Eh? You want to try the humanoid girl's iron fist too?

“Yes,” Raphael said, “Alright, let’s maintain the status quo for now.”

She told Lingyin to go take a shower first, while she used mouthwash to clean herself.

Take a look inside the mouth.

Then he opened the instrument case and reassembled the flute. Since he was required to properly portray a high school student, he would do as Harry instructed and seriously experience school life.

Dealing with children who are detached from worldly concerns yet constantly conceive of fantastical ideas is a real headache for Raphael.

However, the activities of the band allowed her to escape from them, finding a quiet corner where no one would care about her to kill time.

"Ugh...it's starting again."

Upon hearing the notes and rhythms from the flute, Rintoki clutched her head and let out a mournful cry, which was the flute part of the Polowitz Dance.

Now, every day after returning home, the host will sit by the window and play the flute, just like an art girl who is obsessed with wind instruments.

Anyone who saw this would think she was an innocent high school student.

Even though she knew it was a deliberate act of pretense, she was the one who was suffering!

Lingyin was incredibly frustrated. She disliked classical music at all, and what was worse, Raphael could only play the flute part at home. Without the cooperation of other parts, it was really too uncomfortable for the puppet humanoid.

Lingyin deliberately stomped hard on the floor, making a thumping sound as she walked upstairs, but Raphael didn't care at all.

Look at Feibiao, she uses noise-canceling headphones to block out ambient noise, only turning it off when she's speaking.

It was late at night, almost time to sleep, so Raphael put down his silver flute and slowly let out a sigh of relief.

Raphael disassembled the flute, wiped and maintained it with a special cloth, cleaned the fingerprints on the keys and the dust nearby, and only after the entire maintenance was completed and the instrument was put away did he put it away.

This kind of life may continue for some time until new equipment is replenished.

The flute music faded away, and Lingyin could finally lie contentedly on her soft, sleep-inducing bed.

I really don't understand why the bureau chief would send a flute to the main unit. The humanoid's respiratory system is clearly for heat dissipation, not for playing musical instruments.

If you're going to give a musical instrument as a gift, it should be a percussion or string instrument, like a piano or violin.

Lingyin rolled over in bed, clutching the soft blanket, twisting and turning as if she was too tired to even have the desire to talk.

After tossing and turning for a while, she stopped, gazing at the twinkling stars outside the skylight for a long time, her mind filled with a thousand thoughts, including the war.

The organizational principle of any society is for the purpose of war, and the basic function of the government of the wealthy in modern times lies in its war power.

Today it's oil, tomorrow it's water, and the day after tomorrow it's food.

This is what they call God's business: guns, oil, and drugs.

However, there is a problem: the current lifestyle is difficult to maintain... It's over, it can't continue, and the returns are declining rapidly.

This is why the world wars have been reignited—by destroying demand.

This is what causes people to panic, because people in a state of perpetual existential fear lack reason; they will only support war.

……

"Continuing to monitor is a waste of time."

Schipper put down his binoculars and said angrily to his companion inside the room:

"If people found out about our actions, we would definitely be judged as potential criminals with malicious intentions."

"Fortunately, we are also taking precautions to prevent risks."

As Yilin processed the photos taken with the telephoto lens, a girl dressed in casual clothes sat by the window playing the flute—it was truly enchanting.

He could already imagine how terrible some people's faces would look when headquarters received the surveillance report.

Yes, GRU's overseas operations team has started monitoring Japanese high school girls again.

"Where's Captain Alpha?" he asked, turning his head.

"He's resting. He spent the whole day staking out the school, and then after 4 p.m. he was tormented by the noise from the high school band for another four hours. When he first came back, I thought the devil had drained his energy."

Yilin chuckled, a smile she couldn't hide spreading across her face.

The orchestra's group rehearsals are like this: each musician only has the part of the score they are responsible for. Without a unified conductor, it will become a complete mess, which is nothing but noise.

However, Captain Alpha really went all out, even infiltrating the school.

Yilin stretched, and her baseball cap fell to the ground.

"Sent successfully. We should receive the final instructions tomorrow."

"Is there any prediction of the general outcome?"

“Is that even a question?” Ilin answered the question with a rhetorical question. “Last time, headquarters said not to send them photos of female high school students. This time, we wrote a complete surveillance report…”

"It must be incredibly annoying over there."

A wicked smile crept across Skeef's face. This report would be like gasoline poured on the raging fire, making the blaze within headquarters and the intelligence system burn even more fiercely.

He had long harbored resentment towards the intelligence agencies, as they provided outdated information and unsubstantiated claims, with only about 30% of the data actually being usable.

The world is becoming increasingly turbulent, and it's time for them to take things seriously.

There have been persistent reports that ethnic and geopolitical conflicts in the South Caucasus region are escalating, and that the US may be redeploying its forces.

After all, the person is dead, and the remaining data has been recovered. The only reason to stay in Kyoto now is to confirm the target's identity.

Unfortunately, they made no breakthroughs; the GRU and the Foreign Military Intelligence Service were wasting their time.

"Alright, stop complaining." Yilin got up and took a beer from the refrigerator. "Here, have some of these."

"Microbrewed beer?"

"No vodka, so it's fine if you don't want it."

