“Why do you have so many?” The Squad Leader was astonished, “Adjutant Shi distributed a bottle to each team, is this the same thing?”

Jun Qingyu explained, “It’s the same. His is from the first batch, this is the second batch, so there’s more.”

Shi Kaixin gave less, possibly out of fear that it would not be enough, so he distributed them sparingly.

The Squad Leader nodded, “Kang Chiche!”

“Present!”

“Send the three of them back to the Leading Squad.”

“Yes, sir!”

The Squad Leader explained, “There are lots of personnel with the Leading Squad and it is relatively safe there. Both of them are injured and cannot participate in the patrol, you can return there together with them.”

Jun Qingyu took his words into consideration. There were still some reagents in his space. Instead of trying one’s luck at finding a team on their path, it was much better to return to the Leading Squad to deliver the reagents to others and to let them be distributed uniformly. 

“Very well.”

The Squad Leader raised his hand and said, “Keep searching!”

“Yes, sir!”

Kang Chiche fished out protective clothing in his backpack in response and said, “First of all, put on this protective clothing.”

The two, who were wounded, put them on. Jun Qingyu took one look and retracted his gaze, “No need, let’s go. We have to save time.”

When they left, the incapacitated robot was also taken with them.

Old Jiang was lying on a stretcher. He had exhausted too much mental energy and he was, on top of that, badly injured in close combat. Although the bleeding from his head had stopped, he might have a problem with staying conscious.

Old Qiao was worried about him, so he talked to him as he walked, “We’re almost there. Don’t sleep. If you feel really sleepy, bite your tongue to get ahold of yourself.”

As Old Jiang spoke, his eyes narrowed to slits. He glanced at Jun Qingyu occasionally and couldn’t stop himself from inquiring in a daze. 

“Brother, why does your name sound familiar to me?”

Jun Qingyu: “It’s pretty common.”

“It’s not common. This is…but I’ve forgotten where I’ve heard it before.”

Old Qiao shot him a glance, “You’re stuck here every day, unable to access the Internet or communicate with the outside world. Where could you have possibly heard it before?”

“I’ve really heard of it!” Old Jiang kept his eyes open and became a little more energetic, “That’s right! The Marshal’s husband, no, he should be called Imperial Consort right now. Isn’t he also called Qingyu?”

Kang Chiche raised his eyebrows at that, “Imperial Consort? Since when did the marshal have a partner?”

“Snort…You’re so behind on the news. My family told me while I communicated with them previously. They said that it was a spectacular sight when the Marshal got married.”

Jun Qingyu: “……?”

“Have you seen the wedding video? It was a pity that I could not go to the scene, but it doesn’t matter. You guys weren’t there either, so that makes things even between us. We didn’t go.”

Jun Qingyu: “???”

Old Jiang closed his eyes after saying a few words and Old Qiao had a scare, “Don’t close your eyes! Keep talking!”

Kang Chiche: “Yes, yes, yes, where were we?”

As they spoke, Kang Chiche and Old Qiao accelerated their running speed.

Seeing that the situation was not that good, Jun Qingyu went after them and gave him some of the spring water he had just taken out.

Old Jiang was between the state of being on the verge of fainting and not. After drinking some spring water, and forcibly restoring some of his mental energy, he opened his eyes again, and said with his dying breath, “Marshal and his partner…Umph?!”

Jun Qingyu stuffed the remaining half a bottle of spring water into his mouth, “Drink it.”

“Ugh…”

Old Jiang didn’t even have a chance to speak of the latter part of his sentence.

The Leading Squad was in the hall outside the Central Control Room, where all the affected and injured people were.

After the few of them ran in, Old Qiao shouted, “Doctor! Doctor, come quick! Is there an empty medical cabin?!”

“This way!”

They sent Old Jiang over and Jun Qingyu didn’t follow them anymore. The mental energy here seemed to be less agitated than outside, and although it did not have the effect of rehabilitation, it was certainly better than outside.

