Not only were the participants from other countries taken aback, but even those within the empire itself were quite alarmed. However, at a star system-level meeting, aside from Ling Tianchu, Qin Muge's deputy, who had some say on behalf of the leader, the other generals seated on the sidelines generally had very little opportunity to speak. Moreover, raising anything contrary to their leader at such a high-level meeting would only make them a laughingstock.
The leaders of their nations, who had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mica Star and fearing the war would spill over into their own countries, readily agreed upon hearing this and hastily clung to General Qin's coattails. To them, the Crystalless Empire was a power they could only look up to; even though it had participated in the previous intergalactic war, it had been an innocent victim of the conflict. Seeing a general leading such a powerful intergalactic coalition army at this time was a welcome boost to their national security.
Although there was some regret that it wasn't General Qin leading the way, upon reflection, Qin Muge undoubtedly held many positions and was extremely busy, so there was no reason for him to have to fight for a country as far away as the edge of the Red Cloud Star System.
Located on the outer edge of the Red Cloud Galaxy, but with the national strength to defend themselves, more and more people hesitated. They were naturally aware of the power of the Crystalless Empire; the number of planets encompassed by the Tianzi Star's defense planetary fortress belt was even greater than the combined number of planets of several of their own countries.
That's why they hoped that Qin Muge would personally lead the troops, with the God of War General Qin leading the army. This reassurance and calming effect on the people would be much better than they had planned.
Those countries that were neither located on the outer reaches of the Red Cloud Galaxy nor particularly powerful began to automatically look towards the other generals of the Heavenly Star. Based on their understanding of the Heavenly Star, the most logical choice at this moment was for General Qin himself to lead the army. Although the combined strength of several countries was not as great as that of the Heavenly Star, the combined strength of the entire star system was not to be underestimated, making Qin Muge the most suitable commander.
They were naturally very familiar with General Min Kaiyang, and there were many speculations about his identity among the rumors circulating in various countries. After all, the Min family only had one close advisor to the emperor. Some said he was the future king of the empire, some said he was in love with General Qin, and some even said they were mutually in love.
But they hadn't expected this general's opportunity for rapid advancement to come so quickly. While any one of Qin Muge's personal guard captains could easily lead a squad, did they truly possess the ability to command such a massive army?
Probably no one in the world except Qin Muge knows the answer to this question.
As a fellow general, Yan Zihe naturally had the right to attend the intergalactic conference as an observer. Upon hearing Qin Muge's words, surprise flashed in her eyes at first, and then gradually turned into anger.
She quickly lowered her head to look at the table in front of her, forcibly suppressing all her emotions so that the shrewd people present wouldn't notice anything amiss. From the start of the meeting until now, she hadn't understood a single moment. Although Qin Muge had always given others the impression of being this way, Yan Zihe hadn't expected that she would still act so willfully on such a crucial matter concerning the entire galaxy.
She couldn't understand why he agreed to join the Galaxy Alliance from the very beginning. After dealing with Qin Muge for so many years, she simply couldn't believe that he would extend a helping hand to some small countries on the verge of extinction, especially with a third of the Empire's military force, without expecting anything in return.
But Qin Muge agreed, and agreed so readily.
Besides, appointing Min Kaiyang as the commander of the Allied Legion was the second biggest question she couldn't understand today. He was clearly in his prime, and even if she didn't want to admit it, no one in the entire empire could shake her position. Why would she go to such lengths to appoint Min Kaiyang as the legion commander, something so simple?
Qin Muge always made decisions with an air of nonchalance, yet her aura of effortless power, capable of obliterating entire galaxies with a mere flick of her wrist, commanded respect from everyone. Even today, on a matter concerning the future development of the galaxy, Qin Muge's attitude remained unchanged, as if she held the entire Red Cloud Galaxy and the P4 Nebula in utter contempt.
She was like this during the interstellar war, and perhaps she will still be like this in the future when an even larger interstellar war occurs. This Qin Muge made Yan Zihe feel inexplicably terrified and angry. For a moment, some uncontrollable thoughts even popped into her mind, such as submitting and never being her enemy again.
Fortunately, she regained control in the next second. No one knows what the future of the empire will look like in the hands of such a person who doesn't care about anyone or anything.
Yan Zihe even absurdly felt that, in her eyes, the Crystalless Empire was no different from these countries that could decide life and death in an instant with a casual remark.
How did my father end up losing to someone like that?
Yan Zihe wanted to ask, but she never heard an answer.
