Qing Chen nodded slightly in acknowledgment, but remained silent throughout.
After Qingchen, the parents' meeting returned, the members of Daylight returned, the knight reserves returned, and all those who had left home returned to prepare for a funeral.
Even Ji Guanya and Si Nianhua, the two representatives of the Li and Qing families, came.
Li Tongyun held Xiao Zhenji's hand and followed behind Jiang Xue. Both girls had changed into black dresses with white flowers tied around their chests, and they cried as they walked.
Of this sorrow, 30% is due to the loss of Boss He, 20% is heartache for Qingchen's injuries, and 50% is the price he paid for returning to see his mother for the first time after running away from home...
Seeing Qingchen's injuries, Xiaozhenqi felt sorry for him and held his hand, saying, "Master, it must hurt a lot."
Seeing their long faces, Qingchen smiled and opened his palm: "Little Tongyun, here's a gift for you."
A forbidden species in North America: the immortal rove beetle.
Containment conditions: After being fed with thirty-six drops of tears, it recognizes its master and must be fed with eighteen drops of tears every month. Otherwise, it will fly away 800 kilometers and hide until someone finds it again and feeds it with tears.
After recognizing the master, it can spray corrosive liquid to cover a 30-meter area in front of it, and can be used once a day.
A tissue box and a rove beetle are indeed perfect for Li Tongyun and Jinguji Maki, these two little crybabies.
At this moment, the rove beetle smelled the tears and immediately flew to Xiaotongyun's shoulder, sucking up the tears that fell from her chin drop by drop.
After it had eaten its fill, it let Xiao Tongyun hold it in her hand. The pure golden rove beetle was about the length of a finger and obediently did not resist.
Xiao Tongyun said, "Thank you, Brother Qingchen."
Qingchen patted her head and smiled, "Don't be sad anymore. Boss He left without any regrets."
Li Tongyun suddenly felt that these words seemed more like something Qing Chen had said to her.
At this moment, Luo Wanya arrived with the parents' meeting. Qing Chen looked at Xiao San and said, "Are you ready? We're going to collect some interest."
The mistress looked excited: "We're ready. Back in City 20, we killed 90% of the cockroaches, but now we've made up for it all."
Qingchen nodded: "Let's go, the funeral is about to begin."
...
...
The memorial service began.
There was no music, no flowers, no wailing; everything proceeded in silence.
Qingchen stood quietly at the front, watching Yu Cheng, Jiu Ran, and others from Jiuzhou carry the wooden coffin and sink it into the dug grave.
He didn't place Boss He on the precipice of Qingshan Mountain, but at the foot of Qingshan Mountain.
Because Mr. Zheng said that placing it below would allow everyone to see it, and he could also be closer to the students and not feel lonely. Mr. He is actually a person who is very afraid of being alone.
The wooden coffin was covered with soil, and the tombstone was very simple: a black and white photo. In the photo, Mr. He was holding a black scepter, wearing a well-tailored gray suit, and smiling brightly.
The name under the photo is He Jinqiu.
Below his name was a line of words carved by Qing Chen himself: He is a very skilled swordsman.
After the burial, Zheng Yuandong looked at Qingchen and said, "You were the one who fought alongside him in the last moments of his life, and you are also the one who brought his body back. Say something to everyone."
Qing Chen turned around and looked at the Time Travelers behind him.
Some of them are already adults and have joined parent-teacher associations or Kunlun.
Some of them are still minors and are still learning combat skills at school.
Some of them are even very young.
After a moment of silence, Qing Chen said, "Consider today your coming-of-age ceremony."
"In times of war, your coming of age does not begin at 18, but from the moment your protectors and those who fought alongside you die."
"From that moment on, you must learn to take up arms and fight those enemies. You must learn how to protect your comrades, because war doesn't care how old you are."
"The day the Roosevelt Kingdom's air fortress reaches the Eastern Continent, we will all begin a long march of life and death; we have no choice."
"We don't need to grieve for too long over Mr. He's death. He just did what he was supposed to do. Now, it's our turn."
"Boss He said that the places he wants to go don't require courage, but the places we want to go do require courage."
After Qing Chen finished speaking, he returned to the war fortress.
As he left, he looked back at the top of the sheer cliff in the green mountain. There, Shen Daiyunluo was sitting alone, drinking, taking small sips, seemingly lost in thought.
The students dispersed calmly, as if they were all gathering some kind of strength.
At this time, the news that the Boeing 757 was suddenly attacked by two NATO fighter jets during its flight made headlines in various countries. Currently, the plane has crashed in Poland, and it is still uncertain whether there are any survivors.
When Qingchen saw this news, he suddenly fell into deep thought.
He suspected that someone had infiltrated their ranks, but he couldn't pinpoint who it was.
Chapter 902, The Puppet Master's Provocation
Qingchen sat in the war fortress, his eyes closed in deep thought.
Who is the enemy?
He currently has only three enemies in the surface world: one is the Western Continent forces led by the Kingdom Organization.
One is Zhong Yu, who has just returned to the real world.
The last one is... Keihara.
More accurately, it was the chief steward behind Qingyuan.
The facts have proven that the other side already had the ability to travel between the two worlds, and that puppet named Qingyuan may have even created hundreds of puppets.
The other party is like a virus, copying each other and spreading endlessly.
First, the fighter jets attacking the aircraft must be from the Western Continent, but Qing Chen doesn't believe the other side has that intelligence capability.
It's impossible for Zhongyu either, because Zhongyu has just returned and is too busy to take care of himself.
