Book 4: Chapter 27: Even The Last Thing She Has Will Be Snatched Away
I reserved a day of rest for Fang Thirteen.
It was also a day reserved for Fang Lita to immerse himself in an unbounded, beautiful delusion.
The next day, the instant Fang Thirteen got out of bed, there were loud sounds coming from outside Sky Star City, thick smoke springing up from everywhere, and flames soaring. Tila hurriedly pushed her onto the city walls as I followed closely behind them. On the city wall, Fang Thirteen continuously asked Tila about the situation before our eyes and the more she heard, the more her brows locked up.
Soon after, a report from the front line arrived saying that Star-Commanding City was in a critical situation. If support wasn’t given to the city, it was highly likely that the city would be broken into.
Star-Commanding City is one of the unassuming small cities by Sky Star City’s side and one of the five cities that Fang Thirteen and Fang Lita are currently still in control of. But in the plan for surrounding and protecting Sky Star City, this small city absolutely plays an unsurpassable major role. During this period, Fang Thirteen, who was at the end of her rope, pondered in an abnormal direction. She decided to use a duo eye mode formation, placing a portion of the pressure from Sky Star City onto Star-Commanding City. This way, if West-Resisting City’s people and Abyss City’s people launch another attack on Sky Star City, the fierce firepower will be secretly shifted onto Star-Commanding City, which will then be shifted onto the other three cities. As for the other three cities, they are also in the formation, so they will also be sharing a portion of the main burden from Sky Star City as well.
Star-Commanding City is also a subordinate city in this setup, but as a “hub” or “eye”, the support it receives is the least, so it becomes the weakest link of the whole.
The ideal outcome for such a setup is for Fang Lita’s five cities to become one uniform body. Each attack the enemy launches would count as a simultaneous attack on five cities and as far as the attacking side is concerned, the obstructions they face will also be greatly increased. It’s worth mentioning that when there were still ten cities, the hub wasn’t located at the border, so it was a considerably perfect array. But now that there’s only five cities remaining, one of the hubs is forced to be placed in the attack zone and that’s equal to exposing a weak point in front of everyone attacking; this is something that Fang Thirteen is unwilling to see.
Therefore, during this period of time, she’s been placing all her energy in pondering over how to fix this issue.
On one hand, she divides the flow of the power into two lines, one overt and one hidden. The overt line will leave from Sky Star City and even if someone with knowledge in formations looks at it, they will think that Sky Star City is the formation eye and crucial point for collapsing the formation. At the same time, no matter how the other party is aware of the hidden line’s existence, it will be impossible to unravel which of the remaining four cities is the second eye. On top of that, the formation has the attribute of ‘attacking one city is equivalent to attacking five cities’, so if they want to guess and validate their theory, they will have to pay an enormous price. The time spent doing this would be too much and this delay would naturally be helpful to Sky Star City.
What’s even more amazing is that even if the enemy is able to figure out the second eye, she can slowly change the formation and secretly shift the second eye onto another city as long as she stalls for a bit of time. However, this process requires her to personally manage and with regards to her, who was still in a weakened condition, it would take at least two to three days to complete.
It was impossible for her to anticipate that right after she completed the formation arrangements, relaxed a little, and recovered a little physical strength during that one day of rest, such a huge accident would occur.
Even if the situation within the five cities is covered by layer upon layer of heavy fog, a person within the fog can still certainly see and understand the essence of the matter.
In fact, the moment I sent out information about Sky-Commanding City’s secret via carrier pigeon, Fang Thirteen had already lost.
Abyss City and West-Resisting City’s army didn’t attack any of the other four cities at all, instead focusing all of its resources into bombarding Sky-Commanding City. Fang Thirteen was given basically no time to transform the formation, thus leaving Sky-Commanding City on the edge of being broken into.
