The four Grand Dukes had different reactions, but one of them set an example.
"That's enough," Olesiu refused him decisively: "Let's end the topic of carving up Longxiao City."
"Please hear me out..." Lumba lowered his eyelids.
"Don't you understand people?" Ronnie interrupted him in a cold voice.
But Lumba's eyes were filled with anger, and he immediately hit him back with louder and more decisive words.
"I know you have sent out the messenger!"
Lumba shouted angrily: "Risban and his patrol are coming, aren't they?"
His words fell.
Only silence remained.
The four princes were stunned.
They looked at each other, their breaths becoming tense unconsciously, and they seemed to be worried that Lombard already knew the news.
Lumba took a breath and calmed down his emotions.
"Don't worry," he replied with an indifferent look, "I didn't bring a hunting falcon, so I can't intercept your letters."
The breathing of the four Grand Dukes gradually calmed down.
"So please listen to what I have to say. It would be more beneficial for you to wait a little longer until they come to rescue you..."
I hope the layout of the first city gate can be delayed a little longer.
At least hold on until I deal with them.
Lumba said in his heart.
Ronnie narrowed his eyes and turned to the other three people: "Are you going to continue to listen to his nonsense?"
Trudida shrugged.
"Although it's boring," the Grand Duke of the Tower of Reconstruction whistled, expressing everyone's thoughts: "It's better than us facing each other with swords and spilling blood in the Palace of Heroes together."
Olesiu sneered, but Lecco's expression remained unchanged and he made a "please" gesture to Lumba.
No one objected.
Lumba nodded.
"Walton," he said coldly: "I hold in my hand the last daughter of the Walton family - closer than any collateral bloodline."
Grand Duke Lecco narrowed his eyes and shook his head: "There has never been a precedent for a woman to succeed the Grand Duke in Exeter."
"She doesn't have to inherit," Lumba's face turned cold and he spoke faster: "But she can be used as a temporary pawn."
Trudida raised her eyebrows, seeming to be interested.
"We can promise that the male bloodline she will give birth to after her marriage will become the future Grand Duke of Longxiao City," Lumba said with a decisive expression. He rubbed his fingers into a knife and waved it fiercely: "This is better than hastily sealing Longxiao City to another place.
The family is more effective and stable, and can stabilize the power inside and outside Longxiao City."
"Before that, you will co-manage Longxiao City in the name of assistance."
Lumba said calmly.
Grand Duke Ronny frowned, as if he couldn't believe it.
"Then what?" Archduke Lecco said expressionlessly.
Lumba looked back at them calmly.
The next second.
"Then," Grand Duke Heisha opened his lips slightly, his eyes were like daggers, and his words were like iron:
"It's war."
Grand Duke Olesiu was moved.
"Ha," Trudida beside him shook his hand unhappily: "Each family goes back to the territory to recruit troops and horses, and then takes advantage of them to take down Longxiao City? Please, if this is yours..."
Lumba interrupted him.
The terrifying Archduke suddenly took a step forward and spoke explosively:
"No!"
Lomba's eyes were filled with coldness: "We will unite the whole country and send troops south."
Grand Duke Ronny clenched his fist: "What?"
The four princes all looked at Lombard with serious expressions.
The latter showed a ferocious and fierce expression.
Like a man-eating beast before hunting.
"We are going to war against the stars," he gritted his teeth and said fiercely: "For the late king, His Majesty Nuen..."
"revenge."
————
In another corner of Longxiao City, Thales and Putilai were both squeezed into a small horse-drawn carriage. In front of them, a dressed-up Nikolai was sitting in the driver's seat, leaving them with a burlap cloth.
The back of the coat.
Thales hid in the gap between a cart of firewood, restless, frowning tightly, and thinking hard.
Charmaine Lombard.
The four princes.
King Nun.
Between them...how to break the situation?
Putilai and Thales saw the latter's expression across two bundles of firewood.
Xingchen's deputy sighed softly.
The carriage passed a low hill and shuddered.
At that moment, Thales only felt his vision tremble, and then a familiar feeling came over him.
The prince subconsciously touched his forehead: his vision began to blur again.
He was in a bright house, where three or four young people were holding computers and sitting around a middle-aged man, looking at the projection on the wall.
