Today's tutelary fort remains peaceful.

"Admiral, the pass has been processed." Lexington raised his hand and placed a brown paper bag in Xue Cheng's hand. Then he turned around and looked curiously at the stiff-faced Liu Yun and Zuikaku beside him, and asked curiously: "Admiral, are they your friends?"

When Lexington uttered the word "Admiral," Liu Yun's trip to the ship was completely over. Although Xue Cheng couldn't prove to Liu Yun whether his garrison really had so many advanced carrier-based aircraft, just by looking at the ship girls surrounding him, Liu Yun knew he had lost.

Lexington, known as the perfect wife, is the one that countless admirals yearn for. It is said that there are even fanatical admirals who set up a sect and worship Lexington like a god.

The naughty pseudo-three-no girl Saratoga, the pirate cat Bismarck, and the lonely homegirl Tirpitz from the north are all rare ship girls with huge popularity in the navy circle and even in the world. If only one of them appeared, Liu Yun could still remain calm, but when they all appeared next to Xue Cheng, Liu Yun's sanity completely collapsed.

He didn't even know how he left. He was in a daze, like a soulless walking corpse.

43. Sustainable Boat Drying

"Admiral, who is he? Your friend?" Tirpitz asked curiously, looking at Liu Yun's distraught back.

"A new admiral can't be considered a friend. We've only known each other for a few minutes..." Xue Cheng shook his head.

Ping Hai, who had been trying to suppress his laughter, raised his hands and said, "Sister Bei Zhai, that person seems to be a seal. Seeing us here, he wants to show off the admiral."

"Say your name!" Tirpitz grabbed Pinghai's cheeks and tugged gently, gritting his teeth. "Also, what the hell is Beizhai?"

"Because everyone says that Sister Tirpitz is lazy and doesn't like to go out. She likes watching anime and comics, playing otaku games, and is a stay-at-home girl. So she is the lonely stay-at-home girl in the north..." Pinghai explained incoherently.

"Nonsense!" Tirpitz exclaimed angrily. "How am I lazy? I'm already level 110! The reason I don't like to go on missions is because my level has already reached the upper limit. Even if I go with the team, it will only be a waste of my quota. It's better to give the training opportunities to the newcomers!"

Bismarck was silent for a while as he looked at his sister who was arguing with her. Although Tirpitz's words seemed to make sense, as a sister who lived together day and night, Bismarck knew very well what kind of person Tirpitz was in private.

She stays up until the early morning every day and gets up at noon. She has to rely on herself to deliver all three meals to her room. She spends most of her waking time in her room playing games or drawing shameless books. She neither goes out nor socializes. Only when the admiral forces her to join the fleet will she reluctantly follow the team to attack.

Everyone says Tirpitz is a stay-at-home girl. In Bismarck's eyes, this evaluation is already quite euphemistic. If she were to evaluate her, probably only the word "useless person" would be appropriate.

Lexington and the others were also speechless, but they were all sisters from the same garrison, so they naturally knew about Tirpitz's affairs. In comparison, Pinghai's words surprised them even more.

"Show off the admiral?" The girls looked at each other quickly and saw the shock in each other's eyes.

Although Xue Cheng used to often emphasize that he was African and always cursed those lucky people as seals, in fact, Lexington had never heard of anyone more unlucky than his own admiral. If the African admiral really revolted, Xue Cheng would definitely be the first to be sacrificed.

So when Xue Cheng complained from time to time, everyone just regarded it as self-mockery and didn't really take it to heart.

Hearing Ning Hai say that the newcomer actually wanted to show off his own admiral, he immediately felt a mixture of laughter and tears: even if it was the governor, he would probably just be the one being shown off in front of Xue Cheng. What confidence did a newcomer have to dare to show off him? He was simply courting death!

He is still too young. As the saying goes, there are risks in showing off your skills. You need to be cautious when jumping into someone's face. If you don't do intelligence work in advance, you can easily be killed. This is the case with Liu Yun. Originally, he simply wanted to use himself as a textbook to let Xue Cheng understand the cruelty between admirals, or more precisely, between Europeans and Africans, but he was killed because he did not do intelligence work in advance.

