The First Order

As Qin Sheng was letting his mind run wild, someone suddenly knocked on the front door. He went to open the door and was surprised to see the Great Hoodwinker standing there.

“Is something the matter?” Qin Sheng asked politely.

“I observed that the feng shui of your place is awful. If you stay here for a long time, bad mojo will enter your body. You’re still young and strong, so you might not feel it. But after a prolonged period, you’ll get plagued by illnesses and misfortunes.” The Great Hoodwinker said, “But don’t worry, I have a solution for that. You can sell this house to me, and I will help you resolve the clash of auras here….”

“You’re crazy.” Qin Sheng closed the door. He wondered if this person was really from Fortress 178. How could he be bullshitting with a straight face?!

The Great Hoodwinker left awkwardly and proceeded to knock on Zhou Yingxue’s door. He intended to relocate here to keep watch over Ren Xiaosu.

Although there were more than 20 brick houses in town that came attached with a yard, Ren Xiaosu only had two neighbors. One of them was Qin Sheng, and the other was Zhou Yingxue.

When the Great Hoodwinker realized that he could not fool Qin Sheng, he turned his attention to Zhou Yingxue.

Ren Xiaosu was tickled when he heard the sound of knocking next door. As if Zhou Yingxue would sell her house to the Great Hoodwinker! How would that even be possible?

In the end, Zhou Yingxue agreed to deal with the Great Hoodwinker for 60,000 yuan, and the ownership of the house was transferred overnight.

Zhou Yingxue then bought another house a little further down the road from Ren Xiaosu’s place. And the Great Hoodwinker became Ren Xiaosu’s new neighbor.

Ren Xiaosu was dumbfounded when he found out. That woman actually sold him out for a profit of just some tens of thousands of yuan!

Meanwhile, Zhou Yingxue was happily counting her profits as she said to Ren Xiaosu, “Master, I made these from my real estate investment, so I won’t be sharing it with you.”

Ren Xiaosu was speechless. What the fuck?!

Zhou Yingxue did not care about Ren Xiaosu’s reaction. She just continued, “Master, I think there’s still a lot of room for the property prices in this town to appreciate. See, I’ve already made some tens of thousands of yuan in half a month. This won’t do! I have to purchase a few more houses. Who knows? I could make more money in some time!”

With that, Zhou Yingxue rushed out and bought six houses in one shot. She was even willing to purchase them at the price of more than 30,000 yuan each.

After that, she laid in the bed of one of her newly purchased properties and started fantasizing about the future. Now that she was considered wealthy, she could easily switch careers to being a real estate investor. Just based on her foresight of selecting properties, she could easily become the richest person in the Alliance of Strongholds and overtake the Wang Consortium!

With this wonderful dream in mind, Zhou Yingxue nodded off. In her dream, she was standing on stronghold walls and generously telling Ren Xiaosu, “Master, I bought this stronghold for you!”

At this moment, the storyteller was sighing in his own house, “My dear, ever since that Ren Xiaosu came to Stronghold 61, that woman from the Anjing House, the Riders, and even the people from Fortress 178 have descended on this town. I heard that he’s also on very good terms with the Qing Consortium. Before this, I thought that he was going to get sucked into the center of that storm. However, I realized that I was wrong. He’s actually the one who’s causing the storm…”

The storyteller was saying these things because he wanted to tell Xiaolu that it would be best not to get involved with someone like Ren Xiaosu. There was no future for them and something bad could easily happen to her.

But he did not hear Xiaolu respond even after speaking for a long time.

The storyteller said curiously, “My dear?”

Only then did Xiaolu come back to her senses. “Huh? Grandpa, are you calling for me? Grandpa, what kind of girl do you think Ren Xiaosu likes?”

The storyteller was speechless.

…

At this moment, Luo Lan’s convoy was on its way to Stronghold 61. Inside the car, Zhou Qi said with a forlorn expression, “If you were trying to die, you could’ve just gone by yourself. Why do you always have to drag me along? You already know it is really dangerous at the Wang Consortium, yet you still insist on coming here.”

“It’s only through this that I can show I’m not guilty at all.” Luo Lan chuckled and said, “How does the Wang Consortium count as a dangerous place? Do you think they’ll really try to lay a finger on me? What right do they have?”

“They can just place you under house arrest in secret.” Zhou Qi said, “Oh no, that won’t work since you purposely found a reporter from Hope Media to travel with you. They can’t confine you unless they also confine the reporter. Otherwise, Hope Media will just report the facts as is.”

“Hope Media wishes to investigate what’s going on while I need the outside world to be aware of my whereabouts every day. Both of us will just take what we need from each other,” Luo Lan said with a smile. The reporter from Hope Media was sitting in one of the vehicles behind them. As long as Hope Media was still providing the latest updates, the Wang Consortium could not lay a finger on Luo Lan.

After all, what legitimate reasons did the Wang Consortium have for placing Luo Lan under house arrest? This was also the reason Luo Lan and the Qing Consortium’s official stance was that they did not possess any nuclear weapons. “Don’t ask whether we have them or not. Either way, we just won’t admit to it. We might admit to it someday, but that will be in the future. However, we will never admit to it now.”

Zhou Qi muttered, “If they manage to find any evidence in the future, your reputation in the Central Plains will be ruined. You’ve put on this whole show and even made those tearful denials until so many people fell for it. When they find out you were lying to everyone, I’m afraid no one in the Central Plains will like you anymore.”

Luo Lan frowned. Actually, he also knew such a day would come. Evidence pointing to the Qing Consortium’s possession of nuclear weapons would definitely surface someday. As long as they really did launch it, it would be impossible to cover up everything.

At that time, Luo Lan would probably be known as the biggest liar and become a laughingstock in this era of strongholds.

Eventually, Luo Lan said firmly, “This is nothing compared to the future of our Qing Consortium.”

Luo Lan felt it was well worth it to buy some time for the Qing Consortium in exchange for his own sacrifice.

“That’s enough.” Zhou Qi curled his lips. “I heard there’s a lot of radicals gathering at Stronghold 61 to protest against you. You should think about what to do later.”

“Hehe, they’re just a group of students, aren’t they? What’s there to be afraid of?” Luo Lan’s words showed he did not really care about this group of students at all.

The convoy did not encounter any obstacles when entering Stronghold 61, with just a symbolic inspection carried out on the vehicles before letting them through.

These actions seemed more like they were done to avoid suspicion. Everyone knew the Wang Consortium had taken the lead to point fingers at the Qing Consortium for the nuclear strike. To show a fair and just attitude, they wanted to prove they would not pettily pick on the Qing Consortium over trivial matters.

The greater the conflict was at the top level, the less they cared about the small details.

Along the way, Luo Lan looked at the creeper vines growing by the roadside. He said, “Say, these creeper vines in the stronghold are really strange. They haven’t withered even though it’s winter already, and there’s so many growing too.”

The creeper vines had originally been growing on the outer walls of several houses. But now that it was winter, not only did they not wither, they even started growing further onto several streets.

If someone took a bird’s eye view, they would discover the vines were spreading out in parallel with the stronghold walls. It was like the vines were trying to surround the entire stronghold. Meanwhile, there were not many vines at the center of the stronghold.

The lush scenery covered about 10% of the entire stronghold, giving it a rather pleasant look.

However, Luo Lan did not have time to think about the creeper vines. He could already see some people up front trying to block the convoy from advancing. Those people were even holding up banners with the words, “Qing Zhen is a dictator! Give up nuclear weapons!”

Luo Lan’s eyes narrowed.