Late that night, in the State Guest Building of the Imperial Palace.
The emperor in black, with dozens of guards, strode across the vast open space in front of the building.
This group of people wore military uniforms without badges, and their expressions hurriedly walked in unison. Although so many people were moving at the same time, they didn't make a sound, like beasts sneaking fast in the night. When he reached the magnificent crystal metal door on the ground floor of the building, the emperor stopped and winked. A deputy behind him immediately stepped forward and swiped his ID card on the password slot.
"Major Arnold of the Military Intelligence Department," the system released a melodious electronic female voice, "Why do you want to enter the important place for first-class state guests?"
"Daily inspection of security and defense. My task approval number is FUDWE03476. I have the password of Lieutenant General Isaac of the Military Intelligence Department to verify."
The system truthfully recorded the above information, and then asked: "The entourage?"
"Cooperate with forty-seven people."
This information was automatically fed back to the building's security center by the system, connected with one of the tens of thousands of instructions in the database, and then transmitted to the large screen in the central control room, where it was marked with a green permission sign.
Perfect and secure system logs, even after the fact, there will be nothing out of the ordinary.
"Come in, Major Arnold." The door opened slowly, and the bright crystal instantly reflected the shadows of people in the night.
Major Arnold took half a step back, and the emperor was about to step forward, when suddenly a joking laugh came from not far behind: "Your Majesty, have you lost your identity card, and you still need to borrow one from your subordinates to use it?" pass?"
Heinrich turned his head suddenly, and saw the target of their trip—Selia standing on the lawn not far away!
Celia was wearing casual clothes, leaning against the tree with her arms folded with a relaxed expression, and several alliance generals and diplomats, such as Mowen and Abel, stood by her side—if it was just that, the problem was not only that, among the group of people There are actually two imperial diplomats!
Those two people probably didn't expect to see the emperor here, their faces were quite embarrassed, and after a long while they said in a low voice: "Your Majesty..."
At that moment, Heinrich's expression was strange and inexplicable. After a while, he turned and walked forward, but he didn't answer Celia. He first asked the two imperial diplomats: "Why are you here?"
The two quickly glanced at each other. Although they were both well-trained professional diplomats, how could the flash of panic in their eyes be hidden from the eyes of the emperor? Sure enough, they bowed awkwardly, and one of them whispered, "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, the alliance mission informed us that the head of the Celia Army and his party wanted to take a night tour near the inner palace, please accompany us..."
A state guest of Celia's level can of course do whatever he wants, even if he wants to eat dragon liver and phoenix marrow, as long as he can order it, the Imperial Foreign Office will serve him politely, let alone an impromptu night tour. little things. Taking a step back, even if Lieutenant General Mo Wen is not the one who wants to go out for a stroll today, as long as the alliance mission sends a message, so what if the Imperial Foreign Office sends two people to lead it? Isn't it more reasonable
However—the emperor was deeply aware of the tricks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: If they really wanted to shirk, they could find ten thousand reasons.
It's already very late now, at midnight, in the inner palace, as long as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is willing, it can be fooled by simply replying "it will be reported to the report before making a decision, please wait for the army commander". Even if the matter was brought up the next day, that would be fine, not to mention that Celia was not a difficult person, even if he was mean and wanted to pick things up, he couldn't blame the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for following the rules too much, right
However, as soon as the alliance spoke, two diplomats came respectfully and respectfully!
—Because the Alliance Mission has already taken care of them!
If it wasn't tricky, who would want to do such an unpleasant thing in the middle of the night? !
The emperor's gaze was a bit imperceptibly gloomy: Although so many people from the Military Intelligence Department were mobilized tonight, but with Celia's identity here, the empire would never dare to use any coercive means blatantly...
However, the diplomats of the two empires are here, watching with two pairs of eyes, no matter what the emperor is planning, it is impossible!
"Your Majesty—" the diplomat who answered tremblingly said.
Heinrich's expression moved, and before he could speak, Celia asked with a smile: "The service of the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs is very considerate. On behalf of the alliance mission, I would like to express my sincere thanks. The emperor will not blame them, will he?"
The emperor couldn't blame them in the first place, but when Celia made a statement, he could only say in a deep voice, "It's nothing."
The scene at this time was already quite strange. More than forty personnel from the military intelligence department of the empire were standing behind the emperor, neither standing nor walking, but Celia just didn't ask what these people were doing here. His expression was very serious, but there was undisguised ridicule in his eyes. The emperor gritted his teeth and looked at him for a while, Lieutenant General Mo Wen finally looked down and coughed: "Since your Majesty is coming to the State Guest Building, we will not bother you." Come on. Your Excellencies, two diplomats, can you take us there again?"
——If it weren't for Mo Wenzhong's kindness, when he said this, the more than forty people behind the emperor all heaved a sigh of relief at the same time!
Of course, the diplomat was in a hurry to say yes, and hurriedly wanted to leave this place. However, as soon as Celia turned around with the crowd, the emperor suddenly narrowed his eyes and grabbed his hand: "Marshal—"
Celia glanced at her.
