During dinner, Master Longchi was the first to finish. Clad in his old, drab gray monastic robe and slightly tipsy, he stepped out for a stroll with a chicken drumstick in hand. Two guards routinely shadowed him.
Under ordinary circumstances, the old man was quite cheerful and didn't seem sluggish in the least. He even still possessed a bit of that old flair from back when he swindled and scammed folks in Fenglong'ao.
So it wasn't quite like Alzheimer's disease. He simply seemed terribly forgetful; within short stretches of time, he spoke and handled matters with complete clarity.
"What's that tune he's humming?" Liu Yiwu looked toward the doorway and asked, as the lyrics the old man hummed on his way out were indistinct.
Finding it both a little surprising and strangely familiar, Han Qingyu looked up and answered, "It's a folk tune from back home. Or something like one, anyway—made up on the fly in our local dialect."
"What's it about?"
"Flirting with women."
"Oh... no wonder he remembers it." Liu Yiwu chuckled, then added out of the blue, "Honestly, you wouldn't lose anything by calling him Grandpa."
With that, he pulled his gaze back from outside and glanced at Han Qingyu. "Countless people would give anything to call him that and never get the chance. It's rare enough that the old man even remembers you."
The logic was sound enough.
If anyone in this world were to compile a ranking of martial prowess—counting every known or suspected powerhouse, including Chen Buer and NE—Jiang Longchi would undeniably make the top ten.
He was truly one of the pinnacle figures of human martial might.
"No way," Han Qingyu said. His mouth slick with grease, he swallowed a mouthful of roast mutton and protested through his chews, muffled yet impassioned, "You have no idea how fierce my real grandfather's temper was. If I agreed to that, he'd jump right out of his grave, grab a couple of snakes, and whip me with them... Why are you all staring at me? Is whipping a kid with snakes that weird?"
"Not weird at all. After all, your family has been catching snakes for eighteen generations. That's how traditional family heritage gets passed down imperceptibly. Like when I was around five, my dad was worried I'd disturb his mahjong games... so he started handing me swimsuit calendars as my introductory reading material."
Wen Jifei spoke with utter solemnity, completely deadpan.
Laughter broke out around the dining table. Liu Yiwu choked, coughed twice behind a covered mouth, and went to fetch some water to wash his face. When he returned, he circled right back to the topic and said to Han Qingyu, "Why take it so seriously? When you meet an elderly person outside and call them 'Grandpa', isn't that just common courtesy?"
"Except General Jiang would take it for real," Han Qingyu answered.
Liu Yiwu paused, thought about it, and fell quiet.
"True. Calling him that might seem kind-hearted, but without genuine family affection behind it, it would feel like deceiving and trifling with the old general," Wen Jifei said.
Liu Yiwu nodded in agreement.
"Of course, if you could get General Jiang to personally hand him a dozen or two dozen metal blocks, that deeper-than-blood bond would blossom naturally. And as long as the blocks kept coming, that affection would just keep growing uncontrollably," Wen Jifei followed up. During these easy days of respite, he had reverted to his old self.
Amid the laughter, Han Qingyu didn't take the bait. Looking up, he asked, "By the way, Commander Liu, why did General Jiang go to our little backwater all those years ago and stay there for so long?"
Liu Yiwu opened his mouth, but hesitated.
Having finished their meals, the Fourth Army officers at the table got up one after another to take their leave.
"To watch over a massive source energy fluctuation," Liu Yiwu said in a hushed voice once everyone had left. "I heard the Legion Commander mention it during dinner last time. They suspected it was a native source energy fluctuation originating from our own planet. Do you understand what that means? If it's true, and if anything can be discovered from it, the significance to Azure and to humanity would be monumental."
"Mm," Han Qingyu grunted impassively. He didn't care much about humanity... He then inquired about the approximate timeframe and realized the fluctuation had occurred before he was born. He pressed on, "So did anything come of watching it?"
Liu Yiwu shook his head. "No."
"It just vanished?!"
