Yes, Madam Prime Minister

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However, as she listened, she subconsciously squeezed her legs together, adopting a pigeon-toed stance, gripping her skirt tightly with both hands, and even clenching her toes inside her stockings, trying her best to suppress her breathing.

Zhao Yingqi is about to turn fifteen, an age when ordinary girls start to think about marriage, and female magicians also start to have ideas. She roughly knows what is happening, but she doesn't know exactly what that kind of thing is all about.

Nervous and curious, Zhao Yingqi decided to take a look.

Of course, she wouldn't sneak a peek through the window; that would definitely get her caught. She had to use magic.

The brief "time" she spent looking through the window will never exist.

Biting her lip, Zhao Yingqi cast her spell, and then opened the window to look inside.

A woman was lying face down, her face obscured, but her flowing blonde hair and enormous breasts suggested she was Lily's mother, Elena. Her buttocks were also enormous, appearing even through the black stockings. Shifting the gaze slightly to the right, one could see Ronan's thing—it was terrifying, almost as thick as her wrist, and it was so long.

Looking slightly upwards, you see the body of a woman with slightly darker skin. The outline of her abdomen through her high-waisted pantyhose is that of Lily's godmother, Agustina. She is holding Ronan, and Ronan is looking down with his mouth on the nipple of her beautifully shaped and firm breast.

Zhao Yingqi dared not look any longer, so he immediately closed the window and used the remaining time to leave as quickly as possible.

She ran towards her home as fast as she could. Just after crossing the courtyard, she let out a long sigh of relief. The indescribable scene lingered in her mind. She shook her head violently and continued walking back, but almost bumped into someone.

I stopped and looked, and it turned out to be Golan.

Zhao Yingqi certainly knew Golan, Alice's sister, a section chief in the Security Bureau, who had a good relationship with Ina, and was one of Astrid's teachers.

But over the years, she and Golan have actually only spoken a few times and are not familiar with each other.

Having worked in interrogation for so many years, Ge Lan could roughly guess what was going on by looking at Zhao Yingqi's expression and considering the direction she had come from.

"Would you like to come over to my place for a bit?" Golan suddenly invited.

"Huh?" Zhao Yingqi looked surprised.

Gelan hooked her arm around Zhao Yingqi's shoulder and said with a smile, "Come on, in a sense, we have a lot in common."

Zhao Yingqi instinctively wanted to decline, but the words stuck in his throat, and he finally nodded.

It wasn't that she was shy and didn't know how to refuse, but rather that the word "common ground" aroused her strong curiosity.

Soon, Gelan led Zhao Yingqi to her temporary room, a small room that was originally for the maids.

The room had just been cleaned; besides the bed and a few other necessities, there was nothing else.

Golan gestured for Zhao Yingqi to sit down, then sat on the windowsill herself. "I'll tell you a story about me and Ronan. It was thirty years ago, when the late king, the father of Her Majesty Ambrina, had just ascended the throne. At that time, a rebellion broke out in the south of the Kingdom of Phos. Ronan was fifteen years old then. He was the eldest son of a declining noble family. His father had already passed away. Although they were a declining noble family, they were still considered the most powerful noble family in the small city of Wright."

"So, a group of people wanted to support him as a local leader of the rebels. Upon hearing this, Ronan's mother took her younger brother and ran away. At the time, Ronan was just a novice mage and could not resist, so he became a local leader."

Zhao Yingqi, who was not originally interested in hearing the story, was immediately moved when he heard that Luo Nan's father had died early and he had been abandoned by his mother, losing all his family members.

"On the battlefield, he suddenly awakened his magic and then betrayed the rebels. More than a year later, the rebels were completely defeated, and he also received some merit. At that time, an official invited him to the capital, but he refused. Later, the governor who was temporarily stationed here assigned him the task of purging the remnants of the rebel party."

Golan then switched the subject to herself, saying, "At that time, I was five years old."

“My father was a bookstore owner. Although printing technology had been developing for many years, books were still not cheap. There were only three bookstores in the entire city of Wright, so my family was considered to be well-off. My father, perhaps because he was too bookish, often liked to make critical remarks about the authorities. At that time, a few people praised him, and he really thought he was an opinion leader. He even led people to march and demonstrate, spreading rumors that Ronan was arbitrarily arresting people and persecuting innocent people.”

"Looking back now, he was too lenient. If it were me, I would have arrested my father, no, that damned idiot."

Golan has arrested more than one person in the capital who liked to talk nonsense in the newspapers.

"Later, during a conflict, that idiot was shot dead, and I now strongly suspect that it was his 'accomplice' who did it."

“My mother was heartless; she abandoned my sister and me and ran away alone in the middle of the night.”

"You can imagine what kind of situation we sisters were facing back then."

"What would have happened if Ronan hadn't shown up and protected me?"

Chapter 568 The past is history; let's get down to business and learn from Zheng Bo's good example.

