Arknights: Prime Minister of Kjerag — Chapter 66

Chapter 66: Ticking Time Bomb

Yan, Lungmen.

The boarding ramp lowered with a heavy, metallic groan, and the Karlan Trade convoy rolled smoothly into the subterranean transit arteries of the massive Nomadic City.

By the standards of Terra, Lungmen was a marvel of engineering and commerce. It was a super-metropolis that had carved out its own undisputed economic empire, powerful enough to independently mint and issue LMD as a recognized currency across the continent. This staggering prosperity was largely credited to the existence of one man: Chief Executive Wei Yenwu, brother to the Emperor of Yan.

At the absolute core of this bustling hub stood the Chief Executive’s Office. Its architecture was a striking rebellion in stone and neon—a foundation of traditional Yan aesthetics heavily layered with bright, opulent Western flair. It proudly displayed its distinct identity, born from Yan yet stubbornly independent from its traditional roots in every conceivable aspect.

Had time been rewound just a few short months, Vina would never have dared to dream of this moment. She could never have imagined setting foot on Lungmen soil in such a dignified manner, carrying such a lofty identity, much less securing a formal meeting with Wei Yenwu—a man whose legend had echoed across Terra since her father’s generation.

If she hadn’t met Ernst. If she hadn’t taken the leap to participate in that fateful recruitment. If she hadn’t traveled to the snowy peaks of Kjerag.

Without those turning points, she would still be rotting in the rain-slicked alleys of Londinium. She would be dodging the omnipresent gaze of the nobility and the Parliament, bleeding in the gutters just to survive another brutal gang war in the slums. The absolute pinnacle of her future back then would have been crushing a rival gang to become just another pathetic street boss in the underground of the City of Ten Thousand Cities. She would have remained an ‘inferior’ in the sneering mouths of the wealthy, a creature forever barred from polite society.

Given the choice, who would willingly spend their entire life as a rat in a sewer, crushed beneath the heel of hateful nobles?

Certainly not Vina.

She was the daughter of the Lion King. Every ounce of her endurance, every drop of blood she had shed in the dark, had to be the foundation of her eventual rise. Even now, hidden away and oceans apart from her homeland, the fires of ambition still burned fiercely in her chest. The suffocating, high-pressure environment of Londinium had offered her no room to breathe, let alone flourish, but Kjerag had given her a stage. In just a few short months, she had absorbed an ocean of knowledge from Ernst, from Ho’olheyak, and even from Delphine.

Now, it was time to execute her first solo diplomatic mission flawlessly. It was time to test her sharpened fangs, apply everything she had learned, and repay the faith they had placed in her.

Taking a slow, measured breath, Vina forced her nervous excitement down into the deepest recesses of her mind. She replaced the adrenaline with the carefully rehearsed diplomatic protocols she had memorized. Pushing open the heavy car door, she stepped out onto the polished pavement.

At the end of the wide, immaculate driveway stood the Chief Executive’s Office. Waiting before its grand entrance was Wei Yenwu himself, a man of striking precursor bloodline and imposing atavistic features.

She walked toward him with resolute, measured steps. When she was exactly three meters away, she proactively extended her hand, her lips curving into a flawless, polite smile.

“Chief Executive Wei. Hello.”

However, to Vina’s mild surprise, the legendary Wei Yenwu seemed entirely derailed. For five agonizing seconds, he simply stared blankly at her face, his sharp eyes momentarily losing their focus. Then, as if violently snapping out of a trance, he hurriedly extended his own hand to meet hers.

“Miss Vina. Hello.”

He paused, his gaze lingering deeply on her features. The smile he offered was painfully stiff, and a faint twitch betrayed the corner of his mouth.

“Welcome to Lungmen.”

…

“Excuse me, I need to step away for a moment.”

After personally escorting Vina into the lavish reception room and instructing a servant to pour her tea, Wei Yenwu shot a rapid glance at his pocket watch, stood up abruptly, and exited the room.

The moment the heavy oak doors clicked shut behind him, he nearly collided with Fumizuki, who had been waiting quietly in the corridor.

Fumizuki was a woman of classic Higashi elegance. Typically, when her husband discussed matters of state with important guests, she would discreetly withdraw to afford him ample personal space. Yet, unlike traditional Higashi wives, her standing in this household was entirely equal, if not slightly higher in private. While she always gave Wei Yenwu impeccable face in public, behind closed doors—unless a matter was of the utmost, life-threatening secrecy—she would listen in and later help him unravel the political knots.

Wei Yenwu never stopped her. To convince his wife otherwise would require a physical altercation, and in their household, that meant he would be forced to brutally assault her hand with his own face, repeatedly. He loved Fumizuki far too deeply to ever subject himself to such a tragic domestic dispute.

But this time, before Fumizuki could even take her place behind the proverbial curtain, she watched her husband storm out with an absolutely ghastly expression. He was drawing on his old pipe so frantically it looked like a pacifier.