The Central Control Room was at the rear, thus Jun Qingyu walked over. Before he could get close enough, everyone who was resting in the hall, looked over in succession.

It wasn’t that they thought Jun Qingyu looked strange but rather, it was his long hair, there couldn’t be any Imperial soldiers with long hair here.

At that moment, the door to the Central Control Room opened.

Yu Zhi hastily walked out from inside, “Sir, why are you here? Are you ok? Are there any injuries? Or do you feel unwell anywhere?”

“I’m fine.”

Yu Zhi’s heart stopped for a beat when he saw Jun Qingyu enter alone, “Shi Kaixin’s not here? I thought he went looking for you?”

Jun Qingyu filled his backpack with the rest of the reagents and handed it to him, “There should be enough reagents in here, so you should find a way to share them.”

Yu Zhi had met with Shi Kaixin earlier and he knew with certainty what this reagent was, thus he hurriedly received him, “You are welcomed to enter first, sir.”

Jun Qingyu inquired, “Do you know how many robots there are?”

“Those known to have been destroyed and the ones you have captured tally up to 30, but this is ruling out those undiscovered. Further investigation is still required.”

30?

In that case, Fu Yuanchuan should not encounter too many robots, since the focal point was on the rear.

In other words, they knew they couldn’t win head-on but in spite of that, not much damage would be inflicted on the Empire by doing this to the rear.

Even if there were not many left behind, and mental outbreaks could crush everyone, the operation had been completed; coupled with swift actions, the situation was still within a controllable range, so much so that there was a looming tendency for it to be nearly resolved.

“Sir, you should sit down first.”

Yu Zhi dispatched a few people to distribute the reagents.

Jun Qingyu sent a message to Shi Kaixin, but several consecutive messages showed that the transmission had failed.

The signal here must have been jammed.

It was less of a problem because he could simply have them relay his message to Shi Kaixin when they ran into him while distributing the reagents.

With the reagents in place, the robots outside wouldn’t be able to cause much mayhem, and this situation was gradually coming to a close–at the very least, everything would be resolved before Fu Yuanchuan returned.

After the reagents were allocated, Yu Zhi came back and poured a glass of water for Jun Qingyu, “Sir, please quench your thirst.”

Jun Qingyu looked at the glass of water and thought about the injured people outside. Some of them had suffered superficial injuries and their mental energy was also injured to a certain extent. Superficial injuries were fine. Even if they were serious, they could still be saved with the medical cabin. However, mental energy could only be recovered over time, it could even develop into an illness with the slightest inattention.

Jun Qingyu thought about it and said, “Send me the number of fruits and vegetables allocated daily to the Corps.”

Adding some spring water should prevent their conditions from worsening.

Yu Zhi didn’t understand, but when he noticed Jun Qingyu staring at the people outside, he understood when he thought of the dessert store. 

“Yes, sir.”

By the time Jun Qingyu had drunk half a glass of water, Shi Kaixin rushed in and saw him settled there, unscathed. Only then did his suspenseful heart find its own moment of peace.

Jun Qingyu arched his eyebrows as he watched him breathe a sigh of relief. 

“You’re scared to this degree?”

Did Shi Kaixin not see that he would not be affected by the robots? What else did he have to be afraid of?

“To the point of scaring the daylights out of me.”

Jun Qingyu poured a glass of water and handed it over to him. He saw the robots piled in the corner, that had not been disposed of, subtly show signs of movement.

The effectiveness of spring water had most likely worn off. Jun Qingyu stood up and stepped forward, intending to cover with universal life energy to check if it could extend the medicine’s effect.

His fingertip was pointed at the robot’s glabella and his universal life energy spread to seize the remnants of universal life energy from the reagent.

There was a lot of blood on the robot, it should have acted against others prior to its confrontation with Old Jiang and the rest.

Just as he was thinking about what to do with the robot in the future, the robot suddenly raised its hand with all its fingers pointed outward together.

