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……

I don’t know what sort of day Fang Thirteen views today as.

After I broke into Sky Star City’s City Lord’s mansion, I put my inherent qualities as a scoundrel to full play. Long story short, my skills in breaking into another’s house is top-notch. Compared to those years when I was hustling and gathering a foundation of money in Lingyun City, breaking into a city’s small small City Lord’s mansion really couldn’t be counted as much. After I silently beat him up to make him understand the strength disparity between us, I easily lifted him up by the collar, dragged him out of the mansion, and went to preach about opening the city gates.

Even until the end, I didn’t reveal my identity, instead opting to use a rather crappy and coarse, yet useful, excuse:

“The City Lord is muddle-headed and tyrannical! He beat up young lady Thirteen and threw her out of the City Lord’s mansion afterwards, with the heart to drag us brothers towards death. Today we must rise up and rebel against this dog of a City Lord; we must open the city gates and surrender! This Sky Star City is the result of Fang Thirteen’s bitter work and meticulous care; I would rather accept compromise than be sent to die without reason!”

At first, the soldiers didn’t dare to accept my words as the truth, but that changed when Fang Lita personally admitted to these things. After finding out that Fang Thirteen’s whereabouts were indeed unknown, the soldiers lost all their desire to fight. The second-in-command was “taken care of” by the first-in-command, then the first-in-command was seized by someone else. To those outside who were preparing themselves for battle and pumped up to do so, what could be a greater blow?

It was unknown as to who took the initiative to open the city gates, but everyone soon after laid down their weapons one after another.

Star-Commanding City was stormed and seized by taking advantage of Fang Thirteen’s inattentiveness. Sky Star City, in comparison, suffered the fate of being handed over without a fight during a time when Fang Thirteen was unconscious. If the capture of Star-Commanding City caused Fang Thirteen’s formation, which she spent blood, sweat, and tears for, to turn into a wasted effort, then the fall of Sky Star City signifies the fall of a cornered beast who wasn’t even able to initiate its final struggle.

The remaining three cities surrendered in succession. However, two of the cities surrendered to Fang Yuan while only one city surrendered to West-Resisting City. This was understandable since, after all, Fang Yuan was a son of the Overlord of Zhao Chen. They were family whether they like it or not and the principle of not letting one’s good stuff fall into another’s hands was a truth that was clear. Moreover, they would be a bit more relieved by surrendering to Fang Yuan. The remaining city was a small one that was a little too close to Star-Commanding City and was being surrounded by West-Resisting City’s soldiers, so they had no other choice but to surrender to West-Resisting City.

Moon arranged some manpower over to manage the three cities.

I didn’t leave to return to West-Resisting City in the first moments of success. Instead, I decided to remain by the side of the unconscious Fang Thirteen.

When Fang Lita was venting the full wrath of his fury on Fang Thirteen’s body, I actually did want to prevent him from doing so. But ultimately, I didn’t do so because my only chance in inviting her lied in her being driven out of the City Lord’s mansion. Thus, I could only choose the road of being a detached bystander or else all the great efforts I had made beforehand would all turn into wasted effort.

During the downpour that day, I had already used healing magic to treat her when I was carrying her in my arms. However, even though magic does exist in this world, it isn’t omnipotent. Elemental magic is mainstream while the effects of healing magic are just so-so. Therefore, I immediately spent some money looking for doctors within the city. About 7 to 8 doctors worked their ***** off, and adding Fang Thirteen’s good fortune and fate on top of that, they were able to pull her out of the most dangerous phase.

After all the dust settled, Fang Thirteen woke up.

I just so happened to be sitting by the bedside reading a book when Fang Thirteen suddenly turned over in a daze. She still hadn’t opened her eyes, but her hand was constantly groping around for a feel of the environment around her. Soon after, though, she probably recalled the things that had happened before she lost consciousness and sat up on bed. I closed my book and inquired with a smile on my face:

“Awake?”

