Volume 3 – The Place Where My Heart Feels At Peace, Chapter 22: Qiqi’s Orders

The airship flew steadily and swiftly, ultimately landing at the airship base Yu Yingnan had stepped foot onto not long ago. There, a jeep with the same standard military flag of a gold colored soaring serpent at the front of the vehicle was already waiting for Qianye and Auntie Lan. Just like before, the jeep charged wildly across the streets before it stopped in front of the Yin Family’s secondary residence. The same handsome lieutenant colonel stood waiting at the steps before the entrance, and Auntie Lan disappeared after she entered the door.

Qianye followed the lieutenant colonel into the deeper parts of the courtyard. This was actually the first time he saw such a massive retro-inspired building complex. The local nobles he encountered when he was performing missions for the Red Scorpions also liked to pretend that they were a culture lover, but most of them only built a main building or two using wood and stone to express their artistic mood. After all, limestone and metal constructed buildings were the only buildings tough enough to survive this hostile era.

There were plenty of buildings, halls, and terraces along the winding journey. At first Qianye’s attention was absorbed by the sceneries, but when he started observing the terrain instinctively he quickly discovered that there weren’t many blind spots available for hiding in this place. In a landscape garden where building complexes and lush greeneries intersected with each other, this outcome was obviously the result of careful architectural design.

Next, he noticed that the main power source of this secondary residence wasn’t black stone steam. The perpetual dynamo tower wasn’t huge, and it was also situated a little too far away from the central buildings. From the shape of parts of the individual facilities, Qianye deduced that the power source of the core areas were all black crystals, and this was just a secondary residence owned by the Yin Family on the Evernight Continent. One could see just how powerful and wealthy the Empire’s upper class families were.

In the end, the lieutenant colonel led Qianye into an independent courtyard. The main structure ran along the entire southern side of the residence, and when they stepped inside Qianye was surprised to find no partitions within this huge space at all. This entire building was a study with traditional style furnishings and decor. A dozen or so bookshelves took up half the space inside the building, and there was a study table placed near the window. A pen rack hung with a row of writing brushes sat on top of it. There was also an inkstone and a few special writing papers set on the other side of the table.

Qianye had never seen such a show of extravagance in his whole life. Only a genuine aristocratic family would preserve such a tradition. He looked around him, and a calligraphy work hung on the wall suddenly attracted his attention.

It was a single word, “Decisive.”

The ink of these letters penetrated the paper, forceful but exquisite. Every stroke that made up the words were seeping with murderous spirit. Qianye might not understand calligraphy, but that didn’t stop him from picking up the smell of blood from assaulting his nostrils.

While watching, a voice suddenly rang from behind Qianye, “What do you think of this word?”

Qianye turned around to find a valiant and formidable-looking beauty standing at the entrance of the study.

She was almost as tall as Qianye was. She had eyebrows like swords, and long, narrow eyes that reminded one of a phoenix. When they moved upwards they gave off an intimidating pressure, but when they curled slightly her entire expression exuded such indescribable charm that she almost looked like a completely different person. She was very young, about twenty years old of age, but the lieutenant colonel uniform she wore seriously caught Qianye off guard.

The woman’s eyes lit up the second Qianye had turned around to face her. She whistled once without the slightest scruple and said, “You’re Qianye, right? You look amazing. I am very satisfied with your looks! My name is Yin Qiqi.”

Qianye bowed slightly in politeness and said, “Miss Qiqi.”

Qiqi frowned slightly and asked, “You haven’t learn any aristocratic etiquette, have you?”

Qianye said honestly, “Yes.”

Qiqi waved her hand once and said, “It’s nothing. I’ll find you some of the best teachers in this regard tomorrow, and you should be fine in a couple of days time. I believe that Auntie Lan had briefed you about the mission, but those family exams and stuff really aren’t all that important. You only need to remember one rule, and that is to do anything I tell you to do. Beyond that, you may act as you wish if there are no orders. My enemies are aplenty, so you only need to remember this word if you encounter anyone who’ll affect my exam results from hereon!”

Qiqi pointed at the calligraphy work with the word “Decisive” on the wall as she said this.

