淫欲的代价

As the people were stunned stiff, the First Marshal looked over to He Yuan. Anyone with a brain would know that the verdict was not satisfactory to the mandron and the Marshals wouldn\'t have bothered about this if not for the fact that the mandron\'s genes could be very beneficial -even more beneficial than Ding Weimin\'s presence in the army.

After much deliberation, they decided... The First Marshal looked to the soldiers at the side. "The Third Marshal is retained at the detention centre of the Third army as we speak. As for the former General, Ding Weimin, his sentence is effective immediately."

Ding Weimin stiffened, Ding Wang covered his face with his hands whilst Xia Yueyu\'s entire body trembled from shock. "H- He is still recuperating!" She shouted before she could hold herself back.

"SILENCE IN THE MARSHAL COURT!" The bailiff shouted back and Xia Yueyu froze.

The First Marshal glared at her in warning before waving dismissively. "The prison yard is fully equipped with an infirmary. He can continue his recuperation there."

Xia Yueyu\'s chest heaved. Ding Wang quickly held her hand and pinched her side to warn her but she pushed him away and angrily stood to her feet. "How can you say such a thing?! That place is not comfortable at all. How would he recover?!"

A lot of people eyed Xia Yueyu like a fool and Ding Wang\'s face burned in shame. It was already bad enough that his son, who he always praised for his competence and his father, who had always been disappointed in him for being a less than stellar soldier, were going to end up in jail! He didn\'t need his wife bringing any more shame to the Ding family!

He directly stood up and glared at Xia Yueyu.

The woman stared back with a fierce expression and his heart broke. He couldn\'t recognize her. What happened to the pristine and graceful woman he married? Who was this uncouth person before him? Just when did she become like this?

At that moment, two soldiers reached the defendant dock to take Ding Weimin away. Ding Weimin\'s eyes automatically moved to Yang Xue once more. Even now, the mandron had refused to look at him.

He felt very hurt and angry but he managed to control himself. It was just for 12 months. At least once he returned, he would be able to get back into the army. He didn\'t really care if he had to start from scratch again as long as he was able to achieve his dream.

He had to. After all, his grandfather... His eyes reddened. He still couldn\'t believe what his grandfather had done for him. He was going to make sure he achieved that position. For his grandfather\'s sake. As for Yang Xue.... He didn\'t know how to feel so he just pushed everything to the back of his mind.

He looked over to his parents and gave them a dry smile before squaring himself on his wheelchair as the soldiers led him away.

Xia Yueyu\'s eyes widened. "No!" She shook Ding Wang hard and pointed at the retreating soldiers. "They\'re taking Min\'er away!" He\'s innocent!"

Ding Wang stabilized himself before gritting his teeth and whispering "Yueyu, the verdict has been annouced. Let\'s leave."

"No!" Xia Yueyu screamed and tried to move past him in the direction of the soldiers. "Min\'er is innocent!"

"Xia Yueyu!" Ding Wang gave up on playing nice and grabbed Xia Yueyu\'s arm before dragging her out of the courtroom.

"Let me go! That\'s your son, how could you let him be bullied by everyone?!" Xia Yueyu screamed and struggled against her husband. "You know in your heart that he is innocent! Ding Wang you heartless man. Let me go!"

The soldiers at the side couldn\'t bear to watch and since they were causing such a commotion in the hall, they stepped forward and helped Ding Wang to drag her out.

"LET ME GO! THEY\'RE TRYING TO HARM MY SON!"

A couple of reporters rushed out of the hall after the Ding couple whilst a few others remained to see what else the Marshal\'s had to say since the case wasn\'t closed yet.

The minute peace returned to the hall, the First Marshal cleared his throat. "With the verdicts out of the way," He quickly eyed He Yuan. "Mr. Yang would get the merits and recognition for the achievement that originally belonged to him.

-They include; 15,000,000 credits, a noble medal of Honour and, after his reenlistment form has been sorted out, a promotion directly from Private First Class to Sergeant Major!"

A lot of people turned their heads to He Yuan in surprise and 888 raised a brow after quietly crosschecking the ranking system of the Twelve-army Coalition. The promotion was actually a quantitative leap.

Excluding the position of Marshal, the Twelve-army Coalition had 6 major ranks which were subdivided into 20 ranks. In order of lowest to highest, they were:

Privates; Private, Private Second Class and Private First Class.

Sergeants; Corporal, Sergeant and Staff Sergeant.

Warrant Officers; Sergeant First Class, First Sergeant and Sergeant Major.

Junior Officers; Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant and Captain.