Her elegant brows furrowed in genuine confusion. “What is wrong? Why do you look so pale? That young girl did not seem particularly ferocious to me. Could she really have frightened you this badly?”

“I… How could I be frightened! How could I possibly be afraid of a little girl who isn’t even half my size!” Wei Yenwu stammered, his voice a harsh, defensive hiss. He let out a long, ragged sigh, the smoke curling around his horns. “Do you have any idea what her background is?”

Fumizuki tilted her head, searching her memory before shaking it gently. “Is she not the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Kjerag?”

“Yes, she might very well hold that title on paper, but she is also…” Wei Yenwu choked on the words. He snapped his head around, his paranoid gaze sweeping the empty corridor. Satisfied they were alone, he leaned in close to Fumizuki’s ear, his voice dropping to a trembling whisper. “She is an Aslan!”

“An Aslan?” Fumizuki froze, her eyes widening in sheer disbelief. “Are the Aslan not from Victoria’s…”

Wei Yenwu nodded grimly.

Fumizuki immediately covered her mouth, her voice muffled by her sleeve. “But have they not all been… Even Frederick III was hanged. How can an Aslan simply appear in Lungmen?”

Wei Yenwu took another desperate drag from his pipe, his eyes unfocused and haunted. “I do not know what kind of game they are playing. An Aslan, acting as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Kjerag. Hmph. I thought she was just a civil servant on a publicly funded diplomatic tour. Now it seems it is nowhere near that simple!”

Wei Yenwu’s mounting dread was far from baseless. Over twenty years ago, an identical nightmare had unfolded in this very city.

Back then, a royal bloodline of the Draco—the Red Dragons, who were also widely believed to have been exterminated by the Victorian Aslan royals—had miraculously survived. His name was Edward Artorius. And Edward had been one of Wei Yenwu’s sworn brothers.

Together with the Rat King, Lin Kojui—the true patriarch of the Swire Group today and Swire’s grandfather—alongside several other martial arts grandmasters, they had forged an alliance. They had fought tooth and nail to reclaim Lungmen from the clutches of the Ursus Duke, the Deathless Black Snake, Kashchey.

They had won that bloody war, but the victory had birthed a hydra of lingering curses that still strangled Lungmen today.

The deepest wound in Wei Yenwu’s heart was the aftermath. Unwilling to swallow his defeat, Duke Kashchey had maliciously leaked Edward’s existence to both the Emperor of Yan—Wei Yenwu’s own younger brother—and Victoria’s Unicorn. The wrath of the True Lung and the secret execution orders of the Unicorn had descended upon Lungmen simultaneously. To save his city, Wei Yenwu had been forced to personally strike down his sworn brother.

And his greatest regret, the sin that still kept him awake at night, was that during another surprise invasion by Kashchey years later, Wei Yenwu had failed to protect Edward’s final legacy. He had successfully defended Lungmen, but he could not stop Kashchey from abducting Edward’s only daughter, Talulah Artorius.

It was a sickening irony. Edward had died simply because of the blood in his veins. In a modern era where bloodlines should have been rendered obsolete by wealth and social standing, the unique nature of Terra’s races meant that royal blood remained a lethal, decisive factor.

And now, history was perfectly mirroring itself.

Once again, rumors claimed the Aslan had been overthrown by Victorian nobility and their lineage severed. Once again, a surviving heir had suddenly materialized in Lungmen.

It was impossible for Wei Yenwu not to spiral into paranoia. Was someone sending him a twisted reminder? Was some immortal monster or unseen mastermind trying to drag him and his city into another apocalyptic conspiracy?

But who was pulling the strings this time? Was it Kazimierz? Leithanien? Or his old, hateful ‘friend’, Ursus?

To him, Vina’s arrival was not a diplomatic exchange. It was a ticking time bomb dropped right on his doorstep!

The thoughts in his mind crackled and popped like wet firewood, yet he couldn’t grasp a single spark of clarity. Wei Yenwu glanced down at his watch once more, the ticking of the hands sounding deafeningly loud.

“It is almost time. I need to go back in there.”

“What do you plan to do?” Fumizuki asked, her voice laced with deep concern.

Wei Yenwu pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a hollow, self-deprecating chuckle.

“What can I do? I take it one step at a time. First, we must uncover exactly who is backing her, and then deduce her true motive for coming to Lungmen. Did she not claim to be the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Kjerag? Then we will play the gracious hosts. We must never expose her true identity and keep this strictly within the boundaries of a routine diplomatic visit. That way, when the dust settles, we can feign absolute ignorance.”

He paused, his eyes hardening with pragmatic resolve.

“Of course, if there is a way to politely expedite her departure, that would be ideal. All in all, as long as her demands are not utterly outrageous, we satisfy them. We turn major crises into minor inconveniences, and minor inconveniences into nothing at all. That, my dear, is the most exquisite wisdom of the Yan people.”