The other members of the guard were equally shocked. They had always obeyed only Qin Muge, and the thought that they might be included in the mobilization of 30% of the empire's power and ordered to obey Min Kaiyang filled them with envy and a small, resentful feeling.
Such a great opportunity didn't fall into their laps. Moreover, before the general made his decision, there was a clear murderous aura surrounding him. What exactly made the general change his mind in that instant? They wanted to know.
As the core AI of the Empire, Min Kaiyang was naturally capable of monitoring meetings of this caliber. He was somewhat surprised after hearing Qin Muge's decision, if this feeling of being beyond one's thought patterns could be called surprise.
He had spent more time with Qin Muge than anyone else on this planet, but he had to admit that perhaps to truly understand her, he still had to go through the person in front of him.
So he told Chaoge about it.
Chaoge: ...0.0 Do I need to congratulate you on becoming the commander of the Galaxy Alliance Legion? Even an AI has vanity, I've learned something new _(:3)∠)_
Little Red Riding Hood had just resumed normal system operation. Although it still didn't have enough energy to materialize, it wanted to make a facepalm gesture.
[He means, he wants you to judge what Qin Muge's decision means.] Little Red Riding Hood silently reminded Chaoge in her heart.
Oh, I see.
Chaoge nodded knowingly—a few seconds later, meeting Min Kaiyang's golden, emotionless eyes that seemed to hold a question mark, she asked him with some surprise, "Where did I give you the impression that I know the General very well? Tell me, and I'll change."
Min Kaiyang: "..."
Chaoge felt his gaze had grown colder, and she couldn't take it anymore. She had no choice but to admit defeat and ask him to repeat the contents of the meeting.
Although deep down I didn't think I could possibly glean anything from Qin Muge's perpetually inconsistent expressions and moods when listening to her hold such a high-level meeting.
Min Kaiyang quickly replayed the entire meeting for her. Chaoge sighed that the AI was really amazing while admiring Qin Muge's domineering and cool demeanor from every angle. She secretly rejoiced that she could also secretly spy on someone one day.
Little Red Riding Hood: ...With such a master, I would rather die.
However, when Chao Ge saw what was displayed on Qin Muge's small blue screen, she was completely dumbfounded. What was this surreal, dreamlike feeling?! What was flashing on that guy's desk wasn't some important document; it was clearly the very thing happening right now in her room!
A dignified Grand General of the Crystalless Empire, what's wrong with him?! Learning from petty thugs and engaging in such petty theft! Did he consider the feelings of the national leaders around him?! They'd be running home crying!
Chaoge felt slightly annoyed, thinking that what she was watching might also be seen by the other woman. This inexplicable feeling of seeing what the other was doing from thousands of miles away was very strange to her.
In the end, in order not to let Min Kaiyang down by showing her this, Chaoge reluctantly came to a conclusion: "Uh, maybe, she just had a whim?" And to be honest, this hypothesis is very likely to apply to Qin Muge.
Whether Min Kaiyang believed it or not, Chaoge herself believed it.
Since Little Red Riding Hood indicated that she would explain the matter, and Min Kaiyang had been away long enough, and the meeting was about to end, he went straight back to the palace. Although Chaoge thought that such a powerful AI could easily digitize him and instantly teleport him to the palace via any internet connection.
Little Red Riding Hood finally began to seriously explain the whole story, but before she could, Chaoge interrupted her.
"Are you and Min Kaiyang very close? Is it something special? Are you born to the same mother?"
What the hell are these questions?! We're all AI, where did we get our mothers?! Little Red Riding Hood (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻
Hearing Little Red Riding Hood's almost roaring anger, Chao Ge actually reached out and picked at her ears this time. The long-lost noise in her brain made her feel like her brainwaves were about to switch channels, like the sudden death channel or something.
"Oh, then I'm relieved. I advise you to stay away from it, okay? Qin Muge got angry just now. Although I don't want to say it's because she saw what happened here, it makes me seem narcissistic. But the fact is, this core AI of Tianzi Star has completely lost her trust." Chaoge only brought this up now, her expression indifferent, as if she had mentioned it casually.
What Chaoge didn't say was that when she saw Qin Muge's performance at that time, she was completely relieved.
This person, even when she didn't know, never betrayed her trust in the slightest.
☆ Chapter 34: The Thirty-Fourth Evaluation of General Qin
As soon as Chaoge spoke, Little Red Riding Hood was clearly stunned. She obviously did not expect that her unreliable master could actually understand the emotions of the mysterious Qin Muge.
"How...how did you know?" Little Red Riding Hood decided to ask prudently.
