October 2nd, the second day of the Rule Period.
After the first settlement, many people online were discussing the failed challengers they’d encountered around them.
“Someone in our dorm failed the challenge somehow. Right after midnight, they started wailing like crazy—scared the hell out of all of us.”
“We had a failure too, same thing—loud crying. After their memory was completely wiped, they became like a baby.”
“Our dorm was supposed to take a bus to a neighboring city for weeding, but now the administrator’s making the three of us take care of that failure... Looking after an adult giant baby is way too much trouble!”
“Giant babies at least don’t actively hurt people. Our shelter had a violent case yesterday—some guy in a dorm might have deleted the wrong memories. After the wipe, he turned into a straight-up psycho, attacked his roommate out of nowhere, nearly killed someone.”
People were relishing the discussion of failed challengers and those whose memory deletions caused drastic personality changes.
It was a kind of “regular feature” during every Rule Period. No matter how miserable the situation, plenty of people would crack some dark jokes, as if that was the only way to lighten the overwhelming sense of despair.
“Anyone from an official Pinglu agency here? I heard something happened at the Police Department.”
“I heard about it from the Supplies Division too. Sounds like some staff member at the main bureau messed up their memory deletion and got locked up now.”
…
Pinglu Police Department Main Bureau
Inside the conference room, several high-ranking officials from the main bureau were holding a meeting, their discussion extremely serious.
The Deputy Director said, “Let me lay out the situation first. This morning, a clerk from the Records Management Office named Fang Qian came in. First, she inexplicably snapped at other staff, then, without authorization, she abused her access privileges, broke into the internal network’s resident database, and privately searched for information on key individuals.”
“That’s right,” the head of the Oversight Office confirmed. “Accessing the internal resident database without permission is already against the law, but what she searched for was an extremely sensitive target... Guan Tong.”
The name “Guan Tong” brought a brief silence to the room.
Everyone knew by now that Guan Tong was “Shadow,” but in fact, his name had been on a key list for a very long time. Any query about him within the system would leave traces and trigger an internal alarm.
This was partly to protect Guan Tong and partly to root out Police Department insiders bought off by foreign agents.
If any Peace Officer tried to look up Guan Tong’s citizen number, fingerprint patterns, or similar data, it almost certainly meant they’d been bribed by outsiders—there had been plenty of such cases in the past.
But none of the people in the room had expected something like this to happen right at the main bureau.
The Director said thoughtfully, “I know Fang Qian pretty well. Since she came to our bureau, she’s worked diligently without ever taking a day off. No one in the whole bureau has a bad word to say about her. I’ve even urged her a few times to rest more. Now, for this to suddenly happen, it’s clearly a problem.”
The Deputy Director agreed. “Exactly. We just asked the people who interacted with her this morning. They all said Fang Qian seemed like a different person today—irritable and quick-tempered, swearing at people after just a few words... Could it be that her memory deletion last night went wrong?”
The others nodded in unison, all sharing the same thought.
Otherwise, there was no way to explain how someone with such a good personality could suddenly change like this.
“The question is how to handle it,” the head of the Oversight Office said. “Keeping her locked up in the isolation room isn’t a solution.”
“If it were just a special violation, that wouldn’t be so bad. The trouble is she privately accessed resident information, and she looked up a sensitive target—that’s a real problem,” the Deputy Director said. “According to regulations, we have to report this up to the Countermeasures Research Office. But if we do that...”
Everyone knew that if they reported it to the Countermeasures Research Office, Li Meng would inevitably come under intense scrutiny. Regardless of the investigation’s outcome, the Police Department’s work would be difficult to preserve.
“Report it,” the Director finally made the call. “Even though Li Meng is a good colleague, we can’t break the rules.”
After the meeting, a report was quickly sent to the Countermeasures Research Office.
When the report landed on Li Meng’s desk, he looked at it with great surprise.
“Fang Qian... I seem to remember her...”
He called Zhang Minglu and told him about it. Sure enough, Zhang Minglu remembered too—when the Research Office had done Guan Tong’s background check, they’d sent someone to talk with Fang Qian.
Li Meng pulled up the previous background check records and read through them, then looked over Fang Qian’s personal file.
Fang Qian, female, twenty-two years old. She had attended No.1 High School in Yunhua City and was in the same class as Guan Tong.
Her parents were members of the Academy of Sciences. Later on...
Hmm?
When Li Meng saw Fang Qian’s parents’ records, he immediately frowned.
The records showed that Fang Qian’s father had once committed a serious violation. The violation occurred during the first Doomsday Rule Period—he had contacted the outside world without permission, revealing the existence and acquisition method of the item “Alertness Mint.”
And the person he had contacted was none other than his daughter, Fang Qian.
The records stated that when Fang Qian’s father was caught red-handed, he refused to admit he was contacting his daughter. Even with irrefutable evidence in front of him, he wouldn’t change his story, maintaining zero confession throughout.
The official handling the case at the time believed that Fang Qian’s father’s refusal to admit or explain was meant to protect his daughter.
Perhaps he worried that if he acknowledged telling his daughter how to obtain the “Alertness Mint,” she might later be arrested by the authorities on charges of “intentional homicide.”
