247: Chapter 247 The Man Who Died in Place of Heavenly Palace Number One, Lin Yuanyang

Tiangong No. 1.

No one spoke in the main control room.

The West Line screen stopped on a charred jacket.

The fire had gone out.

Snow began falling again.

Liu Qing projected the battle damage report onto the main screen.

[West Line Node: Held.]

[KIA: Fat Dragon, Fire-type B-rank Esper.]

[KIA Members: Twenty-seven.]

[Severely Injured: Forty-three.]

[Grandmaster Ling Suzhen: Lost contact.]

Tang Qiqi was still in B2 welding the first set of neural interfaces.

The welding torch hung in mid-air.

The blue-white flame went out.

She looked at the screen, her lips moving.

"Uncle Fat Dragon..."

No one replied.

Tank stood nearby.

He slammed his fist against the wall.

Shadow sent back a message from the East Line.

"Only a small number of enemies on the East Line, repelled."

Lu Yan's voice followed closely.

"Same for the North Line, not many people, held."

Heavy breathing came from Sister Long's side.

"The South side wasn't lost."

None of the four nodes were lost.

But Fat Dragon was missing from home.

Su Xiaonuan gripped her tablet.

She looked at Fat Dragon's name, pausing for a few seconds.

Then she input:

[Long Dabiao, KIA.]

[Pension Level: Highest.]

[His immediate family members are to be included in the Inner Circle protection list.]

[All contribution point debts of West Line casualties are cleared.]

[Priority job allocation for surviving family members.]

Feng Qingwu looked at her.

"Housekeeper Su, this will increase the long-term burden."

Su Xiaonuan didn't look up.

"This is the rule."

"Those who die for Mr. Lin, Tiangong No. 1 provides for."

Feng Qingwu bowed her head.

"Understood."

Jiang Xiaowan sat in the lounge, uncharacteristically not making any snide remarks.

She rubbed her stomach while watching the screen.

"Before the apocalypse, Lin Yuan let this fatty move into the Cloud Top Palace."

"Back then, I told Lin Yuan that letting someone like this move in would lower my sales."

"In the end, this fatty, a guy who mixed with the criminal underworld, even dared to ignore the Jiang Family's face, yet he still moved in."

Wang Ya stood by the window.

Water ripples spread out under her feet, then retracted.

"He didn't have much courage."

Lin Motong hugged her teddy bear.

"But he was very obedient to Dad."

Lin Yuan sat in the main seat.

From beginning to end, he didn't get angry.

He didn't give a eulogy either.

Until Liu Qing's voice came through.

"The United States' Osprey transport aircraft has turned around and is no longer flying toward Jiangcheng."

Only then did Lin Yuan stand up and say one sentence.

"Destroy Wan City."

The temperature in the main control room seemed to drop a notch.

Su Xiaonuan looked up.

"Combat level?"

"Total liquidation."

Lin Yuan looked at the map.

"Wan City Radio Tower, the alliance leaders, all forces involved in the attack."

"Leave no one alive."

Liu Qing immediately unfolded the intelligence.

"The Wan City Radio Tower is located at the old television center."

"There are three defensive perimeters around it."

"Seven core alliance forces."

"The number of Espers is estimated to be between 130 and 180."

"At least two of them are A-rank."

On the screen, a broadcast from the Wancheng Alliance was still looping.

"Lin Yuan is nothing more than this!"

"The West Line has been severely damaged by our alliance!"

"Cloud Top Palace is strong on the outside but weak on the inside!"

"Everyone oppressed by Lin Yuan, stand up!"

Tang Qiqi slammed the welding torch back onto the rack.

"Screw you."

She grabbed the blueprints.

"Tank, come here."

Tank looked up.

Tang Qiqi's eyes were red, but she wasn't crying.

"I won't make a pretty shell first."

"I'll make a functional skeleton first."

"Trial wear tonight."

Tank was stunned.

"Tonight?"

"Are you afraid?"

Tank gritted his teeth.

"I'm not afraid of anything."

Tang Qiqi turned around and used her communicator to contact Iron Arm King, who was still on the way back to the city.

"Come over as soon as you get home."

Iron Arm King clenched his fists.

"I can take a beating too."

Tang Qiqi pointed at the blueprints.

"The first one goes to Tank."

"The second one goes to you."