Chaoge looked up at the ceiling, pretending to think, as if she needed to give a careful answer. Then she lowered her head and stared intently at the wristband on her hand, answering seriously, "Intuition."
Little Red Riding Hood: ...I'm actually looking forward to her answer, I must have caught a virus too _(:3)∠)_
Little Red Riding Hood decided to stop torturing herself and change the subject. "Actually, there was a reason why I chose you as the person to travel through time."
Chaoge blinked, glanced at the window, rubbed her earlobe, made a slightly annoyed expression, ruffled her long, curly black hair, and whispered, "Ah, the wind was a bit strong just now, what did you say?"
Little Red Riding Hood sighed dramatically, perfectly mimicking human emotions.
The conversation between the two people and the system began, followed by a long silence. After a long while, it was Chaoge who finally gave in, because she realized she couldn't ignore this topic that directly affected her interests. "Tell me, how did you end up choosing me over my handsome, charming, and gentle brother?"
Little Red Riding Hood: Why do I suddenly feel like I don't want to continue talking?
"It's not because of you, it's because of Qin Muge. The core AI of the Heavenly Star in her possession and I were originally technologies from a higher dimension. Our core system records were only for assisting the most powerful monarch of that country. In our country, every future monarch would have this system at the time of their birth. It was for the development of the country's economy and technology, while I was responsible for improving military strength. We each had our own roles."
Because of a war in a higher-dimensional plane, we fell into a torn fifth-dimensional space. Due to insufficient energy, we automatically entered a dormant state, and in the spacetime turbulence, we each fell into different eras of Earth's space. It was picked up by Earthlings and entered into a game strategy system. When energy is insufficient, we can only follow the newly programmed system, with the operator completing levels to obtain energy, and ultimately reactivating the core program to help the operator become king.
Because Kaiyang was entered into the interstellar strategy game, he automatically teleported Qin Muge to Tianzi Star within the energy search range, allowing Qin Muge to level up step by step according to the entered system, eventually reaching his current level. "Little Red Riding Hood paused here. During this process, it also fell silent many times. Chaoge intuitively felt that many things might have happened there, but they were not the focus of the story at the moment, so they were glossed over.
When Chaoge heard that Qin Muge had also been kidnapped and brought to Tianzi Star to do some kind of nonsense mission because he picked up a game, his mind went blank, and he felt that he had vaguely grasped some truth.
This process is so similar to my own. Why did I end up on the same path as my counterpart in another world?
"But there is only one energy source that can allow us to complete the final activation step, and that energy source is the one currently available on the P4 Nebula—the only virus in the universe that is incompatible with us. We both belong to biomimetic systems, capable of self-upgrading and maintenance. From the moment we were developed, as long as there is energy, we can endlessly upgrade ourselves according to the needs of the environment. We and that type of virus are both achieving higher levels of evolution by devouring each other; this is an instruction engraved in our core program."
From the very beginning, Kaiyang wanted to evolve to its final form, but for some reason, Qin Muge never advocated for external expansion. However, in this plane, apart from Kaiyang's master, only the master I chose can fight against that virus.
Kaiyang probably couldn't wait any longer and forcibly woke me up through the interconnected part of our core program. That's how I found you in my world and brought you here." Little Red Riding Hood stopped there, leaving Chaoge to process the enormous amount of information.
After a long while, Chaoge felt like she could hear her brain working. When she saw the white smoke rising from the top of her head from her accelerated thinking, she opened her brown eyes wide and asked Little Red Riding Hood in an almost incredulous voice, "You actually think I can replace her?"
The Qin General, whom Chaoge found utterly unbelievable, enviable, and incredibly powerful—a force that could be found nowhere else in the world—made Chaoge think every time she saw her that she probably couldn't find anyone as formidable as herself in any parallel universe.
"So what? If she can do it, so can you." If that's all she's talking about, Little Red Riding Hood doesn't think Yan Chaoge is any less capable than Qin Muge. They have the same soul and the same potential; the only difference is time.
Yan Chaoge subconsciously shook her head, unaware of how exaggerated the frequency and arc of her head movement were, as if she had heard the most unbelievable thing of the year. She seemed to be trying her best to calm herself down and maintain her normal thinking ability. After a while, she asked in a calm tone that sounded no different from usual, "She has been here for a long time, hasn't she?"
Knowing that the average lifespan of the people in the Crystalless Empire is around three hundred years, Chaoge asked this question.
Little Red Riding Hood checked Min Kaiyang's records and gave Chaoge a positive answer.
