After Crossing Over, I Marked the Empress

On the third day after Shen Han left the base, Gu Junwan put preparing a scarf on her agenda.

She decided to knit a neck warmer for her Alpha girlfriend with her own hands.

That way, whenever the cold winds blew, her sentiments could become warmth around the Alpha’s neck.

At noon on this day.

Just after the lunch break, Gu Junwan called her special assistant to her office.

However, when she saw Xu Zhao listening attentively to her instructions while holding a tablet computer,

The Empress Omega suddenly found it difficult to speak.

A long silence fell in the office.

The air seemed to brew a strange, inexplicable atmosphere.

Special Assistant Xu felt a bit nervous. She pushed up the glasses on her nose bridge and asked softly, “Your Majesty, have you encountered some thorny issue?”

Gu Junwan lowered her gaze slightly, staring at the pen in her hand, and said quietly, “Xu Zhao, do you know how to knit a scarf?”

“Huh?” Special Assistant Xu thought she had misheard.

She leaned forward slightly, somewhat embarrassed, and asked her Empress again for confirmation: “Your Majesty, did you just say… scarf?”

Seeing her assistant’s reaction, Gu Junwan felt even more embarrassed.

But she could only discuss this matter with Xu Zhao, so she raised her beautiful eyes and said very seriously, “I want to knit a scarf for Shen Han, but I’ve never done it before. I don’t know if I can do it well. I need your help.”

Xu Zhao was stunned for quite a while before coming back to her senses.

Knitting a scarf itself was ordinary enough, but the key issue was that the person making this request was the Empress!

She could easily obtain the world’s best scarves with just a word, so why bother doing this herself?

The Empress was already so busy.

But soon, Xu Zhao understood the crux of the matter.

Her Empress’s affection for that Alpha might be even stronger than she had imagined.

So in the time that followed, Special Assistant Xu fully utilized her expertise.

Not only did she help the Empress select the knitting method and scarf style, but she also immediately ordered tools and materials from online stores.

This was why Gu Junwan needed Xu Zhao’s help.

She couldn’t conveniently purchase things like needles and yarn herself, so she had to have her assistant place the order, gather all the items first, then secretly bring them to her.

The next day, when the Empress returned to her villa after work, she was unusually carrying a leather briefcase.

Seeing this, the Beta maid immediately moved forward to take it.

Gu Junwan had just changed into slippers. Seeing the maid’s movement, she discreetly moved the briefcase behind her back.

“No need, I can manage it myself.”

The young maid withdrew her hand as if electrocuted and hurriedly lowered her eyes, saying, “I’m sorry, next time I’ll remember to ask you first.”

Gu Junwan saw that the new young maid looked somewhat embarrassed and felt she might have frightened her.

So she softened her tone slightly and said to her, “It’s alright. When did you start working here? I don’t seem to have seen you much before.”

The Empress’s clear and pleasant voice immediately made the young maid’s face turn red.

She clasped her small hands in front of her body, gripping them slightly, and responded respectfully, “My name is Xiao Wen, I’ve only been here for three months. Your Majesty, you work so hard, you- you should take care to rest more.”

Gu Junwan didn’t actually intend to chat with her.

Seeing that the young maid no longer seemed afraid, she nodded to her and then went directly to the study on the third floor.

Apart from Ms. Fei Xi, no one else in the villa was allowed to enter the Empress’s study casually.

After tidying up the coat the Empress had taken off, Xiao Wen couldn’t contain her excitement. She found her two little sisters and began to chatter.

“The Empress is so gentle! Just now I almost touched her important briefcase, and she not only didn’t get angry, but even asked me when I started working here!”

Another immediately chimed in, “Yes, outsiders all say our Empress is very assertive, but I think she’s really very nice and always courteous to the servants.”

As they were talking,

Ms. Fei Xi’s deep voice suddenly sounded behind the maids: “Although night shift work is relaxed, it’s not so leisurely that you can stand here gossiping.”

Hearing Ms. Fei Xi’s voice, the three Beta maids immediately stiffened their backs.

They all stood still with their hands down, not daring to breathe loudly.

Ms. Fei Xi saw that they were all quite young and didn’t want to reprimand them too harshly.

So she didn’t set more rules, only saying sternly, “Her Majesty’s briefcase is equivalent to state secrets. In the future, you should be more careful when you see it, don’t be careless like Xiao Wen.”

With Ms. Fei Xi’s words, the servants in the entire villa were somewhat on edge for the next week.

Because they discovered that the leather briefcase, equivalent to state secrets, frequently appeared in their sight!

In the morning, a young maid carrying a tray to the dining room suddenly saw a briefcase placed on the chair next to the Empress.

The young maid’s neck stiffened, not daring to glance at the bag even once.

