It doesn't matter what the lord is.

The nursery rhyme was a very good one, which he had heard in Tiancheng Territory before. It was catchy and even children could sing it. Although the lyrics were not well written, for a peasant who had been struggling at the bottom of society for many years and could not read a single word, being able to understand it was the most important thing.

When He Yue was a child, she often listened to others singing. Those people gathered together, singing and swallowing Guanyin soil; singing and laughing, with tears on their faces. Later, they all died, starving to death with the hope of an infinitely beautiful future. Those people did not understand any great truths. The biggest ideal in life was to have enough food and warm clothes and to have a happy and stable family.

In Tiancheng and in many territories of Yongtian Kingdom, these are just luxuries.

He Yue didn't say it explicitly, because she felt that saying it out loud would ruin the atmosphere. She just sang quietly with her usual smile on her face.

Then, I suddenly felt Reed's hand holding mine, and the two of them intertwined their fingers.

He Yue looked at Lid, but found that Lid was staring at the ceiling and said calmly:

"Ten years. Even if Lingwu didn't come south, even if West Qin and South Chu never fought, even if Yunhai and the royal family stayed dormant like they are now, even if the situation in the world remained unchanged... in ten years at most, Yunyang would become the next Tiancheng."

He Yue was stunned for a moment and couldn't help but add a little strength to his hands.

Lid smiled at him and said:

"It was better when Lord Yunyang was around. He was like the old king, selfish, stubborn, and had many other problems, but he had seen a lot of storms after all. If he was really incompetent, Lord Cangzhou would have led his army to attack the capital long ago... But the problem is that his sons are not up to the task. The family property passed down from their ancestors can still be kept in their hands, but it's hard to say whether it can be passed on to the next generation."

Lid reached out and gently ruffled He Yue's hair:

"So don't be sad, He Yue. The world is already bad enough, and it's getting worse, so as long as you work hard, you can definitely make it develop in a better direction, or at least make it worse more slowly. If you can make the people of Yuxi City live a prosperous life, you will naturally be able to save more people in the future."

He Yue nodded.

But after a while, he said jokingly:

"I suddenly remembered that the young master of the Tiancheng family seemed to have some feelings for you. If you really like him, remember to say hello to me as soon as possible. For your sake, I can let him go."

6. Starting today, there will be no shortage of experimental subjects

In response to He Yue's doubts, Li De said that the young master of Tiancheng family liked Li De in women's clothing. As everyone knows, Li De no longer wears women's clothing, so Li De in women's clothing is dead. The young master of Tiancheng family has become a widower, guarding someone who will never come back, which is really pitiful.

But this has nothing to do with Yuxi City.

It's not like liking Li De can wash away his past sins, he still has to be beaten. It's just that Yuxicheng's main target is still Yunyang, so let him be happy for a few more days.

The two chatted for a while, and He Yue was the first to feel sleepy. She fell asleep holding Li De's hand.

Li De did not disturb him. In fact, Li De had always known that although internal affairs, military affairs, and supervision sounded like the separation of powers, He Yue was actually under the greatest pressure among the three. When Li De was not around, although important decisions were made by the top management, He Yue was still the leader. He was the only one who could understand many of Yuxi City's accounts and he was the only one who could come up with some plans.

Among the current leadership team, only Fang Shisan had done things related to internal affairs before, but her main focus now was on training troops, so there was little she could do to help He Yue. With more and more big moves recently, He Yue must have become more and more tired.

It would be better to let her have a rest.

He Yue and I slept until noon, and Alayya had already prepared lunch.

Lid's eyes widened. He had never dreamed that the "many new ingredients" He Yue mentioned were the high-quality crops cultivated in the northern industrial base, including high-quality radishes, high-quality cabbages, and high-quality potatoes. It was a pity that the quality was only in terms of yield, and the taste did not change much.

There was an extra fried rice on the table today. Although the cooking skills were average, Li De felt that the taste was somewhat familiar. After careful recollection, he found that it was the same fried rice that he had instructed Zhao Zhao to make.