Seeing that Lexington and his companions seemed very interested in what had just happened, the Ninghai sisters simply stood up from the bench and recounted what had just happened with great excitement. Not only did Lexington and his companions listen with great interest, but even people passing by frequently cast their eyes on these two cute little girls.

"The Admiral is so mean." Lexington pursed her lips and chuckled after hearing this. She remembered the information that the Admiral had asked her intentionally or unintentionally before leaving today. It seemed that it was just a preparation for drying the ship. But Lexington didn't understand. There were obviously rarer and more popular ship girls in the garrison. Why didn't he bring them out, but chose people like her?

When Lexington raised his doubts, Xue Cheng replied as if it was a matter of course: "When playing cards, would you play all your good cards at the start? We can't just do things for the sake of momentary pleasure. We should consider the long-term. Sustainable development is the way to go!"

So you still want to do something like drying the boat? Everyone stared at Xue Cheng blankly, speechless.

"That is to say, in the eyes of the admiral, we are just appetizers, small cards in a deck of cards, not some great ship girls, right?" A cold voice sounded, and Saratoga, a girl in a white dress and a blue feather hair accessory, said expressionlessly.

"Uh..." Feeling the sharp gazes drifting towards him, a drop of sweat slowly slid down Xue Cheng's forehead. He hurriedly explained, "Saratoga, it's not what you think. You are all very attractive girls. I just think your image and personality are more... um, approachable? You won't put pressure on others and it's easier to get along with them. Yes, that's it."

"So, what the admiral means is that we are not special at all?" Saratoga still had a cold expression on her face, but her words were very sharp, making the eyes of the people around her look more dangerous. Even Lexington crossed his arms with a half-smile, and a hint of pressure emanated from him.

"Uh, this..." Xue Cheng's forehead was covered with cold sweat, and he tried hard to think of an explanation. At this moment, Xue Cheng suddenly realized that there seemed to be an extremely cold gaze staring at him.

Savior! Xue Cheng quickly turned his head and saw a blonde girl standing not far away, looking at him with a half-smile.

The girl wore a pair of thin-framed red glasses. She looked young and had the bookish air of a literary girl, but her clothes were very mature. She wore a short uniform skirt and black tights on her legs, looking a bit like a white-collar worker walking out of an office building.

"Hello, what can I do for you?" Xue Cheng asked curiously when he saw that the other party was staring at him intently.

"Pretend, keep pretending." The girl crossed her arms over her chest, startled by what she heard, then sneered, "You don't think you can get away with it by pretending to be stupid, do you?"

"You..." Xue Cheng frowned, with a guess in his mind. He hesitated for a moment and asked tentatively, "Ella?"

"Hmph!" The girl snorted coldly and turned her head away in disdain, but soon turned her head again and glanced at Xue Cheng sideways, saying unhappily: "Look at the time yourself, how long has it been since we agreed to meet? If I hadn't been bored and came out for a walk, I'd probably still be sitting in the office waiting for you to come find me, right?"

Ella seemed to harbor a deep grudge against Xue Cheng. Without waiting for his reply, she curled her lips and said sarcastically, "Indeed, I was reckless in bothering our great hero to come and report personally. Don't worry, next time I'll arrange for an honor guard to beat drums and gongs to welcome Admiral Xue Cheng to our naval branch."

44. The Source of Mutation

Ella's delicate fingers unconsciously clenched into fists, and the expression on her face seemed as if she wanted to rush up and punch Xue Cheng. Ella had a long-standing grudge against the man in front of her.

When Xue Cheng just became the admiral and I was guiding and explaining things to him, Xue Cheng had a very impatient expression on his face and kept muttering words like "fast forward" and "skip", as if he regarded himself as an NPC in the game.

Later, she issued tasks to Xue Cheng every week on behalf of the Governor, but this lazy guy rarely completed them. Even the exploration tasks from his novice period have been piled up until now and have not been completed, forcing Ella to find other admirals to do them.

