Joining Forces

The campfire flickered in the camp.

The Freemason students looked at Li Situ and Yang Yang with curiosity, wondering about their identities.

Guo Huzhan excitedly introduced them to everyone, "This is Li Situ, and the other young lady is Yang Yang."

The Freemasons' gazes swept over Li Situ and then settled on Yang Yang.

The girl was still wearing a gray sweatshirt with the hood up.

At this moment, Li Situ said, "I've delivered Yang Yang. You can take care of the rest. I need to get to City No. 18 as soon as possible."

Guo Huzhan asked doubtfully, "What are you going to City No. 18 for at this time? The conglomerate and the Federation are both hunting down Spade. You are an open member of Spade. It would be very dangerous for you to go there now."

"Making arrangements for the funeral," Li Situ replied calmly.

Guo Huzhan was taken aback for a moment. "Sorry, I almost forgot you're a member of the Li family."

Li Situ shook his head. "I have long since severed ties with the Li family. However, since my father has passed away, as his son, I still need to go back, even though it's been eighteen years since I last went back."

Upon hearing this, Qing Chen glanced at the old man out of the corner of his eye.

He was deeply shocked. This conglomerate was like a towering tree in the Federation, with its branches spreading out and influencing various organizations to varying degrees.

Qing Chen really didn't expect that this Li Situ was actually the old man's son.

No wonder the other person looked so distressed and compassionate; it turned out they had just received the devastating news of their father's passing.

The problem is, Li Situ probably never imagined that the old man was not only alive, but was right next to him.

Come to think of it, it's normal that the other party wouldn't recognize the old man in disguise since Li Situ hadn't returned to the Li family for eighteen years.

"Aren't you going to acknowledge him?" Qing Chen asked curiously in a low voice, "Is this your son?"

"I don't acknowledge it anymore," the old man said calmly. "At times like this, it's enough to see him from afar and know that he's doing well. Back then, he said that conglomerates were a cancer on the Federation and that he disdained associating with them, so he left home and went to the southwestern snow mountains. Later, when I wanted to know about him, I could only get information from intelligence reports."

"Should we give him a chance to say goodbye in person?" Qing Chen asked.

"There's nothing to say goodbye to. Birth, aging, sickness, and death are the inevitable fate of human life; there's no need for sentimentality," the old man said. "I'm already very happy that he still remembers the bond between father and son. I think funerals should be held while the person is alive, so that you can see what's in their heart. You know, faking death is quite interesting, but I was much better at it than your master; nobody believed his faked death."

The old man was smug and self-satisfied.

This expression contrasted sharply with Li Situ's distressed face on the other side.

Upon seeing this, Guo Huzhan and the Freemason students even offered their condolences to Li Situ one by one.

"Where does this Li Situ rank among the second generation of the Li family?" Qing Chen asked.

"Seventeen," the old man replied, "I don't know why, but even though I haven't seen him for eighteen years, I was actually quite happy to see him so sad. And hearing so many people saying 'please accept my condolences' to him, I even wanted to go and say 'please accept my condolences' to him myself."

Qing Chen: "..."

He imagined the scene and suddenly it felt dramatic.

This really does seem like something an elderly person would do!

Li Situ left, and the other party left in a hurry, as if they were racing against time.

Guo Huzhan returned to the Freemason campfire and called out to Yang Yang, "Yang Yang, come and warm yourself by the fire and rest for a bit."

Some Freemasons were quietly observing Yang Yang, wondering if she was easy to get along with and what kind of personality she had.

The old man said in a low voice, "The Li family doesn't have any information about this girl yet. It seems she's a new member of the Spade family."

Qing Chen pondered that Yang Yang was very mysterious, whether in the Outer World or the Inner World.

Even the old man didn't know her identity.

By the way, most of the Freemasons are students from Luoyi High School and have never met Yang Yang. They probably don't know that Yang Yang is also Time Walker.

Just then, Yang Yang didn't go to Guo Huzhan's side, but walked straight towards Qing Chen and the others.

The old man was stunned for a moment.

The girl sat down by their campfire and asked with a smile, "Is there anything to eat? I've been traveling all day, and I only had a piece of bread for breakfast."

The old man chuckled and nudged Qing Chen with his elbow, "Aren't you going to get the girl something to eat? We have supplies and snacks on the train, everything's ready."

Hu Xiaoniu looked at the campfire, pretending not to recognize Yang Yang, and couldn't figure out what she was planning to do.

Qing Chen silently went to get some food. The Freemason students were all confused. Nangong Yuanyu looked at Guo Huzhan: "Do you have a conflict with her? Why is she sitting over there?"

Guo Huzhan touched his bald head. "No."

Qing Chen handed Yang Yang two pieces of chocolate, a compressed biscuit, and a bottle of water.

But Yang Yang didn't stand on ceremony. She took the food and ate it without any pretense or concern for her table manners.

Seeing the girl's straightforward manner, the old man immediately felt a liking for her. He pointed at Qing Chen and said, "Does the young lady have a boyfriend? What do you think of this young man next to me?"

