Chapter 106
War of Mechanics (Arc 8.11)
Because Wilkesa was able to help Billiver mine the deep sea energy resources without polluting the oceans, the pressure on the king of Billiver instantly disappeared, and he received widespread approval from all of the kingdom"s citizens. So Mudatis publicly praised Wilkesa and Jing Yang, and announced that their cooperation this time would be proof of the two countries" permanent diplomatic relationship.
The meaning of Mudatis"s words were very obvious. He wanted to say that as long as he was in power, no matter the circ.u.mstances, the Kingdom of Billiver would always stand on Wilkesa"s side.
The people of the Fetani Empire had already been extremely dissatisfied with John and Avery"s continuous defeats. It would have been fine if they had just not succeeded in two mining attempts, but they had even invested so much, didn"t this just make a joke out of the country"s resources?
John and Avery were already facing intense pressure from the public, and the Kingdom of Billiver was also urging them to quickly pay their compensation according to the contract. Their original plan to deal with Jing Yang could only be pushed off for the moment. They had to wait until the problems with the Kingdom of Billiver were handled before continuing down that path.
In any case, they already no longer had any hope of cooperating with Billiver. John and his men decided that they would simply act shamelessly until the end. They said that it was only because the information provided by Billiver was not reflective of reality that the problem of energy leakage would appear, so they believed that the Kingdom of Billiver should bear most of the responsibility.
Even though the Kingdom of Billiver was relatively less developed, as one of the first nations to join the Federation, they naturally would not be easily cowed. What they said in response was that the worse mechanical development of Billiver was something that all countries knew, and they had provided them everything they knew about the conditions of the seafloor. And they didn"t stipulate in the trial contract that Fetani couldn"t recheck the sea conditions themselves, so you"re going to blame me for not doing it yourself? Then how did Wilkesa know that they needed to re-explore the seafloor before mining?
The feud between the two sides continued endlessly, and in the end they went to the Federation Court for a verdict. Fetani"s position and influence in the Federation was much greater than that of Billiver, so in the end most were biased toward Fetani, leaving Billiver to take on two-thirds of the responsibility, and Fetani to compensate only one-third of the original contract.
The king of Billiver was very dissatisfied, but there was nothing he could do about a verdict that had already been announced publicly. They would just write down this debt and make Fetani pay for it when they had the chance.
Even though the verdict was that Fetani won, the public was still very dissatisfied with the outcome of the case. But they weren"t unhappy with Billiver. Acting based on the conditions of a contract was expected and correct behavior. They were unhappy with John, and this matter instigated chaos in the Fetani Empire. It was very obvious that it was John who took advantage of his power to bully others, which severely damaged Fetani"s image and tarnished Fetani"s reputation in the Federation. In the future, who would dare to trust them or cooperate with them.
Facing the growing discontent at home, John and Avery finally took action. They not only wanted to divert the public"s attention, but also wanted to direct the target to Jing Yang, hoping to create an even larger shock.
Instead of returning to the Fetani capital star, John opened a live broadcast on the Federation Star for the people of Fetani and the other Federation countries.
Although they didn"t specify in advance what the broadcast would be about, a lot of countries" reporters still came on the day of the broadcast. The main reason was because recently things that had to do with Fetani kept happening one after another, not to mention that they still owed many countries payments. These countries were worried about whether they were going to announce that they just weren"t going to pay them back, or were going to exchange for it with something useless.
John and Avery sat down at a long table before letting the reporters outside come in. When the reporters entered, they filled up the large s.p.a.ce.
"First, thank you all for coming. What we are going to announce today could be said to be a disgrace to Fetani. But in order to expose the true face of certain people, we will do whatever it takes." John"s expression was very serious, but made the reporters fixated.
John made a gesture to an a.s.sistant, who immediately turned on the screen behind him. On the screen appeared Jing Yang"s image.
"This person is named Skien Kossa, the grandson of Fetani"s previous left prime minister. The previous left prime minister and several of his sons have been convicted of corruption and have been found guilty of his crimes, and several of his former grandchildren disappeared overnight. Even though the former left prime minister and several of his sons were guilty, his grandchildren were not. Because we were worried about their safety, we even especially dispatched men to look for them, but never found them.”
John forcefully said in anger, "We had been worried about their safety, but never thought! That they would actually betray their own country and flee to Wilkesa, and even specifically oppose Fetani! The Wilkesa Empire was able to mine the Jinming star cl.u.s.ter and the Haiyang star cl.u.s.ter, all because of equipment created by Skien Kossa. And Skien Kossa is a man raised and nurtured by the Fetani Empire.”
"Skien Kossa, who began attending the mechanical department of the Imperial Military Academy in Fetani at the age of ten, was provided a lot of special care by the school because of his excellent grades, and made him a focus for training.”