But to be honest, although the ingredients are similar, there is still a gap in the techniques. Lide estimated that Yu Qingzhao suffered a lot when she was driven to the north, so she must have done everything like needlework and cooking by herself. So when Lide saw Jubei Inn, he knew at a glance that she was an expert in the culinary world. When she fell into poverty one day, she might be able to set up a small stall on the street to support her family and get a reputation like the Fried Rice Xishi.

By the way, that day at the Jubei Inn, with the spring atmosphere, Alayya's swordsmanship successfully broke through the threshold of the eighth level and reached the eighth level perfection in one breath. And Xi Luo, who returned to Yuxi City in advance, also rose from the middle of the eighth level to the eighth level perfection because of this training. The current realms of the two people can basically be said to be on par.

Strictly speaking, Alaya is better. She has inherited the legacy of two great swordsmen, while Shiloh is a pure talent. Shiloh's advantage is still her youth. If she continues to grow at this rate, she may reach the tenth level when she is Alaya's age. This also makes Alaya feel very threatened.

Bai Huang's follower Heji has just passed the eighth level, which is the result of his efforts to catch up. Seeing that the girl who was one level lower than him is now better than him, Heji can only sigh: In these few years of life, he has no martial arts, no love, and he is almost middle-aged in the blink of an eye. Other men have children running around when they are his age. It stands to reason that the eighth level is not low, but everything is afraid of comparison. Every time he compares, Heji will sigh that it is fate, but he has no regrets.

In the afternoon, Lid met with Liu Shi and brought some candy to Amo.

Although Lingwu Lord withheld a lot of giants from Lid, it was because Lingwu Territory needed it. The losses on this trip northward were too great. If Lingwu Lord had become the new Pillar of Eternal Life as she wished, no one would have said anything. But she only brought back chocolate, which was not enough for Lingwu Territory. In order to maintain her absolute authority in Lingwu Territory, she needed to withhold the giants from Lid, and Lid was tacitly aware of this.

However, as compensation, Lingwu Lord not only did not take any of the rare materials brought back from the seabed secret realm, but also gave up her share, packed them in a leather bag and gave them to Lid. Lid originally planned to give half of these things to Little Slime and half to Flowing Stone, but Little Slime, who was so happy that he didn't want to leave, stayed with the rebels for the time being, so Lid simply carried all these materials to the forging room.

"You're welcome. I won't tell you any requirements. Just forge with confidence. In the end, you can make as many pieces as you can. Whatever weapons you can make, make the best use of them. If you think they are suitable for research, just use them. If they succeed, use them as technical reserves. If they fail, use them as experience reserves."

Lid patted Liushi's shoulder. Liushi looked at the various precious materials piled on the ground and nodded.

He had actually planned to take a vacation and take his daughter out for a walk. However, this batch of materials was indeed different. There were many things in it that Liu Shi had never seen before. His gloomy face suddenly showed a fanatical look. A-Mo was also very interested in these things and had already started to pick and choose from the pile of materials.

The appeal of shopping to the father and daughter is nothing compared to forging.

The reason why Lid asked Liushi to forge whatever he wanted was, on the one hand, to maximize the use of this batch of materials, and on the other hand, because no matter what weapons he forged, they would be useful. Among the main combat forces of Yuxi City, Alaya, Felita and Shiloh all have no shortage of weapons. Part of the equipment forged by Liushi will be put into the treasury, and the other part will be invested in the Hero Guild.

Since the establishment of the Heroes Guild last year, although it has been running relatively smoothly, there has been no new breakthrough in the number of members. He Yue discussed with Li De twice and believed that the main operating model of the Heroes Guild at present is "issue tasks - wait for heroes to accept tasks - wait for heroes to bring materials to exchange for gold coins". The core is to exchange gold coins for materials, and then resell the materials for money. But for some top heroes, gold coins are far from attractive enough for them. If they want to further expand the scale of the Heroes Guild, they need to use some weapons and equipment that are not easy to buy on the market as rewards.

