in the entire stronghold system. Some of their mineral reserves are even estimated to be at 90% of all reserves!”

Yang Xiaojin continued, “Besides, the exploitable oil reserves there amount to as much as 40% of what the entire stronghold system has access to. Modern development is dependent on mineral and energy sources, so these things are all indispensable.”

Ren Xiaosu was shocked. He had thought Stronghold 178 was extremely poor. After all, that place was located in such a harsh environment, so it sounded like it would be a very poor area. He had not expected Stronghold 178 to be so rich!

Come to think of it, you could not win a modern battle with just courage alone. Fighting a war was all about money, and the reason Stronghold 178 could still stand intact in the Northwest without having any close ties to the other organizations was not because they were asocial or conceited but because they were blessed with mines in their backyard.