John patted hard on the table and said with sorrow, "The empire invested so much into cultivating him, but he actually used all of it in revenge. His grandfather and uncles committed a crime, and being punished was a matter of justice. He actually didn"t want to serve the empire and atone for the sins of his grandfather and uncles, but treated the empire as an enemy to deal with! This kind of person who doesn"t know grat.i.tude and has no conscience, General Denanfry Kinlock of the Wilkesa actually protects him, using his hatred to help bring Wilkesa benefits.”
"Here, I would like to offer a piece of advice to General Kinlock. Someone like Skien Kossa who would even betray the country that nurtured him, is simply not loyal to Wilkesa. You think that you got a treasure, so you tightly protect him, but in reality, it"s a poisonous snake. He can bite you in the back at any time, and one day he will deal with you, just like Fetani. Whether for the sake of the diplomatic relations between Fetani and Wilkesa, or to defend against and condemn the traitor, we request that General Kinlock return Skien Kossa to Fetani and allow us to deal with him properly.”
~
Denanfry accompanied Jing Yang to watch John"s broadcast together and was disgusted by John"s blatant lying and slander. He looked at Jing Yang, a little worried that he would be affected by John"s words and feel uncomfortable.
Jing Yang had long expected that they would do something like this. They would discredit his reputation and force him to suffer the condemnation from everyone. They would stir up the moods of the people of Fetani to scold him, make the people of Wilkesa feel that he wasn"t a good man and resent him, and then use the moods of the people of both countries to pressure Denanfry to send him back to Fetani, where they could dispose of him at will. Unfortunate ah, they still miscalculated. Let"s first not mention that Denanfry would absolutely never send him back into their hands, but did they really think that he would not make any sort of counterattack?
Denanfry saw Jing Yang"s expressionless appearance of thinking about something and simply turned off the screen, hugging him. "Are you in a bad mood?”
"No." Jing Yang said. "These people already can"t affect my mental state anymore. I am just thinking, for people like them, how could I make them suffer the heaviest blow.”
Seeing Jing Yang like this, Denanfry still felt heartache. He kissed him on the forehead and said, "Don"t worry, I will definitely protect you.”
Jing Yang leaned into Denanfry"s arms. Only when he entered this embrace was he most at ease and most comfortable. For John and Avery, if they just killed them it would be too cheap for them. He would rather make things more complicated and would rather take some more thought and effort, but still wanted to make those two people experience the taste of living being worse than death.
~
After the people of Fetani found out Jing Yang"s ident.i.ty, as John had expected, they began to violently scold and insult him. They felt that no matter what happened, it was inexcusable for anyone to betray their country. What"s more, the previous left prime minister and his sons had all been rightfully punished for their crime, but Skien Kossa, all of whose abilities had been nurtured by the taxpayers" money, was actually so ungrateful that he used the knowledge that he learned at the Fetani Imperial Military Academy to help other countries. It was simply unforgivable.
The moods and reactions from the people of Fetani were particularly intense. They strongly demanded that the Wilkesa Empire send Skien Kossa back to Fetani to be put to trial by the empire.
After the people of Wilkesa knew about this situation, their reactions weren"t as intense as those of the people of Fetani, but there was still a group of people who felt that someone who would even betray his own country couldn"t be trusted. But there were others who thought that he had already made significant contributions to the Wilkesa Empire and that was enough to prove his determination to support the Wilkesa Empire. Not to mention that with his abilities, if not for him not being able to survive any further in his original country, how could he just go to rely on another country that easily? And such a talented mechanic was worth the risk of keeping.
After Jing Yang"s ident.i.ty was revealed, it attracted the attention of all of the countries in the universe. Some countries even moved their minds, thinking that if Wilkesa didn"t continue to keep him, they might be able to find ways to hide him away. After all, in this day and age, the emergence of a talented mechanic was something that couldn"t even be begged for.
The other countries watched while making plans secretly.
As long as the people of Fetani remembered that Jing Yang helped Wilkesa get the precious metals from the Jinming star cl.u.s.ter and the mining rights for the Haiyang star cl.u.s.ter, they hated him until their teeth itched. The anger in their hearts was even more difficult to express, so they couldn"t wait to give him punishment.
The moods of the people of Wilkesa were much more complex. They were extremely sorry that Jing Yang was not a man of their country, and were even more unclear about whether he should stay or leave. They didn"t want to let him go, but also were worried that him staying would eventually have a bad impact on their country.
And everyone was waiting for Jing Yang and Denanfry"s response, as well as the final outcome of this situation.
Random Notes:
About an hour: 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm, for 3.2k characters to 2k words.