Chapter 3248: The Genius Among Geniuses

At this moment, Song Ruoyu had already figured out the current situation—Ye Chen's strength far exceeded her own, and trying to escape was nothing but a fool's dream. Although she didn't understand how Ye Chen could forge a video of her in such a short time, she knew the video was flawless, and once it was exposed, her family would surely die.

Therefore, the only thing she could do now was to cooperate with Ye Chen as much as possible and avoid implicating her family.

Seeing her yield, Ye Chen put away his phone and said to her: "From now on, I will ask you questions, and you will answer them. You must speak without reservation and answer completely. As long as you cooperate well, I will not implicate your family, and perhaps even spare your life. Do you understand?"

Song Ruoyu nodded repeatedly, saying in a wronged yet obedient tone: "I understand..."

Ye Chen asked her: "What is your position in the Right Army Governor's Office, what are your responsibilities, and to whom do you report?"

Song Ruoyu replied: "I am one of the six deputy commissioners of the Right Army Governor's Office, with no specific duties, and I follow the orders of Deputy Commander Yuan."

Ye Chen then asked: "Who is Deputy Commander Yuan, and what is his background?"

Song Ruoyu said: "Deputy Commander Yuan is the deputy commander of the Right Army Governor's Office, holding a rank just below the Grand Commander. He is responsible for the operation and management of all garrisons, as well as the safety of the Grand Commander and his family."

Speaking, Song Ruoyu added: "The Grand Commander is named Wu Shutong, and the Right Army Governor's Office is entirely under his responsibility."

Ye Chen nodded and continued: "Where is the garrison of the Right Army Governor's Office located?"

Song Ruoyu answered truthfully: "The current garrison is in Naples, Italy."

Ye Chen asked again: "What is the defensive situation of the garrison?"

Song Ruoyu said: "The garrison is located in the city center, with extremely tight security. The Grand Commander himself is a cultivator, and Deputy Commander Yuan possesses strength second only to the Four Great Earls. Moreover, the garrison employs financial-grade security construction, resulting in a very high safety level."

Ye Chen asked her: "Is your Song family also in Naples?"

Song Ruoyu replied: "The Song family has been in France for these years. Under normal circumstances, we have no right to know the location of the Right Army Governor's Office garrison. It is only because I had the opportunity to enter the office that I came to know these details."

Ye Chen frowned and asked: "Isn't your family a cadet branch of the Wu family? How come you have no right to know the garrison's location?"

Song Ruoyu sighed and said: "Cadet branches inherently have no status. For hundreds of years, the Song family has merely followed the Wu family's orders unilaterally—going wherever they are told, never questioning the reason, and never daring to raise any objection."

Speaking, Song Ruoyu added: "Although we claim to be a cadet branch of the Wu family, we are essentially just a tool for providing suitable brides for Wu family men. In our family, whenever a child is born, it must be reported to the Governor's Office immediately. The Office has a dedicated department responsible for managing and monitoring us, similar to the ancient Clan Affairs Office. All information about our descendants is kept there, and it must be updated every six months, including detailed medical records. Girls who turn sixteen must face marriage arrangements—if someone from the Wu family selects them, the Wu family will inform us, and then they will come at a certain time to take the person away."

Ye Chen was deeply curious about the relationship between the Wu family and its cadet branches, so he said to her: "Please tell me in detail about your relationship with the Wu family—how exactly does this so-called cadet branch operate?"

Song Ruoyu fell silent for a moment, then sighed: "Calling ourselves a cadet branch is really just about delivering wives for Wu family men..."

Speaking, she then fully disclosed the origins of the Song and Wu families to Ye Chen.

Ye Chen learned for the first time that, in order to keep the secret of the Anti-Qing Alliance, the Wu family had actually coerced other families into helping them continue their bloodline—something he had never heard before.

But upon reflection, the Wu family, having survived for centuries under the protection of Wu Feiyan and mastered the core secrets of the Anti-Qing Alliance, must both preserve the secret and continue the bloodline. Aside from this evil method, there seemed to be no other viable option.

Moreover, according to Song Ruoyu, families like the Song family, bound in such a way, number at least twenty or more under the Wu family.

After all, the Wu family has branched out and multiplied over hundreds of years under Wu Feiyan's protection. During these centuries, with Wu Feiyan, her cultivated dead warriors, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard present, plagues, wars, natural disasters, and human calamities have never affected the Wu family. Thus, the Wu family's population has flourished exceptionally over these hundreds of years.

Even if ordinary families reproduced at the speed of a rocket, they could never catch up to the Wu family's growth. Hence, for these hundreds of years, they have continuously developed their own cadet branches.

Since the Anti-Qing Alliance divided global garrisons into five military governorates, the Wu family, due to geographical reasons, naturally split into five branches. Each branch developed and reproduced in its own territory, and each branch has at least three cadet branches dedicated to producing offspring.

Among them, the Left and Right Military Governorates are the largest, with the Wu family branches there having the most people and the most cadet branches.

Taking the Right Military Governorate as an example, their cadet branches number as many as six—the highest among all.

For the daughters of the Song family and other cadet branches, marrying into the Wu family as wives is not the best choice, because although important Wu family heirs are protected by elixirs and can live for a hundred years, their wives have no right or qualification to receive any elixirs. Moreover, due to the Wu family's many secrets, women who marry into the Wu family rely entirely on the Wu family's own doctors for treatment when ill. If they contract a serious illness like cancer, the Wu family itself lacks the medical capacity to treat them, and they would not waste the elixirs bestowed by Wu Feiyan on outsiders. Thus, the average lifespan of Wu family wives is actually not long.

After hearing the introduction, Ye Chen felt a degree of sympathy for the Song family's situation as a cadet branch. Shortly after, he asked: "Have you yourself been matched for marriage yet?"

Song Ruoyu shook her head: "Not yet. I broke through into the Transformation Realm at the age of sixteen, and since then, I am no longer considered a candidate for marriage by the Wu family."

Ye Chen stared in disbelief: "You broke through into the Transformation Realm at sixteen?!"

"Yes," Song Ruoyu nodded: "Indeed, I was sixteen—more precisely, less than half a month away from my sixteenth birthday."

Ye Chen was so astonished he could not speak: he had never heard of any genius who could break through into the Transformation Realm at the age of sixteen.

Martial arts is not like cultivation—cultivators comprehend the Dao, grasp spiritual energy, and their strength can leap forward instantly, as if achieving everything in one step.

But martial arts has no such shortcut—it can only be advanced step by step, with steady effort.

Therefore, although a Transformation Realm master cannot defeat a cultivator who has just comprehended the Dao, walking the martial arts path is a long and distant journey. Many martial arts masters never reach the Hidden Realm even by sixty years of age. Song Ruoyu entering the Transformation Realm at sixteen is truly a master among masters, a genius among geniuses!