To the right of the center of the long table, roughly directly opposite Arthur and Howard, Wen Jifei stood with his hands planted on the tabletop, his commanding posture radiating condescension and pressure.
A second lieutenant, looking down upon a front-line army general and an Alliance councilman.
Of the four officials present, none besides Liu Yiwu knew what he had actually said yet, but every one of them could feel the sudden shift in atmosphere and tension.
Seated to the side, the young translator tilted her head up to look at Wen Jifei. She stared for several seconds, her wide eyes blinking once, then twice, filled with equal parts terror and confusion.
*He's joking, right? Just a moment ago, he was so funny and pleasant, so completely irreverent...*
The doubt crossed her mind, only to be instantly shattered by her own observation.
Because Second Lieutenant Wen Jifei's eyes and his entire demeanor had completely changed, broadcasting with chilling certainty that this was real.
Wen Jifei stayed silent, offering a simple, calm gesture urging her to finish translating.
Trembling slightly, the young translator relayed Wen Jifei's words.
In that instant, the people around the long table were plunged into a whirlpool of emotions—panic, suspicion, fury, alongside bewilderment and calculated thought.
Howard anxiously turned his head to check Liu Yiwu's expression. Liu Yiwu had turned his face away, quietly smoking, showing Howard nothing more than the rugged, silent profile of an iron-blooded soldier.
"I... you..." Howard quickly whipped back around and looked up at Wen Jifei.
Their gazes met.
Wen Jifei's gaze was indifferent, the corner of his mouth curving slightly.
"This military tent is already surrounded and cut off. If you don't believe me, you can step outside and take a look for yourselves."
"Of course, whoever steps out will die first."
Wen Jifei spoke a line, and the young translator translated a line.
His tone wasn't vehement, nor was hers.
The expression in Howard's eyes began to shift from shocked disbelief.
At that moment, Wen Jifei said, "Legion Commander Chen feels it would be best if you died here."
"He says Legion Commander Chen feels it's best if you... if all of us... die here," the young translator said.
Legion Commander Chen. Chen Buer. Invincible on Earth... In that instant, Howard's psychological foundation collapsed entirely. Not a shred of doubt remained in his eyes, replaced only by terror, panic, and despair.
Arthur and Jackson were slightly calmer, but not by much. They had understood early on Chen Buer's determination to protect Han Qingyu. They just hadn't expected the old man to go to such extremes.
When the invincible-on-earth commander of the Huaxia Front chose to turn extreme...
"Why?" Howard asked, his voice trembling slightly.
"Because your stance is highly suspect. At the same time, if you were to die here mysteriously without a trace of evidence—no, disappear here—it wouldn't make this incident any worse, because it's already serious enough. We believe this will actually keep Major Han Qingyu safer. It will force everyone who, like you, can't wait to see him dead, to pause and weigh their options very carefully."
Having spoken flatly, Wen Jifei stepped back a few paces and stood near the tent entrance, watching them coldly.
The wind outside the military tent had been blowing all along, but while they hadn't noticed it before, it now reached their ears with razor clarity. Shadows swayed across the canvas.
Howard and Arthur exchanged a glance. They knew that very soon, people would storm in, execute the massacre, and erase all traces.
They would be erased, completely without a sound.
Azure would certainly investigate afterward, but it was destined to be meaningless. This was neutral ground, and no one would dare cast suspicion upon Chen Buer, because he was Chen Buer, Invincible on Earth, the strongest Star of Azure in history.
Even if someone dared, they would never find any evidence.
No one was immune to the terror of death, especially a death as meaningless as an ant's.
Despair seeped into Howard's eyes, and tears began to flow. He tried to stand up, only to collapse back down. After repeating this twice, his chair crashed to the floor with a clatter, taking him down with it.
Arthur fared a little better; he was a general, after all. Yet the fury and hysteria he displayed now lacked any trace of backbone, because their opponent was Chen Buer.
He would fight back if there truly was no way out. But he also knew very well that fighting back was utterly pointless.
"General Arthur says we bear no guilt... he says, 'I fought for Azure...'" The young translator guessed that she would probably die as well, or at least be imprisoned forever. Tears streaming down her face, she choked through the translation.
"Doesn't matter," Wen Jifei said coldly.
The young translator turned back. "It doesn't matter."
Doesn't matter? Right, it didn't matter. Arthur stood stunned for a few seconds, then slumped down dejectedly.
The chaotic scene lapsed into dead silence.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
*Bloody hell, not a single one of them is normal. Every last bastard is daring enough to overturn the heavens. Sooner or later I'm going to grab one and beat the crap out of him... You're the one. Can't beat the other three.*
Liu Yiwu glanced at Wen Jifei, silently cursing in his heart.
The moment Wen Jifei had claimed this was Chen Buer's decision, Army Commander Liu had been so utterly shocked he nearly blurted out a curse. To stop himself, he had clapped a hand over his mouth... but he still had a cigarette dangling between his lips, and with a slap, he had mashed the burning cherry right onto his own lip...
*Feel vindicated now, Rusty Sister? Haha, Brother Plague Chicken said he'd get revenge for you.*
Taking in the sight before him, Wen Jifei muttered to himself in his heart. The corners of his mouth slowly widened into a brilliant, smug grin, and he suddenly hopped a step forward into the room.
"Surprise?! Actually, I was just kidding."
Teary-eyed, the young translator looked at him.
"Tell them. I was just messing around."
"Sob... Really?"
"Yep."