Heinrich's eyes moved slightly, and there was an impeccable smile: "I have known the Marshal for a hundred years, but I have never traveled with him at night. I am lucky to meet you today, so let's go for a walk together."
When he said this, his tone was completely irresistible, and Heinrich waved his hand back. Although the words were spoken by his subordinates, his eyes were fixed on Celia's face: "You all Disband, I want to go with the Marshal...to chat."
·
The night in the palace is very beautiful.
Brilliant lights sprinkled on the road, and large clusters of moonlight flowers shimmered brilliantly. Because it is a Winter Palace decoration, the branches and flowers condensed by ice and snow compete with each other on both sides of the road, and the silver bells are hung on the diamond fruit trees, jingling in the night wind.
Celia was walking at the front of the crowd, Heinrich was side by side with him, both of them were looking at the ice and snow shining brightly under the lights in front of them, no one spoke for a while, only heard the rustling footsteps of the people behind them .
"Have we never walked together at night?" Celia asked suddenly.
"Yes, but not together."
Celia turned her head slightly, only to see Heinrich smiled and said: "You are always surrounded by many people, and the few times when only I am there, that is also me following you, not with... together, I actually like that word."
He also turned back to look at Celia, and the two looked at each other for a moment, Celia asked: "So this is why you can't help but be complacent every time you finish making trouble for me?"
Heinrich was taken aback!
"You can't face up to the fact that you have become a strong person, so you try to prove yourself." Celia's tone was very slight, but interrupted the emperor's subconscious justification: "—in your eyes, I am insurmountable , so you must use various methods to prove that you can embarrass me, so as to prove to yourself: I am indeed different from before, and now I finally don’t have to follow Celia, but can stretch out my legs to trip him up. "
"Some stumbling blocks are actually unnecessary, but they really make me difficult." Celia admitted, "But this is not what bothers me the most about you."
Heinrich was a little taken aback by Celia's unexpected frankness, but soon he regained his composure, "In your eyes, I am a strong man?"
"yes."
"Then what bothers you most about me is—"
"It was you who made me shake," Celia said. "You... have shaken my faith."
He stopped and looked at Heinrich face to face. At this time, the people behind were far away, and there were only the two of them on the snow-covered path. The brilliant lights of the palace in the distance reflected in each other's eyes, as bright as the vast sea of stars above their heads.
"Have I ever shaken your faith in the alliance?" Heinrich whispered in disbelief.
Under his astonished gaze, Celia nodded solemnly.
"Yes, at that time, the contradictions of the alliance could not be alleviated, and the empire was thriving. All the social contradictions and system loopholes I speculated did not occur. The safety of people's lives and property was higher than that of the alliance, and the economy developed faster. So when I When I led the alliance army to beat the imperial army to flee, I also asked myself in my heart: Are they right? Am I the one destined to be eliminated by the development of history?"
"Although in the end I still insisted on the fairness and continuity of the democratic system, there was a time when you shook my entire belief system. The fundamental reason for this is that you became very powerful in a way that I don't approve of— It was beyond my imagination, and even gave me a little bit of fear."
Celia raised her hand and patted the emperor's handsome face lightly.
The emperor grabbed him with a backhand.
"I have only one piece of advice..." Celia leaned into his ear and whispered, the heat of her breath was sprayed on the emperor's ear: "The real strong will not change their inner attitude because of the change of status, so Even if you don't get stuck, you are stronger than me."
He broke free, stepped back half a step, and quietly looked at the emperor in the snow.
Heinrich stared at him for a long time, all kinds of complex feelings flowed through his heart like boiling water, which made the softest part of his heart even shiver slightly.
It took him a long time to open his mouth, his voice was a little tense because of the forced calm: "You just want the empire to avoid stumbling blocks and not interfere with the alliance's conscription wave, right?"
Celia shrugged.
At that moment, Heinrich suddenly had the urge to ask all the questions, but then, with the light from behind them, he suddenly caught a glimpse of the undisguised tiredness in Celia's eyes.
His eye circles were slightly darkened, the profile of his face was deeper and thinner, and his face was almost transparently pale. Because of the backlight just now, these details are difficult to see clearly, but they have been well concealed, and now even under the radiance of the light, they are only inadvertently leaked from the perfect concealment.
The emperor keenly grasped the deep tiredness at that moment, but before he had time to take a closer look, he saw Celia turned his head and smiled nonchalantly: "Mo Wen!"
Lieutenant Mo Wen had already chased them up, and Celia turned around and walked towards them. At this time, his haggardness was completely covered by the night, and no one in the alliance saw him. His waist wrapped under the shirt was extremely thin, but it was still straight.
Heinrich froze in place.
He should be proud, the alliance has been forced to a very serious level, and even Marshal Celia has fallen behind in front of him, so he can only rely on this little trick and ingenuity to support him.
However, for some reason, when he saw Celia not daring to close his eyes all night, trying to bribe the imperial diplomats, and leading people around to resist sleepiness, he suddenly felt an indescribable pain and anger—
Instead of resenting Celia's elaborate schemes and tricks, he was angry at himself.
He was so angry that he had the upper hand, pressing every step of the way, not even daring to show a tiny bit of love to himself.