There is also a trophy shop opened by the Governor's Office to stimulate the enthusiasm of his admirals. Every time this guy comes here, he is full of complaints. Not only does he not reflect on his laziness, but he complains that the prices in the store are too high.

What annoyed Ella the most was that when she got advanced teaching materials from the Governor, which allowed her to teach high-level ship girls more advanced tactics, this guy only occasionally came to the classroom she opened to take a look and then walked away. For several years, Ella didn't even receive a single student from him.

After all, I am the head of this naval branch, your immediate superior. Do you have to be so disrespectful to me?

However, although she wanted to kick Xue Cheng into the woods and beat him up, Ella suppressed her anger and resentment and brought Xue Cheng and others to her office.

Ella's office... It's more like a reception room than an office. The space inside the room is extremely large. Even with so many people like Xue Cheng, it doesn't feel crowded. The wide sofa is big enough for adults to lie down and roll around. At least Ning Hai and Ping Hai have already started rolling around.

Ella took a few cans of drinks from the refrigerator and placed them on the coffee table. After returning to the luxurious desk, she lazily said, "Lexington, please sit wherever you like. We're all acquaintances, so let's not be so formal. Ah, men over there, not including you, please stand properly and report your work."

"Ella, your drink isn't expired, is it?" Xue Cheng shook the can of drink with water droplets on it and teased her, which earned her a roll of the eyes. However, Ella wasn't really angry about such a small joke. She breathed a sigh of relief and leaned lazily back in her office chair.

"Crack..." As Ella moved, Xue Cheng seemed to hear a slight sound coming from the chair under her. She stood up reflexively. Xue Cheng looked at the startled Ella and asked curiously, "What happened?"

"It's okay..." Ella's face looked a little grim. She tried to sit down slowly and shook her body, but didn't find anything unusual. She breathed a sigh of relief, put her arms on the table, folded her hands in front of her mouth, and said, "Okay, enough small talk. You said you had something important to report before, what is it?"

"A video I took by chance," Lexington said. She was in charge of most of the major and minor matters in the garrison, and she dealt with Ella the most. She gave Xue Cheng a reassuring look, then took out her phone and shook it. "The specific content has been sent to your email. You can take a look."

Ella nodded, lowered her head to operate the computer in front of her, and quickly flipped through the video Lexington mentioned. After quickly browsing it, Ella's face became strange: "You... know too?"

"Also?" Bismarck and Lexington looked at each other. The girl with long white hair asked, "You already know?"

"Because of the existence of the deep-sea shipgirls, the ocean has always been an area of ​​our close surveillance," Ella said calmly. "I only learned about this this morning. The Governor had originally instructed us not to make this public for the time being. But since your garrison has been so resourceful and collected this information, it's fine to share it with you."

Saratoga frowned slightly: "What's going on?"

Ella stood up and took out a file bag from the drawer. She slowly walked to the coffee table, put the file bag down, and then went back to her desk and sat down without saying a word.

Xue Cheng opened the file bag and found that it was full of photos. The photos showed several pale-skinned girls wearing leather combat uniforms fighting fiercely with a group of strange-looking sea beasts.

"Deep-sea ship girls... and their mutated ship uniforms?" Tirpitz exclaimed. She snatched the photo from Xue Cheng's hand and flipped through it quickly. Her originally listless eyes suddenly shone with light, but looking at her flushed face, excited expression, and the strange smile at the corner of her mouth, it was obvious that the thoughts surging in her mind were not good.

"So, the footage we captured isn't a unique case," Lexington said thoughtfully. "What do the experts and scholars at Naval Headquarters think about this?"

Ella shook her head. "It's certainly not an isolated case. According to our intelligence, this kind of abnormality has been occurring around the world since early yesterday morning. Due to the short timeframe and lack of data comparison, headquarters hasn't reached a conclusion yet."

"So, where did the initial mutation occur?" Xue Cheng asked curiously, stroking the stubble on his chin. "If we can find the source of the mutation, we might be able to get some useful information."

Ella gave Xue Cheng a deep look. "According to the surveillance data, the initial change occurred at 12:33 yesterday evening, somewhere in the sea north of your garrison. And since then, like radiation, the change has spread from that sea area to the entire world..."