During this moment of life or death, she clenched her teeth and made a decision; the decision being to drag her ill body to the military and go to the battlefield with the intent to seek for a decisive battle. This would be her final opportunity and the wisest decision one could make in this situation. But unfortunately, I had long since given West-Resisting City the command of “if the enemy attacks, retreat”. This command wasn’t in fear of Fang Thirteen’s offensive, but rather to mitigate any unnecessary sacrifices. I couldn’t be more clear on the state of her body; if she dragged herself onto the battlefield, she would drag herself to death, so there’s no need to have a direct and open conflict.
The instant Star-Commanding City was broken into, the formation that Fang Thirteen painstakingly spent her time on crumbled and fell apart. Innumerable motes of brilliance ascended into the overcast sky, then disappeared within the dense black clouds.
When Fang Lita, who was inside the City Lord’s mansion, learned of this news, he had just gotten off of a maid and hurriedly changed into some proper clothes before rushing over to see Fang Thirteen. Tila was pushing the wheelchair as Fang Thirteen squeezed her hands together and her face held a numb expression.
Fang Thirteen dashed over and asked with confusion:
“Sister? What’s going on, why is everyone saying that we’ve lost. Isn’t everything fine?”
Fang Thirteen opened her mouth in an attempt to say something, but no words came out.
Fang Lita’s expression changed and just as he was about to say something, my cold voice came from the side:contemporary romance
“The matter of vital importance now is to think up a way to withstand the approaching outside forces, not to divide the blame here.”
Fang Lita sternly snapped:
“Were you given a chance to speak?”
Since the plan had reached the phase of closing the net, I no longer continued being courteous to him and serenely exposed him:
“Do you really think that other people are as easy to deceive as your older sister? During these times of crisis, what has she been doing and what have you been doing? She has exhausted all her thoughts and ingenuity just to come out one move behind while you’ve been Sky Star City’s malignant tumor, a real good-for-nothing! If it weren’t for you bringing out the army to fight with Fang Yuan and losing five cities in a row, would the situation now have been like this?”
Fang Lita’s body shivered in anger. He pointed his pale white finger at me and shouted:
“How dare you……as I expected, there are no good things from West-Resisting City, you clothes-eating trash! Get out of my City Lord’s mansion, get the hell out!”
I looked at Fang Thirteen.
Fang Lita exclaimed:
“Sister! See! Look at the attitude he’s giving, is he the City Lord or am I the City Lord?”
Fang Thirteen fiercely coughed, causing blood to dye her snow white clothes red.
Fang Lita continued:
“If such a person stays behind in my City Lord’s mansion, then I might as well not be the City Lord!”
After he finished speaking, his eyes reddened in anger and he cried with sobs filled with grief.
Fang Thirteen began violently gasping for breath and in the end, she finally fumbled around to grab my arm and whispered:
“Jade……apologize, okay?”
I threw off her hand and coldly declared to Fang Lita:
“I don’t feel like arguing with you today and I am unwilling to make things difficult for Fang Thirteen. Isn’t it just leaving? I never regarded this place as an important place to stay. Foul atmosphere, a pool of toxic sludge!”
After I finished my part, even though I knew Fang Thirteen couldn’t see, I still gave her a customary cup of my hands and spoke softly:
“Young lady Thirteen, goodbye.”
I turned around, passed through Fang Thirteen’s side, and walked towards the distance.
Fang Thirteen turned her head and called out my name even though she didn’t know exactly where I was:
“Jade——”
The voice I heard behind me was filled with grievance and despair, even carrying a hint of weeping.
But towards that, I say sorry, the present me has no feelings.
I ignored her call and walked out of the gate like so. The instant the giant gate closed, I lifted up my head and listened to the constant sounds of dialogue coming from inside.
After I left, Fang Lita immediately began beaming with happiness. He first comforted his older sister by saying “not having him around is the same as having him around”, then immediately returned the topic to the initial matter about asking why they were losing.
Fang Thirteen didn’t seem to be much in the frame of mind to console him, only saying “don’t worry” a couple times.
Those few words of reassurance wouldn’t be able to truly save the current situation. On the night of this very day, there were an unknown number of people outside of Sky Star City loudly shouting Fang Lita’s name.
done.co