"Sob... Why would you do that?!"
"You all looked sleepy. Just helping you perk up," Wen Jifei said with a smile.
"..."
Under a sea of dazed, baffled stares, the young girl finished translating.
Even so, it took Arthur and Howard an agonizingly long time to truly believe that it might just have been a joke—that they weren't going to die tonight.
"How dare you be so brazen and ignorant as to joke about something like this?!" Howard scrambled back into his seat, deeply agitated and seething with rage.
The young translator relayed his words.
"Doesn't matter. What matters is that you believed it."
Wen Jifei waited a moment. Only when Jackson, Arthur, Howard, and the elite soldiers present showed thoughtful looks did he continue:
"You believed it almost without hesitation. A bearer of the strongest name on earth, the legion commander of the Huaxia Front, a recipient of the Star of Azure who personally slew Red Shoulders... You believed he would orchestrate a conspiratorial massacre on the front line against a front-line army commander, an Alliance Council member, a senior Alliance general, and on top of that, these elite soldiers standing behind you who valiantly survived battle after battle against the Great Spikes."
Through this speech, the statement and translation were almost simultaneous. Wen Jifei's tone rose notch by notch, and the young translator's followed suit.
Howard and Arthur listened, as did Jackson and the soldiers. A glimmer of understanding seemed to dawn on them, yet it remained hazy.
Wen Jifei continued:
"Aren't the three words 'Chen Buer' an even greater totem than Alphonse?! He slew Red Shoulders and has served for over forty years. Even though he's invincible on earth, the whole world says he only has one slash left before he dies, yet he is still fighting for Azure... And you believed he would plot to murder his own comrades-in-arms, that he would commit such evil.
"Then why can't you bring yourselves to believe—or at least suspect—that your totem of West Europa, Azure's first-generation Star of Azure, your sacred Alphonse family, might truly be committing evil?! That after realizing their secret had been exposed, they plotted to murder Major Han Qingyu, inflicting horrific casualties on the entirety of Squad 1777?!
"Every piece of logic that led you to believe Legion Commander Chen would murder you applies just as well to Alphonse, doesn't it? Ten times over, in fact.
"What's more, he's been away from the battlefield for a very long time. Do you truly still know him?!"
When Wen Jifei finished, he abruptly kicked a wooden board on the floor. It smashed into the tent canvas and clattered to the ground. If everything tonight had been a bluff and an act, Wen Jifei's fury and suffocating resentment were undeniably genuine.
Howard and Arthur remained silent for a while. "We..."
Their convictions were crumbling.
In truth, their thoughts had begun to unravel earlier. Amid Wen Jifei's chaotic logic and narrative, they had found themselves contemplating the pilot's fate and pondering many other things. Now, suddenly guided toward this revelation, their faith shattered. For the first time, they began to genuinely scrutinize and consider accepting the rumors: that the Alphonse family was harvesting the corpses of young geniuses, murdering fellow Azure soldiers, and conspiring against Han Qingyu and Squad 1777.
A chill began to creep down their spines.
And if none of that were true... what possible reason could Major Han Qingyu have to retaliate against the Alphonse family at all costs?! Where was it?!
"If you truly want to take part in this case, please make sure you detach yourselves from your biases first. You, and everyone like you. Thank you."
Wen Jifei paused, walked over to the young translator, and said gently, "Thank you. And I'm sorry for scaring you."
The young translator sniffled aggrievedly.
Wen Jifei offered an apologetic smile, turned, and walked toward the entrance of the military tent.
"Nicely done," Liu Yiwu said from behind him. "Interesting approach, and I reckon it'll do some good. But convincing just the two of them is far from enough. The issues tied up in this are much too complicated..."
Liu Yiwu wanted to ask if he should have the legion commander arrange for Wen Jifei to do an encore before the Alliance Council. But if that really happened, the scene would be catastrophic. Ah, well.
"I know," Wen Jifei turned around with a slight smile, his eyes looking somewhat bleak. "But at least this felt satisfying."
Liu Yiwu thought about it and nodded.
Wen Jifei continued, "Thanks, Liu... Wait, Uncle Liu, why is your mouth black?"
"I... None of your damn business! Get out of here, scram!"
Liu Yiwu cursed, turning his head aside as he wiped his lip.
...
As the last person to be interrogated, it was nearly four in the morning by the time Wen Jifei returned to the military tent serving as their cell. He had consumed the vast majority of that time himself, so he had no one else to blame.
To his surprise, Han Qingyu, Wu Xu, and Rusty Sister were not there.
There was only an officer he had seen two or three times before—Zhang Yi, an aide beside the chief of staff—sitting in the tent waiting for him.
"While the interrogation was going on over there and the commanders here were thrown into disarray, they went over to the legion commander's place. They asked me to wait for you... Cough, I've been waiting for a long time." Seeing Wen Jifei, Zhang Yi stood up... "Ouch, my legs are numb! Whoa, whoa, whoa..."
He hopped on his tiptoes for a few steps before plopping right onto the ground.
"What, the legion commander is here?!" Wen Jifei hurriedly helped him up, a pained look on his face as he spoke.
"Yeah." Zhang Yi caught his breath, got his bearings, and said, "Let's go."
With that, he walked ahead.
Under the shroud of the night at four in the morning, Wen Jifei obediently followed behind.
*Great. If the old man finds out what just happened—and he definitely will... as a dignified legion commander, he wouldn't personally clobber me, would he?*
Chapter 365