Guanliang left the Alchemy Commission and returned the way he came, arriving at his home just one street away from the Marshal's residence.
What he needed to do most right now was deal with the two hidden dangers, the jade abacus and the neutron gun.
Once the Gratitude Festival was over, they would release the obituary to the public.
Before that, the Xianzhou would enter the highest state of combat readiness ahead of schedule, and all the generals would be summoned to Xuling, where they would be told of the Marshal's death face to face.
Using the will the Marshal left behind, they would calm everyone's emotions.
After that would come the unavoidable step... investigating the truth behind the Marshal's death.
When the time came, they would definitely use the locations shown by the Marshal's jade abacus and neutron gun to head to the place where he finally disappeared.
And now the problem appeared. The jade abacus was in Guanliang's hands, and the neutron gun's whereabouts were unknown.
Adding in what the "Reignbow Arbiter" had said, and the sudden hammer fall of the "Preservation" Aeon…
The answer spoke for itself.
The Marshal must have used some unknown method to cross the Aeon-made "subspace crystal wall," reaching a place humans could not reach, and ultimately died there.
Guanliang could not help but sigh.
As expected of the Marshal. He really could run far. He really left him with a difficult problem.
The only Aeon he could come into contact with was Lan. Judging from the other party's attitude… the place where the Marshal died must be extremely special.
Even if the Xianzhou blasted open the "subspace crystal wall," completely fell out with the Interastral Peace Corporation, and crossed an Aeon creation to search for the Marshal, it would probably just be a pointless death.
The Marshal would never be willing to let his subordinates die for him.
Guanliang dug out the jade abacus the Marshal had used after becoming a Nameless.
He remembered that before the other party left the Xianzhou, he had been reading books related to programming.
Then someone like the Marshal, who did everything to perfection, must have been able to alter the jade abacus's data, right?
If it were that person, he would definitely have thought of this and left a backup plan in advance.
Guanliang opened the jade abacus location interface. As expected, it showed that the owner's life signs were normal, while the location was some region more than a dozen star systems away from Yaoqing.
Judging by the speed, it seemed to be on some kind of spacecraft.
Checking the location history, the Marshal had not returned to Xuling, nor had he landed on any planet.
Guanliang let out a long breath.
This way, they wouldn't have to worry about the generals and the Galaxy Rangers going to other planets to verify things.
At this point, only the neutron gun remained.
Guanliang took out his own jade abacus and cautiously messaged Marty.
[Has the Marshal returned to the train?]
[Marty: The neutron gun isn't with the Marshal. It's in the hands of the "Elation" Aeon. Its exact location can't be detected now, and past data can't be retrieved either]
Guanliang, "???"
He had originally suspected Marty, thinking the other party might already know about the Marshal's death.
Now it seemed Marty had just been frightened by Lan's identity at the time.
The "Elation" Aeon really had come to the Luofu. Marty hadn't lied.
But while Guanliang knew that the "Elation" Aeon had indirectly caused the Marshal's death, he hadn't expected even the neutron gun to end up in an Aeon's hands.
'Wait... damn it, that Aeon didn't give the neutron gun to Hua, did he? He didn't say something unpleasant to Hua again, did he?'
Uneasy, Guanliang exited his chat with Marty and contacted Hua, asking about the details of the meeting between the Aeon and her.
[What did Aha say on the Luofu? Did he give you something?]
[Hua: The Aeon said he was his subordinate and had once been counter-killed by him. Other than that he didn't say much, and he didn't give me anything]
The corner of Guanliang's mouth twitched.
Aha was the Marshal's subordinate? Did Yaoqing count as providing this Aeon with a job? But Guanliang had never seen Aha pay taxes to the Xianzhou.
Guanliang said nothing more and switched back to his conversation with Marty.
[Besides me, does anyone else know you installed a locator in the neutron gun?]
[Marty: No.]
Guanliang relaxed, then put himself in the other's shoes and began persuading him earnestly.
[Marty: privately tracking the Marshal's whereabouts is a serious crime. Clean it up as soon as possible]
His reasoning was solid.
First, the neutron gun was already scrapped, and the past data had been lost along with it. There was no need to keep any historical data anymore.
Second, if this matter were exposed, Marty would very likely be punished by the Marshal he so admired.
So there was no reason for the other party to refuse.
Marty did not agree at first and was very resistant. Guanliang persuaded him again and again before he finally agreed.
After resolving these two biggest hidden dangers, Guanliang carefully thought back over everything that had happened this past month and could not help but give a bitter smile.
The Marshal had first suspended Guanliang and dismissed the Galaxy Rangers who followed him.
Then he had predicted Guanliang's choices in advance, gone to Xuling right when Guanliang was reinstated, left behind Feather Dust and his blood, and through this separately left the neutron gun on the train and the jade abacus in Xuling.
