The Haidong Country Awakened were still in the conference room. Zhu Yuanzheng had assumed there was some sort of turn for the better, which was why he had forced himself to swallow his anger, but he never expected it to be a false alarm.
Li Shuhua looked at Zhu Yuanzheng's expression, took a step closer, and said in a deep voice.
"Old Zhu, we've known each other for decades. I know what you wanted to do just now, but I still have to give you a piece of advice."
"Our country didn't get to where it is today easily. Unless it's an absolute last resort, we cannot afford to have a do-or-die mindset."
Zhu Yuanzheng was already fuming. Hearing this, his eyes bulged instantly, and he roared angrily.
"The fish are about to die, who gives a damn if the net breaks!"
"Didn't you hear the bullshit those Haidong people spewed? Not only do they want the Ancestor Symbol, but they also want to annex us!"
"I'm telling you, Old Li, if we kneel down today, generations of our descendants will never stand up again!"
"Do you believe that in the future, when ordinary people walk over our graves, they'll spit on them a few times?"
Li Shuhua's face darkened, and his voice rose an octave.
"What are you roaring for! Is that what I meant?"
"Then what do you mean!"
Zhu Yuanzheng didn't give an inch and continued to roar loudly.
"I'm telling you, our soldiers have no cowards!"
"So what if there are over a hundred thousand Awakened! We have four million troops! When the active-duty ones die off, we still have seven or eight million retired veterans!"
"Nonsense!" Li Shuhua's expression was unsightly to the extreme.
"What those Haidong people summoned is Kim Chunchu! An ancestor from over thirteen hundred years ago! The founding monarch of Haidong Country!"
"Don't you know how strong the descendants of the Kim family become after awakening their bloodline?"
"Pile them up with human lives? Aren't the soldiers under your command born to mothers and raised by fathers!"
"If you really had to trade ten thousand human lives for a single Haidong person, could you bring yourself to give that order?"
"By that time, even if we beat back the Haidong people, we'll be practically finished!"
"What if Sakura takes advantage of the chaos? What if the Western Royal Family comes over to pick up scraps? What if the descendants of Ashoka from the White Elephant Country also come to invade?"
"What will you have left to fight with then?"
At this point, Li Shuhua let out a heavy, angry huff.
"It would be great for you, Zhu Yuanzheng, to die here today and earn a glorious reputation for unyielding defiance!"
"Anyway, even if it becomes a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood in the future, you won't see it, will you!"
"This is completely the reckless courage of a common man!"
Zhu Yuanzheng was left speechless for a long time by Li Shuhua's roar.
In his memory, Li Shuhua had always been gentle and refined for decades as the head of the History Research Institute. When had he ever lost such a massive temper?
"Fine, fine, fine! You're no common man! You're educated! Then you tell me what to do!"
"Could it be that if you go and say a few nice words, the Haidong people will obediently leave?"
"Our present was not given to us by anyone; it was forged by the barrel of a gun!"
"Decades ago, how many of our people died? Weren't they born to mothers and fathers?"
"Take a look at Babaoshan! Take a look at Jiugong Mountain! Those people died so that more people could live today!"
"You've studied history for so many years, don't you even understand this!"
"If I had the slightest shred of a way out, who the hell would want to do this!"
"Who the hell has the heart to send their own soldiers to their deaths!"
"But if we don't die, the 1.4 billion people will only be able to stretch out their necks for others to slaughter!"
Having said these words, Zhu Yuanzheng's fierce eyes were already brimming with tears, and his tall frame trembled uncontrollably.
This general, who had galloped across battlefields for half a lifetime and had never bowed his head to an enemy, looked ten years older at this moment. His body hunched over as he clutched his chest and coughed violently.
Li Shuhua fell silent.
Of course he could see that the Haidong people were dead set on getting the Ancestor Symbol this time.
No matter how they responded, it was ultimately a dead end.
Fighting was better than not fighting.
Yet it was precisely because he had studied history for decades and deeply understood the suffering of this land that he was unwilling to see the motherland plunge into the flames of war once more.
And even less willing to see his compatriots die in vain.
After a brief silence, Li Shuhua let out a long sigh.
"As long as things haven't reached the absolute worst stage, there is still hope for a turnaround."
"Now that the blade is already at our throats, we cannot give up even a sliver of hope; let that person come and try first."
Hearing this, Li Shuhua could not help but self-deprecatingly give a bitter smile.
"What if..."
Zhu Yuanzheng looked at Li Shuhua, and his emotions also gradually calmed down.
Although the two of them worked in civil and military fields respectively, their ways of looking at problems were different.
Yet without a doubt, both of them had hearts oriented toward the motherland.
"You mean that kid who was reported up just now?"
Zhu Yuanzheng shook his head slightly, thought for a moment, and said in a deep voice:
"We'll just treat a dead horse like a live horse..."
After saying that, Zhu Yuanzheng's hunchbacked figure straightened up once more, and the aura of an iron-blooded general reappeared.
"But I cannot wait. In my position, I must make the best plans and the worst preparations."
"Even if I am to die, I must die with value!"
With that, Zhu Yuanzheng turned directly and strode away.
Watching his retreating figure, Li Shuhua took a deep breath, unable to calm down for a long time.
Pushed by fate, the nation's future had already sailed toward an unpredictable direction.
A single misstep, and it would be complete and utter destruction.
Yet things having reached this point, what else could be done?
Could they really place their hope on that suddenly popped-up young man?
The Ancestor Symbol that national experts had failed to figure out after a whole year of research.
Could a callow youth understand it clearly?
Just thinking about this was completely unreliable!
One hour later, Di'anmen Square.
Different from the bustling crowds of ordinary days, Di'anmen at this time was heavily guarded.
Under the protection of numerous guards, a large Cauldron stood upon the high platform in the very center of the square.
With research yielding no results, Li Shuhua and the others had petitioned their superiors and moved the Ancestor Symbol here for public display, hoping for a breakthrough.
Yet three months had passed, and they still had nothing to show for it.
At this moment, Li Shuhua stood in the square with a complex gaze.
Beside him was also a youth in his early twenties, who was precisely Su Chen, sent over urgently by the neighborhood committee.
"Young man, I've told you the current situation."
"We can no longer stall Haidong Country over there, and domestic troops have already begun mobilizing."
"Do you... truly have confidence?"
Though his mouth asked whether Su Chen had confidence, Li Shuhua had not a shred of confidence himself.
Before meeting Su Chen, he had still harbored a shred of fantasy.
What if Su Chen hailed from some ancient Eight Banners noble family, with some unknown secret history passed down in his family that happened to have just been discovered? Then perhaps there would still be a tiny bit of hope.
As long as the Ancestor Symbol was activated, the Haidong people naturally would have no further excuse to take action.
Even if it were merely some obscure little figure from the Qing dynasty, it could still avert a war.
As for whether it was humiliating or not, Li Shuhua currently had no mind to think about it at all.
Yet this final, tiny bit of hope was also shattered by reality.
He had people run a check, and Su Chen's resume couldn't be more ordinary.
Han ethnicity, 21 years old, ordinary working-class family.
The person was still a sophomore in college, and his major had nothing to do with history at all.
At the thought that their ultimate hope actually rested upon an ordinary student, Li Shuhua truly felt like crying.
Yet facing the pessimistic and skeptical gazes of Li Shuhua and the others.
Su Chen merely smiled, lifted his foot directly, and walked toward the large Cauldron in the center of the square.
Before you continue