Hearing my voice, Fang Thirteen loosened her expression at first, but very quickly tensed her body and softly replied:

“Li De……”

“Isn’t this quite the surprise, for you to remember my name.”

I placed the book to the side and said:

“I must congratulate you, Fang Thirteen, for being a miracle in the medical world. You are the first one to ever suffer such heavy wounds yet survive; it really wasn’t easy.”

Fang Thirteen clearly wasn’t in the mood to joke around with me as the first question she shot at me was:

“Where is this?”

I answered:

“Don’t worry, we’re still in Sky Star City. I didn’t bring you to West-Resisting City because your body couldn’t handle it. This here is one of the housing you allocated to those West-Resisting City immigrants. But afterwards, your little brother arrested many West-Resisting City people and locked them up without letting them out, thus leaving some homes forever empty. This is one such housing.”

Fang Thirteen was silent for a moment before asking with a bitter smile:

“Then Sky Star City is now……”

I didn’t conceal what had happened and frankly responded:

“It all belongs to me. Sky Star City, Star-Commanding City and Starless City are now subordinate cities of West-Resisting City while the other 7 cities all belong to Fang Yuan. To be honest, you should have already predicted this result, yes? Especially after Star-Commanding City was captured. It was only a matter of time once it was seized.”

Fang Thirteen bit her lip as her two hands tightly clenched the sheets.

Her body faintly trembled. Even though I had played down the course of events, the implications within my words needed no explanation. The great efforts she had silently suffered had turned into smoke, the cities that she had bitterly fought for had now all become another’s for free. Was she willing to have such a thing happen? She certainly wasn’t. However, after Fang Thirteen took a deep breath, she still spoke to me with a smile:

“Congratulations. West-Resisting City’s sir City Lord does indeed have some tricks up his sleeves.”

The satire and her unwillingness in her words were as clear as day, but all of this eventually turned into a deep sigh.

I answered:

“It’s not time to congratulate me yet. I still haven’t obtained the thing I really want, my journey this time hasn’t come to an end.”

Fang Thirteen laughed, most likely laughing out of anger. She abruptly ended her angry laughter and asked me with a loud voice:

“The thing you really want? Is it me? In that case, then I have some bad news for you, sir Li De. I advise you to either return to West-Resisting City or kill me. Do you really think that I’ll return with you? After you’ve played me like a fool, do you really think that I’ll switch sides and turn into your subordinate in a wink of an eye? Do you think that I, Fang Thirteen, am so shameless? That I really don’t have even a bit of self-respect!”

I smirked:

“Of course not.”

After a pause, I continued:

“I’ve never believed that I could take you away so easily. But I do have assurance in doing so.”

Fang Thirteen shook her head and forced a smile in response:

“Stop with your words, I won’t……”

I interrupted her and indifferently yelled towards the outside:

“Aleya, bring Fang Lita in.”

Fang Thirteen’s body instantly shivered and the expression on her face froze in a split second. There was an incredulous look across her whole face. It appeared as if she had guessed what was going to happen, so she pleaded me with a soft voice:

“Li De, don’t……!”

Before the rest of the words came out, the sound of kicking and clanking could be heard from the doorway. The furniture in the room was thrown into disarray as Fang Lita stumbled along to crawl to the bed and wail with a miserable voice:

“Save me, big sis. Save me!!”

I smirked and told Fang Thirteen with absolute calmness:

“Young lady Thirteen. Perhaps you have some misunderstanding towards me. See, I’m not the type to say ‘if I can’t have it, I’ll destroy it’. These sorts of words are very low level in my opinion; they’re the type of words that a brainless talented person would say. Therefore, I won’t kill you. If I want something, I go all out to obtain it. Whether it’s by hook or crook, it doesn’t matter to me. As long as I’m able to obtain it in the end, I will do my damned hardest and use any methods.”

I focused my gaze at Fang Thirteen, then lowered my voice and commented:

“Therefore, let’s have a talk now, shall we? Fang Thirteen. It’s not our first time having such a deep discussion, yes?”