Guanliang thought, 'As expected of the Marshal.'
'Only after everything becomes set in stone can we understand what you were thinking.'
'To walk toward death, you really… considered everything too thoroughly.'
'You were so merciful to humanity. But what about yourself? Step by step, you erased every possibility for your own survival and sealed off all your escape routes.'
'You were far too harsh. Far too cruel.'
Guanliang put down his own jade abacus and instead began flipping through the Marshal's jade abacus that was filled with leaders.
From beginning to end, he found that most of them had joined the Star Sea Community.
Guanliang thought, 'What kind of overtime hell is this?'
'Forget five digits. It feels like the number of foreign guests might hit six digits.'
He stared at the jade abacus, brainstorming, and spent an entire night just barely organizing a small portion of the guest list.
Guanliang didn't even bother with any work-rest schedule. After quickly washing up, he hurried to the Marshal's residence and entered Hua's courtyard.
Unexpectedly, Hua, who usually practiced martial arts early in the morning, wasn't holding a weapon this time. She sat by the stone table with her back to Guanliang, doing something unknown.
Guanliang looked around. Next to the golden nanmu tree in the courtyard lay a fallen trunk as thick as a bowl.
He gave a light cough. Hua seemed not to have noticed his footsteps. Her body paused. Holding wood in one hand and a knife in the other, she turned around.
Guanliang fell silent for a moment.
Was Hua planning to personally make a coffin for the Marshal? So she was making a miniature version first to practice?
Guanliang spoke to comfort her. "When the time comes we'll cut down the tree in Xuling."
Hua nodded and asked, "Which day should we choose?"
Guanliang took out the jade abacus the Marshal had last used.
"He left a backup plan in advance. Let's wait. Wait for the information on the jade abacus. When it shows the day of death, then we'll tell them."
The two of them handled Xianzhou affairs while squeezing out time to sort the guest list, and from time to time they also went to find Daiyang to confirm his mental state.
During this period, Hua finally learned the exact number of affiliated planets.
She said in disbelief, "Wasn't it supposed to be over a hundred? Wasn't it supposed to be three digits?!"
Guanliang chuckled.
No matter what, Hua had to experience what he felt back then.
"The Marshal said that was rounding."
Hua was so angry she laughed, grinding her teeth as she said, "Over a hundred… yeah, nearly ten thousand is indeed over a hundred. That kind of rounding… that's rounding four digits down to three?"
Guanliang lowered his head and continued thinking about the guest list, casually saying, "You tell me if it counts."
Hua, "..."
Once again, that person's wordplay refreshed her understanding.
'Just like you.'
Hua could not bear it anymore. "From now on, the Xianzhou only has over a hundred planets when speaking to the outside world!"
Otherwise how was she supposed to trick the next successor?
They waited day after day. After the seven-day long holiday of the Gratitude Festival ended, the list was finalized, successfully reducing the number of foreign guests to around ten thousand.
Hua ordered all giant ships to enter the highest combat readiness state.
Right after that, the jade abacus the Marshal last used showed a data error. It could no longer detect the holder's location or life signs. The final coordinates were in the star system where the mechanical lifeforms were.
Guanliang, "..."
'Marshal, even in death you won't let them off.'
On the same day, news of the fall of the "Trailblaze" Aeon spread throughout the universe.
The generals were thrown into panic.
The "Cloudstrider" (Akivili) had fallen, so what about the Marshal who traveled alongside the Aeon?
Uneasy, they all sent messages to the Marshal and Hua, asking why the Xianzhou had entered combat readiness.
After much thought, Guanliang asked the Aeon to make a trip. Lan found an empty star-destroying battleship at the location the Marshal had chosen.
He finally relaxed. Together with Hua and Daiyang, and with the Yaoqing general who looked grave as if he had sensed something, they headed to Xuling and summoned the other generals.
After thinking it over, Guanliang still could not stop worrying about Marty.
Marty was the Marshal's most cherished subordinate.
When boarding the star-destroying battleship, Guanliang also sent Marty a message.
[Come to Xuling]
Far away in Cangcheng, Marty looked at his mentally broken colleagues with a numb expression.
He simply had no time to deal with this message.
When Marty had been on the Luofu, he had only focused on retrieving and processing the neutron gun's information and had temporarily forgotten about the Marshal's jade abacus.
After returning to Cangcheng, he only then belatedly remembered it.
That's right. The Marshal didn't want to involve others. He probably also didn't want the Chief Strategist who had followed him for thousands of years to be punished.
Once the generals found records of Guanliang entering and leaving Xuling, he would definitely face reprimand.