What will happen? Zhao Yingqi paused for a moment, then asked tentatively in a low voice, "Will they arrest you, put you in jail, and force you to do hard labor?"

Golan smiled. "You think too highly of those people. What do you think a group of men who have already seized the banner of justice would do to the daughter left behind by the rebels?"

Zhao Yingqi asked again, "Does this mean we're going to turn people into slaves?"

"More or less," Golan replied.

She felt that the concept of slavery that Zhao Yingqi understood was probably not the same as the concept of slavery that she was talking about.

However, there's no need to delve too deeply into these matters.

"There are too few kind people like him in this world, or rather, there are too few things in this world that can be called human beings."

"The luckiest thing in my life is meeting him."

“Ronan took us in, saying we were maids, but we never actually did any maid work. Instead, he took care of everything for us like a father. He was already very busy with work, but whenever he had time, he would check on our studies and take every spare moment to guide us on matters of magic.”

“I never felt that the one who gave birth to me was my father. I only hated him. His stupidity almost killed us, and of course, my heartless mother. Ronan, he is my father. He raised me and educated me.”

When Zhao Yingqi heard Gelan say that Ronan was her father, she was a little surprised, because she knew that Gelan and Ronan also had that kind of relationship.

"Later, because I showed a relatively high magical talent, he sent me to a magic academy."

"When I went to the magic academy, I was about the same age as you."

"Besides not wanting to hold me back, he probably sent me away because he had already noticed some things at that time."

At this point, Golan couldn't help but sigh slightly, even though she ultimately got what she wanted.

"Later, I went back to him, and what followed was that I became one of his lovers. I don't know what others think, but I always feel that even if I can only occupy a very small part of the time and feelings of the person I like, it is still happier than having someone who likes me give me all their time and feelings."

"Honey is sweet even if you only have one bite, but if you add a lot of water, it has no taste."

"Uh, I seem to have gone off on a tangent. It's getting late, let me take you back to your room." After saying that, Gelan stood up.

Zhao Yingqi looked puzzled, not because he was puzzled by Ge Lan's words, but because a group of people had just recounted their own experiences and were preparing to share their stories. After the stories, they were going to draw some conclusions and give advice to the listeners.

Kogolan gave her absolutely no advice.

Could it be that I guessed wrong? Zhao Yingqi wondered.

She thought that Grand noticed her strangeness and pulled her over to say something, but it turned out that Grand did say something, but it seemed that she didn't say anything at all.

Actually, she wasn't wrong. Gelan had indeed figured it out, and she had figured it out a long time ago. If she didn't see anything, why would she say that she and Zhao Yingqi had something in common? She just didn't want to offer any advice.

In Golan's view, such a story is enough.

Afterwards, Gelan escorted Zhao Yingqi back to his room. On her way back, she saw Ronan waiting for her there.

In fact, Zhao Yingqi had already been discovered when she approached Luo Nan's room.

"You didn't say anything you shouldn't have to the children, did you?" Ronan asked Gran.

Gelan smiled and said, "I'm Dad's good daughter, how could I say such things? I just told her some stories from my childhood."

"Sigh." Ronan sighed.

“Anyway, you’re not old anymore, and you still have those crystal skull skeletons left over, so what’s the harm in having one more?” Golan said.

There were ten crystal skull skeletons in total, and four remain.

Even if she and Ashley use them again, there will still be two left.

In addition, Ronan also possessed a technique for achieving immortality, namely soul liquefaction and soul transfer. Of course, one needs extremely high talent to learn this.

It seems that none of Ronan's women have been able to learn it.

“That’s not why I sighed,” Ronan said.

He simply lamented that yet another child raised as a daughter had lost their filial piety.

"Who told you to have such a face? And you're not exactly a scoundrel either," said Grand. Ronan certainly had more women than the average person, but even some third- or fourth-tier mages had far more lovers than him, let alone those at his level. Yet none of them treated every woman they had a relationship with as well as Ronan did.

"Let's not talk about that. How much did Ashley make in the Netherlands?"

Ronan then asked about the important matter.

Golan had just completed the handover with Ashley in the capital, and she knew how much money Ashley's people had plundered in the Netherlands.

“About ten million,” Golan replied.

Even though he had some idea, Ronan was still stunned. The Dutch silver coins were smaller and had a lower silver content. Ten million was about eight million taels of silver, but that was already a huge sum. Villarreal's shameless war reparations were only one million taels of silver.

Of course, this is mainly because Villa still has the fighting power. If the Kingdom of Fas invades Villa's territory, they can definitely get ten million if they ask for it.

"When will Ashley arrive?" Ronan asked again.

With a hint of helplessness, Golan replied, "It will probably take another week. After all, our mission here in Rhine is more about propaganda than suppression, and there are relatively few people in the Ministry of the Interior who are good at this."

They excel at investigations, arrests, and interrogations, but when it comes to propaganda, they're really lacking.

Because the core members of the Ministry of the Interior's Security Bureau are all magicians, and magicians are extraordinary individuals who have mastered knowledge. From the moment they become magicians, they are separated from the masses.

