As a Yaoqing native, the boy had grown up listening to stories about the General.
He had heard many stories, not knowing whether they were true or false.
For example, when the General had just taken office, he personally went to the battlefield. He didn't eat, didn't drink, didn't sleep, fought without rest, like some tireless machine.
And in just one month's time, he solved the problem of the Mara-struck that had troubled the other Xianzhou for so long.
Lan, "…"
'Fake, right? A normal person going a month without eating, drinking, or sleeping would've starved to death already.'
Looking at the Yaoqing people around him who treated the General as their faith, he always felt out of place.
As if, in the eyes of the Yaoqing people, this General wasn't a person with joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness, but an all-knowing, all-powerful deity who would unconditionally satisfy their every request.
No matter what happened in Yaoqing, he never blamed his subordinates, only took the responsibility upon himself.
People spontaneously erected longevity tablets for him, praying devoutly, hoping the General would live long and never die.
They never questioned why the General had lived for several thousand years, but instead joyfully kept worshipping, believing that he would surely lead everyone to obtain immortality.
Lan couldn't understand. Sometimes he would stare at the longevity tablet his mother worshipped, dazed.
What kind of person could be entrusted with such profound expectations by everyone?
Just thinking about it felt… unbelievable.
And the General truly had fulfilled everyone's wishes.
He couldn't bear to let any Yaoqing person be sad, often personally going to their homes to solve their problems.
This point, Lan had already personally experienced when he was little.
He'd heard so many of the General's deeds that his ears had grown calluses.
When he finally entered the General's Mansion, Lan had a feeling of "everyone is drunk while only I am sober."
Why had no one ever questioned the General's decisions?
Was no one concerned about that masked man who seemed to have tried to assassinate the Chief Strategist and the General?
Lan asked his colleagues, and they righteously replied, "That's the General! He doesn't make mistakes. If he does something, there must be some profound meaning to it. It's just that dull people like us can't guess what it is."
Another, somewhat older colleague, couldn't bear to hear Lan doubting the General, and gave him a fierce glare.
Seeing this, someone else stepped in to smooth things over, "What do you all think, when will the General be willing to ascend the throne? I really want to see His Majesty clad in the yellow dragon robe…"
Everyone started talking all at once, the discussion getting heated. Finally, one person concluded,
"Tonight I'll write a ten-thousand-word petition to persuade the General to ascend the throne!"
"A brilliant plan!"
The others chimed in, saying they would all sign it together.
Lan, "…"
Even if the General wanted to destroy the universe, you'd still gladly be the vanguard for him, wouldn't you?
After finishing a day of work, when he returned to the General's Mansion the next day, he heard his colleagues angrily cursing the man who had betrayed the General yesterday.
"Hah, serves him right!"
"Heaven has eyes!"
Lan stood there listening for a while, then turned and went to find the General.
The General never put on airs. He often joked around with his subordinates, and any of them could see him at any time.
The General didn't like fancy things. The mansion was pathetically bare, only a few tables here and there. As for a bed…
It was said the General didn't sleep, and it was the Chief Strategist who had forcibly dragged one into the General's Mansion.
As soon as Lan entered, he saw the masked man still there, grinning shamelessly as he cozied up beside the Chief Strategist.
The General looked completely out of it, those dead, lightless eyes as if staring at something no ordinary person could see.
Lan quietly watched Zero.
Zero soon came back to himself, shifting his gaze away from the system panel, and said with some distress, "Aha, don't make trouble, stop bullying him."
The Chief Strategist slowly typed out a question mark. He couldn't understand why the General's attitude was so calm, and immediately protested indignantly, "General, this time the two of us almost got killed by Him, okay?!"
Lan looked at the General who seemed to have just returned from the brink of death. But the other said, "Looking at the result, it turned out fine. Now you and I are immortal, we can work 24 hours without stopping… And the fruits we haven't touched can be shared with others too."
Lan, "…"
The quiet boy didn't know how to evaluate that.
The Chief Strategist exploded in anger, "Can you act like a human? Can you treat me like a human?!"
"I'm not the kind of boss who forces subordinates to work overtime. Four days on, three off, or six on, one off, take your pick."
Zero cooperated very earnestly in changing his words. Then he looked up and, seeing Lan, couldn't help letting out a "wow."
If normally the General's eyes were dim and lifeless, like staring at some riddle whose answer he already knew, now, the instant he saw Lan, his eyes changed, as if he were looking at some amusing creature.
When Zero saw UR, he asked with great excitement, "When do you want to be General? How about I hand it over to you before the end of the workday today?"
Lan, "…"
The boy on his second day of work had never expected Zero to say something like this.
At the side, the masked man wasn't pleased. Pretending to be angry, he shot back, "I'm your lover, or your son, why don't I get to be General?!"
Just that one sentence instantly made Lan's brain crash.
The Chief Strategist leaned over, patted Lan's shoulder, and said with a world-weary tone, "The Aeon of 'Elation' is just talking nonsense. Don't mind it."
Lan, 'Who? A Aeon?'
"No, the position of General is reserved for Lan," Zero said.
When Aha heard Zero refuse, his eyes rolled and he continued, "Then when will you declare yourself Emperor? I want to be Yaoqing's next emperor."
Zero casually followed his line of thought and said offhandedly, "No chance. Whether crown prince or general, I decided long ago, both are for Lan."
Aha pressed further, "Then if I kill him, won't I be able to be emperor?"
The General said, in a tone that allowed no argument, "You cannot touch him, or else I will kill you."
As if the General wasn't talking about "killing a Aeon," but just chatting about the weather.
Lan looked to the Chief Strategist. The other seemed to have already seen countless storms, naturally ignoring the tense atmosphere between the Aeon and the General.
The Chief Strategist even had the mood to offer Lan some snacks.
Aha let out a piercing laugh, chuckling as he said, "I'll be waiting for that day."
Then, the masked man disappeared.
Zero glanced at the map, and after confirming that Aha had left, said to Lan, "That just now was the Aeon of 'Joy,' don't mind him. He just shows up at the General's Mansion from time to time."
Lan didn't know what to say, so he only gave a faint "mm."
Zero looked at the panel, very satisfied with the promising UR. The more he looked, the happier he felt, and he couldn't help but give a few more instructions, "If you ever run into him, don't worry. Just treat him like a bratty kid and humor him."
The Chief Strategist muttered faintly, "Treat Him like a bratty kid? And you yourself aren't one?"
Zero, pen in hand, was writing on a document while trading jabs with the Chief Strategist.
After writing for a while, he set his pen down and placed the annotated document to the side.
Zero, practiced and smooth, reached for another tall stack of untouched documents.
The moment he picked them up, he felt something was off. Looking closely, it was a whole finger thick.
Lan, "…"
'Wait, you guys actually wrote all this?'
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