In the evening, a maid went to the bedroom to bring the Empress milk.

Upon entering, she suddenly saw that familiar briefcase on the Empress’s bedside table.

The maid stood frozen with the tray, not knowing where she should put the milk.

Gu Junwan gently tucked the half-knitted scarf into her blanket.

Then she took the milk cup from the maid’s tray herself, finally releasing the other from her tense state.

After the maid left, a strange expression also appeared on the Empress Omega’s cool face.

She wasn’t unaware of the atmosphere in the villa these past few days.

Thinking of everyone’s expressions when looking at her briefcase as if it were a bomb, she felt both amused and somewhat shy.

She wondered if her mother had ever done something like this before.

She now truly felt like she was knitting a scarf as if conducting guerrilla warfare.

The Empress Omega slowly walked to the window. As she tilted her head back, her smooth long hair fell along her shoulder blades, revealing an elegant swan-like neck.

“I wonder what Shen Han is doing now? Is everything going well on her end?”

……

Fifth District, Mount Zhixing, Free Federation Government Military Camp.

Shen Han was comfortably enjoying her first hot shower in days.

After more than a month of fighting, the illegal armed organization’s stronghold had been taken by the army.

However, nearly 70% of the enemy had scattered and hidden in the mountains.

The search mission they were about to execute was, in some ways, actually more difficult than real combat.

The Zhixing Mountain area was vast, with many deep forests.

Every mountain hollow, every forest gully could potentially be an enemy stronghold.

Trying to ferret out those “natives” in such an environment was no easy task.

Other soldiers in the army only needed to complete the search mission as best they could.

But the assessment task for these forty-plus trainee guard members was based on the number of enemies captured.

The trainee guard team was divided into 8 tactical squads.

As the leader of one 6-person squad, Shen Han naturally bore more pressure than her team members.

Early the next morning, she led her tactical squad out of the camp.

Ma Haoyu was also assigned to her team and looked particularly energetic.

While the other 4 team members were tensely checking the thorny bushes,

The small special agent began his broadcast mode beside Shen Han.

“Boss, there’s a wild plant called Huangluozhi in this Zhixing Mountain. It clears the liver and brightens the eyes, calms the mind and benefits intelligence, nourishes blood and opens orifices. It’s of extremely high medicinal value!”

“And this Huangluozhi is very special. No matter how much they try to simulate this highland environment, artificial cultivation always fails.”

“It’s like a free seed that can’t be constrained, only able to grow in this high-altitude wilderness. You can’t buy it with money in the district’s cities!”

While observing her surroundings, Shen Han asked, “If it’s such a good thing, why haven’t I seen any trade opened up in the bordering counties?”

Ma Haoyu looked around, and seeing that the other comrades were quite far from him, he lowered his voice and said, “Actually, several years ago, the Empress wanted to open up trade.”

“These bandits aren’t really the biggest problem. The key is that the tribes in the mountains don’t cooperate at all. To put it bluntly, they just don’t trust our Federation government.”

As they were talking, suddenly, the teammate walking at the front stopped and shouted loudly, “Who’s there? Come out!”

His shout immediately put the entire tactical squad on alert.

Shen Han lightly pressed her finger on the gun trigger, her gaze focused. She saw a thin young boy wearing a cloth cap crouching by the edge of the bushes ahead.

He was wrapped in a dirty wool felt, with a crudely made musket held against his chest.

Perhaps due to nervousness, the boy’s gun barrel was pressed against his ear.

Shen Han observed this scene with narrowed eyes, very worried that the boy’s musket might accidentally fire and blow off half his head.

“All members, listen up! Lower your gun barrels, just stand guard on the side.”

After giving this order, Shen Han moved her own weapon behind her back and slowly walked out, stopping about three meters away from the bushes.

“Which tribe are you from? Why are you hiding here?”

From behind the bushes came a hesitant, cracking voice: “I’m not hiding! This is the territory of our Qubi tribe.”

Hearing the voice that was clearly still in the process of changing, Shen Han guessed that the other person was probably around 14 or 15 years old.

“We are the Federation government army, searching for the Huta armed organization, oh, what you call the Huta bandits.

This area isn’t very safe recently. You should go back quickly and tell your tribal leader not to wander out unnecessarily to avoid accidental injury.”

The boy didn’t respond but poked out most of his head to look at Shen Han and her team.

After a while, seeing that they really didn’t intend to give him trouble, he finally hugged his musket and turned to run away.

Only after the boy’s figure had disappeared did Shen Han lead her team around to the bushes where he had been.

Looking down, they discovered that on that barren soil grew a small patch of full and solid umbrella-shaped plants.

Shen Han crouched down, gently touching the slightly hard cap with her fingertip, and turned to ask Ma Haoyu, “Are these the Huangluozhi you were just talking about?”