CHAPTER 719: HUNAN IN TROUBLE

"Welcome back, honey."

"Dada!"

As Leyan quickly opens the door for the three of them, Xuanhua had already reached her hand over to hop into Xiaoyun’s arm.

"Hey Xuanhua... Leyan, where’s everyone?" Xiaoyun curiously asked as he carefully held onto the baby.

"Probably still at work. They should be home soon though... You hungry? I already finished cooking dinner."

"I can wait——"

"I’m hungry already!"

As the two baby mothers tried to walk past their own babies, they were instantly stopped as both Lianrong and Qiaolan stopped them in their tracks.

"Mommy!"

"Hey Lianrong/Qiaolan."

"Lily, have you been home all day?"

Xiaoyun curiously asked as both of the mothers picked up their baby and sat down on the sofa, leaving Lily cleaning up the toy from the floor.

"Yeah... Um, how was work today?" Lily asked, her face blushing red for some mysterious reason.

"It’s pretty great. The next few days I should be much freer than last week——"

Just before he could finish responding, his phone suddenly started ringing. He gently hands Xuanhua over to Leyan before getting up.

"Freer, he said..." Leyan grumpily murmured as the two of them watched Xiaoyun walk over to the kitchen with his phone out.

---

Taking out the phone, it was an unknown number.

"Hello? Who’s this?"

"Xiaoyun, can you hear me?"

The scuffed female voice made it a little hard to tell. He could feel it sounded familiar, but he just couldn’t pinpoint who it was.

"I can hear you. Who are you?"

"I——"

The phone call cuts out as static voices filled up the sound until it slowly disappeared into a dead silence.

"Hello? You there?"

"I’m here. Hello? Can you hear me?" The other side asked as the voice sounded much clearer than before.

"Yeah, I can hear you. Can you repeat who you are? I couldn’t hear it exactly."

"I’m Houqin. Can you hear me now?"

As a voice from the other side yelled out loud, it made Xiaoyun drop his phone for a second, if it wasn’t for his fast reaction.

"I hear you loud and clear... Is the deal going all right? Or do you still need more time?" Xiaoyun asked.

"We need reinforcement. All of us are in trouble right now."

"In trouble? What? Did they force you guys to stay?" Xiaoyun asked in confusion as his brain still lagged.

"We’re trapped because Yiming chose to extend the stay when I already told him——Hey! This is my phone——"

As the abrupt gunshot interrupted the phone call, Xiaoyun felt extremely concerned as hundreds of different scenarios started playing out in his head.

"Xiaoyun, I can’t explain to you what happened right now. But can you just send some soldiers to Yizhang County to save us?"

Houqin replied as her voice started to sound more and more nervous, almost as if someone was directing her words.

"How many do you need?"

"Um... J-Just a few hundred."

"Okay, I’ll send some troops over... Houqin, can you put Yiming on the phone? Or is he preoccupied with something else?"

"He’s busy directing the soldiers right now. A-And can you come too? Mr.Zhongxiong wants a meeting with you."

"Zhongxiong wants a meeting with me?"

As the other side fell into radio silence, Xiaoyun’s brain started to realize something must have changed on the other side of the phone call.

It was almost as if she were being held at gunpoint, forced to say things in an attempt to lure him into a trap of some sort.

"That’ll be great. I’m more than happy to see him... You know what, I’ll bring the 5th Army Corps to help you guys."

"No, no, no, the 5th army corps is... too expensive. He just wants a small meeting. There’s no need for such a big army to come over."

"Then should I come over by myself?"

"Um, yeah—no! That isn’t good. You should at least bring several soldiers with you in case of a zombie horde."

"Okay. I’ll come with just a small team. Is that all?"

"Yeah."

As the other side hung up first, Xiaoyun’s face turned dark as it became more than apparent someone was holding Houqin hostage.

Something big must have changed in Changsha, something that made them willing to take the risk of arresting his two diplomats.

"What the fuck happened in two weeks of Changsha?"

