Chapter 40: The Assessment Begins

Tang Han had been wandering around the spacious villa for half the day, and while servants had come and gone to serve him several times, he still hadn't managed to catch a glimpse of the master of the house, Lord Zhang.

Taking advantage of the moment when Chen Xiaodi went to the restroom, Bai Ye neatly packed his bachelor's gown and asked his roommate to help return it. The roommate agreed, turned around to leave, but walked only a couple of steps before turning back.

At ten past eight in the morning, Chen Xiaodi arrived at the entrance of the railway station. She looked around in all directions but saw no sign of Bai Ye. Just as she was about to call him, a still-warm milk cake appeared right before her eyes. She raised her head, and the person standing there was looking at her with a gentle smile.

Consequently, although Xiang Jinlai focused more on defense than offense, he managed to hold his ground barely. Down below, Tarsero, Moana, and the others wore tense expressions; their very fate hinged on this single battle.

"Not really. They aren't from our department, and they wouldn't dare go too far on campus," Zhou Qian replied.

Ever since injuring her shoulder, Yan Yiran's acting had been severely affected. Even though she didn't need to do wire work or wield weapons and martial arts props, interacting in scenes with fellow cast members still proved somewhat restrictive to her performance.

Lu Yan took care of him deep into the night, yet her eagerly anticipated wedding night turned out to be completely uneventful. For the next two years, Zhou Yan never touched her, and they rarely even shared any decent intimate gestures.

Although she and Gu Mingzhe had long since done this and that, being so utterly unguarded and open with each other after several months apart suddenly made her feel a bit unaccustomed to it.

"Mayor Huang, what on earth happened here? The entire mountain vanished out of nowhere," Elder Long asked, looking at the Mayor of Xi'an.

Shortly after returning to the Paranormal Division a while ago, Bai Zhiqing went and brought Zeng Yu over under the pretext of commanding him in the capacity of a junior martial uncle. With no other choice, Zeng Yu had no option but to follow Bai Zhiqing to the division.

This was a weapon of peerless power she had repeatedly witnessed in films and television in her past life; today, she beheld its splendor with her own eyes, and now it was truly gripped in her hand. A surging sense of heroism spontaneously arose within her chest.

As massive streams of information fed back from within the stone, a rare trace of a smile finally appeared on Mo Kui's face.

Nalan Aotian had just wanted to speak when he never expected that middle-aged man to lash out with a flying kick, accompanied by an even frostier voice. It caught him completely off guard, sending his body flying backward out of his control, dragging a long distance across the ground before finally coming to a halt.

Such a tactic was quite something, Madam Chen muttered inwardly in silent criticism. She had only ever heard of people trying every possible way to curry favor with the elders; she had never heard of anyone simply dragging an elder right into their own chambers.

"Do we really have that many beastmen generals? A thousand of them—are there even enough troops for all of them to command?" The personal guards initially assigned to him numbered a thousand, and reportedly the lowest-ranking among them was a three-star commander. That was simply absurd.

Inside the fairly spacious office, an awkward silence instantly descended. No one spoke a word, especially Hong Yan, who could read the anxiety written across Wang Xiao's expression. She simply sat quietly facing her computer, utterly silent, with her brow deeply furrowed.

Within the chip's virtual space, a numerical disk appeared before Ye Shuai's eyes, displaying the numbers and avatars of players from No. 1 to No. 20. Among them, the avatar for No. 20 had already turned gray.

Du Bai stepped forward directly, pushed open the villa's heavy doors, and walked inside. As soon as Du Bai entered, Monk Jiese followed behind him, conveniently closing the villa door shut behind them.

He felt the essence of Heaven's Mystery tremble slightly, and then a line of red characters slowly emerged from the blank space.

One of the soldiers fired the trigger directly without loading a stone projectile. As anyone would know, firing a catapult empty-handed causes tremendous damage to the throwing arm. Several consecutive empty launches could easily snap the beam. Fortunately, this only happened once, something Zhu Yingting could still tolerate.

When saying this, Lu Tianyu was filled with myriad emotions. He had never imagined that he would ever discuss such topics with the former president of his company. Remembering the days they spent together in the past, he truly didn't know how to begin.

After soaking for a while, he felt as though his entire being was melting away. An indescribable sense of comfort washed over his entire body, instantly sweeping away the biting cold and fatigue.

The crowd gazed at Longying with incomprehension. The immediate dilemma before them was fundamentally unsolvable. Under such circumstances, saving as many people as could successfully escape from the city was vastly superior to waiting passively inside for death. The alternative option was the cold-blooded act of shooting and killing the captives who were being forced to advance and attack the city.

"I wonder what brings Vice-Chairman He and your entourage to our humble company today for instruction?" Fan Wubing instructed someone to serve them tea, then asked with a touch of curiosity.

"Why dig so deep for answers? Just do your job well. No one is willing to speak of such matters out loud, so asking is a waste of time anyway. Our Security Department isn't omnipotent, either," Jiang Lü replied.

"But, but me!" Dong Ninghe truly didn't know what to say. She stammered and faltered for a long time without managing to complete a single coherent sentence. In any case, Lu Tianyu hadn't caught a single clear word from her.

Upon the official signing of the contract, Golden Harvest and Pan Media jointly held a grand press conference, and the media rushed to report on the news.

Even more ruthlessly, Nintendo secured Atari's "patent authorization" at the cost of thirty million US dollars, tacitly acknowledging in a roundabout way that the patent rights for the second-generation home video game console belonged exclusively to Atari.

After knocking on the door, a familiar face appeared. It turned out to be Lu Wu's older sister, Lu Yan.

However, as commanders, they had to be far more cautious. They had to ensure that the US military's firepower held an absolute advantage and minimize casualties among US officers and soldiers as much as possible, making the deployment of heavy weaponry an absolute necessity.

These barbarian men possessed crude appearances, but their actual strength was formidable. A few of them had even reached the level of the Transformation Stage, making them quite formidable experts within their ranks.

This was a game of strategy, a life-or-death contest. Whoever could endure until the very end and play their part the most convincingly would emerge as the victor.

Because Bai Tong had previously been poisoned by the human-faced spider, her whole body was now devoid of strength, leaving her unable to participate in the battle. However, moving her fingers and using Cao Lu as a hostage was still something she could accomplish with ease.