Three birds with one arrow

Zhu Yuanzheng froze.

"Isn't that what you just said?"

Su Chen shook his head, looking utterly speechless.

"I only said that putting Huaxia at a disadvantage just to vent our anger wasn't worth it."

"But when did I ever say we should take it lying down?"

"All we have to do is turn that disadvantage into an advantage!"

At this, Zhu Yuanzheng and Li Shuhua grew even more confused, unable to figure out what Su Chen meant.

Su Chen raised an eyebrow at their bewildered expressions.

"It's not as though Huaxia has never been constrained by foreign powers!"

"On the contrary, it was precisely because we suffered under them for decades that generation after generation of talented people struggled through hardship to forge a path forward."

"Why have we fought so hard to enrich our country and strengthen our military?"

"Why have we placed so much emphasis on education, insisting that strong young people make a strong Huaxia?"

"Wasn't it all so that one day, we would no longer be bullied by outsiders?"

"Today, Huaxia has the power to fight back."

"This is exactly the time to flex our muscles before the world!"

"So!"

"This time, we're not just going to fight!"

"We're going to fight with justification! We're going to show Huaxia's might!"

"It's about time someone else had a taste of swallowing humiliation and bearing the burden!"

Hearing this, Li Shuhua felt as though his brain could no longer keep up.

Zhu Yuanzheng, however, looked thoughtful, as though he had begun to grasp something.

"Fight with justification?"

"Su, you mean we need a legitimate cause?"

Su Chen clapped his hands and smiled.

"As expected of General Zhu! You caught on right away!"

"Whatever action we take, we need a legitimate cause!"

"Only then can we claim the moral high ground. Even if other countries are unhappy, they won't have any grounds to criticize us."

Li Shuhua looked from Zhu Yuanzheng to Su Chen, still bewildered.

"Stop speaking in riddles, you two. Can't you spell it out?"

"The moment we act, Haidong Country will turn around and accuse us. How are we supposed to justify that?"

"And we're talking about three hundred million Awakened! Once the other countries find out, how could they possibly sit still? They're bound to join forces to contain Huaxia!"

Zhu Yuanzheng also turned to Su Chen.

Although he understood what Su Chen was getting at, he could not think of a way to resolve the problem either.

Su Chen smiled faintly and asked at an unhurried pace.

"Who besides the three of us knows that Dayu has three hundred million descendants?"

Zhu Yuanzheng and Li Shuhua froze, speechless.

Before Su Chen appeared, no one in Huaxia had even known Dayu existed, let alone how many descendants he had.

Right now, no one besides the three of them could possibly know.

Seeing that neither spoke, Su Chen continued.

"Since only the three of us know."

"If I don't say anything, General Zhu doesn't say anything, and Elder Li doesn't say anything."

"How are other countries going to find out how many Awakened we actually have?"

"A trump card is a trump card precisely because no one knows about it."

"Once you reveal it, not only does it lose its deterrent effect, but everyone can see right through you. The loss outweighs the gain."

Zhu Yuanzheng's eyes lit up.

"That's right!"

"We're the only ones who know the actual number of Dayu's descendants."

"Whether it's three thousand, thirty thousand, or three hundred million, isn't that up to us to say?"

"Those countries all have their own schemes, too. Unless their survival is threatened, they have no reason to join forces."

After saying this, Zhu Yuanzheng slapped his forehead and continued, looking exasperated with himself.

"That figure of three hundred million scared the hell out of me and short-circuited my brain."

"Forget Awakened-even military strength is a top state secret. Why would we just announce it to the public?"

Su Yan nodded.

"General Zhu is right."

"A country's deterrent power lies not in what people can see, but in what they can't."

"Because the unknown is humanity's greatest fear."

"The more secrets you have, the harder you are to read, and the more wary your enemies become. They'll be all the less willing to act rashly."

After saying this, Su Yan could not help laughing either.

"We certainly need to flex our muscles, but there's no need to strip off our underwear and show everyone everything, is there?"

After hearing this, the corner of Li Shuhua's mouth twitched, and he gave a self-deprecating smile.

When he had first heard that Dayu had three hundred million descendants.

His immediate thought had been to announce it, allowing Huaxia to hold its head high for once.

Thinking back now, he really had been too single-minded.

But after considering it, he asked another question.

"Mr. Su, I still don't understand what you mean by having a legitimate cause."

"No matter how many Awakened we have, once we go over there, Haidong Country will certainly call it an invasion."

"Elder Li has hit the nail on the head!"

Su Chen slapped the armrest of the sofa and declared loudly.

"If our going there counts as an invasion, wouldn't their coming here count as one too?"

"Wouldn't fighting invaders on our own soil give us a legitimate cause?"

"More importantly!"

"This time, we won't just make Haidong pay. We can also put that trash to use and get certain clowns to come crawling out on their own."

"That way, we won't just vent our anger and show the world Huaxia's might. We'll also save ourselves the trouble of screening Dayu's descendants one by one."

"Wouldn't you call that three birds with one arrow?"

Zhu Yuanzheng and Li Shuhua stared blankly at Su Chen, their eyes wide.

That was right!

After Dayu's phantom disappeared, no one in Huaxia had awakened their bloodline.

Although they knew the reason, others did not necessarily know.

For all they knew, Haidong Country might still believe that Dayu's bloodline had never survived to the present day!

Even if Su Chen was an inheritor.

No matter how strong one man was, he could not possibly take on over a hundred thousand Awakened, could he?

Besides, Haidong Country had an inheritor of its own.

The man named Jin Dachang was a twenty-eighth-generation descendant of Kim Chunchu.

Both Zhu Yuanzheng and Li Shuhua were familiar with him.

Before receiving his inheritance, he had been nothing more than a truck driver.

He had a violent temper and acted without considering the consequences.

Otherwise, he would never have ordered Haidong Country's Awakened to attack in public earlier.

Now that Jin Dachang had suffered a loss he could not openly complain about, he was surely seething.

Since the two countries had already fallen out openly, a clash was only a matter of time.

While Su Chen was still Huaxia's only inheritor, Haidong Country was certain to make a move.

At a time like this, Huaxia only needed to dangle a little bait, and Jin Dachang would definitely bite.

Once the enemy launched a full-scale invasion, Huaxia would have justice on its side.

Even if they wiped out all hundred-odd thousand of Haidong Country's Awakened in one fell swoop, the other countries would have no grounds to say a word.

Meanwhile, once news of Haidong Country's full-scale invasion spread within Huaxia, it would cause an enormous uproar.

Huaxia had only Su Chen.

The enemy, however, had an inheritor and over a hundred thousand Awakened.

No matter how anyone looked at it, Huaxia was certain to lose.

Under those circumstances, it would immediately become clear who harbored disloyal intentions and who stood with their homeland.

Would they still need to screen everyone individually?

At these thoughts, Zhu Yuanzheng and Li Shuhua both drew a deep breath, their eyes filled with delight.

In truth, with their experience and shrewdness, they could have thought of all this themselves if they had only calmed down.

But with so much happening in a single day, who could stay calm?

Yet if that was true for them, it was even more true for Su Chen.

As an inheritor, Su Chen bore more pressure than anyone else.

Yet even under that pressure, he had maintained a clear head.

Amid the tangled chaos, he had untangled and analyzed each aspect of their current situation.

Then, finally, he had pieced together the path most favorable to Huaxia.

That kind of mental resilience.

That clarity and composure.

Was he really a young man barely into his twenties?