But in the end, the authorities took a tacit approach to everything that happened during that period—something Fang Qian’s father couldn’t have predicted... Regardless, his father was ultimately expelled from the Academy of Sciences for serious violations and refusal to cooperate.
After that, neither he nor his wife survived, both dying in different Rules.
Their daughter Fang Qian, however, kept pushing through. First, she passed the exams and entered the academy. A year later, she successfully transferred to become a counselor and stayed on.
But in her second year, she was implicated in the “Cangling Academy Student Murder” incident and was expelled from the academy. She later joined the Police Department Main Bureau as a records manager.
After reading Fang Qian’s file, Li Meng felt that the academy expulsion probably wasn’t entirely her fault. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to get a position in an official department after leaving the academy, especially a relatively important one like the Police Department Main Bureau.
But right now...
“The main bureau believes Fang Qian’s memory deletion caused her drastic personality change, leading to the serious violation. But why, after her personality change, did she look up Guan Tong’s information in the internal database?”
Li Meng felt there had to be something fishy about this.
If she’d been looking up someone else, he probably wouldn’t have paid much attention. But involving Guan Tong changed everything.
Should I go ask her myself?
Wait—if I delete the memory from today to yesterday before midnight, won’t that mean...
According to the official strategy for dealing with this Rule, it would be very difficult to carry out any major work over these two weeks.
Like a detective—if he had to delete the previous 24 hours of memory every midnight, relying only on notes to investigate a case would be exponentially harder.
Unless he could investigate and wrap up the case within 24 hours, writing a detailed record for closure.
“In that case, no time to waste!”
Fifteen minutes later.
When Li Meng arrived at the door of the isolation room at the Police Department Main Bureau, before he even went in, he heard sharp cursing coming from inside.
“Let me out right now! Why are you locking me up? You’re all bastards—I curse you all to die in the Rules!”
Li Meng recalled the records, where others’ evaluations of Fang Qian were all “gentle and easygoing,” and listening to the curses now made it hard to believe they were the same person.
The Peace Officer leading the way wore a pained expression. “Sister Fang was such a good person—for her to end up like this... It’s all the Rules’ fault.”
Li Meng said nothing. Entering the isolation room, he immediately saw Fang Qian, her face full of anger.
“Hello, Fang Qian, right? I’m Li Meng from the Countermeasures Research Office. I’m here to have a chat with you.”
Fang Qian’s face was icy. Hearing this, she knew that this conversation might determine whether she could be released, so she barely suppressed her temper.
“Chat about what? You should go chat with the Director and ask him why he’s locking me up!”
“Fang Qian, you know you broke the rules, don’t you?” Li Meng pulled a chair over and sat down. “Peace Officers can’t just go into the internal network database and look up resident information. I don’t believe you don’t know that regulation.”
“...”
Fang Qian’s expression turned ugly—she clearly knew she had violated the rules, but she still wasn’t convinced.
Li Meng saw this and asked, “You knew it was against the rules but did it anyway. Why? Why were you looking up Guan Tong’s information?”
“I... I don’t know...”
“You don’t know?”
Fang Qian grabbed at her own hair, her brow furrowed with struggle. “I feel like I forgot something related to him—something very important! That’s why I acted so strangely after seeing him at the academy... But why did I act that way?”
Her words were disjointed and hard to follow, but Li Meng still caught the key detail and asked about it.
“Fang Qian, you must be clear about this current Doomsday Rule. Did you delete memories related to Guan Tong? Didn’t you write down what memories you were deleting before you did it?”
Even when deleting unimportant memories, everyone would write them down beforehand so they’d know what they’d erased.
But judging by Fang Qian’s behavior, it seemed she hadn’t left any notes at all—she didn’t want to know what memories she’d deleted.
“I think... I can’t remember,” Fang Qian shook her head repeatedly. “I only remember he was my high school classmate. During the first Doomsday Rule Period, I stayed at his place. He... I remember he kicked me out. I don’t know what happened.”
Her tone shifted from confusion to indignation. “He must have done something to me, or I wouldn’t have—wouldn’t have felt scared when I saw him at the academy!”
Li Meng frowned after hearing this. She had stayed at Guan Tong’s place during the first Rule Period? And from what she said, did Guan Tong harm her, leading her to delete the memories of that day?
That didn’t feel right...
Li Meng felt he understood Guan Tong fairly well, and he didn’t think that kid’s personality would let him do something like that.
But as a former Police Department Director, Li Meng knew a deep truth—you can know a person’s face but not their heart.
Many major criminals, when investigated, were described by those around them as “such a good person” or “I can’t believe they’d do something like this.”
If Guan Tong had really committed a crime, then later gaining power and status, it would make sense for Fang Qian to be afraid of him and not dare to oppose him or expose the truth.
Li Meng wasn’t entirely convinced, but he knew investigations couldn’t be decided by personal likes and dislikes. Since he’d gotten involved, he had to see it through.
Regardless, Fang Qian was still a member of an official department. Now that she was accusing Guan Tong, she had the right to an explanation.
Li Meng thought for a moment, then contacted Zhang Minglu, briefly explaining the situation. He asked him to find a way to reach Guan Tong and get to the bottom of this.