Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 230 You Will Always Be the Captain
Dongfang Yanxu explained to the captain of the Lexington: "It's not as simple as a single macro fusion reaction. In the past hour, the Natural Selection has detected more than 30 macro fusion reactions. Such a high frequency of macro fusion reactions likely means that a major chaos is occurring in the Giant Ring World. And it is this chaos that has caused the abnormal movement of the Dinosaur Warships. This conclusion is the main reason why I called you to this meeting."

The captain of the USS Lexington suddenly realized something and fell into deep thought.

Captain Wanhu said, "Captain Dongfang, you must have a plan for calling us over. Why don't you just say it?"

“Alright, then I’ll get straight to the point.” Dongfang Yanxu’s voice turned serious: “Based on these macro-fusion fluctuations, I suspect that Mr. Shanqing did not sacrifice himself. He is still alive. Not only is he alive, but he is also fighting desperately on the Devouring Giant Ring, to the point that the power inside the ring cannot suppress it, and even caused the dinosaur fleet to be mobilized. I think this may be an opportunity.”

"Dongfang, where did you get your conclusion?" Lexington asked Dongfang Yanxu.

"Based on the political ecology model that humans have made of the empire of devouring, we can know that this is a deformed dictatorial empire, and it is very difficult for internal strife to occur in such an empire."

Macro-fusion is a weapon of mass destruction, and the technology announced by Zhizi happens to include macro-atom screening technology. Therefore, I believe that these macro-fusions were caused by our ally, Mr. Shanqing, who should have a sufficient number of macro-atoms.

"Mr. Ke Shanqing? Wasn't he killed in action?" Captain Einstein asked rhetorically.

"This information about his death was personally confirmed by the Wallfacer. He said that his clone had died and even released a video of his death," the captain of the Aristotle said.

Dongfang Yanxu sighed helplessly, "Are we people of the new era all fools? Even people from the Common Era know that what the Wallfacer said is false. What if Mr. Shanqing hadn't died?"

"This……"

"What about the death video? The giant ring's gamma-ray laser cannon is incredibly powerful. Not only can our warships not withstand it, but even the Earth would be affected by it, creating a mini East African rift valley," the Stardust captain asked.

“I don’t know about that,” Dongfang Yanxu shook his head. “But Zhizi once revealed the macro-atom selection technology to humanity. It’s reasonable that Mr. Shanqing carried a large number of macro-atoms for self-defense before his operation. I tend to think that Mr. Shanqing is not dead and is still fighting on the giant ring.”

"Pass this message on to General Qian Mengjian, and have him ask Mr. Shanqing, the wall-facer, whether he has actually sacrificed himself."

Dongfang Yanxu said, "The message has been sent, but it will take 22 hours to receive a reply. I'm worried that the Wallfacer has entered seclusion again and will not reply after the message has been read. Therefore, we can only guess about Mr. Shanqing's status. However, the Wallfacer did mention something about the clone Shanqing."

"whats the matter?"

Dongfang Yanxu said helplessly, "Before Shanqing set off, he made a heartfelt confession to Bojiang Crystal: 'I will come back and marry you after I finish this battle.'"

"Then we're doomed." All the captains nodded in unison.

"If he has said such things, then Mr. Shanqing is probably already dead."

"Let's discuss whether we can take advantage of the chaos in the Devouring Fleet to do something."

...

After the meeting of the twelve captains concluded, Dongfang Yanxu saw Zhang Beihai. Zhang Beihai stood outside the door, wearing a dark blue fleet uniform with no superfluous decorations on his shoulder insignia, only the single star symbolizing a rear admiral. Since becoming an ordinary crew member on the Natural Selection as an ancient soldier, Zhang Beihai had, in less than six months, become an indispensable and important staff officer, his position on the ship second only to Captain Dongfang Yanxu and the other two vice-captains. He had gained the widespread recognition of the nearly 3000 officers and men on board.

The selection of the Natural Selection into the expeditionary fleet, and its precise selection from the expeditionary fleet as the vanguard, all bear the shadow of Zhang Beihai's manipulation.

"How is the situation?" Zhang Beihai asked.

Dongfang Yanxu shook his head. "I told them your deductions and ideas in my capacity, but most of the other captains held a more conservative attitude, preferring to continue exploring the expeditionary fleet at 2% of the speed of light. The Lexington, however, agreed with my idea—to enter Forward IV mode, reach 10% of the speed of light, and shorten the remaining 70-day voyage to 15 days, or about two weeks."

"What were the reasons for the others' refusal?" Zhang Beihai asked again.

"The suggestions were varied: some said they would submit an application to the Paradox Engine, some said they would wait for General Qian Mengjian's instructions, and some said they would wait for the Wallfacers to awaken. But the main reason was that they were worried that prematurely revealing the 10% speed of light of human warships would frighten the dinosaurs and cause setbacks in the planned solar system battle. 20% speed of light is one of the human fleet's biggest trump cards. Although the Trisolarans know our speed, the dinosaurs don't. We can't let the dinosaurs know so easily."

After saying that, Dongfang Yanxu gave Zhang Beihai a deep look. "Senior, I really tried my best to persuade them, but they wouldn't listen to me."

“It’s not your fault, they’ve got the priorities backward.” Zhang Beihai shook his head. “It takes a whole day to get back and forth to the main fleet, and another day to get back a message. We don’t have that much time to delay our communication with Commander Qian and the others. The advance fleet has a completely independent command system, and we can make this small decision ourselves.”

"But... senior, do we really need to be in such a hurry?" Dongfang Yanxu asked hesitantly.

"There is no time to lose. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Whether it is to rescue Shanqing or to take advantage of the enemy fleet's chaotic gathering to inflict as much damage as possible on them, the fleet should enter forward mode and rush to attack the enemy at any cost."

"I can't convince them that we're on equal footing. The Lexington is willing to operate alongside the Natural Selection, but other warships might not."

“I will contact and persuade them, but I need you to give me a suitable, higher-level identity.”

Dongfang Yanxu was already immune to Zhang Beihai's exceptional efficiency. She said helplessly, "The Natural Selection is still short a vice-captain. I will organize a vote for vice-captain for the entire ship. You may have several strong competitors."

"You don't need to worry about that. I've already convinced the four first officers, Li Yang, Luo Gefanfan, Wang Keke, and North, that they won't participate in this election for vice captain. I will be the only candidate."

Dongfang Yanxu stared at the other person in astonishment. After a long while, she finally said, "But the appointment of the third vice captain requires the approval of the other two vice captains and me, and it also needs to be evaluated a second time by the Solar System Fleet after the war."

"The other two vice-captains will support me. As for the future second assessment of the Solar System Fleet, what does that have to do with the present? Dongfang, it mainly depends on you."

"You haven't already sidelined me, have you?" Dongfang Yanxu asked, somewhat annoyed.

"Don't worry about that," Zhang Beihai reassured him. "I would never do that for your grandmother's sake. As long as I'm here, all the officers and men of the Natural Choice will always support you as captain."

(End of this chapter)