The Starlight Master smiled, "I’m just a simple man. Whether you see me or not, what does it matter? There are plenty of young and talented people at headquarters; any one of them is much more handsome than I am."

"But none of them can compare to you."

Zhou Mei’er boldly stated.

"Hehe..."

The Starlight Master couldn’t help but rub his nose.

"Leader!"

Zhou Mei’er looked at him with fiery eyes and asked, "Leader, during this time, have you ever... liked me?"

This question made the Starlight Master cough: "Cough, cough, cough, cough..."

But no matter how much he coughed, Zhou Mei’er’s eyes remained intensely fixed on him, her lips pressed together, her expression determined and stubborn.

Clearly, she wanted an answer from him, no matter what.

"Does it matter?"

The Starlight Master asked helplessly.

"It does!"

Zhou Mei’er replied firmly.

"To be honest, during this time, I’ve liked each one of you very much!"

The Starlight Master gave a bitter smile and said, "Whichever one becomes my wife, I would be willing and would love to marry immediately and take her to the bridal chamber!"

"But I can’t! I’m not qualified, nor am I worthy."

The Starlight Master said softly, "I dare not provoke."

Tears streamed from Zhou Mei’er’s eyes.

"I know about your families; the family at headquarters, a family qualified to have its collateral branch participate in training; though your families may not be top-tier, they already stand above those who can’t even strive for this qualification, lacking in the upper echelons but more than adequate compared to the lower."

"And each family has intricately linked powers; no one from these families is someone I, the Starlight, can provoke or associate with."

"Moreover, I understand that noble women like you basically all have marriage engagements. Provoking one implies provoking two families, or even more than two families."

"So, from beginning to end, I never dared to truly scold and hit you girls, as I did with Zhao Wushang and others."

"I also know that when you’re here, completely under my control, you can’t resist me; whatever I wanted to do, no one could stop me, nor could you rebel."

"But as Starlight, I still want to live. And I want to climb higher."

The Starlight Master frankly said, "I don’t want to die, Meimei. For me, between love and career, I would choose career; between love and life, I choose life, I choose to live."

"I’m just a small person from the lower ranks, and I know my place extremely well."

"And I am even more aware that your feelings are just a spur of the moment, merely because during this time, under my repression, no more outstanding man has appeared. Thus..."

The Starlight Master spoke candidly at length, finally saying, "Meimei, you need to wake up."

Zhou Mei’er faintly smiled, "Do you think it’s just a momentary impulse?"

Though the tone was light, the sentence inexplicably carried a sharpness.

The Starlight Master sighed, "Whether it’s impulse or not, you know better than I do; perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. But regardless of whether it is, you understand what you would encounter if you move forward, and so do I."

Zhou Mei’er’s eyes welled up with tears.

It was precisely because they understood that they dared not say anything, dared not do anything.

"At the moment of parting, can’t you say something nice to cheer me up?" Zhou Mei’er asked with tears.

"I can’t!"

The Starlight Master shook his head, "I only hope that when you go back, you quickly forget about me."

The Squad Leader is too heartless.

Outside, listening against the door gap, Wu Lianlian sighed.

Zhou Mei’er bitterly smiled, "I knew you would say that."

The Starlight Master faintly smiled, "If I didn’t say this, if I said I would marry you, if I said I like you, if I said stay with me, would you dare?"

Zhou Mei’er was stunned.

"I dare, but I can’t!"

Zhou Mei’er cried tears like rain, "Because if that happened, you wouldn’t survive even a day."

"Isn’t that it?"

The Starlight Master laughed, "Isn’t it much easier now like this?"

Tears still on her face, Zhou Mei’er revealed a smile, "Thank you, Leader, for finally giving me two sentences, even though you asked in return. But I know you had no choice either."

The Starlight Master coughed.

Could a General’s retort be treated as a romance line?

A woman’s thought process is indeed different from a man’s.

Zhou Mei’er bit her lips, glanced outside the door, and suddenly grabbed a piece of paper, swiftly writing something on it.

"When will I be able to see your true face?"

The Starlight Master was taken aback, looking at her with a questioning gaze.

Zhou Mei’er continued writing, "Because your disguise doesn’t work, though you appear the same each day, if you carefully observe your face and note it seriously, you’ll notice subtle changes in the position of the beard, the lines of the facial muscles, the teeth when you smile, even the messy eyebrows at the end of the eyebrows, and the degree of the nose’s collapse."

"I noticed it a few times, and Lianlian asked me before, why do men do this? Sometimes they pull out a few hairs themselves, or forget to wash their face, or in different levels of anger... this reason worked to cover it. So Lianlian’s suspicion is small, no problem."

"But I’ve been focused wholeheartedly on you, and even if you change each hair, I remember clearly."

"If you disguise yourself in the future, pay more attention to these details. It’s best to draw how you look when disguised and remember it, never changing it, or you’ll suffer for it later on."

The Starlight Master quietly watched her finish writing, and couldn’t help but sweat slightly on his back.