So it doesn't matter what strange things the flow stone forges. Even if the people around Lid can't use it, there will always be someone who can use it in the Hero Guild. The Hero Guild is an important armed force to guard against the demons in the west. When Yuxi City goes east to the world, it can stay here to deter the demons. The bigger the scale, the better.

After finishing his business, Lid suddenly remembered that he hadn't seen Fileta for a long time.

After asking Liu Shi, I found out that Fileta had been locking herself in her room to study various ancient books. She usually didn't allow others to disturb her, and would only go to the kitchen to find something to eat in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep.

Lid decided to go and accompany her. But when he thought about the trip north, most of the people around him had received some benefits, but he didn't prepare anything for Fileta, and he suddenly felt a little guilty.

7. Gift from the host

Alayya took a new long sword [Autumn Water], which was the same level as the original [Scarlet Fire].

Xi Luo took half a set of new daggers, named [Armor Breaker], which is the closest to He Xun's level.

He Yue took three hundred low-level giants, which was a brand new labor force for Yuxi City and a construction team full of possibilities.

Fang Shisan took four thousand war horses and also exchanged ideas on battle formation with the rebel leader Bicas.

Liu Shi took a variety of materials. Shuang and Yunye could do more things without changing their original plans because of the improvement of Yuxi City's overall strength.

Bai Huang's elder brother Bai Ye returned alive and made new progress in martial arts. Even the elf princess Delis, who had a relatively low sense of presence, had a friend who could talk to her because of the arrival of the giant princess Taisis.

From this perspective, among the people around Reed, Fileta was the only one with empty hands.

Lid couldn't think of what to give her. After all, the staff in Fileta's hand was the nameless staff that Lid had found in the treasury last time. It was a real Hexun-level staff, and it couldn't be upgraded for a while. He thought about it and thought that he could draw the magic arrays he saw on the seabed and give them to Fileta for research. These included the enchantment magic that could withstand the pressure of the seabed, the living mechanism magic that could control everything, and the surveillance magic that could observe everything from the dome of the secret realm.

Each one should be enough to keep Fileta studying for a few years.

However, when Reed really met Fileta, he found that the gift he prepared was of no use at all.

Almost as soon as he entered the door, he was thrown to the ground by Fileta. Wearing dog ears, Fileta lay on him and kept sniffing him, then lifted up his clothes and got in, rubbing against his chest. Lid's remaining rationality told him that he should close the door, but in the blink of an eye, Fileta had licked his neck.

The wet tip of the tongue gently licked Lid's Adam's apple. He couldn't help but want to hug the girl in his arms, but Fileta had already hugged his neck and whispered softly:

"Master~ The master is back~"

"Am I dreaming... prpr..."

"Hmm... it's the master's smell."

Lid finally stood up, hugged her gently, and then closed the door. Alayya had just broken through. If she was stimulated again, she might face the danger of realm bubble at this point in time.

As soon as the door was closed, the room suddenly became much quieter. Fileta, with a red face, still refused to come out of Reed's clothes, and greedily breathed in Reed's scent. Reed carried her to the bed, but Fileta entangled Reed with her legs and tripped him onto the bed, blushing and showing a very happy expression.

Lid took a quick look around. Fileta's room was very messy, with all kinds of magic books scattered everywhere. She had read the book that Merlin gave her so many times that the pages had almost fallen out. There were piles of draft papers on the table and on the floor, with many magic circles and seals drawn on them. It was obvious that during Lid's absence, she must have been studying these things day and night.

Not only that, there were a lot of messy clothes scattered on the bed. Reed took a few glances and felt that they looked familiar.

Fileta followed Reed's gaze and suddenly realized that she had not cleaned the room at all, so she hurriedly got out of Reed's clothes and quickly rolled up the clothes on the bed and hid them behind her. But Reed had obviously discovered that those clothes were his and he had originally placed them in his bedroom.