Putting the phone back into his pocket, Xiaoyun’s brain still couldn’t think of a reason that could change their alliance with Zhongxiong’s troop.

"Maybe it isn’t Zhongxiong’s troop?" Xiaoyun murmured to himself as he began to develop ideas that might just explain it.

"Xiaoyun, is everything all right?" Leyan asked as she started walking over to the kitchen by herself.

"Everything is fine. I just need to pick up Houqin and Yiming from Changsha. I’ll be back by tomorrow morning or so."

Before she could say anything, Xiaoyun had already walked right past her. He went past both of his wives in the living room into the garage.

"Mom, what happened?" Yuqi curiously asked as she got a little concerned seeing him rushing out like this.

"I don’t know... Yueyue, did something happen in Changsha?"

"Changsha? I don’t think so. None of my agents had sent anything back for the past few days... Wait a moment."

Yueyue froze as if her brain realized something was off. She immediately handed Qiaolan over to Lily as she rushed straight towards the door.

"What’s wrong in Changsha?"

Yuqi urgently asked as she quickly rushed ahead and pulled her back, preventing her from leaving the house.

"I don’t know either. But something is seriously wrong in Changsha. Let me go now. I need to send more agents to find out what’s happening there."

As Yuqi finally lets Yueyue go, she quickly rushes out of the house as Yuqi looks back over to Leyan.

"Mom... Why does everything always have to go wrong?" Yuqi grumpily asked as she closed the door and walked back over to the sofa.

"Be happy that at least he stayed in town over the two-week emergency already... We married a busy man, can’t expect him to be home all the time."

---

As Xiaoyun arrived at the gates of the logistics department in his car, his phone was called by a different number this time.

"Hello?"

"Xiaoyun, I have some news to tell you. I know what happened in Changsha." Yueyue’s voice appeared.

"What is it?

"Zhongxiong is dead."

The bombshell made Xiaoyun freeze as he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He couldn’t even imagine something like this in his head.

None of his scenarios ever included Zhongxiong dying. Not a single one, considering how healthy the old man looked when he last met him.

He was just expecting a rogue officer coup or some crazy number of bandits that caught Houqin and Yiming in the middle of their travel.

"How did he die?" Xiaoyun urgently asked.

"I don’t know. But my undercover agent just relayed a radio report like right now. So most likely something big had happened a week ago."

As Xiaoyun thought back to the phone call earlier with the Zhongxiong meeting, his mind began to develop a theory of what might have happened in Changsha.

"Thank you. Is there any other information you got?"

"Several of the agents had also reported suspicious movement from Zhongxiong’s troops months ago. But those were just traveling trader accounts."

"That’s fine... Next time, try to verify it. If there’s nothing else new, I’m going to hang up the call."

"Stay safe. Bye."

"Love you."

As Xiaoyun hung up the call, he let out a small sigh. It wasn’t feeling pressured. Rather, he felt a little relieved.

At least now he knew what he was going into—a rescue mission. Or even a military operation.

Either one, he was going to need some troops. More than enough to act as a backup plan in case it escalates.

"Good evening, sir!" The guards saluted.

"Evening."

Driving the car into the parking lot, Xiaoyun quickly exited before walking straight towards Houqin’s office.

"Hey, Commander. Is there something wrong?" The temporary department head asked, noticing the look on his face.

"I need you to gather as many troops as possible. Call up all reserves and any troops that aren’t in the front line currently."

The department head froze for a second, but quickly snapped back to reality as she didn’t question Xiaoyun’s order.

"I’ll send out the memo to all of them now... But it might take a while for the reservist to gather in Luoping."

"Don’t just gather them in Luoping. I want them all in Shaoguan... And call Shen Wen. I want everyone to know we’re gathering troops up north."

The order confused the department head a little, but she didn’t question it as she nodded her head and started dialing the loudspeaker.

"I want all available logistic workers to return to the office in twenty minutes. I repeat, call all of your coworkers who are off duty to report to the office."

As the department head issued the order, Xiaoyun quickly noticed something as he looked over to the sandbox map on the right.