N-M Chapter 233 The Cleanup Operation Begins
Chapter 233 The Cleanup Operation Begins
After saying the last sentence, Song Chen stood up.
The red light on the camera went out, and there was a moment of silence in the control room before someone started clapping.
Applause echoed from the control room to the corridor, from the corridor to the lobby downstairs, and from the lobby to the street.
Song Chen took the Tianjun Blade from his waist, held it in his hand, and walked out of the studio.
Anning City Center Square.
The crowd below the giant screen remained silent for several seconds after the image went dark.
Then someone shouted, "It's Song Chen, from Anning City, from our Anning City!"
The crowd erupted in cheers. Li Xiuying, standing at the very front, had tears welling up in her eyes the moment Song Chen appeared on the screen.
Song Zhengye was alright; he simply watched the young man in armor on the screen quietly, observing the way the young man spoke with his hand on the hilt of his sword.
A neighbor squeezed through the crowd and patted him on the shoulder: "Old Song, that's your son, that's your son!"
He nodded. "I know. My son."
……
Nanjiang University.
The television in the cafeteria was hanging in the corner, and originally only a few students were listening to it while getting their food.
After Song Chen spoke, more and more people arrived, and those queuing at the window forgot to get their food and squeezed to the back with empty plates.
By the time he said, "I was born in Anning City," the cafeteria was already packed with people. Those behind him were standing on tables, those behind him were standing on chairs, and those behind him were standing on their companions' shoulders.
Lin Qingxue sat at the front row table, surrounded by her roommates and classmates.
Her roommate, Zhou Xiaoman, started shaking her arm the moment Song Chen appeared: "Qingxue, your Song Chen, look, look!"
Lin Qingxue's hair was disheveled from being shaken, but she ignored Zhou Xiaoman.
She looked at the person on the screen, watching the way he spoke.
When Song Chen on the screen said, "This is for our present and for our future," she covered her mouth with her hand.
People around were screaming and shouting "Senior Song Chen".
Someone nudged her and said, "Your boyfriend."
When she heard the word "boyfriend," her face flushed red, all the way to her ears, but she didn't deny it.
She just stared at the screen, her hand covering her mouth, her eyes slowly welling up with tears.
He stood there, speaking to hundreds of millions of people, his tone exactly the same as when he spoke to her alone on the playground of Nanjiang University that day.
He became stronger, strong enough to be seen on television, strong enough to stand in front of the entire Great Xia and say, "Go out."
But she is only a mid-stage first-level cultivator with seven points of Qi and Blood.
He walked too fast, so fast that she could no longer see his back, so fast that she needed to stand in the crowd just to look up at him.
When Lin Qingxue thought of this, she unconsciously gripped the hem of her clothes.
……
On the North Sea defense line, waves crash against the reinforced concrete breakwater, and the salty sea breeze blows into the firing ports of the coastal defense batteries.
A young soldier in the uniform of the North Sea Fleet squatted in the corner of the gun emplacement, his ear pressed against a portable radio. The signal was poor, and the static almost drowned out his voice.
When the radio broadcast the words, "This is for our present, and for our future," the young soldier's hand trembled slightly.
He looked up at the gray-blue sea outside the fort.
His hometown was a small fishing village by the sea. Before the cataclysm, there were still fishing boats going out to sea, but then the whale tribe came and the fishing village was gone.
He guarded the Beihai defense line for three years, looking at the same sea every day, not knowing when he could go home.
Now he knows.
……
Northwest defense line.
Soldiers lined up on the parade ground, standing in the wind, their military flags fluttering in the dry winds of the Gobi Desert.
A giant screen stood directly in front of the playground, the image so clear that you could see the scratches on Song Chen's armor.
An old soldier, his face covered in sand, held his gun and listened from beginning to end.
After hearing the last sentence, he looked down at the gun in his hand. The paint on the stock had been worn away, revealing the dark gray alloy frame underneath.
A new recruit next to him whispered, "Sergeant, did this Councilor Song really kill a Level 6 assassin?"
The veteran glanced at him sideways: "Shut up. Stand still."
The new recruits stood up straight, and the veterans stood up straight too, gently stomping their rifle butts on the sand.
In the Shanghai Parliament Building, Qi Shanhe stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of his office, overlooking the myriad lights of Shanghai.
On the screen in front of him, there was still a still frame from the end of the live stream: Song Chen loosened the handle of the knife and stood up straight.
Qi Shanhe stood with his hands behind his back for a long time, then picked up his teacup and took a sip.
The tea had gone cold, but he didn't care. What he cared about wasn't the content of the speech; he already knew what Song Chen would say.
What he cared about was the way Song Chen stood there—not as a member of parliament, not as a military officer, not as a researcher, but as a martial artist.
A warrior clad in armor and wielding a sword, emerging from a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
He put down his teacup and pressed the intercom on the table: "The general mobilization order is officially in effect. Notify all military regions: the clearing operation begins!"
The bugle sounded.
In the 108 base cities of the Great Xia Dynasty, the broadcast towers on the city walls simultaneously sounded the mobilization call.
The deep horn sound rolled through the night, from the northern plains to Liangzhou, from the East China Sea to the northwestern Gobi Desert, from the city wall of Anning City to the seawall of Tianhai City.
This bugle call has only been sounded twice in the past fifty years.
Last time it was about retreating. This time it's about moving forward.
……
When Song Chen came out of the studio, his fingers were still trembling slightly.
It wasn't because of nervousness, but because of excitement.
The general mobilization order has been issued. Thirty million people are to be assembled, and the alien beast dens outside the 108 base cities across the country must be eradicated one by one.
Those images had already started playing automatically in his mind.
A golden-purple lightning field swept through the beast horde, the Heavenly Blade's blade energy cleaved through the beasts' bones, and system notifications were so frequent they sounded like a machine gun that never stopped firing.
He wanted to leave now, but he couldn't; he needed to figure out exactly how to fight first.
He found Zhou Wangyue in the corridor.
Zhou Wangyue was standing in front of a huge electronic screen, which displayed a map of the entire Great Xia territory. The 108 base cities were marked as blue dots, and dense red markers were scattered around the perimeter of each city.
There were seven or eight staff officers around him, each holding a terminal and tapping their fingers rapidly on the screen.
"Teacher." Song Chen walked to his side.
Zhou Wangyue turned his head and glanced at him.
Song Chen still had a trace of excitement from the speech on his face, and his breathing was slightly faster than usual.
Zhou Wangyue patted him on the shoulder with satisfaction: "Well said, better than I thought."
Song Chen ignored the compliment and went straight to the point: "What are the specific arrangements now? Where should I start?"
Zhou Wangyue raised his hand to signal the staff to step back, then tapped a few times on the electronic screen to bring up a brand new distribution map.
This image is more detailed than the previous one. The red markers are no longer a blurry block of color, but are divided into three different shapes and sizes of icons: small triangles, medium squares, and large diamonds.