As the snow danced in the air, the Great Qin City seemed to be covered by a layer of white. Celebratory red lanterns hung throughout streets, and every house had New Year couplets stuck on either side of the doors. People walked about on the streets with big smiles on their faces.Zhao Fu stood on the top level of a tall building, looking at the majestic scene of the Great Qin City, feeling quite awed. Seeing the many families getting together, Zhao Fu could not help but feel a bit lonely.
It was New Years, and on this day, Great Qin ceased all operations. New Years was one of the most important festivals to Great Qin, as it followed Chinese traditions.
Great Qin had unified China and integrated the surrounding countries as well. Of course, some people had escaped to other Continents.
It could be said that since ancient times to now, no one had been able to complete this monumental task. If there were not other worlds outside the Legacy Lands, Great Qin would be more or less completed already.
Great Qin still had not finished clearing out regions, but once this was done, Great Qin would launch the final attack to unify the world. In the future, the world would be at peace and the human world would no longer have any fighting.
"Your Majesty! Hug!" Little Nine wore a snow-white cotton-padded jacket and led Little Rose to the top of the building. She held a drum-shaped rattle and leapt towards Zhao Fu.
Zhao Fu lightly laughed as he hugged her and Little Rose, and the two of them started to play about within Zhao Fu"s embrace. Zhao Fu felt as if he had gained two little sisters, which dissipated a bit of the loneliness in Zhao Fu"s heart.
"Your Majesty, we"ve completed the preparations for the New Years banquet. The various Generals and Ministers have all arrived; please return to the palace," Li Si said as he bowed.
Zhao Fu nodded before suddenly asking, "How are Our grandparents?"
Li Si smiled as he replied, "The two elders are quite healthy. This Minister has been taking care of them. Please rest a.s.sured, Your Majesty."
Zhao Fu lightly nodded and said, "Invite them to the palace to celebrate New Years together!"
Li Si smiled as he cupped his hands, saying, "Yes, Your Majesty! This Minister will immediately go to invite them."
In actuality, Li Si had long since expected that Zhao Fu would do this. Even though Zhao Fu had said that he was cutting off ties with his family, because of their familial connection, even though he hated his uncle"s family and did not pay much attention to his grandparents, Li Si had been secretly taking care of the two elders this entire time.
During this special celebration, Li Si understood that Zhao Fu would feel lonely, and he could not make up for this, nor could anyone else. After all, they were not Zhao Fu"s relatives.
People in the outside world said that their Majesty was cold-blooded and bloodthirsty, and sometimes he was indeed like this. To Great Qin"s enemies, he was incredibly ruthless, but to those part of Great Qin, he was quite soft.
Following this, Zhao Fu returned to the palace and celebrated the New Years with his Generals, Ministers, and grandparents, and he almost became drunk.
Four days later, Zhao Fu put his emotions back in order and headed to the Fish Scale world. Great Qin had signed a Contract with the Fish Scale world, promising not to attack for three years. It was now the sixth year in the Heaven Awaken World, and the Contract would expire next year.
Zhao Fu"s focus this time was the Darkwater Continent. Zhao Fu now had 4,200 City Lords in the Darkwater Continent, and he controlled 3,200 of them with brain bugs. There were still 1,000 who were not controlled.
The Darkwater Continent had 6,000 regions and 19,000 or so City Lords. Zhao Fu"s 4,200 City Lords were about a quarter of the total City Lords, and they had 2,000 or so regions.
Zhao Fu felt that he could start up a battle within the Darkwater Continent. After all, this would be a battle within the Fish Scale world, so it would not have as much of an impact as a war between worlds, and the factions from other Continents most likely would not interfere.
This undoubtedly reduced the difficulty of Zhao Fu unifying the Darkwater Continent. Because of the Contract, Great Qin"s soldiers could not enter the Fish Scale world, so Great Qin would not be able to help at all. They could only rely on their forces in the Darkwater Continent.
Currently, almost 80% of system City Lords in the Darkwater Continent had joined the system faction controlled by Great Qin.
Because of their ident.i.ty as City Lords, they had quite an advantage because the world was essentially split into two sides, one being the player side and the other being the system side.
By now, it was mostly players starting to gain the upper hand, and they continuously conquered system main cities. If system main cities wanted to stay safe and not be destroyed by players, they had to gather together. That was why Great Qin"s faction in the Darkwater Continent had grown so quickly.
Moreover, this was growth that did not cost them anything, and it allowed them to completely absorb the forces of those who were joining. The City Lords were also quite loyal.
However, the fact that there were still 1,000 City Lords who were not controlled was a risk, but Zhao Fu could not do anything about it. He lacked brain bugs, and most trades in the Heaven Spirit Stele were conducted through bartering; gold coins were not of much value in the Heaven Spirit Stele, and their only use was to pay for fees.
Zhao Fu did not want to continue pretending to be a higher-being in the Heaven Spirit Stele, because without actual cultivation, he could be exposed quite easily. He absolutely did not want to catch the attention of a true higher-being.
He had made friends with a higher-being, but Zhao Fu did not dare to disturb him or her, only collecting books for that higher-being.
At first, Zhao Fu only provided books that could help with comprehension, such as scriptures. Later, Zhao Fu found that the higher-being loved all kinds of books, so he sent over China"s four great cla.s.sics, which were the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Water Margin, and Dream of the Red Chamber.
He had never expected the higher-being to like Journey to the West the most, and the higher-being even asked Zhao Fu who wrote it and wanted to meet that person.
Zhao Fu could not do anything to help – the person who wrote Journey to the West was from the Ming Dynasty; how could Zhao Fu go and find him?
However, it was not surprising that the Journey to the West was the most liked one; it was the most widely read cla.s.sic out of the four great cla.s.sics, and it had its own charm.
Now that Zhao Fu could not use the same methods to obtain brain bugs, he could only use other things to trade them. With Great Qin"s fortune, this was no problem.
Following this, Zhao Fu spent a great deal of effort to obtain 1,000 brain bugs to control the remaining 1,000 system City Lords. Now, this system faction once again fully belonged to Great Qin.
The system faction had a force of 4,200 City Lords and 400 million Stage 1 soldiers; just thinking about it, anyone would feel excited.
With this sort of strength, unifying the Darkwater Continent would not be too difficult. Even though their forces only made up one quarter of the total forces in the Darkwater Continent, they were one collective force while the others were a pile of loose sand. Some would not even help and would just sit by and watch.
However, Zhao Fu thought about it and decided to play things safe. He decided to slow down the unification of the Darkwater Continent because he was still somewhat worried about the other Continents.
After all, even if Great Qin"s faction could take over the Darkwater Continent, with its strength, it might not be able to defend it and scare others into not attacking.
Right now, the most important thing was to gather more City Lords from other Continents. With how big Great Qin"s faction was, it would attract more people because the more powerful a faction was, the safer it would be.