“Humans are all in nature greedy, and would almost always give in to their desires. Even if I was doing well in the military, I could only be promoted to a lieutenant colonel, while he had already been a.s.signed as a commander of a regiment and been promoted to senior colonel through his family"s connections.” Ji Ming smiled sarcastically. “Isn"t it funny? The achievements I was proud of were nothing in the face of a powerful background. Especially when his military rank was higher than mine, my belief in the system cracked.
“With your personality, you would never do something like betraying your nation or committing a severe crime. As long as it wasn"t too over the top, the organization you were with wouldn"t give up on you that easily,” Ling Lan guessed. “Then there leaves one other possibility. You were unsatisfied. Unsatisfied where you are in life. You wanted to rise higher than that descendant just so that you could return all of the humiliation you received.”
After hearing that, Ji Ming"s eyes narrowed to not show the surprise in his eyes. He didn"t expect to have his personality totally be figured out after just meeting this new Lord Gen four to five times. This prospect terrified him. This person in front of him was not only incredibly strong, just his intelligence, thought process and methods were already heaven-defying. Who could deal with such a terrifying individual?
“Am I wrong?” Seeing Ji Ming be totally silent, Ling Lan raised her eyebrows and asked him, but her eyes were filled with confidence.
That sentence awakened Ji Ming from his thoughts and immediately replied, “Lord Gen, your guess is spot on.”
He continued to smile bitterly. “Back then, I was young, naive and proud. I always thought that as long as I dared to think it, I would be able to succeed. However, all that changed when my organization drew up a plan to invade the Lawless Lands. They called it the Plan of Sacrifice.”
“Plan of Sacrifice?” Ling Lan frowned. This name already had a bad vibe to it. It definitely wasn"t anything good.
“Yes, Plan of Sacrifice. They would choose the most loyal soldiers of the Federation to give up their current statuses and train them into the most hardened criminals to enter the Lawless Lands. We would then use our own methods to infiltrate into the different factions to incite many turf wars, and thus depleting the strength of the Lawless Lands. What"s worse is that we are not allowed to expose our ident.i.ties even if it meant death.” Ji Ming said calmly. Because of his hotheadedness, he wasted 30 years during the best time of his life in the Lawless Lands. Moreover, with the problem of the environment, his body quickly deteriorated to this current state, and soon he will see the end of his days. His body and mind had been depleted of their potential. After trying everything he could to reverse that, even trying to go back to the Federation, he gave up. Now after he gave up, he could finally calmly see all of his mistakes in the past.
“It seems like you failed,” said Ling Lan.
“I don"t know whether there are still spies in the Lawless Lands. I never knew any of them and wouldn"t contact them even if I know their ident.i.ties. I was just by myself from the very beginning all the way until now. I don"t even know whether I had killed my so-called comrades during the past few decades.” Ji Ming looked down at his two old and wrinkly hands, the hands that had already committed many sins. Even if he were to successfully complete his mission, he wouldn"t be able to return his past self.
“The 13 Lords aren"t people you can overthrow.” Ling Lan sighed regretfully for Ji Ming"s sake. If their goal was to overthrow the 13 Lords, the Plan of Sacrifice was already destined to fail. The only thing that was unfortunate was that this plan cost the lives of many outstanding and loyal individuals from the Federation.
Ling Lan believed that the spies who were still alive were definitely just as strong as Ji Ming. Otherwise, they would never be able to complete the mission they were a.s.signed. However, just the lords she had met, each of them were old sly foxes. They would definitely look through a person"s ancestry before promoting them. Although Ji Ming managed to conceal himself, were the others as lucky as him?
Plus, Ji Ming was originally someone who was naturally good at disguising himself. He also cleverly chose to disguise himself as an annoying and negligible person. Through all these years, he managed to avoid suspicion just because of his disguise. Ji Ming was undoubtedly very intelligent. He controlled a few points very well and hid himself among the guardians. He didn"t perform too well while also not falling behind.
“I understood that after becoming a guardian. If you hadn"t appeared, I thought I would be living the rest of my life like this. Everything I experienced in the Huaxia Federation would then become just a pa.s.sing thought in my mind…” Ji Ming showed pained expression. If he had known it would come to this, he definitely wouldn"t have competed with that descendant.
“Okay, I"m very satisfied with your answer.” Ling Lan held Little White and stood up. “Your life is your own now. Whether you can live or not, will depend on whether you can get to the medical department.”
After saying that, Ling Lan disappeared from the main hall.
Ji Ming looked at the empty main hall and smiled bitterly. The secret he kept for his entire life was let out because of his desperation to live. This would be considered as betrayal. Normally, he would feel ashamed of himself, but for some reason, he actually felt relieved. It was as though the burden in his heart was completely lifted after he explained everything.
He sat there silent for a few seconds before taking a deep breath. He endured the immense pain on his body and crawled up from the ground.
Lord Gen said that if he wanted to live, then he must depend on himself. Ji Ming felt his injuries become worse. Thinking about it, he really regretted thinking of such a silly plan to scare Lord Gen with the thunderbolt sphere. Luckily, Lord Gen had blocked off the strongest wave of the explosion. Additionally, his own timely activation of his domain also helped save his life. However, this was all it could do. The only hope he had was the medicinal agents at the medical department. He hoped it could be strong enough to stop his injuries from becoming worse. That way, he would be able to live another day.
Ji Ming slowly limped towards the medical department. This was the first time he hated the fact that the medical department was so far from the main hall. If he were to live through this, he would definitely move the medical department near the main hall!
At that moment, in the farway Huaxia Federation, on Planet Cheyu, Lingtian Independent Army, that had recovered their strength, received two uninvited guests.
Qi Long kept a straight face as he pretended to not see the two “VIPs” from the Flying Dragon Special Forces sitting on the leather sofa in his office.
“Major General Qi, we"re considered acquaintances, right? Don"t give us that kind of look please.” Mu Chaoran had a smile on his face. He wasn"t any bit awkward after seeing Qi Long"s rude expression.
“Haha, Senior Colonel Mu, we"ve only met a few times on the field. I don"t think that qualifies as being acquaintances,” Qi Long put a fake smile on his face. He really didn"t want to talk to these two people.
Every time these two came to Lingtian, it wouldn"t be for anything good. In the past, Boss could deal with them, so he was carefree about their presence. However, now, according to Han Jijyun"s words, he must stay as far as possible from them as possible in case they drag them into something troublesome.
“Don"t be so heartless. In the past, we also went through hardships with your Boss so we can be considered brothers,” Mu Chaoran began trying to get on Qi Long"s good side.
He had no other choice. It was because Ling Lan"s whereabouts were too secretive, so they had no choice but to meet Ling Lan"s underlings for some information.