It seems that during this period, Fileta ran out in the middle of the night every day not just to bring back some dinner.

Fileta didn't dare to look into Lid's eyes. She lowered her head with a look of shame.

Reed gently touched her head and quietly changed the subject:

"What realm?"

In fact, even without Fileta saying anything, he could tell that Fileta's realm had already reached the seventh level of perfection, but it was obviously better to give her a chance to perform than to reveal it directly. Sure enough, when hearing Lid's question, Fileta raised her face happily and whispered:

"I have reached the seventh level of perfection, and should be reaching the eighth level soon. I will be able to help the master even more."

Lid touched her head again, and Fileta hugged Lid's arm and rubbed it. Lid was silent for a moment and asked:

"Are you lonely?"

Fileta's body trembled and she nodded slightly.

Lid felt a little distressed. Fileta was the first person Lid rescued after he came to Yuxi City, and she had been with him for a longer time than Alayya. But because he needed Fileta in the battle to defend the city, Lid did not take her with him several times. Fileta's cold personality in front of outsiders also made it difficult for her to integrate into the environment. Although she was a cold magician admired by everyone in Yuxi City, except when she was teaching her two apprentices, Yama and Yaqian, she basically locked herself in the room.

"I'll take you with me next time I go on a long journey. It just so happens that you've reached the point where you should travel the world and experience thousands of dangers. This time I went north, and I happened to visit the land of the Upper Three Tribes, and I memorized some of the magic arrays they used. I'll draw them for you, and it's up to you to understand how much you can."

Lid said to Fileta with a smile.

Fileta replied in a low voice:

"As long as the master gives it to me, Fileta will try her best to learn it...!"

Lid carefully spread out sheets of white paper on the bed, and began to draw an extremely complex magic circle while recalling. It took about eighty pages of paper to completely draw the outline of the barrier magic circle. Then he asked Fileta to put away the pile of straw paper, and spread out more paper to draw the two magic circles of the living mechanism and the dome eye, and handed them all to Fileta.

Fileta held a thick stack of papers and rubbed them back and forth, repeating happily:

"A gift from my master~hehe."

Fileta seemed to like the papers themselves more than the things drawn on them. She blinked and looked at Lid, then said softly after a moment:

"Master, do you want to go out for a walk in the evening? Can you take my mom with you? I haven't been out for a long time... I've been feeling a mess lately, and it's hard to calm down... Maybe going out for a walk will help."

Reed nodded, and Fileta happily handed a chain to Reed.

One end was in Lid's hand and the other was on the collar around Fileta's neck.

Reed originally wanted to complain, but facing Fileta's expectant eyes, he couldn't say a word.

Finally, he sighed, put the chain aside, and stretched out his hand to Fileta with a stern face:

"Give me my clothes."

Fileta shook her head hurriedly:

"Wait, let me wash it... and then send it to the master..."

Her voice gradually became inaudible:

"Now... there's some... saliva and stuff."

8. Come to your door

For the following week, Reed spent most of his time in debauchery.

A week later, life began to get back on track. He had originally planned to stay in bed for another ten days or half a month, but the attack on Yunyang had already begun, and the overall atmosphere in Yuxi City suddenly became tense. He Yue and Fang Shisan often held meetings to discuss various issues, propose various plans, and finally select the most feasible one to implement.

He Yue was in charge of logistics, Fang Shisan was in charge of frontline operations, Shuang Lai was in charge of intelligence gathering, and Yun Ye was in charge of strategic planning. The operation of Yuxi City was very stable from beginning to end, and there would not be any major problems. But Yunyang was a territory with deep cultural heritage after all. Even though it was ranked in the middle and lower ranks among the thirty-six territories, there were still many interests involved.

There are many things that Lide cannot completely let go of. For example, the territories that are friendly with Yunyang must have natural hostility towards the expansion of Yuxi City. If these forces are allowed to gather together, Yuxi City will be equivalent to fighting with many territories at the same time, which is impossible with the current strength of Yuxi City.

