The Serious Side

In the darkness, Shirakawa rode silently among the cavalry, deep in thought. The joy of victory during the day had not dispelled her doubts: Why had they won so easily? The Demon Race had suddenly withdrawn while they still held the upper hand; when the Zichuan Family cavalry began their attack, they had encountered almost no organized resistance... That was not the style of the Demon Race army, which had always been fierce and battle-hardened.

But victory was victory, irreplaceable and beyond doubt. The Demon Race corpses lying densely across the ground like harvested autumn crops were the proof. Only then did she feel cold sweat soaking her clothes. If her judgment had been even slightly wrong, the ones lying in heaps on the ground now would have been Zichuan Family cavalrymen. And she would have borne the main responsibility for it. Even if she survived the battlefield, she would never escape the Inspectorate military police execution squad upon her return... She could not take any more risks. The goddess of fortune was not necessarily generous enough to favor the same person twice.

"Stop the pursuit."

The cavalry halted with visible relief. They had been chasing for five whole hours and were utterly exhausted. Yet no one dared advise the female tyrant otherwise—everyone had seen Changchuan's fate clearly enough. To the soldiers, she seemed even more terrifying than the supposedly invincible Great Demon God King.

"All units, camp where you are. Set up scouts. Night sentry posts will be increased from four men to eight, the scouting perimeter will be doubled, and use torch warnings!"

The messenger acknowledged the order and left. Shirakawa instructed, "From now on, Vice Banner Captain Changchuan will take charge of headquarters. I'm going to see Xiuchuan Flag Bearer."

Changchuan emerged from the cavalry, his expression far from friendly. "What? You're leaving it to me? Vice Banner Captain Shirakawa, aren't you afraid I'll steal all your credit?"

Shirakawa gave him a dazzling smile. Half of Changchuan's anger vanished at once. As for the other half... well, that was a trivial matter, hardly worth mentioning.

"Are you still angry with me? I'll apologize, all right? Changchuan, you're a real man. Don't lower yourself to the level of us women, okay?"

Changchuan smiled bitterly. "I'm afraid of you. Forget it. It's not like this is the first time you've hit me."

"Let me tell you something. I just questioned some prisoners. Their story was strange: during their attack, Commander Geshā and Deputy Commander Yúnchén were both assassinated. The entire army lost command, their morale collapsed, and they fell apart without a fight."

"Oh!" Shirakawa was quite startled. "Who did it? They did us a huge favor."

"They only knew it was done by a human. You know, to the Demon Race, all humans look alike, just as those green-skinned monsters all look the same to us. A terrifying person—he buried himself in the sand, waited for the Demon Race commander to pass by, then burst out and killed him. Every strike was fatal."

Shirakawa pondered. "I didn't know the Far East Region had an expert like that—exceptionally skilled, patient, and cold-blooded. Burying himself in the sand..." She shuddered.

Changchuan said, "But I think our Flag Bearer must know about him, right? Otherwise, he wouldn't have ordered us to attack..."

At the mention of Zichuan Xiu, Shirakawa became furious. "You think too highly of that idiot! Do you know what he was doing while we were risking our lives? Bathing, eating, sleeping—he was only short of chasing women—and that was probably just because he couldn't find any. What part of him looks like the commander of an entire army...?"

Changchuan said leisurely, "As long as he can win battles, I don't care how he enjoys himself. Why are you so angry about it?" He glanced at Shirakawa, his gaze full of meaning.

"This time, he was just lucky—the Demon Race had rotten luck!"

"I'm afraid it's more than luck. He was lucky this time, but was the Imperial Capital Counterattack six years ago luck too? During the two great campaigns against the Liufeng Family, only his troops returned intact; during the standoff with Liufeng Shuang three years ago, only he escaped without losing men... For an 'idiot' who enlisted at eleven, had fought more than seventy battles large and small, and had never lost even once—wasn't his luck a little too good?"

Shirakawa galloped through the night, Changchuan's words echoing in her mind. Yes, his damned luck was far too good... Could he have been hiding his true abilities all along?

That was it. She had to question him thoroughly and expose the real face hidden beneath that lazy, lecherous, cowardly mask!

The lights of the central camp lay ahead. Before Zichuan Xiu's guards could stop her, Shirakawa spurred her horse straight into headquarters.

Guard Captain Gurei stepped forward to meet her. "Vice Banner Captain Shirakawa, my lord has ordered that you may not enter!"

"Why?" Shirakawa ignored him completely. Could it be that he was revealing some unknown side of himself right now? I have to get in!

She strode into the central command tent, only to see Zichuan Xiu with his arms around a beautiful young girl, about to kiss her...

Her fury flared. She drew her saber and slashed at him. "So this is the true face of Zichuan Xiu! Prepare to die!"

It should be noted that this game had no client. It was a web game. After entering the game, players became nobles of one of three countries and received their first small village.

As the game progressed, players could steadily obtain resources by building farmland, mines, and the like. Selling resources earned gold, which could be used to improve technology, recruit troops, and build more cities.

And the nobles of the other two evil countries would keep sending troops to attack you—though, of course, you might be the one constantly attacking them instead. Heh heh.

Players could also train their own heroes, establish guilds, run dungeons, and so on.

The biggest feature of this kind of game was that it did not take much time. You could play whenever you had a spare moment at work, and even when offline, the game would continue producing resources.

Anyone interested could give it a try.