Chaoge didn't dare ask how long that would be, only knowing that it would be very, very long, perhaps long enough for a person to go from youth to old age, or even turn into a handful of yellow earth and be swept away by the wind.
After receiving this answer, Chaoge suddenly hesitated to ask many of the questions she had originally intended to. She feared that if she knew the answer, she wouldn't know what kind of expression to wear when she saw Qin Muge again in the future.
"Little Red Riding Hood, I was right not to tell Min Kaiyang the truth earlier. Even if you tell him, it doesn't matter. I still have to say it: even if the system will never betray its master, even if all the system's considerations are for better development, it's no longer worth Qin Muge's time and effort." Because it's not human, it simply won't understand her.
Even though Qin Muge wasn't a good player, and even though Qin Muge and Min Kaiyang had agreed to upgrade it to the highest level, Qin Muge, standing in his position within the Crystalless Empire, had done right by everyone.
At least, she did not allow her people to be caught in war and strife, or to be displaced.
She is Qin Muge, the Great General Qin of the Crystalless Empire, a war goddess with terrifying power. But among all these titles, she has never forgotten that she is the guardian of this vast empire and its leader.
Why shouldn't such a powerful, reliable person who cares about his own people be loved and respected by the people?
Even the outbreak of the intergalactic war was not started by the Crystalless Empire. Qin Muge, relying on the empire's excellent military strength, kept the war far away from the planetary fortress belt of Tianzi Star, making Tianzi Star the victor in this war.
"You have no idea how much my heart aches for her, just thinking about how she lived such a long and lonely life in this place where she had no family or friends, for a group of completely unrelated humans." She initially just played it as a strategy game, but when she discovered that these people actually lived in this world, she didn't choose to leave after completing the game; instead, she stayed.
Chaoge simply couldn't imagine such a thing happening to her, because no matter how many times she asked herself, a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand times, she would never want to stay in this place.
Qin Muge single-handedly created such a powerful empire, and she also protected the people who lived and worked in peace here. The only people she felt sorry for were herself and Min Kaiyang.
She may have hoped for Min Kaiyang's support, and she may have regarded Min Kaiyang not only as a system but also as a friend. However, Min Kaiyang's response was that he had found the same person on the same planet Earth, existing in another parallel space.
If no one can defeat you, then I will find someone else to defeat you. There will always be someone who cannot resist the temptation of power and is willing to fight a battle against the P4 Nebula in order to become stronger.
This is probably Min Kaiyang's line of thinking.
What does it feel like to be betrayed and schemed against by a friend who has been with you for a long time? Just thinking about it made Chaoge feel an indescribable sadness and anger well up in her heart.
It's as if I'm the one who got hurt.
"Do you want to go back? I... I promised you that as long as I have enough energy, I can activate dimensional space jump and send you back to Earth. I don't have enough energy to activate the core program yet, so I won't be controlled by the core commands." Little Red Riding Hood sensed Chaoge's emotions and spoke urgently, as if she wanted to comfort Chaoge.
Chaoge paused for a moment, then a slow smile bloomed on her lips. Her deep brown eyes, illuminated by the sunlight streaming in from the window, appeared lighter and brighter, as if floating with beautiful halos. Her long black hair cascaded down her back, the elegant waves so graceful that one couldn't help but reach out and touch it.
She stood there in the sunlight, calmly saying a sentence with a gentle expression she herself could not have imagined: "Let's wait a little longer. Just thinking that I can go home while she has to stay here alone makes me want to spend more time with her."
After Qin Muge learned that Chaoge could also see what happened in his meeting, he not only didn't find anything wrong with it, but also opened the smart brain during the break after the meeting and began to tease Chaoge as usual.
"Did you miss me?"
When Chaoge saw the message displayed on Little Red Riding Hood's page, she clicked on it and saw this sentence. A helpless smile appeared on her lips, and she changed the subject: "Don't you love your Kaiyang anymore?" It wasn't that she wanted to bring this up, but Little Red Riding Hood had just pleaded for her, so Chaoge could only mention it briefly out of respect for Little Red Riding Hood.
Upon seeing this sentence, Qin Muge immediately laughed, a smile playing on her rosy lips. "Baby, what are you saying? I've always loved you. Are you touched?"
Chaoge: "A little bit. I'm actually moved by myself. I've managed to stick with this woman who's full of lies until now. I feel like I've moved the Emperor Star."
Qin Muge's smile froze. Oh ho, he's learned to tease her these past few days? "...Come here."
Chaoge laughed heartily upon seeing this message, then slowly typed in: "Just kidding. It's my honor to receive the general's favor."