Senior Officers; Major, Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel.

General; Major General, Lieutenant General, General, Senior General and Generalissimo.

In essence, Yang Xue had skipped the entirety of the Sergeants ranking and had gotten the highest position a Warrant Officer could get which was the rank of Sergeant Major.

888 cocked his head sideways. It seemed the death of a Xor queen was a really big deal. Not surprising remembering how the Andronians had been terrorized and surpressed by those creatures for thousands of generations until Pandox was transferred out of the Plexar System.

After a moment of silence, the surprised expression on the faces of the people became stiff. This was because, contrary to the expectations of everyone, the mandron in the Plaintiff box barely had any reaction to his merits and promotion.

Unbeknownst to them, He Yuan was lost in thought as pondered on how Ding Weimin\'s retention in the army after his jail time could possibly affect Yang Xue and the balance of the realm at large.

In fact, the situation wasn\'t as bad as it appeared. The Marshals were clearly after power so there was no way they would allow Ding Weimin to succeed and take that power from them. This meant that even if Ding Weimin returned to the army, he would be supressed every step of the way.

They would place him in a position were he could use his talents and make it seem like he was advancing but they would never give him any actual power!

He Yuan nodded. It seemed Yang Xue didn\'t have to worry about Ding Wemin as the Marshals would be all too glad to handle him themselves.

888 cleared his throat then.

He Yuan frowned. "Hm?" Then he took a quick glance around and realized that at some point in time, the attention in the hall had drifted back to him. After getting the gist of things, he drummed his fingers on his thighs in contemplation.

Seeing the mandron\'s unimpressed demeanor, the Marshals frowned. Did that mean the mandron had no plans of returning to the Twelve-army? This would make things a little difficult. They all wanted to eat their cake and have it too and if the mandron decided to be stubborn that would place them in a tough position.

A simple solution would be to cheat the Third Marshal and still kick Ding Weimin out of the army. After all, the evidence was already in their hands but seeing as the Third Marshal had been so willing to give himself up, it must mean that the cunning old man had a back up plan.

Hope sprang in the heart of the Tenth Marshal then. If they were unable to silence the mandron, that would mean that the other Marshals would have no choice but to give Ding Weimin up! After giving it a second thought, his excitement slowly dwindled. It was the Third Marshal they were speaking about. That old gizzard would surely have a back up plan!

It might be easy to suppress Ding Weimin once the Third Marshal was gone but if the Third Marshal remained and was lucky enough to cultivate a soldier to succeed him. That might be a problem...

At that moment, the Sixth Marshal quickly thought of another incentive. She valued integrity as a soldier but she was also one to focus on her own benefits. Since Ding Weimin was going to be punished anyways, she saw no reason why she couldn\'t acquire more power for herself so she was part of the Marshals who voted in favour of the Third Marshal\'s offer.

She quickly sent a message to the First Marshal.

The moment the First Marshal read the message, he cleared his throat and addressed the audience. "The Twelve-army Coalition is in the middle of proceesing a bill for the allowance of more mandrons in the army.

-With Mr. Yang as a precedent, it could be seen that mandrons could turn out to be valuable assets in the protection of the Plexar Federation so a division would be created specially for training the mandrons and the best 1,000 could be divided between all Twelve armies!

Brows were raised in the hall but the First Marshal wasn\'t done. "Mr. Yang would be placed in charge of the training of this special division!"

No one knew who began the clapping but soon enough, the entire gallery was full of clapping people.

He Yuan finally had a reaction then. He looked to the Marshals. It might seem as if they had given Yang Xue power but in actuality, it was nothing. They were merely placing him in charge of training new recruits which was nothing special for a Sergeant Major.

In fact, they were trying to seem inclusive but they just didn\'t trust Yang Xue enough to be placed in charge of humans or andronians!

They also didn\'t truly want mandrons. This was clear when they decided to group all of them in one training division so it would be easier to cut down their numbers in the army. For example, if they sent 10,000 mandron recruits to all Twelve armies, it might be possible for more mandrons to succeed.

But if the mandrons were grouped into one training division, it would turn into a competition between mandrons as they would all have to fight for the limited 1,000 spots in order to get into any of the twelve armies!

He Yuan scoffed inwardly. He was in the body of a mandron, how could he let them suffer such a loss? He locked eyes with the First Marshal and deadpanned whilst mocking a clueless expression, "Ding Weimin was given his own special division when he killed the first Xor queen."

The Marshals all narrowed their eyes at the same time. They were trying to acquire more power for themselves not transfer the power from one hand to another!