"For the third one, I want to make it a firepower type like Uncle Fat Dragon's."

She sniffed.

"Last time he secretly asked me if there was a plus-size model for the power armor."

"He didn't get to wear it."

"In the future, I'll let others wear it for him."

Tang Qiqi looked up at the camera.

"Sister Qing, don't let me crash."

Liu Qing said: "Just stop messing with the wiring."

Su Xiaonuan looked at the charred jacket on the screen.

The last application Fat Dragon made before his death was still on the tablet.

[Application: Add a case of cigarettes for the West Line brothers, Reason: Celebration after the battle.]

[Status: Unapproved.]

Su Xiaonuan pressed the broadcast button.

Her voice spread throughout Tiangong No. 1.

"Fat Dragon has been killed in action."

"Zhou Heng will temporarily take over Fat Dragon's duties."

"Tiangong No. 1 is entering revenge combat readiness."

"From now on, members of the Wancheng Alliance will not be accepted for surrender."

In the Outer Circle cafeteria.

People who were just discussing the global broadcast all looked up.

Some faces turned pale.

Some lowered their heads to drink porridge.

No one mentioned "hand over the key to salvation" again.

Fat Dragon died on the West Line.

This was harder than any slogan.

The administrator who usually held a whip to lash them, yet let them survive in this shitty apocalypse.

Was dead.

Jiangcheng University.

Chu Feng stood in front of the bulletin board, watching the battle report.

Master Jiu had an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

"That greasy guy Fat Dragon, really dead?"

Chu Feng didn't speak.

Xu Mengmeng whispered: "He held the node."

Master Jiu put the cigarette back in his pocket.

"Alright."

"I'll keep this cigarette."

"I'll burn it for him later."

Chu Feng turned around.

"Jiang University enters combat readiness."

"Screen all outsiders."

"Not a single person from Wan City is allowed in."

Shanghai Hongqiao.

Zhao Dingshan closed his military cap.

"Notify Lieutenant Colonel Liu Zheng."

"The Shanghai defense line will advance twenty kilometers toward Wan City."

Lieutenant Colonel Liu Zheng stood at the door.

"I have already mustered the troops."

Zhe City.

Feng Sanhai finished reading the order and stood up immediately.

"Tell the people below."

"Mr. Lin is going to attack Wan City."

"Whoever dares to wait and see, get out of my safe zone first."

Inside Tiangong No. 1.

Beside the B3 Sealed Chamber.

Wang Xue looked at the main screen and spoke after a long while.

"Your man is dead."

"Aren't you sad?"

Lin Yuan glanced at her.

"Sadness can't kill people."

Wang Xue was silent.

Jiang Yun stood nearby, having changed into the cremation team's work uniform, with ash still on her cuffs.

She looked at the scene of Fat Dragon's death and didn't mention "humanity's greater good" again.

For the first time, she saw that in Lin Yuan's system, there were also people willing to die.

Not because of brainwashed slogans.

It was because the rules gave them a way to live.

And they paid it back with their lives.

Lin Yuan stood up.

"Qin Yumo."

Qin Yumo's voice came over the comms.

"Master."

"Find Grandmaster Ling Suzhen."

"If she's alive, I want to see her."

"If she's dead, I want to see her body."

"Yes."

Lin Yuan looked at Liu Qing again.

"The location of the Wan City Radio Tower."

Liu Qing marked the map in red.

"Locked on."

"But there is a new situation."

On the main screen, a figure appeared at the top of the Wan City Radio Tower.

The person was wearing a white cloak with a cross-shaped crystal core pendant hanging on his chest.

A circle of survivors knelt around him.

A strange male voice came over the broadcast.

"Lin Yuan."

"I am the Pope of the Sacred Sanctuary."

"Fat Dragon is just the beginning."

"Hand over the entrance to Wang Xue's Small World."

"Otherwise, next time, it will be your Cloud Top Palace that dies."

Tang Qiqi sneered.

"Do villains these days all like to occupy radio towers?"

"Does this so-called Pope have a special fetish for pointy things?"

"Take it out to poke around when constipated?"

Su Xiaonuan gripped the tablet tightly.

Lin Yuan looked at the screen.

He rubbed his trouser seam.

"Liu Qing."

"Zoom in on his face."

The image zoomed in.

The Pope looked up, as if he knew the lens was watching him.

Like that crazy president from the old era.