"Twelve thirty-three?" Xue Cheng muttered to himself, his mind suddenly skipping a beat. "This time... is it a coincidence? I lost consciousness soon after the game server shut down due to alcohol and sleepiness. It was probably around this time, right? Could it be that my arrival in this world triggered some mysterious chain reaction that led to this change?"

Xue Cheng was feeling anxious, but his expression didn't change much. Ella, who had been watching him, seemed to have read something from his subtle expression and suddenly asked, "Hey, Xue Cheng, do you know anything about this incident?"

"Hmm? What do you mean?" Xue Cheng suppressed the throbbing in his heart and tried to control his expression. He asked in confusion, "Why do you ask that?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you're not good at lying?" Ella sighed. "What you're thinking is written all over your face!"

45. Fall and Rise Again

"..." Xue Cheng raised his hand and touched his cheek. Was his expression control that bad? He couldn't even hide his little thoughts? But it was absolutely impossible for him to admit this.

After all, the identity of the time traveler must be kept secret. It would definitely not be a good thing for him to publicize it. Besides, Xue Cheng was not sure whether the changes in the deep-sea ship girl were really related to him. Before the matter was clarified, Xue Cheng was unwilling to bear the blame for no reason.

Following Ella's words, the atmosphere in the room suddenly grew tense. Bismarck slowly stood up, his eyes sharp. Lexington's expression darkened slightly, a hint of coldness flickering in his blue eyes. "Ella, what makes you so sure we're involved in this? It seems we're more than just one tutelary fort nearby. Just because we're closest to the sea where the anomaly occurred, are you accusing us of this?"

Ella pushed her glasses up, the lenses reflecting a white glow in the sunlight. "If it were any other tutelary fort, I certainly wouldn't suspect them, but you guys..."

Ella stretched out a finger and shook it gently. "Your family's Kewei seems to be very good at making alchemical potions? And Yubari, I've seen a lot of her advanced technology. Add to that the indomitable mechanical transformation technology, and this deep-sea anomaly may not be another crazy experiment they're doing."

As soon as Ella's words left her mouth, Bismarck and Lexington, who had been furious, fell silent. In reality, they shared the same suspicion, but when facing outsiders, defending their sisters was like instinct. Lexington pondered for a moment and shook her head. "I'm sorry, although I share this suspicion, if, as you say, this incident has affected the entire world, then it's definitely not something Yubari and the others can do. Your suspicion of us is completely unfounded."

Ella looked at Lexington silently, then shifted her gaze to Xue Cheng's face. After a moment, she suddenly smiled and said, "Don't be nervous, and don't be so hostile to me. I'm just making a reasonable guess based on the existing intelligence. Are you reacting so strongly to confirm my guess?"

Bismarck casually tapped his sister on the head, who showed no signs of nervousness, and said calmly, "Ella, your status is special. Your every word and action represents the will of the Governor-General. If you don't have any evidence, I hope you will think carefully before saying such things."

"Thank you for your reminder, Bismarck. I will remember it." Ella said with a smile. She clasped her hands in front of her chest, leaned back slightly, and leaned comfortably in the office chair.

Ella breathed a sigh of relief and noticed that the atmosphere in the room was a bit solemn. Even Ning Hai and Ping Hai were looking at her with hostility. She was about to say something to ease the atmosphere when the chair under her suddenly made a crisp "crack" sound, and then this finely crafted luxurious leather office chair collapsed.

"Swish!" The office chair broke without any warning, but Ella seemed to have practiced this countless times. The moment the chair tilted, Ella, who was originally with her arms folded over her chest and one leg crossed, jumped up like a nimble rabbit and escaped the disaster in a miserable way.

This sudden change stunned everyone in the room, but Xue Cheng was not among them, because he was not unfamiliar with the farce that had just happened.

I remember that before an event, Momo, the official staff member of the game who was in charge of peripheral products and trailer drawing, posted a Weibo post about Ella breaking a chair by sitting on it. For a while, it became the target of ridicule and jokes among players. Later, in the official robot exercise fleet, Ella appeared as a member of the exercise robot and gained the skill of "falling down and getting up again", which made up this incident.