Yunyang is not scary, what is scary is those people standing behind Yunyang waiting for a share of the cake. These people have long regarded Yunyang as their own private land, such as the former Huaiwang Territory and Qiming Territory, hoping to suck Yunyang's blood continuously by supporting Yunyang's prince Li Yi.

The good news is that most of these territories don't know much about Yuxi City. This is also due to the fact that Yuxi City established its own Anbu system a long time ago, and it has thoroughly cleaned up the spies sent by other territories.

When most of the nobles in the territories mentioned Yuxi City, their opinions were still very simple:

Those people in Yuxi City must be powerful, otherwise they would not have been able to take such a big piece of meat from Yunyang, nor would they have been able to successfully resist the invasion of the demons. But in the final analysis, they were still just a bunch of kids fooling around there. They were young and energetic, but they would definitely be played around by old hands like us.

As the saying goes, if one soldier is incompetent, the rest of the generals will be incompetent as well. Just look at the Lord of Yuxi City and you will know that the atmosphere in Yuxi City is not very good.

Based on this point of view, many territories' resistance to Yuxi City was not so thorough. This gave Yuxi City room to maneuver. After all, when they divided Yunyang, some would get more and some would get less. Lide only needed to offer a higher price to those territories that got less, and they would quickly sell out their former allies and stand on Lide's side.

Of course, they didn't know that if Lid took over Yunyang, he wouldn't give out a single cent.

"We have to hurry up... before the new policy of the capital comes out."

He Yue said to Li De solemnly:

"The reason why we chose to attack Yunyang now is for this reason. Over the years, the royal family hoped to divide the various territories from within through the Enfeoffment Order. If the Cangzhou lord had not revolted that year, this policy might have really worked. But as the influence of the royal family declined, the territories that were able to raise an army could no longer sit still. No one was willing to slowly perish like this, and everyone wanted to fight for the throne while the territory was still intact."

He Yue drew a river on the blackboard, cut a line in the middle, and continued:

"So the Enfeoffment Order is to block those ambitions and consume them imperceptibly. But now this dam is not strong enough, and the force is like a flood that is unstoppable, so we can only divert it. Next, the white-robed minister in the capital will definitely lead the various territories to conflict and let them fight, so as to consume their strength. We have to take over Yunyang before that, otherwise the forces standing behind Yunyang will not wait and see, but will come out to grab the territory themselves."

Reed nodded. This was actually a commonplace topic, a strategic direction that had been mentioned many times in Yuxi City.

During this period, Lide signed many humiliating treaties, promising to pay tribute every year in exchange for the support or neutrality of certain territories. But Lide himself didn't care at all. The spirit of contract is worthy of praise and promotion, but in the face of war, these things are meaningless. War itself is a rebellion against rules. When fighting, no one cares about reason. Whoever has the bigger fist has the right to speak.

Yunye also met with Lid a few times, but they were always after drinking. She was unique among the senior executives of Yuxi City. Others were forbidden to drink before meetings, but Yunye had to drink before meetings. There were special people watching her, and she was not allowed to enter the meeting room without eating half a catty of sweet potato stew.

Yunye, who had drunk, obviously looked much more sober. Her hair was combed back, revealing her smooth forehead. Her voice was also steady:

"According to the plan, let the city lord's brothers and sisters go and make some trouble first. Ever since the last time the Yunyang prince was captured, the people in Yunyang have been unsettled, and the calls for a replacement of the prince have been growing louder and louder. We will then add fuel to the fire and create as much momentum as possible, so that the Yunyang lord will have to deal with the troubles coming from all over."

Lid thought for a moment and replied:

"It won't be that simple. Most of my brothers are just there to do the work and won't really fight Yunyang to the death. My eldest brother will probably panic, but Lord Yunyang won't. He is a man who can calm down the situation. He should be able to see that we are the ones behind the scenes and will definitely target us. If Yuxi City is destroyed, my brothers won't be able to jump up."

Yunye smiled and said: