Chapter 264 - 231: Bai Yu’s Appointment in the Imperial Capital

Chapter 264: Chapter 231: Bai Yu’s Appointment in the Imperial Capital

Huai Yu’s life here was well-organized, with everything proceeding according to plan. Meanwhile, far away in the Imperial Capital at the Guard Army headquarters, Bai Yu walked into the conference room. Her smile was as gentle as a spring breeze, instantly coaxing buds to sprout from the two small potted plants in the room.

As she took her steps and sat down, the buds bloomed in tandem. Everything was perfectly timed, and a faint, lingering fragrance filled the air.

Opposite her, two vice commanders raised their eyebrows in unison. "Your control is getting even better."

"It’s alright," she smiled shyly. "Just a casual effort."

It truly was casual. It looked effortless, yet both the timing and the speed at which the flowers bloomed were controlled to perfection. Everyone in the conference room exchanged glances, each lost in their own thoughts.

A moment later, someone walked in through the door. Everyone stood up in unison. "General Wu."

Wu Yue wore an equally mild smile. "Take a seat, everyone... The room smells quite nice. Commander Bai, don’t always use your Superpower on such trivial matters.

"As members of the Guard Army, we have our own battlefields."

His tone wasn’t stern, and his expression carried a hint of tolerance, as if he were indulging a mischievous girl next door. The gazes of several people present flickered, but Bai Yu remained all smiles. "You’re absolutely right."

Wu Yue smiled faintly in return and brought out a stack of documents. "Now then, I will announce this year’s Garrison team arrangements..."

The meeting concluded two hours later. As the Garrison Officer, as long as the current five vice commanders didn’t have any major objections, Wu Yue’s plans were implemented quite smoothly.

However, the moment he left, a loud SMACK rang out in the room. A dark-skinned woman with a high, long ponytail slammed her documents onto the table. "This is absolutely outrageous!

"The North District’s grain production area has been suffering from a drought for three months! Yet just because of some minor abnormal activity from mutated plants deep in the mountains, he actually arranged for me to Garrison the area! I’m a Fire Ability user, for f*ck’s sake! I can’t water the fields, and I can’t go into the mountains. When I have absolutely nothing to show for my end-of-year debriefing, won’t I just have to rely on his ’tolerance’ again?"

If this were a strategic deployment, she would naturally obey. But what had he said? When she had voiced her objections, he had maintained that helpless yet gentle facade.

"Look at you, still the same fiery temper after all these years. You aren’t a vice commander this year precisely because the higher-ups took this flaw into consideration!

"I’ve already gained a preliminary understanding of the situation in the main cities of the North District. You can appoint your own direct subordinates. Use this time to temper your personality.

"If you’re always this impatient, how can we entrust you with important matters in the future?!"

The woman with the long ponytail paced furiously around the conference room. "Important matters? What important matters?! As the current main grain production areas, the major cities in the North District need rainfall more than anything else! That is the most important matter!"

She panted heavily, clearly on the verge of exploding from frustration. However, after pacing a few more times, she still opened her laptop and, with a rapid CLACK CLACK CLACK of the keys, typed out a document to issue. "Left Commander, I’m borrowing the two High Tier Water Ability users from your team.

"Commander Chen, I remember there are a few Superpower Users in your team who previously cooperated with the observatory for artificial rainfall. I’ve registered them on my list as well. I’ll go to the observatory to request personnel first, and we’ll depart in three days.

"Commander Bai, my Superpower isn’t suited for combat deep in the mountains or forests, nor can I assist in agricultural development. The North District isn’t far from Flower City. If necessary, please bring your people over to support us."

Bai Yu nodded. "It’s my duty."

Right now was the most critical growth period for crops. A continuous three-month drought wouldn’t have been a huge issue before the cataclysm, but the weather post-cataclysm was far more extreme. The scorching summer heat easily reached forty-two or forty-three degrees Celsius. If people hadn’t developed stronger resistance, it would have been nearly impossible to endure this summer. Crucially, the drought severely affected crop growth. If there were Wood Ability users specialized in growth stimulation, they could mitigate the agricultural losses during this time. For a nation waiting to rebuild and develop anew, the food problem was of the utmost priority.

After arranging the basic matters, the woman typed out another application and sighed in distress. "The Ministry of Agriculture is already swamped running all over the country. If a Fire Element user like me goes to request support in the dead of summer..."

Their Guard Army would be utterly humiliated! Her original purpose wasn’t even meant for this kind of work anyway!

Six years into the cataclysm, everyone acted swiftly and decisively. Bai Yu stared at her computer for a while before making a phone call. "Captain Zhu, my Garrison area for the second half of the year is Flower City. Do you want to apply to go with me?"

"Zhu Xinsuan?" someone nearby leaned over and asked curiously.

"Mhm," Bai Yu nodded. Seeing that there were only a few people left in the conference room, she finally spoke. "His application for vice commander didn’t go through, and he’s still being given the cold shoulder... It’s too much of a waste.

"The cooperative tactics for dual-element and triple-element users he devised previously were incredibly effective!"

It made one plus one practically equal three!

The other person also sighed. "Yeah, I thought he was going to be a vice commander... That kid Zhu Xinsuan has a razor-sharp mind! In the previous tactical deployments, he was the only one who could keep up with General Lin!

"Not to mention, in several large-scale mixed battles, his efficiency was even higher than General Lin’s!"

Bai Yu remembered that as well!

"General Lin used to praise him, saying he was a natural talent at deploying troops. He might not be cut out to be a general charging on the front lines, but when it came to commanding battles, he had innate battlefield intuition..."

With a talent like that, General Lin had previously been reluctant to waste his potential with random assignments, only having him rotate and shadow Superpower Users of different elements. But look at him now! A mere vice commander position was something even a newcomer like Bai Yu could secure, yet he hadn’t even passed the first round of selections!

It was completely absurd!

So absurd that it even soured Bai Yu’s expression.

However, all five of the vice commanders now had new Garrison areas. Although she had a decent amount of combat experience, it was still sorely lacking compared to the others. General Wu had taken pity on her—or rather, by a surprisingly reliable stroke of luck, he had assigned her, the one with the least experience, to Garrison a single city. It happened to be his hometown: Flower City, home to the nationally renowned Rose Corridor. Everyone knew that with the Rose Corridor there, the Garrison duties in Flower City were the lightest.

When the appointment was announced, various gazes in the conference room had turned toward her, but Bai Yu remained composed and magnanimous. "One must prove themselves in the local trenches before taking a seat in the high court. Thank you all for your trust and cultivation, leaders. I am willing to Garrison Flower City. I will go all out and fulfill my duties."

Now, she was ticking off the team members she needed to arrange on the backend system’s roster, simultaneously recalling the mission she had received in Flower City two months ago. If she remembered correctly, she had saved a squad from the local Defense Army during that mission. With that connection, her preliminary work should be a bit easier to kickstart once she arrived.

At this thought, she remembered the soldier who had lost a leg to the highly toxic Kou Spider yet still struggled to desperately pin the creature down. Subconsciously, she reached up and touched the scar on her cheek that had yet to fully fade.

That man now... had probably long since perished, hadn’t he?

She closed her laptop and sighed wistfully.

The tiny flowers in the indoor potted plants instantly withered, like a silent funeral that no one noticed.