“It’s all the same,” Skeef said. “Give it to me.” He reached out and took the jug, then tilted his head back and began to gulp it down.

"Ding—" The email notification sounded.

Yilin opened the computer and glanced at it. "Alright, our mission is over."

"So fast?" Schipper couldn't believe it. In his mind, the administrative efficiency of the high-ranking officials at headquarters was incredibly slow.

“It must be because of those secretly taken photos.” Yilin’s face revealed a blatantly sarcastic smile. “Being repeatedly reminded of shameful things is really annoying.”

Book 1: The World Before the Great War: Chapter 131 The Reasons for the Russians' Retreat

That lingering, almost imperceptible gaze disappeared.

After wandering the streets for almost the entire day, Raphael returned to confirm that the enemy's close-in teams and long-range surveillance personnel had all withdrawn.

After eight days of playing the role of a good child, her life finally came to an end. She was wearing a pink coat and a white skirt, yawning in a completely unladylike manner.

Raphael walked along the path to the main street outside, where the bustling street and the sparsely populated residential area were only a half-minute walk apart.

She stood motionless, gazing for a long time at the white-rumped munia that was cleaning its wings with its beak on a branch. Her mind was filled with a thousand thoughts, including the war and the scene of birds falling from the sky.

Raphael shook his head, his chestnut ponytail swaying from side to side.

"...Azerbaijani armed forces have deployed along the Nagorno-Karabakh contact line, along with heavy weapons. Meanwhile, Russian peacekeeping forces have moved to the contact line in an attempt to prevent escalation..."

The electronic screens hanging on the office building emitted jarring news broadcasts, but no passersby stopped to watch.

Come on, everyone is concerned about the people and things at hand or around them.

The conflict that occurs thousands of kilometers away has no impact on their lives, so it makes no difference whether they care or not.

Even if you care, it will only become a topic of conversation over tea.

Furthermore, when Japanese men chat in pubs after get off work, they mostly talk about family life, complaining about their wives' infidelity, and the long, stagnant routine of their daily work.

Who talks about world affairs? Just surviving is exhausting enough.

Raphael was reminded of her own yearning for true freedom. Deep within her, her discontent with this world heading towards chaos and war rekindled.

Why always have to start wars? Would it feel wonderful to be shot to death? she wondered.

Raphael opened his phone and began searching for the root causes of the ongoing conflict in the South Caucasus.

Before the webpage could even load, the announcer's calm yet trembling voice came from the television in the distance.

"...Armenia and Azerbaijan are engaged in fierce fighting in the border region, resulting in casualties...The two countries have once again broken out in the border region, and the border conflict is showing signs of escalating."

She turned the pages and read on slowly. Both sides were accusing each other of provoking the other first.

The Russians tried to mediate again, but their efforts did not seem to be as effective.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan and Armenia went to war over the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh (NKR) region.

Although the two countries reached a comprehensive ceasefire agreement in 94, they have remained in a state of hostility due to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, and armed conflicts have occurred from time to time.

Why do all these events have to come together? The more Raphael looked at it, the more he felt the world was doomed.

Fortunately, neighboring Georgia is relatively stable for now, but that country is no pushover either. During the Olympics, it attacked South Ossetia, ultimately triggering a 10-day war.

The more Raphael looked, the more he felt that the South Caucasus was a powder keg that everyone underestimated, a small region that had drawn in all the world's major powers and civilizations.

The relationships between the parties, whether conflicts or friendships, are long-standing and complex.

If one were to delve deeper, the historical entanglements involved could provide ample material for university students studying geopolitics to write several excellent graduation theses.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azerbaijan began vying for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, resulting in three military conflicts.

The most recent instance occurred in September 2023, when Armenia chose to completely relinquish the Nagorno-Karabakh region and recognize Azerbaijan's control and rule over the area.

They also actively distanced themselves from the autonomous government of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Russian troops stationed there, even accusing local armed groups of deliberately provoking conflict in an attempt to drag Armenia into a direct confrontation with Azerbaijan.

Clearly, the conflict resulted in a unilateral and overwhelming victory for Azerbaijan, which recaptured the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Of course, this is not the end of the geopolitical game in the South Caucasus.

The problem becomes clear once you look at the territories of these two countries: Azerbaijan is cut in half by Armenia, leaving an exclave called Nasichevan on the Iranian border.

Armenia has a territory called Nagorno-Karabakh embedded within Azerbaijan, accessible only by a narrow corridor.

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire suspected that Armenians within its territory who were Christians of colluding with Russia.

In addition, an uprising did occur in Armenia in West Asia, and Armenians cooperated with the Russian army. As a result, the Turks launched a massacre against the Armenians, which also affected the Nassichevan region.

At the beginning of the last century, the population ratio of Azerbaijanis to Armenians in the Nashchevan region was approximately 45:55, close to half.

After being massacred by the Ottoman Empire and later by the Turkish army, the population ratio in Nassichevan changed to 1:9, which means that the Armenians in the region were basically wiped out.

By the 20s, the red of the mentors had spread to the South Caucasus region and led to national self-determination. The Nashchevan region was incorporated into Azerbaijan based on its population, directly resulting in this geopolitical situation that continues to this day.