Lin Luo truly had no one available to use. Lin Wei had long since won over the people in the Marshal's residence. Or rather, from the very beginning, Lin Wei and his cheap uncle had repeatedly interfered in the affairs of the Marshal's residence over the past several years.
A person's temperament was closely related to the environment in which they were raised. The original owner had grown up dependent on relatives and had constantly been taught to yield to others. For the sake of being allowed one conversation with his mother each year, he had essentially done whatever he was told.
Even his marriage and the decision to cultivate a child had been arranged for him. After entering the Marshal's residence, he had never managed its affairs. Servants were experts at reading situations, so naturally they knew whom they could not afford to offend.
Five years of surviving the apocalypse had long since taught Lin Luo exactly what human nature was like. He did not expect much from anyone, but that did not mean he would continue tolerating everything—especially not the guards who supposedly belonged to the original owner.
The Marshal's spouse did not have personal guards of his own, but he did have a twenty-person security team. Twenty people could not compare with the Marshal's thousand-member personal guard battalion, but they were more than enough to protect one person.
Who outside the residence could have imagined that the Marshal's spouse's security team had never truly belonged to him from the very beginning?
When Lin Luo had originally read the novel, he had wondered why a security team belonging to the Marshal's spouse did not search for their missing employer and instead followed an unrelated female lead around all day. It had made no logical sense.
Only after transmigrating did he realize that he had misunderstood. The entire security team was nothing but a false front. They collected their allowances from the Marshal's residence, yet they did not serve the original owner at all.
The original owner had agreed to such an arrangement because he felt guilty toward the female lead. He genuinely believed that the Marshal had originally been Lin Wei's fiancé and that he had stolen the man away from her, so he yielded to her in everything.
The female lead had even received the authority to select the security personnel from the start. Every guard on the team liked her, and the captain was practically her devoted lapdog. How could the original owner possibly have had any place in their eyes?
Lin Luo did not think the original owner was stupid simply because he had been deceived. Anyone raised by such a black-hearted family in that sort of environment would hardly have turned out better.
Lin Luo was not the original owner, so naturally he would not indulge the female lead. He demanded that the military replace every member of his security team. Why would he keep a security detail whose hearts and minds belonged entirely to Lin Wei—as a holiday decoration?
The military readily transferred a batch of soldiers over and allowed him to choose for himself. A security team that did not even know when its own employer had been kidnapped had gone beyond mere dereliction of duty. The military could hardly object to replacing them.
In fact, the old security team had already been taken away for investigation as soon as Lin Luo's plea for help was posted, so Lin Wei, still inside the Marshal's residence, did not yet know that they had been dismissed.
“I have only one requirement. You are my guards. Even if the Marshal himself gives you an order, you are not to obey him. Can you do that?” Lin Luo went directly to the military camp after receiving access. He intended to select his guards in batches.
The soldiers practically worshipped the Marshal, so they hesitated when they heard this. Only one soldier answered immediately without the slightest hesitation. “I can.”
“Good. You stay.” Lin Luo had no use for guards who could not even understand whom they were responsible for protecting. His guards might end up being ceremonial more than anything else, but he still needed them to know their duty.
With his current physical condition, there was no chance he could straighten out the Marshal's residence without guards to help him. All he needed were people capable of following orders.
Using the same method, he selected another sixteen soldiers from among the applicants, then left the military camp with those he had chosen. He would rather have fewer people than accept unsuitable ones.
The military had even provided aircraft for the new guards. It was not that the old aircraft had been confiscated; the military had sent someone to pick him up on the way there, while he left aboard the new aircraft assigned to his security detail.
“Spouse, should I set the flight route for the hospital or for the Marshal's residence?” The person asking was Ji Lin, the captain of Lin Luo's new security team, whom Lin Luo had selected before coming to the military camp.
Lin Luo had not chosen Ji Lin because he held the highest rank or possessed the greatest combat strength among the applicants, nor because Lin Luo placed special value on his moral character. He had chosen him because serving at the Marshal's residence was Ji Lin's only remaining path forward.
Ji Lin had offended someone not long ago and received a major disciplinary mark. For an officer with the rank of captain, such a punishment effectively cut off all chances of promotion. If he retired from the military, he would no longer be in a position to protect his family.
Lin Luo had given him another opportunity, and Ji Lin was genuinely grateful. Otherwise, as someone who had only just taken the position and should have been mechanically following orders, he never would have asked about the route, much less subtly reminded Lin Luo that he ought to return to the Marshal's residence.
“The Marshal's residence.” Lin Luo had never planned to return to the hospital. His body needed quiet recuperation, and naturally it would be more comfortable to recover at home.
Lin Luo still did not know that the Marshal's residence was already in complete uproar. Lin Wei was ordering people to capture the tiger cub. She could not command the Marshal's personal guards, while Lin Luo's old security detail had already been taken away by the Military Justice Office, so the servants were the ones trying to do it.
She was furious. Ever since the security team disappeared, nothing had gone her way. The one time she failed to pay attention, the little cub even ran outside to the mountain and found himself a powerful protector, creating the present disaster.
Over the course of a week, the little cub had nearly wrecked every room in the Marshal's residence. Any place indoors large enough to hide a person had been destroyed at his command by the big tiger.
That was not even the worst of it. Just moments ago, he had led the big tiger into Lin Wei's dressing room and thoroughly wrecked the place. All of those clothes had only just been custom-made, and she had not worn a single one. She was nearly insane with rage.