"When you take this course, you must already have the most basic understanding of social networks, such as nodes, edges, outgoing and incoming degrees, and even concepts such as two-mode networks and structural equivalence..."
"Now, I want you to imagine a network diagram. Well, let's use an interpersonal network. It's easier to understand if we use relationships between people instead of geometric diagrams."
"A, b, and c are three people. Suppose they know each other in pairs. Well, draw three points and connect them with edges - we get the simplest triangular social network diagram, three points and three edges.
, you can use the methods you have learned to analyze this network."
"Let's give this simple network and add positive and negative signs to these only quantitative connections: a and b have a bad relationship, and the connection between them is assigned a value of negative one, and b and c have a good relationship.
The line is one."
"The question is: What will be the relationship between a and c? This leads to a new issue: the balance of the social network."
"The discussion of triangle relationships began in the time of Simmel... Balance, for example: your friend hates someone, then as a friend, if you don't hate him, you will be in this triangle.
We are in a very awkward position in the relationship, and this triangle may become unbalanced at any time... And in the concept of social networks, how do we show this balance?"
"For an unbalanced interpersonal network, how will it change to achieve its own stability?"
Network balance.
Relationship...stable?
Thales took a deep breath, rubbed his forehead vigorously, and buried this newly acquired memory deep in his heart.
The relationship between Rumba and Nunn is negative.
However, the relationship between Nunn and the archdukes... is also negative.
If this network is to be stable and balanced, then between Lumba and the Grand Duke...
etc.
This network is incomplete.
What did I miss?
"You're nervous, aren't you."
Thales, who was rubbing his forehead in deep thought, was startled and turned around:
"ah?"
Putilai looked at him with a worried face.
"Well, I'm sorry, I just didn't have a good rest..." Thales reacted and shook his head with a smile.
"No," Putilai interrupted: "Not just now."
The deputy shook his head slightly: "It's been like this since your speech in the temple just now."
Thales was slightly startled.
"When you are nervous, you tend to talk a lot," Putilai exhaled and gritted his teeth, as if he was tortured by his addiction to cigarettes. "I still remember that you were like this when you first entered Longxiao City.
"
Thales was completely stunned.
"Yeah?"
He said in a daze.
Putilai nodded silently.
"Although you acted very confident before, regarding the next action," the thin deputy envoy sighed:
"Actually, you're not sure yourself, are you?"
Putilai's eyes shone thoughtfully.
Thales said nothing.
He looked quietly at the firewood in front of him.
After a few seconds, the prince lowered his head and sighed.
"I'm sorry," Thales said with some disappointment, "I just..."
"I don't know if we can... succeed."
Putilai looked at him quietly.
At this moment, Nikolai in front turned around, his eyes like stars.
"We are from the North," he said coldly, "People from the North don't ask if they can."
“Just ask ‘should I do it or not’.”
Putilai snorted.
Thales's heart skipped a beat, and he took a deep breath and cheered up.
"Are we here?" Feeling the carriage stop, Thales raised his eyebrows.
"Of course," Nicolai knocked on the carriage with a calm expression: "They have already gone to explore the road first."
Thales let out a breath.
"I thought it would take more time, from finding a place to taking action..." the prince said silently: "After all, we can't see the light..."
"This is Longxiao City," Nicolai interrupted, his skin darkened by the oil trembling slightly: "Who are you looking for? No one is more familiar with it than us."
and.
Neither the real patrol nor the impostors from the Black Sand Territory seem to be anywhere to be seen.
Nicolai narrowed his eyes.
At this moment, a disguised white-blade guard approached the driver's seat and made a gesture to Nicolai.
Nicolai gave a thumbs up in return.
"We can go in," Nicolai threw off the horse's reins, jumped out of the carriage, turned back to them and said, "They have found the way, let's go in directly."
Thales was slightly startled.
"Go right in?"
The prince's eyes widened: "Aren't we going to sneak in? We won't disturb too many people."
"Shut your mouth..." Nicolai said contemptuously: "We are sneaking in."
Putilai pushed away the two bundles of firewood, jumped out of the carriage first, and then stretched out his hand to pick up the second prince.