Qianye was startled by her words. It seemed a little inconsistent with Auntie Lan’s talk earlier.

This successor exam should’ve been top priority for Qiqi as the outcome would largely affect the family elders’ decision to choose their next patriarch. Just last year, the Yin Family had finally confirmed four potential candidates after ten full years of education and filtering. Qiqi was one of them. The content of the exam was very broad, and the ways they were allowed to deal with it were just as free. Every candidate were given five hundred imperial main corps and five hundred thousand gold coins worth of supplies and resources. With these as their foundation, they were required to contribute to the Empire as much as possible.

Yin Qiqi had chosen to come to the Evernight Continent and battle against the dark races. Military merits gave out the highest points in this successor’s exam, and it was the kind of merit that was the least disputed. She possessed the strongest individual martial strength out of all the candidates within the family, and her family possessed a certain level of influence within the military as well. Her choice was supposed to be very wise as it enabled her to bring out her strengths in full.

The problem was that Qiqi was here on the Evernight Continent for several months already, but she spent them all on chasing girls or eating, drinking and making merry. The few times she set out claiming that she was heading to exterminate the dark races were more aptly described as tours to experience the local customs and conditions of the forgotten land. In short, she did nothing that was of any use for the exam. She hadn’t even put her five hundred warriors to much use, and when she did use them she cast them out of her mind the second she threw them to the frontlines. Of course she hadn’t utilized her resources to build her private army and advisors.

In fact, Qianye was actually the first helper she officially recruited on the Evernight Continent.

It was no wonder that this situation made all of Yin Qiqi’s supporters feel a little worried, including the Auntie Lan who had gone to Darkblood City to interview Qianye. This was because the exam only lasted a year.

Now that Qianye had heard Qiqi’s strange orders with his own ears, he finally understood why Auntie Lan had looked like she wanted to say something a couple of times on the airship, and why she looked like she wanted to cover up something but couldn’t find the words to do so. He couldn’t determine if a conspiracy was present in this mission just yet, but this young miss’ nonlinear thinking seriously wasn’t something the average person could understand and execute.

“Your basic remuneration is one hundred gold coins per month, and there would be special rewards based on your actual merits. I guarantee that you’ll love these special rewards,” At this point Qiqi was very walking close to Qianye, and showing no signs of stopping her approach.

Qianye was very unused to have a stranger walking into his private space, and just as he was thinking whether it would be rude to dodge out of the way, Qiqi had leaned her body forwards until the tip of her nose was almost touching Qianye. Her warm breath touched Qianye’s face as she said, “You’ll be training on etiquette and familiarizing yourself with the environment this week. The mission will officially begin once the week is over. It’s decided then!”

Qianye finally couldn’t endure it any longer and moved his body sideways, relinquishing the front. Yin Qiqi resumed a straight standing posture and instructed nonchalantly, “Now, show me your strength.”

Qianye slowly summoned his origin power and unleashed his aura.

Yin Qiqi’s eyes lit up yet again, and she grabbed his body a couple of times without the slightest care for politeness. For some reason, Qianye kept feeling that the young miss’ examination of his body strength and origin power density was just taking advantage of him.

“You’re rank four already, that’s not what I heard earlier. Did you climb up a rank recently?”

Qianye nodded.

“Very good! Rank four is a critical stage, because it means that you’ve transformed from a useless pretty boy to a slightly more useful pretty boy. Someone will lead you to your lodging. Let’s leave it at this for now!”

Qianye wasn’t sure how he should respond to this bizarre comment, so he simply kept his face expressionless.

Qiqi left the study while laughing loudly. Two tall, handsome and sunny looking imperial second lieutenants walked in right after she went out and led Qianye to his lodging.

To his surprise, he was actually given an entire courtyard to himself. Not only did it have an individual garden and pond, it also had all the necessary facilities such as a bedroom, a living hall, a study and even an armament room and a cultivation room. This was literally the first time he lived in such a luxurious environment.

Qianye put down his luggage and went through the room one by one.