Jun Qingyu knocked its wrist with a backhand and that arm fell down in the meantime, and in the next instant, a regenerated arm slashed straight down towards his face.

The act happened in the blink of an eye. Jun Qingyu subconsciously dodged to the right. The tip of its fingers was no different from a sharp blade and they grazed Jun Qingyu’s cheek with a ‘swish’.

Simultaneously, Jun Qingyu raised his hand to rip off the regenerated arm and tossed it aside.

Although he was unharmed, the thin string tied to his mask was cut and the mask fell off abruptly.

A few strands of long pale golden hair floated down and landed on the ground.

Jun Qingyu looked at his hair on the ground and his eye hardened in coldness.

“Sir?!” Shi Kaixin hurried forward, picked up his mask and handed it over. His pupils constricted sharply the moment he saw Jun Qingyu’s face.

Jun Qingyu took the mask and said flatly, “I’m fine.”

Yu Zhi seemed to sense that something was wrong inside and hurried in.

Jun Qingyu turned back to look when he heard the sound, and when he saw that it was Yu Zhi, he looked at the robot sitting on the ground again.

Yu Zhi was startled when he saw Jun Qingyu without a mask. He had an unspoken sense that something had gone wrong, but he did not mention anything.

Jun Qingyu grabbed the robot by the neck and dragged it into the back room, “Don’t follow me, I’ll have a one-on-one session with him.”

Shi Kaixin opened and shut his mouth. The door was closed before he could speak a word, therefore Shi Kaixin had no choice but to turn around and deal with those two arms.

Yu Zhi knitted his brows and deliberated before he said, “I believed I saw the mermaid’s face when they came, but I didn’t see his facial features clearly. Did you take a good look at the mermaid when you left earlier? Don’t tell me something happened to it.”

Shi Kaixin said absent-mindedly, “How could that be? The mermaid was taken away by the marshal. Cut the nonsense. The marshal can definitely take care of it.”

Yu Zhi sat down and took a breath, “To be honest, when I saw the sir turn around with his mask removed, I felt that he looked awfully similar to that little mermaid, who turned around to look at me on the machine frame. It’s just that I couldn’t make out the little mermaid’s features then.”

Shi Kaixin froze, then quickly covered it up, “Don’t be ridiculous. Where can you see a mermaid growing to the size of a human? Besides, how long has it been? To raise one to a size like that–doesn’t that mean you have to raise one for 1,800 years? I haven’t seen a human-sized mermaid before.”

“That’s true. The colour of sir’s hair is the same as the mermaid’s and he has it long as well. I should have seen it wrong.”

“It’s not just that, you’re making wild guesses at something you have no idea about with your extraordinary imagination.” Shi Kaixin took a sip of tea, looked at the screen above and said, “I have seen sir holding the mermaid in his hand and playing with it before. You’ll feel like they look alike if you don’t take a closer look.”

Shi Kaixin sighed and exhorted accidentally on purpose, “You can tell me about it for my amusement but don’t disclose this to others. There will be a lot of trouble when the Imperial Household is brought up.”

“I understand.”

—

Jun Qingyu stayed inside for a long time and didn’t go out.

He sat back and looked indifferently at the strung-up robot. The fishing line looked much better than ordinary thread when illuminated.

At this moment, his light brain vibrated. Jun Qingyu frowned irritably, but he was stunned when he saw a video invitation and quickly put it through, “Yuanchuan!”

“Mhm.”

Seeing Fu Yuanchuan, Jun Qingyu complained in an aggrieved manner, “A robot just ruined my mask and even caused me to lose some of my hair.”

“It’s that excessive?”

“Mhm!” Jun Qingyu veered the angle of the video chat to the robot, “It’s precisely him!”

“Wait for my return, I…”

Fu Yuanchuan’s voice trailed off when he saw the robot’s current appearance.

""

This robot, it might not be able to wait for his return.