88: Chapter 88 The Empress sent a video: Father God, I have conquered a country!

The moment the holographic projection unfolded, the cozy and luxurious villa study instantly transformed into a shura field filled with the scent of gunpowder and rust.

"Zzz—" The crackling of electricity vanished as the holographic image stabilized.

Jiang Chen sat in his executive chair, the teacup in his hand still steaming, but the scene before him made him instinctively hold his breath.

There was no soft, intimate lighting, no breathable pajamas. There was only the towering flames and the mechanical wreckage strewn everywhere.

Jiang Wanqiu stood at the very top of that expanse of ruins.

Her originally ink-black, shimmering nano-combat suit was now covered in dust and scratches, with dark red bloodstains—the enemy's, of course—clinging to it in several places.

Her long silver hair was blown into a tangled mess by the wind, but this did not diminish her beauty in the slightest; instead, it made her look like a thorny rose blooming in purgatory. Wild, dangerous, yet breathtakingly beautiful.

"Father God!" Seeing Jiang Chen's figure appear, Jiang Wanqiu immediately suppressed the chilling killing intent on her face.

She plunged the high-frequency vibrating blade in her hand, which was still dripping with coolant, into the ground, knelt on one knee, and looked up, her eyes shining like two burning little suns: "I have not failed your mission!"

"Wanqiu... has brought you a huge surprise!"

Looking at the scrap metal scattered across the ground and the smoking fortresses in the distance, Jiang Chen couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth. This surprise... was a bit hardcore.

"Ahem, well... Wanqiu." Jiang Chen set down his teacup, trying his best to make his voice sound like a god who had seen the grand scope of the world, "This commotion... isn't it a bit too loud? Who did you say you wiped out just now?"

"The Brotherhood of Steel!" Jiang Wanqiu stood up and pointed to the flag stamped with a gear emblem that had been trampled into the mud at her feet, her tone full of pride: "It's that bandit organization that has been monopolizing the northern energy mines and daring to intercept our caravans!"

"Relying on a few heavy mechs from the old era, they have never taken Dawn City seriously."

Speaking of this, she suddenly pulled out an electronic reader from her bosom—it was slightly worn but well-preserved—and held it above her head like a treasure: "It is all thanks to the 'Art of War' that you bestowed upon me last time, Father God!"

"Wanqiu studied it day and night and finally grasped its profound mysteries!"

"Things like 'making a feint to the east while attacking in the west,' 'advancing secretly via an unexpected path,' and that move, 'extracting the firewood from under the cauldron'!"

Jiang Wanqiu became more excited as she spoke, gesturing wildly: "I first sent Grand Commander Lei Zhen with a team to feign an attack on their east gate, banging gongs and drums to create a thunderous commotion!"

"Then, I personally led the elite troops, wearing the cloaking raincoats you bestowed upon us, to sneak into their energy core and directly cut off their power source!"

"Those idiots drove their mechs out, but they ran out of power halfway through and ended up lying on the ground like sitting ducks!"

"That battle was truly satisfying!"

Jiang Chen listened, dumbfounded. He looked at the electronic reader, and in his mind, the scene of him casually zipping up a few gigabytes of e-books and sending them over flashed by. At the time, he just wanted the girl to learn a few more characters and cultivate her sentiments. Who could have imagined? This girl actually used the 'Art of War' to fight a mech battle? And she actually won, for heaven's sake? Is this the legendary 'knowledge changes destiny'? The wisdom of the ancients, in the Wasteland three thousand years later, could actually perform a dimensionality reduction strike?

"Well done." Jiang Chen gave a thumbs up, praising her from the bottom of his heart, "Applying what you've learned—you are truly worthy of being the one I chose."

Upon receiving the praise, Jiang Wanqiu's cheeks instantly flushed red. She fidgeted, kicked a small stone at her feet, and said softly: "Actually... it is mainly because Father God taught me well."

"Now, the entire Northern Wasteland has been incorporated into the territory of Dawn City. Our territory has expanded by a full double compared to before!"

"Moreover, in their warehouse, we found hundreds of tons of high-purity enriched uranium, and also..." She paused slightly, turned to the side, and revealed the open space behind her guarded by heavy troops. "And these... 'living' spoils of war."

Jiang Chen followed her gaze. He saw a dense mass of figures kneeling in the center of the ruins. There were at least a thousand of them. They were locked in specially made alloy shackles, their heads bowed, shivering, looking pitiful.

"Captives?" Jiang Chen frowned. In a place like the Wasteland where resources were extremely scarce, keeping captives was an extremely extravagant affair.

"Yes, captives." Jiang Wanqiu sighed, the expression on her face becoming somewhat disgusted, as if she were looking at a pile of useless trash: "Normally, according to the rules of the Wasteland, the defeated are to be executed or exiled to the radiation zone to fend for themselves."

"But... that old man Zero said these guys have somewhat special genes and might have some research value, so he asked me to keep them for now."

She walked over, used the tip of her boot to kick the captive in the front, and said in a cold tone: "Hey, look up! Let Father God see your stupid faces!"

The captive shuddered, as if extremely terrified, and slowly lifted its head. And it was at this moment, when it looked up, that the teacup in Jiang Chen's hand on this side of the screen fell onto the table with a "clatter." Water spilled all over his pants, but he couldn't care less.

He widened his eyes, staring fixedly at that face in the holographic projection, feeling a chill shoot straight from the soles of his feet to his scalp. That was not a human face at all! The gray-white skin looked like some kind of rough rock texture. No nose, only two breathing holes. The eyes were large, pitch black, with no whites, like the compound eyes of an insect. The most absurd thing was that, although this thing was kneeling, its limbs were disproportionately long, its arms hanging down almost to its knees, with knotted muscles full of explosive power.

"This... what is this thing?" Jiang Chen's voice had changed pitch. A mutant? No! Even if it were radiation mutation, there should be a limit, right? This has changed species entirely!

"Wanqiu, are you sure... these are people from the Brotherhood of Steel?"

"Yes." Jiang Wanqiu looked at Jiang Chen's reaction with some confusion, "They are the coolie class of the Brotherhood of Steel, usually responsible for mining and carrying heavy objects."

"It is said... they are 'bio-slaves' created by some crazy scientists in the old era who fused alien genes."

"But don't worry, Father God, although these guys are ugly and strong, their brains don't work well; as long as you give them something to eat, they will do whatever you tell them."

She curled her lip in disgust: "It's just that they eat too much! These thousand-plus mouths eat up half a warehouse of our synthetic food every day!"

"I was even thinking about burying them to use as fertilizer."

Bio-slaves? Strong? Brains don't work well? Will work for food? Jiang Chen keenly captured these keywords. In his mind, the unfinished underground works at the West Suburb Base flashed by, along with that grand plan to hollow out an entire mountain to hide a warship. Originally, according to the current engineering progress, even with a dozen engineering teams working day and night, it wouldn't be finished for a year or a year and a half. But what if... there were such a group of tireless, immensely strong, and unpaid "wage slaves"?

Jiang Chen looked at those gray-white monsters, and his eyes gradually changed. Those weren't monsters? Those were clearly a group of cute, hardworking, and free—ultimate wage slaves!

"Stay your blade!" Jiang Chen slammed the table, shouted at the screen, his tone as urgent as if he were snatching a bride: "Wanqiu! Do not bury them!"

"These ugly things... I have a great use for them!"