Here it comes!

Qing Chen thought to himself, "Couldn't you at least give me some background information?"

Is it appropriate to ask a girl such a direct and blunt question?

Yang Yang smiled and said, "I think it's great."

The old man's eyes lit up. "How about we consider getting to know each other?"

Yang Yang nodded. "Okay."

The camp suddenly fell silent. The old man and Yang Yang had been speaking quite loudly, so much so that most of the people in the camp had heard their conversation.

That's quite a bold statement.

One dared to agree.

However, not only were the Freemason students stunned, but even the old man was stunned.

Actually, he was just being playful and wanted to tease Qing Chen.

After all, Qing Chen always seemed very serious, ignoring everything else, and he couldn't even tell his female classmates a story. The old man found Qing Chen's calm expression boring.

But now things are getting interesting.

The girl actually agreed!

Now it was the old man's turn to hesitate. He asked Yang Yang, "Shouldn't we observe her a little longer?"

Yang Yang smiled and looked at Qing Chen: "Isn't this great? We don't need to observe anymore."

The elderly person felt that something had gone wrong...

Qing Chen sighed. In front of this girl, no amount of pretense could fool her perception.

As Yang Yang once said, all force fields within 200 meters are in the other person's mind. Others may be misled by the Forbidden Item ACE-005 on his face, but Yang Yang will never be.

So, the girl knew he was there even before she got off the bus.

However, Yang Yang was just as playful. She pretended not to know Qing Chen at all, and didn't even recognize Hu Xiaoniu.

But then Yang Yang looked at Qing Chen and said, "My name is Yang Yang, I'm 17 years old, what about you?"

Qing Chen: "My name is Qing Zhade, and I am 27 years old."

Seeing the two chatting so enthusiastically, the old man immediately said, "You two are too far apart in age; it's not a good match."

Yang Yang smiled and said, "I think it suits me perfectly."

Qing Chen: "Yeah, I think it's quite suitable too."

Of everyone present, only Hu Xiaoniu knew the truth.

He had realized that Qing Chen and Yang Yang were very much in sync, choosing to tease the old man instead.

The old man said, "My eldest grandson is incredibly boring, has no hobbies, and isn't romantic at all. Besides, he works for the PCE Public Security Management Committee, and he doesn't get along with your Spades. Young lady, you should be careful; I'm afraid he might hold you back."

Yang Yang's eyes lit up and she said, "Before, Spade had no one to look after her in PCE, but now she does, doesn't she?"

The old man continued, "My eldest grandson is a federal citizen, so he definitely won't come to the wilderness with you. You two will be separated by vast distances, with absolutely no chance of anything happening between you."

Yang Yang laughed and said, "Black Spade told me to go back to the city in a while to continue organizing the parades, so he doesn't need to come to the wilderness."

The old man sighed, "What the hell is this? We've completely messed things up."

He stood up with his hands behind his back and walked angrily toward his tent.

However, the old man quickly realized after returning to his tent that these two might have known each other all along and were playing a prank on him.

Otherwise, why would this girl come straight to Qing Chen?

This girl named Yang Yang is very likely also a Time Walker, and may even be quite familiar with Qing Chen in the Outer World!

The old man, as expected of the previous head of the Li family, figured out the secret after just a little thought.

After the old man left the campfire, the Freemasons stopped paying attention to the area.

"Li Ke, go and lay out the moisture-proof mat in the tent for the old man, so he doesn't catch a cold," Qing Chen said.

Li Ke left understandingly.

Qing Chen, Yang Yang, and Hu Xiaoniu sat by the campfire, the firelight illuminating their faces.

Qing Chen looked at Yang Yang and asked, "I didn't expect to meet you here."

Yang Yang smiled and said, "I didn't expect you to be with these Freemason students?"

"No, it was just a coincidence," Qing Chen replied.

Yang Yang took the initiative to talk about what she had been doing recently. "I went back to Haicheng recently and organized some college and high school students to come to the wilderness. We led some Time Walker who couldn't survive in the city to find ways to rebuild their homes in some places that the conglomerates had neglected. Now we have built a small town in the southern wilderness, which is full of Time Walker and relatively kind Wilderness People."

Qing Chen smiled and said, "Why are you telling me this?"

Yang Yang smiled and glanced at Hu Xiaoniu, then asked Qing Chen, "Does he know?"

"It's alright, there's no need to hide it from him," Qing Chen said.

Hu Xiaoniu was completely bewildered. The two people in front of him were speaking in riddles. He seemed to understand them, but not completely.

At this moment, Yang Yang laughed and said, "I'm a member of Daylight after all, so it's only right that I report to the boss what I've been doing lately."

Qing Chen glanced at Hu Xiaoniu, who was already in shock.

Hu Xiaoniu looked at Qing Chen with an incredulous expression. "You're the boss?"

He then looked at Yang Yang: "So, the girl who fell from the sky on the night Liu Dezhu was retaliated against by Wang Yun's family was you?"

There's a chapter at 11 PM.