Unexpectedly, after crossing into the world of the game, he had the honor to witness the famous scene with his own eyes. At this moment, Xue Cheng was not surprised at all. Instead, his heart was filled with regret. He only hated himself for not having foresight. If he had taken out his mobile phone and turned on the recording function in advance, wouldn't he be able to preserve this famous scene forever and then enjoy it at any time?

"Hahahaha..." Seeing Ella's miserable state, the heartless Tirpitz laughed heartily: "Ella, you broke the chair again!"

"You, don't talk nonsense!" Ella's face flushed red. She quickly glanced at Xue Cheng and the others and found that everyone was holding back their laughter, especially Ning Hai and Ping Hai. Their chubby little faces were now puffed up like buns. Suddenly, she felt a little embarrassed and angry: "Tirpitz! If you dare to talk nonsense again, I will tear your mouth apart!"

"What nonsense?" Tirpitz chuckled. "I've heard that the most you've ever changed chairs in a month is two!"

Changed two chairs in one month? " Xue Cheng slapped his forehead speechlessly. Ella looked like a slender and well-proportioned girl, weighing probably less than 100 pounds. How could she be so destructive to chairs? Could it be that, like the training robots in the game, the chair-attack skill had become a skill attached to her, allowing her to unleash destructive power far beyond that of an ordinary person when facing a chair?

Ella's face darkened as she gave Tirpitz a vicious look. She then looked at Xue Cheng and the others and said through gritted teeth, "If you want to laugh, just laugh as much as you can. Isn't it uncomfortable to hold it in?"

"No, no!" Xue Cheng pinched his thigh hard, forcing himself to suppress his laughter through the pain. Although Ella didn't seem to mind, who knew what she was thinking? You know, girls have the privilege of being unreasonable. If she were to settle the score later, even if she couldn't make him look bad, she would probably cause him more trouble.

Ella looked at Xue Cheng hatefully. After a while, she angrily called the cleaning staff to clean up the broken chair and then brought a spare chair. However, Ella was obviously a frightened bird now. Even though she knew that the probability of the new chair being damaged was extremely low, she refused to sit on it and had to stand beside the desk.

"Alright, forget what I just said." Ella tried to act nonchalant and brought the subject back to business. "Navy Headquarters will continue to monitor this incident, so you can rest assured. If you're all right, why not stay for lunch? The cafeteria at the Marine Division is no worse than your garrison."

"Next time. We've been out for so long today, it's time to go back. There are still many things to do in the garrison." Ella's tone was a little stiff, and it was obvious that she wanted to see him off. Xue Cheng declined her invitation, said a few more polite words, and walked out of Ella's office with Lexington and others.

46. ​​Unexpected Encounter

Xue Cheng's garrison is located on an isolated island overseas. Although it has the support of the Navy Headquarters, the island has long been developed into a small military port with sufficient water, electricity and networks, and various daily necessities are regularly delivered by logistics troops, but inconvenient transportation is still a troubling problem.

Fortunately, Xue Cheng's garrison has made great military achievements and has independently suppressed deep-sea flagships many times. It is natural for him to have some small privileges. In order to facilitate their passage, the Navy Headquarters specially approved helicopters and yachts for them to use.

The means of transportation to the Navy Headquarters this time was that very luxurious-looking yacht. As for why they didn't choose the even more exaggerated helicopter? Xue Cheng would never admit that he was afraid of heights.

Standing on the deck, Xue Cheng held the railing, squinting his eyes comfortably as the sea breeze blew on his face, looking very content. Beside him, the gentle-looking Lexington and the uninterested Saratoga sandwiched him on either side.

Saratoga lowered her head, watching the waves break up as the yacht beneath her feet, then swiftly leave a long trail behind. She was lost in thought. She didn't know how long it had been before she heard Lexington on the other side say, "What's troubling you, Admiral?"

"Troubled?" Saratoga tilted her head. The man beside her looked relaxed, not even slightly troubled. She hadn't expected her sister, known as the perfect wife, to find something to talk about.