"Supposedly, there was another fluctuation a few years later, but it dissipated very quickly. Even with General Jiang right there, he didn't have time to trace it back to its source. And after that, it vanished entirely."
The exact timing of the second fluctuation wasn't specific, but Han Qingyu could be certain he had already been born by then, probably two or three years old. He had no memories from when he was two or three, but in his heart he wondered if the reason the native source energy fluctuation had disappeared completely was precisely the 'devouring' Zhe Qiuhong had spoken of.
*Was that the time I 'ate' the thing?!*
Han Qingyu pondered this, feeling hesitant inside.
"Speaking of which, the whole endeavor was honestly a massive loss. It wasted years of General Jiang's time. The Legion Commander said they only learned later that similar fluctuations had occurred elsewhere around the world as well—more than just one or two instances—and none of them could be traced either."
Beside the table, Liu Yiwu lit a cigarette and continued.
Since that was the case, Han Qingyu decided not to voice his suspicions for now, especially under the current circumstances, when his feelings toward Azure were rather complicated.
"Actually, from what my parents said later about those days, Master Longchi seemed to have had a pretty happy time living in our parts during those years."
Swindling and scamming folks, living a life of leisure, deeply respected throughout the surrounding countryside, and able to remember those bawdy ditties to this day—how could he not have been happy? Han Qingyu thought to himself.
Liu Yiwu paused for a beat, then said, "That's good to hear, then."
...
And so they chatted leisurely until Jiang Longchi returned from his stroll. By then, the table had long been cleared and replaced with peanuts, melon seeds, dried fruit, and green tea. Only then did Liu Yiwu speak up:
"Right, I came here on official business this time."
"Holy crap, you actually have real business?!" Wen Jifei feigned shock.
"Piss off!" Liu Yiwu snapped playfully before his expression hardened into seriousness. "Intelligence from the morning before yesterday: Alphonse abruptly disappeared from his old lair in Nepal a few days ago. His exact whereabouts are unknown."
As he spoke, his eyes were full of worry when he looked at Han Qingyu. Only recently had their group clashed head-on with Alphonse's people; two of their primary combatants had been gravely wounded, and the enemies hadn't all been eliminated.
"We can hardly treat this as a coincidence."
Liu Yiwu's implication was that the connection between the two events was obvious: the military corps had no choice but to suspect and assume Alphonse might be personally coming after Han Qingyu and the others.
He knew Azure intimately and held immense stature; if he put his mind to it, he had likely perused plenty of high-level classified intelligence long ago. And he was formidable—Shao Xuan had been gravely injured by him and was still convalescing to this day.
"Because of this, you definitely can't move around out in the open. Even if you hide, safe havens will be few and far between. The real danger is an attack you can't see coming, understand?" Huaxia had battle formations, but people couldn't stay locked inside a military formation forever. Liu Yiwu said, "And the only person we know for sure who can hold him off one-on-one is that single man."
There was no need to name that single man. Liu Yiwu continued, "As for General Jiang, he might be able to fight Alphonse head-on, but given his condition, you know how it is."
Shen Yixiu grew tense. "Then what about us...?"
"Go hide at the military corps headquarters base for two years." The whole reason Liu Yiwu had brought Jiang Longchi along was to escort them back.
There was actually another way: set a trap to bait Alphonse into making a move, allowing the Legion Commander to ambush and kill him. But Wen Jifei discarded that notion after only a fleeting thought. They didn't have anywhere near that kind of clout, and no one knew what price Chen Buer would have to pay to kill Alphonse.
Besides, Qingzi likely wanted to kill Alphonse himself. The slight impatience creeping into his actions and decisions lately stemmed from precisely this. He probably wouldn't want to hide at the corps headquarters for two years either; after all, Azure couldn't possibly provide enough metal blocks and source energy blocks to sustain his training, and the Bones of Eternal Life were hidden outside as well...
"Is that the only way?" Sure enough, Han Qingyu spoke.
Liu Yiwu smiled faintly. "Turns out the Legion Commander and Chief of Staff really do know you best. Yes, there's one other place you can go."
Chapter 419