She immediately gathered people to capture the cub. As long as they separated him from the big tiger, he would naturally behave. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned, and several servants were bitten by the big tiger.
The big tiger was no harmless herbivore. Even several dozen personal guards would be unable to subdue it barehanded without weapons, much less servants with almost no combat ability.
If the personal guards had not stayed alert and rescued the injured servants, the consequences would have been far worse. The big tiger had little human awareness left and no understanding of law. If someone dared snatch its cub, it would dare bite that person to death.
“Awooo~~ awooo.” The tiger cub lay sprawled on top of the big tiger's head, howling commands at it. He wanted the big tiger to attack all these bad people who were stopping him from seeing Dad.
The big tiger looked at the people who had stopped attacking and did not move. Even without human consciousness, it retained a trace of humanity. If no one provoked it, it would not take the initiative to attack.
“Be good, Tiger Cub. Auntie will take you for a nice bath. Once you're clean and smell nice, you can go see Dad.” Lin Wei no longer dared order anyone to grab him, so she could only try deception.
“Awooo~~ awooo.” Liar. He had been tricked too many times already and no longer believed her.
Lin Wei could not actually understand the cub's cries, but she could roughly guess what he meant. “Auntie isn't lying to you. You're too dirty right now. If you don't wash yourself clean, Dad won't like you and won't want to see you.”
The tiger cub hesitated. When his fur was dirty, Dad really did refuse even to pet him. “Awooo~~ awooo.” Still afraid of being tricked, he wanted the big tiger to come inside and take a nice bath with him.
The big tiger remained unmoved. It absolutely did not want a bath. It hated water. To make its refusal clear, it even turned its head away.
“Awooo~~ awooo.” The tiger cub jumped down from the big tiger's head and tried to catch the fur on its leg in his mouth and drag it inside. Unfortunately, the fur on the big tiger's leg was too short for him to get a grip.
The tiger cub anxiously circled around it but could do absolutely nothing. The big tiger, which normally listened to him very well, firmly refused his demand that they bathe together.
“Tiger Cub, hurry over. Everything for your bath is ready. If you still don't come, Aunt Jie will go see your dad by herself.” Lin Wei pretended she was tired of waiting and turned as if she were going back inside.
No matter how clever the tiger cub was, he was still only a child—and a child who desperately missed his father. In the end he fell for it. Afraid Lin Wei would leave him behind and go see Dad alone, he raced after her.
The big tiger hesitated briefly, then followed as well. It was not going inside to bathe. It was afraid these people would hide the cub again and make it unable to find him.
Lin Wei did not stop the big tiger from following. No matter how intelligent an animal might be, without human consciousness it still could not match a person. As long as the cub willingly went indoors with her, she had a way to separate the two of them.
The big tiger entered the residence, and a small squad of personal guards followed. In the past, they had been responsible only for protecting the Marshal. Now they had to protect other people from the Marshal as well.
The guards knew what Lin Wei intended, but they neither stopped her nor had any way to do so. They had neither the authority nor the ability to interfere in the other affairs of the Marshal's residence.
Lin Wei could not directly command the personal guards, but she could restrict their movements within the Marshal's residence. That was also why they had been unable to spare people to search for the missing spouse. Searching for him was not part of their assigned duties.
To put it plainly, they were the Marshal's personal guards, not the spouse's. Without an order from the Marshal, they had no authority to interfere in any matter inside the Marshal's residence.
Lin Wei had seen that clearly and used it to keep the personal guards contained. Ever since the Marshal had been sent back to the residence, the guards had not left the property at all, and this had caused large numbers of them to collectively request transfers.
At full strength, the Marshal's personal guard battalion contained one thousand people. They had suffered severe casualties on the battlefield and fewer than four hundred remained. After the Marshal's injury, not only had their numbers not been replenished, but many more had been transferred away. Fewer than two hundred remained now.
The Marshal was destined never to recover within the Neptune Star System. Any personal guard who chose to stay therefore had almost no future prospects. Anyone with even a little ambition had already left.
Most of those who stayed had either received favors from the Marshal in the past or genuinely admired him and were fiercely loyal. A smaller group had remained only because they had nowhere else to go and no unit willing to take them.
The men willing to follow the big tiger around everywhere were precisely those fiercely loyal personal guards. Their presence was also the reason Lin Wei had treated the tiger cub reasonably well until now and had always relied on coaxing rather than force.
The personal guards were helpless too. The tiger cub was simply too destructive. In a single week, he had already caused more than ten million in damages. Since they could not control the big tiger, they had no choice but to tacitly allow Lin Wei to handle the cub.
“Your fur is so wet. Let's go dry you off.” After washing the cub's fur, Lin Wei opened a disguised door beside the bathing pool. In reality, it was not a door at all but an elevator leading underground.
The big tiger had lain down some distance from the bathing pool to avoid getting wet. With the tiger nearby, the cub had not been on guard and followed Lin Wei directly into the elevator disguised as a lounge.
The tiger cub did not like water either, so of course he wanted his fur dried. Only when the door rapidly closed and the floor began moving did he realize he had been tricked. “Awooo! Awooo!”
The instant the big tiger heard his cry for help, it leapt to its feet, smashed the elevator doors apart with a single paw, and jumped onto the top of the elevator car. But when it tore through the roof, the cub was nowhere to be found.
By the time Lin Luo returned to the Marshal's residence, the big tiger had gone berserk. It had demolished the rooms and training facilities on the first underground level, and the personal guards who tried to stop it had been injured as well.