But his colleagues in Cangcheng still couldn't pull themselves out of that "essence of the world" document. From time to time someone would imitate the extreme methods written in it.
If it were other people, they might not have believed that document.
But the ones the Marshal gathered were geniuses.
So they tried to fight falsehood through death.
Marty had no choice but to divide his attention to stop them.
Finally squeezing out some time, he immediately began cleaning up Guanliang's loose ends and hacked into the jade abacus.
What he never expected was that the Marshal had already prepared a backup plan.
It just couldn't stand up to scrutiny.
If someone at Marty's level examined it, they would quickly notice something off.
Marty smiled bitterly inside.
As expected of the Marshal. Truly thorough in his thinking.
He slightly modified the information for a few days later, changing the location and life signs to undetectable, forging the appearance that the Marshal had gone missing.
As time passed, that day finally arrived.
Almost calmly, Marty waited for the institute's alarm to sound.
Only during drills did the Xianzhou sound alarms.
Soon, someone would notice the problem.
They would discover that the only truth they followed had disappeared.
The alarm sounded, and Marty gathered with his colleagues.
Thanks to the jade abacus's hundred-percent accuracy rate, his colleagues didn't suspect anything.
Looking at the Marshal's final disappearance location, some were overwhelmed with grief, others burned with anger.
A small number once again developed extreme thoughts.
Watching his colleagues descend into chaos, Marty felt like he was watching a stage play, detached from it all.
While everyone argued endlessly, faces flushed red, he stepped forward.
Marty did his best to maintain his expression, not letting himself show fear in front of them.
During the Gratitude Festival holiday, he had thought things over again and again, scrapping more than a dozen drafts in his head before finally coming up with what he thought were the most appropriate words.
But the moment he stood before them, he forgot everything he had planned to say.
Marty looked around at everyone. Before he knew it, tears were falling.
Steadying his voice, he loudly questioned, "How could someone like the Marshal have an accident? How could anything possibly happen to him?"
Colleagues who had long harbored thoughts of death refuted him hysterically.
Marty and the others countered with solid reasoning, using the jade abacus information to overturn their claims.
He debated with those extraordinarily gifted geniuses for six full hours.
In the end, Marty came out on top, stabilizing the increasingly extreme colleagues shaken by the Marshal's disappearance.
He proposed that they preserve their own consciousness and wait for the Marshal.
In the end, no one refused.
Marty thought, 'You have always kept your promises.'
'I believe we will definitely meet again.'
At the same time, Guanliang and the others arrived at Xuling, entering a venue capable of holding tens of thousands of people.
As Guanliang entered, he happened to pass the largest conference hall.
When the time came, they would place the Marshal's coffin here.
Guanliang couldn't help but complain inwardly.
The Marshal had never lived in such a big place while he was alive.
Oh, and the patrol rewards too. Probably the money the Marshal spent on himself over thousands of years wouldn't even compare to the cost of this upcoming funeral.
On that same day, everyone left their respective Xianzhou ships and gradually arrived at Xuling.
When Chanzhen saw Daiyang, his eyes lit up, then dimmed again.
They vaguely sensed something. No one dared speak. They just waited quietly.
Once everyone had arrived, Guanliang took out the jade abacus and placed it on the conference table.
"This is the Marshal's jade abacus."
"Not long ago, I received news that it showed a data error and could no longer detect his location or life signs."
"I sent people to check. All they found was an empty ship."
Everyone's eyes widened. It was as if they had lost the ability to speak.
Some looked lost. Some couldn't believe it.
That was the Marshal. How could something happen to the Marshal?
After the silence, someone asked, "Where is the Reignbow Arbiter?"
The Marshal had the Reignbow Arbiter's blessing.
If the jade abacus couldn't locate the Marshal, then what about the Aeon?
Guanliang said nothing and turned his head to look at Lan.
Following the Chief Strategist's gaze, everyone looked at the man who shouldn't have been here, whose face seemed somewhat unfamiliar.
Lan looked around at everyone and said softly, "Not long ago, the portion of power I gave him returned to my body."
This sentence left everyone too shocked to speak.
They didn't even have time to question the identity of the Reignbow Arbiter. Instead they kept turning the meaning of those words over and over in their minds.
The famous generals of the universe looked like children who had lost the ability to think.
None of them dared say the conclusion out loud. They just looked at each other, trying to find something in each other's eyes to overturn their own reasoning.
Guanliang couldn't bear to watch anymore.
He stood up and took out the stack of wills he had brought from Xuling to Yaoqing and then back again.
The Yaoqing general who had traveled with Guanliang and the others showed a pained expression.
He could no longer deceive himself.
The Yaoqing general slammed the table in anger.
"Why did Qli... no, the 'Preservation' Aeon... bring down the hammer on the day of the Gratitude Festival?"