Thales put his feet on the ground and felt a little more at ease.
This is a relatively remote house. It looks very big, but the exterior walls are very simple. I don’t know which area it is located in. But the owner here obviously doesn’t want to be too high-profile, and there is not even a single Northlander neighbor around.
And they were standing next to a small side door, guarded by two people - soldiers Willow and Gennard.
"Good luck, Your Highness," Gennard faced the prince's questioning eyes and simply replied: "We will take care of you."
Putilai nodded to them, turned around and whispered: "We should seize the time."
Nicolai nuzzled his chin and walked into the side door first.
"Go directly to the door?" Thales followed Nicolai into the small side door and walked into a seemingly desolate backyard. He couldn't help but frown: "Will we be discovered? What if we are exposed...
…”
"You know, we are in danger and need to keep a low profile. It is best to climb over the wall or take the roof or something like that and sneak in quietly..."
His words stopped abruptly.
Thales stopped opening and closing his lips.
He looked at the snow-covered yard with a horrified expression.
"Dive... dive..." he repeated subconsciously.
Almost all of their White Blade Guards were standing in the yard, even Cohen and Miranda were among them, and the security officer showed his big white teeth at him.
Thales took a breath and lowered his head.
All around him, he saw many people lying scattered on the ground.
There were bodies lying in pools of blood.
There are also people who are in coma or shock.
There are also poor people with bruised noses and swollen faces, tied up with rags in their mouths, and often with a knife on their necks. Next to them is a fierce Northlander or Starman.
"You..." Thales stared blankly at this scene, speechless for a long time.
"It's really a low-key 'sneaking'." Putilai let out a long sigh.
The Fallen Star raised a thumbs up to the leader Michael.
Thales turned his head away from looking at the corpses and cast a dissatisfied look at Nicolai.
"Come on, as long as no one knows about our infiltration," Nicolai raised his eyebrows, stretched out his palm towards the bloody mess on the ground, and nodded complacently, "it will be the most successful infiltration."
This sentence……
In those few seconds, Thales's eyebrows changed into various shapes.
He took a deep breath, turned to Nicolai, and with a serious expression, tentatively asked in a low voice: "Everything is empty..."
Nicolai was stunned for a moment, with a puzzled look on his face: "What?"
Thales clicked his tongue, retracted his head, shrugged like a normal person and said, "It's nothing."
Nicolai had a puzzled expression on his face.
Thales shook his head to drive out unnecessary thoughts, while looking at the corpses lying on the ground around him, he suppressed the complaints in his heart.
This will cause synchronization to be lost...
The next second, he followed Nicolai, left the yard and walked into the house.
"This is your plan, have you figured out how to do it?" Meteorite said calmly.
"Of course," Thales crossed a threshold and took a deep breath: "According to circumstances."
Then Thales raised his head and turned his eyes to the two men behind a gorgeous desk.
One of them is Raphael.
The young man from the secret department happened to be leaning against the wall with his left hand stretched out, holding up his sword.
The sword edge was across another middle-aged man's throat.
The middle-aged man frowned, but remained calm and composed.
"Sir, I don't know how you found this place..."
"But I assume that you already know who I am and my value..." The middle-aged man opened his mouth, narrowed his eyes slightly, and said to Raphael beside him: "Then the question is simple.
Yes, no matter what it is, we must talk about it..."
Thales took a deep breath, walked out from behind Nicolai, raised his head and looked at the man whose throat was held by Raphael.
This is a middle-aged aristocrat with blond ponytail and dressed in fine clothes.
"Hello, it's an honor to meet again." Thales tried his best to put on his most hypocritical smile:
"Your Majesty the Marquis."
As soon as these words came out, even the air seemed to be silent.
The blond middle-aged man was suddenly startled after seeing Thales, with a look of surprise on his face and his eyes blinking back and forth.
Can't seem to believe it.
Immediately, the middle-aged man showed a complicated and subtle wry smile and slowly exhaled.
"It's been such a long time."
"From sending people to ask for help to the sudden appearance now..."
"His Royal Highness Thales is full of surprises."
Shless Bermula, the Marquis of Shanliu City who belongs to the Camas Alliance, sat upright behind his desk with a helpless look on his face.