The Interstellar Queen of Scavengers

Chapter 1373: Killing Three Birds with One Arrow

"Huh?" Lou was startled, snapped awake, turned to Ji You, and asked, "What do you mean by that?"

Forgive him for not being some endlessly scheming genius—Lou honestly couldn’t figure out, for the moment, how Sheng Qingyan was supposed to break the deadlock right now.

Yue Qiguang was pressing forward layer by layer, solid and steady, advancing step by step, already about to take down the entire 8th Camp, while Sheng Qingyan still hadn’t done a damn thing over there.

He was just like a salted fish.

No!

Even a salted fish is better than him. At least a salted fish is salty—you can eat it with rice.

This salted fish Sheng Qingyan was basically a walking disaster.

The entire 8th Camp had practically lost more than half its territory because of his inaction; even his Commander Base was about to become meat in someone else’s mouth.

And like this—

What’s he gonna do?

If you asked Lou, they should just surrender straight away. Quick death, at least painless, and maybe he could queue up for the next life.

Ahem...

Lou, who had been thinking like this, suddenly heard Ji You say that line. He froze, then locked his gaze on Ji You.

Then—

Ji You sat there all calm and zen, saying nothing.

Lou: "..."

Lou urged, "Say something already."

"Come on, say it."

"Hurry up and say it."

"Number 4444!!! Ji—You!!!" Lou glared, his eyes practically spitting fire.

Ji You turned her head and looked at him. "What are you getting so worked up for? Here, have some water first, moisten your throat."

Lou took the water without even looking, tilted it straight into his mouth, gulped it down in one go, then asked, "Hurry up and tell me—according to you, what exactly is Sheng Qingyan going to do to block Yue Qiguang’s offensive?"

Ji You glanced at the cup and smiled. "Uh... my bad, that cup just now was my mouthwash. I grabbed the wrong one."

"Pfft—"

Lou clapped a hand over his mouth and rushed to the side, about to retch.

Ji You chuckled lightly. "I’m messing with you."

Lou: "..."

"Damn!" Lou’s fingers twitched. He shot Ji You a glare and snapped, "You’re so damn boring."

"Boring?" Ji You narrowed her eyes slightly, smiling. "Not boring at all. Look how jumpy you are, like you’ve lost your mind. I hand you a random cup of water, you don’t even look before drinking it. I say it’s mouthwash and you just believe that too. You didn’t even think—did I actually rinse my mouth just now? Where would mouthwash come from here besides plain boiled water?"

Lou: "..."

Listening to Ji You lecture him, Lou suddenly had a bit of an epiphany. "You mean—?"

Ji You nodded, her tone quite serious. "In some ways, your personality is really similar to Yue Qiguang’s. Both of you are that impulsive. Sometimes, just to reach a goal, you’ll subconsciously toss aside the most basic thinking, because you’re pretty full of yourselves—or you could say you look down on thinking about these little details, these small problems..."

Lou’s face flushed red in a heartbeat.

Ji You glanced at Lou’s reddened face and smiled faintly. "Yue Qiguang’s advance has been going very smoothly, hasn’t it?"

Lou nodded. "Super smooth. It’s like heaven itself is helping him!"

"Mm." Ji You pointed out, "The problem is that it’s too smooth."

Lou tilted his head. "You’re saying—"

This was Sheng Qingyan doing it on purpose?

Ji You said, "In the early stage, as the Beautiful Girl Commander ’Xia Dandan,’ he gradually took control of the outer territories of the 7th Camp. He even launched a few small-scale raids along the 8th Camp’s border and successfully ambushed one of the 8th Camp’s small outposts. All these successes only made his momentum even stronger."

Lou nodded. "That’s true."

And because his strategies against the 8th Camp kept working, more and more people gathered around Yue Qiguang. The number of elite soldiers he could use also kept increasing, and in the end he even directly replaced the Commander.

But what did that prove?

Lou stared at Ji You curiously. "Doesn’t that just mean Sheng Qingyan’s side has been way too slack?"

Sheng Qingyan had snagged the Commander position with excellent test scores, but once he took office, he did absolutely nothing. The net was full of people roasting him for that.

And it was precisely because of Sheng Qingyan’s inaction that Yue Qiguang kept gaining more and more advantages.

A spark can start a prairie fire, and Sheng Qingyan had basically dug himself a whole volcano, burning his own territory right through.

Over at the 8th Camp, there had even been a few internal uprisings because of Sheng Qingyan’s outrageous behavior.

When Yue Qiguang heard about it, he even leveraged the 8th Camp’s internal chaos to pull off several successful ambushes.

Ji You smiled faintly. "Then think again—8th Camp lost more than half its land, but did they lose any of the truly important strongholds?"

Lou was stunned. "...N-no... I don’t think so."

The Commander Base and several key checkpoints and fortresses were all still completely intact.

Ji You asked again, "And did Sheng Qingyan lose all his elite soldiers?"

Lou blurted out in surprise, "He still has elite soldiers?"

Ji You gave him a sideways look. "He might be sleeping, but his control and influence over the camp hasn’t dropped at all. When he says to abandon a piece of land, have you ever seen anyone oppose him?"

Lou: "..."

Lou’s lips moved. "But... but there were also plenty of people who didn’t listen to him."

Ji You said, "And where are those people now?"

"!!!" Lou: "They’re all dead. Ahem... they got eliminated by Yue Qiguang."

So this was using the enemy’s blade to clean out his own side?

This move was called borrowing a knife to kill?

But!

"Isn’t that insanely risky?!!!" Lou totally disapproved. "That’s basically playing with fire. One misstep and you end up burning yourself, right?"

Because of conflicting opinions, a lot of people absolutely refused to follow Sheng Qingyan’s orders. Especially Li Jiu from the First Army—he’d been putting on this high-and-mighty act from the start, refusing to obey Sheng Qingyan. In the end he even took a huge group of people and outright sang against Sheng Qingyan, openly stirring up trouble...

And then—

Sheng Qingyan just straight up ignored Li Jiu and let him do whatever he wanted.

Li Jiu saw the Commander letting him run wild and thought he’d grabbed hold of the Commander’s lifeline, so he used that to win people over. Once his forces grew to a certain size, then—

Then Yue Qiguang’s scythe swung over and harvested Li Jiu’s troops clean.

Not a single one left.

Of course, Li Jiu wasn’t that useless either—Yue Qiguang’s troops also took some losses.

Ji You said, "Think about the piece of land Li Jiu was holding when he was raising his own private army—what kind of place was that?"

Lou thought for a bit. "Flat on all sides, almost no obstacles. Easy to attack, hard to defend. Once the enemy rolls in, it’s basically impossible to stop them."

"Exactly." Ji You shrugged. "That’s a trash piece of land. Even if you hold it, it’s useless. On the flip side, once the enemy takes it, they have to split off people to garrison it, which invisibly weakens their main force. Spicy Eye tossing that land away was the smart move."

Lou fell silent.

He thought it over, suddenly figured it out, and when he mulled it over more carefully, he realized every patch of land Sheng Qingyan had deliberately abandoned was like that.

Places where you basically couldn’t arrange any defensive Strength at all, so he just ditched them. Of course, when he threw them at the enemy, he also used them to purge dissenters and shave down the enemy’s main force a bit.

Three birds with one stone.