Section 98: A Wanton Depiction of Desire

Page (1/3)

“Are you planning to swallow our entire team?” a woman’s voice rang out inside the tent.

A tall, beautiful woman stepped forward. “Was that tolerance you pretended to show us earlier all for this moment?”

“As a prisoner, I suggest you keep a lower profile, madam.”

“Of course, of course. If it makes you happy...” She turned sideways, bent her knees slightly, lowered her head, and performed a formal Han-style women’s salute.

“Excellent. I am Wang Luo, captain of the soon-to-be-established D.T.P.H. team. No need for a handshake. And you are?”

“I am Lin Feirui, captain of the Wuzhou team.”

For a brief instant afterward, Wang Luo saw several people around them looking at Lin Feirui in astonishment. In other words, her claim might have been false.

It did not matter. In any case, Wang Luo’s next words were meant for the team as a whole.

“I won. You lost. Do you know why?”

The two soldiers behind Wang Luo brought over a blackboard. It had been prepared earlier for Lank’s lectures.

“You asked whether the tolerance I displayed before was all for this moment.”

“I can tell you very clearly: of course it was.”

“Why was I willing to give up the benefits I had gained earlier? Because I am greedy. Anyone who surrenders to me while the situation remains unclear must be treated well. Otherwise, I would only provoke the enemy’s hostility toward me and make victory more difficult.”

“I am willing to surrender,” replied a somewhat portly young man. “I have no universal points, but I am willing to join your team.”

“Completely insincere.” Wang Luo gave her verdict without hesitation. “But it does not matter. As long as you can work, whether you are loyal or not is an insignificant concern to me.”

After hearing this, four or five more people expressed their willingness to join.

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

“Very good. However, forming the team is something for later. For now, go stay in another tent for a while. Next, I am going to explain how I won.”

Perhaps it was the alcohol, or perhaps it was the victory. Wang Luo seemed exceptionally excited, more agitated than usual—more agitated than she had ever been.

“In war, weapons are important. But the decisive factor is people. What I intended to do was make full use of human nature—not its minute details, but its broad tendencies.”

“To deal with the Han army, the first thing to do was destroy the reason they fought as a collective. The succession policy would seriously violate the spiritual interests of the landowners and aristocrats among them, while driving a wedge between those people and the ordinary soldiers. On top of that, the land policy would further and severely infringe upon the property interests of the landowners and great clans, driving them into madness.”

“That was why they slaughtered the peasants along the road, as well as the prisoners we released, by every cruel means imaginable. They were afraid—afraid that the principles I had put forward would spread. Once those ideas reached the entire country, the foundation, core, and justification for their status and wealth would be utterly destroyed.”

“At that point, the enemy’s soldiers already had a reason to support us. Naturally, apart from a small number of exceptions, they would not defect to us over such a minor matter. They might suspect me, and even if they believed me, they would think it better to rely on their own strength to put those ideas into practice. That was their state of mind at the time.”

“My team and I began expanding through several early victories after entering the scenario. Once we defeated Huangfu Song’s forces with fire attacks and occupied the Han army’s main camp, I became somewhat intoxicated with success. Yet that was also when you attacked one of my small detachments.”

“Dealing with contractees—in other words, you—is entirely different from dealing with the Han army. Afterward, I deliberately sent troops away in the hope of provoking your next attack. But nothing happened. From that moment on, I began to sense danger.”

“What kind of danger? Collapse, disintegration, utter defeat, the annihilation of my entire army. I had heard from the beginning that you were powerful. But it was at that moment that I truly felt the crisis.”

Several members of the Wuzhou team exchanged glances, sensing the irony in her words under the present circumstances.

At that moment, Wang Luo’s expression was solemn and serious.

“Besides your strength, you were also extremely lucky.” Wang Luo looked toward the tall woman from Wuzhou. “My feeling at the time was this: if I allowed events to develop naturally, I would certainly lose.”

As she spoke, Wang Luo looked at the woman, sniffed the air, and frowned.

“But why did I win before? Was it because you were careless? Because you made a mistake? Or for some other reason? Why did you not come when I used the fire attack? If you had attacked me together with Huangfu Song’s Han army, I would have lost long ago. Why did I not encounter you before? Why was I able to keep winning?”

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

“That was the flaw you exposed—the weakness, the gap. Being strong does not mean being invulnerable. It does not mean there is no solution, no way to resist you.”

“If I am not mistaken, your goal was to obtain the greatest possible profit. The greed contained within that goal was something I could exploit. You were powerful, so whenever you suffered a setback, you would certainly want to recover your losses from the same place. That was not certain, but it was highly probable. And that thing—pride—was another weakness I could exploit.”

“If an individual is unpredictable and difficult to grasp with certainty, then the desires of a collective are stable, inclined in certain directions, and governed by patterns. Greed and the pursuit of profit can bring you victory and glory, but they can also blind you, destroy your luck, and lead you down a dead end.”

Smiling, Wang Luo extended the index finger of her right hand and jabbed it repeatedly toward the Wuzhou members before her.

“That was the foundation and starting point of the ambush against the Han army’s vanguard. I hesitated. If you had not been excessively greedy, and had instead decided to come with the entire Han army and annihilate us, then I would undoubtedly have failed. But using only a small contingent of the Han army—or even coming alone—to destroy us would obviously have yielded greater profits.”

“The other foundation was that I was a newcomer. If your earlier conduct had been deliberate, then you must have looked down on me—you had every right to do so. My actions were built upon these two fragile foundations. After that, I succeeded by sheer luck.”

“If you had not been so greedy as to try to obtain even greater profits by relying on my mistakes, and if you had not been so proud as to retaliate against me in the same manner by which I had previously caused your plans to fail, thereby washing away the shame of defeat, then my reckless assault would certainly have ended with my entire army wiped out during your attack.”

Silence.

In the face of this explanation, the entire Wuzhou team fell silent. Several people stared at a thin, ugly woman standing beside the tall woman. Her body was trembling.

“So you were in disguise?” Wang Luo looked toward her. “You are the Queen of Wuzhou—the captain, Lin Feirui. Am I right?”

“You are exceptional.” The woman’s body began to blur. When it became clear again, a pair of beautiful, star-like eyes gazed intently at Wang Luo.

“Far more exceptional than we imagined. And then? You did not say all that merely to show off, did you?”

Page (3/3)