So it must be the puppeteer Zong Cheng. The other party's puppets have already infiltrated his side, but he has no way to deal with them!
The puppeteers are becoming increasingly active; we must find a way to deal with them.
At this moment, Zheng Yuandong arrived at the war fortress, and Qing Chen asked, "Boss Zheng, where did that time traveler named Auden go? Did the intelligence organization find him?"
“We found him,” Zheng Yuandong said. “When we found him in the airport restroom, he was already in a vegetative state, lying unconscious on the floor.”
Qing Chen was startled: "Zhong Yu has already shed his skin and taken on a different body."
The other party changed their appearance at the airport, and no one knew which flight they would choose or where they would fly to.
With so many flights taking off and landing every day, how would anyone know which plane the other person was on?
Zheng Yuandong frowned: "If this kind of person comes into the country, it will probably be a disaster. In the outer world, if he is determined not to get entangled with me, I alone may not be able to do anything to him. Now he has completely possessed an ordinary person's body, so it is difficult to find him. He can also change bodies at any time."
Qing Chen pondered, "He can only have two destinations: one is to return directly to China and gather his old subordinates... Da Yu! My friend Da Yu, where are you?!"
Da Yu said with a dark face, "Don't try to get close to me."
Qing Chen asked, "Contact your former subordinates and see if Zhong Yu has contacted them. If Zhong Yu returns to China, the first thing he will do will definitely be to rebuild his power base."
Da Yu shook his head: "No, Zhong Yu has not contacted anyone."
"Hmm, could it be that they went to North America?" Qing Chen said, "That's interesting."
At this very moment, a plane bound for Washington from Courchevel International Airport has just landed at the airport.
An elderly white man, leaning on a cane, walked out of the terminal with a smile. Beside him, a young man was talking excitedly: "Washington is one of the cities with the most Time Travelers in North America, second only to New York. New York is the headquarters of the Kingdom and Future Organization, and the atmosphere there is very oppressive. Washington is different; it has the largest number of undocumented immigrants in the country... Being undocumented means that they don't want to work for the forces behind the Kingdom and Future; they prefer to live their own lives in seclusion."
The number of time travelers across North America is similar to that in China, around 100,000.
However, the Kingdom Organization has more than 30,000 members, and the Future Organization has more than 20,000 members. This means that there are still tens of thousands of Time Travelers living among the common people, just like the few Time Travelers in the wingsuit flying training base, living their own little lives.
The white old man chuckled and said, "Young man, you're not a time traveler, so how do you know so much?"
The young man laughed and said, "There are several bloggers in North America who keep their identities hidden and will explain what's happening in the real world every now and then. By the way, do you know the Joker from the real world? His Chinese name is Qing Chen."
The old man raised an eyebrow: "I know, so what?"
The young man said, "This popular science article is about him. It is said that he has arrived in the Western Continent and killed the Silver Duke of the Roosevelt Kingdom. By the way, he is also the one who was very popular in the Western Continent a while ago, known as the Light of the White Man."
The old man was stunned for a long time before finally managing to utter a single sentence in Chinese: "...Holy crap!"
The old man was Zhong Yu, who had just possessed the body of someone who had come to North America. In a daze, he seemed to hear Qing Chen whisper and laugh in his ear: Hehe.
This is outrageous!
...
...
At night, Qingchen carried four bottles of Moutai up the cliff of Qingshan Mountain.
Surrounded by the vast ocean and bathed in moonlight, Kamishiro Yunra sat alone on the edge of the cliff, drinking alone, with empty wine bottles scattered all over the ground.
The young nobleman sat in the moonlight, his white hunting robes seemingly coated with a layer of silver.
He smiled and asked Qingchen, "The night is long and I can't sleep. Why can't you sleep either?"
Qingchen sat down next to him and handed him a bottle of Moutai: "You've been drinking here all day. You're probably not familiar with Boss He, so why are you drinking alone?"
Kamishiro Unra laughed nonchalantly, "I never drink alone; drinking is a very enjoyable thing."
Qingchen shook his head: "I've hardly ever drunk alcohol in my life, so I don't really understand why drinking makes people happy."
Kamishiro Yunra asked, "When do you think a person is most likely to be happy in their life?"
Qing Chen didn't say anything.
“It was when I was little!” Kamishiro Yunra said with a smile. “When I was four, I listened to my mother tell fairy tales and believed that Cinderella could really get a pair of glass slippers. When I was eight, I stepped in puddles after the rain and looked at the rainbow in the air, thinking that I had obtained a cloud. When I was sixteen, I looked at the little tagalong behind me named ‘Kamishiro Sora’ and thought that I could take her to see the end of the world.”
Kumashiro Yunra: "But when I grew up, I realized that fairy tales are all fake, and stepping in puddles will get your shoes wet. When you grow up, you have to face reality, complicated interpersonal relationships, endless work, the frustration of not being able to achieve your ideals... But drinking can make you forget all of this."
"Where's the little tagalong? She's still by your side," Qingchen asked calmly.
Kamishiro Yunluo replied irrelevantly: "Qingchen, the departure of a friend is a painful thing, so if we are all going to part ways eventually, it's best not to take it too seriously."
Qing Chen scoffed, "You're just deceiving yourself. You clearly care about it the most, so why pretend you don't? It's not carefree at all... That's not good."
“Sometimes I also feel that I am wrong,” Kamishiro Yunluo opened the bottle and took a big gulp. “You know the story of my father and the old man of the Li family, right? One is from the Kamishiro family, and the other is the head of the Li family. They were friends for life.”