If you're detached from the masses and still try to spread propaganda among them, all you'll get are self-righteous ideas.

No one can change this, because in a sense, they are indeed not the same kind of people as ordinary people.

Therefore, Ashley had to pick some young, junior magicians who had worked their way up step by step. Although their allegiance wasn't actually on the people's side, their ability to pretend to be on it was still better than some other magicians, after all, they hadn't been out of the public eye for very long.

Whether rulers engage in propaganda or not, it's all just an act anyway. The worst thing is when they can't even pull it off properly and end up spouting some fantastical rhetoric.

"By the way, I heard something happened here. Should we arrest a few people?"

"Gollan asked."

She was referring to the incident caused by the young officers.

"The best way to handle this kind of thing is to keep it quiet. After all, they are people who have made great contributions in this military operation. It's just a small thing. Moreover, many junior officers and soldiers support them. What can we do to them? Don't try to arrest people every time something happens. Look at all the people I've asked you to arrest over the years. Which one of them didn't have many enemies? Don't forget the story of Zheng Bo in ancient Seris that I told you when you were a child."

Ronan said.

The article already taught you all the tricks to dealing with these kinds of people; just learn them.

“Understood. Let’s see who dares to jump again after this cooling-off period.” Golan understood Ronan’s meaning.

Chapter 569 The Pirates' Dilemma, Magical Realism Warfare, Surrender Isn't Cheap

Ambrina returned to the capital and stayed for a few days before setting off south to oversee the second war against Bilia on the southern front.

The political affairs of the Kingdom of Fas have once again fallen on the shoulders of Prime Minister Dinia.

After the Empire withdrew its troops, Weyland's offensive immediately slowed down.

It wasn't that Wieland was afraid or didn't want to fight anymore, but rather that this island nation and these pirates were caught in a strategic dilemma.

Should we fight the Kingdom of Phos to the death, deplete its national strength, and slow down its progress in ruling the Rhine region to prevent the emergence of a hegemon on the continent? Or should we return to the Protestant Alliance, turn our guns on Villa, and take this opportunity to severely damage Villa, our maritime rival, and win ourselves a chance to dominate the seas?

Both are things that are entirely in Wieland's interest, but at this moment, he can only choose one.

If you choose the former, you may have to wait many years to get this opportunity again.

If the latter was chosen, then the Kingdom of Fas would truly rise to power.

For the pirates like Willand, whose minds are filled with nothing but money, this is essentially a previous economic problem.

If we choose the former and fight France to the death, then we can continue doing business on the western continent. Our naval power will be weakened, and we will suffer losses, but not too great ones.

Choosing the latter means turning the guns around and waiting for the Kingdom of Fas to rise up. In that case, our voice in the Western Continent will depend on its whims, but our share of maritime trade will expand dramatically.

Two months later, in August.

After deliberation among the many noble councilors of Wieland, the king finally signed a truce agreement with the Kingdom of Fas, and the two nations, which had been locked in a love-hate relationship for centuries, once again ceased their war. Immediately afterwards, Wieland joined the Protestant alliance and, under the banner of eliminating heresy, formally declared war on Villa.

Although the war has begun, Wieland is still only deploying its naval forces to contain the naval power of Bilia. The affairs on land are the business of the Kingdom of Fas.

Ambrina once again led her army of 300,000 men straight towards Villa.

The mobilization and training of this 300,000-strong army had actually been completed during the guerrilla warfare of the previous year.

Wherever Villa's army went, Ronan would rush there. Under the banner of "special handling during wartime," he used the farmers' association as an organizational tool to forcibly integrate the local area and pull out a small militia. He did not require the militia to fight against Villa's entire army, but he required the militia to resist the small conscripted troops that Villa used to maintain logistics.

It was precisely because of this that Villa was never able to collect enough logistical supplies at once, and the homeland of Fas did not suffer too much damage. After Villa withdrew, production was quickly restored.

However, this does not mean that the Kingdom of Phos's hatred towards Bilia will lessen.

Ambrina's arrival brought not only morale but also commanders who had honed new tactics in the fight against the Empire.

Artillery barrage, line fire, trench advance, elite skirmishers, and aerial bombardment.

The garrison in Villa, which was already struggling, was now truly at their wits' end.

But in reality, that alone would not have led to a complete defeat.

After all, the border between Villa and the Kingdom of Fas is a mountain range, and on the Mediterranean side, Villa's navy also maintains considerable strength.

The issue of housing the Belial soldiers in Bengbu was economic.

The Silver Empire of Villa suffered a poor harvest two years ago and recently suffered a defeat. In order to reorganize the army and ensure its combat effectiveness, it had no choice but to issue additional military pay.

It wasn't that the common people's money was split 30/70, or that the gentry's money was returned in full. It was the king, nobles, and wealthy merchants—big and small lords—who truly used their own money to distribute it, and they severely punished officials and military officers who embezzled or deducted from it.