The bedroom had a luxury bathroom of its own, and the living hall was bright, spacious, and decorated with reputable and aged works of calligraphy, art and decor. Qianye didn’t recognize anyone of these things, but he only needed to look at the quality of the metal used to frame the artworks and the origin gemstones embedded in them to know that each one was extremely valuable.

He then sauntered into the study and sat in front of the traditional study table. He carelessly pulled the drawer open and was immediately stunned speechless by the object inside.

The drawer was actually hiding a pocket-sized grade three origin handgun! The carvings on the gun’s body was exquisite and ornate, and the gun was actually wrapped inside a perfectly intact deep sea oyster shell. A thicket of inked bamboo was engraved on the handgun, and its light blue patterns glowed faintly with light. The handgun’s origin array might actually be cheaper than its exterior decorations.

There were even three blank origin bullets placed next to the handgun. It was obviously a self-defense weapon prepared for the study’s master. The fact that a grade three origin gun and a self-defense weapon that might never see any use in its life was still equipped with physical bullets made Qianye recognize yet again just how deep the pockets of an aristocratic family were. It was a kind of wealth that made its presence known silently through countless such details.

It didn’t take long before the lieutenant colonel who welcomed Qianye walked into the courtyard and introduced himself with a smile, “My name is Ji Yuanjia, you may call me Yuanjia. I will be briefing you in detail about the mission that you will be performing in the future.”

Once the duo had sat down in the living room, Ji Yuanjia immediately passed over a set of documents to Qianye and said, “While the mission is in effect, you will be Miss Qiqi’s special assistant and aide with the rank of captain. Here, please have a look over your letter of appointment.”

Qianye accepted the letter of appointment. The words, ‘Captain of the Imperial 17th Field Corps’ was written on it. Naturally, the ability to distinguish the authenticity of a letter of appointment hadn’t escape his grasp. He could see that the paper, the patterns and the stamp were all real, but the line where the name should be imprinted were handwritten instead. He could even see that the ink had just dried.

Ji Yuanjia seemed to know what Qianye was thinking and said, “Relax, this letter of appointment is definitely genuine and valid, and all of the relevant documents have already been dealt with. You may use the military’s standard equipment anytime you want. I would suggest that you use the Yin Family’s grade four private equipment though. You would have more choices, and the quality’s better too.”

Of course Qianye knew that the appointment of military officers normally required the letter to be in full imprint, but pre-battle appointments were a common occurrence. As long as the person who issued this document had the authority, and the complete files were submitted in in time, handwritten signatures were absolutely valid. Still, the 17th Corps was a standing army among the imperial main corps, and he didn’t think that this Miss Qiqi would possess a quota like this. It was a scope of power slightly bigger than what he imagined.

Qianye flipped through the attachments at the back and found that all the necessary documents were present as expected. Even his resume had been written in full. He didn’t fail to check his false identity in time before Lieutenant Colonel Ji passed over another thick handbook and said, “This is the Yin Family’s private army equipment catalogue. You may choose what you want from this book. The budget is one thousand gold coins.”

Finally, Lieutenant Colonel Ji placed an armband on the table and said, “The 131th Independent Battle Company shall be placed under your full command. This battle company is built based on the imperial main corps’ reinforced company. I hope that this is to your liking.”

A reinforced company not only enjoyed greater numbers of personnel and equipment allocation, but also higher ranking military officers too. A squad leader would already be a rank one Fighter, and an assistant company commander’s rank would go up on that basis. A company commander would most definitely be a rank three Fighter. A reinforced company’s combat strength could almost rival a standard battalion.

Did they really throw a reinforced company and a hundred and fifty soldiers to my lap just like that?

Still, the brick of authority that abruptly landed on his head hadn’t knocked Qianye dizzy. No matter how bizarre this mission might be, it was still a mission to him.

Qianye closed the document and asked seriously, “What is my security clearance?”

Lieutenant Colonel Ji was slightly caught off guard by this question, and when he looked at Qianye again his eyes had became a lot more serious. He said, “You will have the same clearance as I do. There are basically no secrets in Xichang City and the human-controlled areas in the surroundings that are hidden from you. However, the secrets involving the Yin Family and a few other aristocratic families and above are not included in your security clearance.”