"To avoid upsetting Fang Qian, don't meet with her." After leaving the conference room, Li Meng said to Guan Tong.
"I never intended to see her anyway," Guan Tong replied.
Li Meng heard that and frowned, sensing that Guan Tong was in a bad mood.
Beside them, Qin Qing, who had learned the truth a short while ago, still refused to believe it and kept muttering, "Qianqian is such a good person, how could she do something like that..."
Guan Tong didn't want to stay any longer and left the Police Department.
Shi Jingyi walked with him; the two of them were silent as they strolled along the street for a while.
When they neared the academy, Shi Jingyi stopped and looked at Guan Tong. "I know you're very upset. I heard that Li Meng used to be the Police Director, so maybe because of that position, he instinctively suspects people."
"...That may be, but Li Meng and I have known each other for a long time. It's not surprising that Qin Qing would doubt me since she and I aren't close and we've barely spoken. But Li Meng is different."
Guan Tong and Li Meng not only knew each other, they had carried out missions together, and Li Meng now belonged to the Countermeasures Research Office and had access to his records.
Given that, Li Meng still suspecting him made Guan Tong feel inexplicably annoyed.
"If I had known you were calling me in for this, I wouldn't have come at all," he said.
Zhang Minglu's private message had only said that Fang Qian was in a bad state because she deleted memories and asked him to take a look.
He came and ended up being treated more like a "suspect" to be questioned. If not for Shi Jingyi, he would have turned and left immediately.
"But just this once," Guan Tong said, "I will never bother with something like this again."
"....."
Shi Jingyi didn't know what to say.
"Don't bother saying anything meaningful," Guan Tong told her. "Before midnight tonight, I'll delete the memories from yesterday to today. I won't remember anything."
After saying that, he activated Body Swap and vanished from where he stood. Shi Jingyi silently stood for a moment.
Those directly involved are confused while observers see clearly. Although Guan Tong didn't say it, she could tell that the Fang Qian matter affected more than just Fang Qian; it had long-term effects on Guan Tong as well.
When old wounds were brought up, Guan Tong's emotions would spike severely.
She felt a vague worry because earlier in the conference room neither Li Meng nor Qin Qing noticed, but for a brief instant she had sensed killing intent from Guan Tong.
At ten in the evening.
Inside the Wordless Book shelter, as he had told Shi Jingyi, Guan Tong deleted his memories from ten last night to ten tonight.
The Fang Qian incident had put him in a very bad mood, and he did not want any more connection to it.
He first deleted the private message Zhang Minglu had sent him, then erased the twenty-four hours of memory.
After deletion, the memories and the emotional turbulence they caused vanished immediately.
He picked up his notebook and saw the last note was written before ten last night: "Tomorrow go weed."
"Looks like what you deleted was only the memory of weeding for one day," he thought, and lay down to sleep.
The next day he received a private message from Zhang Minglu about Li Meng persuading Fang Qian.
Guan Tong found it inexplicable and replied with a question mark.
Zhang Minglu in the office saw Guan Tong's question mark and after a moment realized that Guan Tong might have deleted yesterday's memories.
It also looked like he left no written record.
Zhang Minglu hadn't expected Guan Tong to do that. But it made him understand that Guan Tong didn't care about the matter, and yesterday's conversation must have been unpleasant.
He replied, "It seems you deleted yesterday's memories, so never mind."
On the other side, Guan Tong read that and wasn't curious.
He knew himself: if he decided to delete a memory, it had to be because that memory was useless to him, or rather, not beneficial.
He didn't reply further, and Zhang Minglu didn't send any related private messages after that.
One day, two days, three days.
The Rule Period passed day by day, and Guan Tong resolutely followed his plan, deleting the previous day's memories every day.
He wasn't completely cut off during this time. Adam and members of the troupe contacted him; he recorded the contacts in his notebook so that even if he deleted the memory, looking back at the notes would be fine.
Many people online did the same. Some went further and wore pendant cameras to film everything that happened in a day.
That way, after deleting memories they could review events through the footage.
Until the fifth day of the Rule Period, Guan Tong received a Mind Network message from Adam.
Adam: "Guan Tong, have you seen Suroma's official announcement? 'Memory digitization' has been officially declared a success. The uploaded memory packages were successfully downloaded onto non-human structures and expanded."
Guan Tong: "Is that so? I haven't looked. But so what if it's successful."
He wasn't as interested in this matter as others.
The reason was simple: he wouldn't let his memories become tools others could toy with.
Putting aside the massive resources required to complete the process, even if someday everyone could upload, he still wouldn't.
To him, uploading memories was like putting local files onto cloud storage; doing so implicitly allows the cloud manager to access them at will, regardless of how much the cloud service claims to care about privacy.
How is a memory package any different? Whoever controls the upload devices can manipulate those uploaded memory packages.
Being subject to the Fire Thief's manipulations was already enough; Guan Tong had no desire to hand others another lever.
Adam: "I know you're not that interested in the technology, but it's very attractive to ordinary people. Especially now, during a memory-related Rule Period."
Guan Tong: "From the way you speak, you sound interested?"
Adam: "Suroma's higher-ups care a lot about this. There's probably another plan behind it. I suspect that after meeting resource requirements, they'll force the strong to upload memories, so they can completely monitor them."
Adam wasn't necessarily wrong; browsing memories is indeed the most thorough kind of surveillance.
But would they go through so much trouble just to monitor? It seemed pointless.
Few people thought that once memories were uploaded, making a few extra copies was like losing a few lives or being able to resurrect at will.
In Guan Tong's view, it wasn't like that at all.
The most direct difference was that if the body is destroyed, whether an expanded memory package counts as the person is another question. Even if it did count, it would be an extremely incomplete version.
Because if this "copy" belonged to an Ascendant, this "rebirth" would only be a restoration of memory; other tools, abilities, Mind Power, and so on would not be restored.
Thus, if an Ascendant died and "rebooted" in this way, they would inevitably become an ordinary person unable to open terminal panels.
Could many powerful people who backed up accept this? Are they satisfied just keeping their consciousness alive and letting everything else be lost?
Guan Tong didn't think Adam's assumption was correct; he believed Adam might be overlaying the Eden Project logic and guessing Suroma's motives were to control and pressure the strong.
But he wouldn't argue about it. Everyone made their own judgments. Adam had contacts inside Suroma's intelligence department and perhaps saw more than he did.
Adam: "Oh, by the way, one more thing. Wenban told me."
Guan Tong knew Wenban was Adam's source in the intelligence department. "What is it?"
Adam: "He overheard a call between the Minister of Intelligence and the Senate. Bruce's daughter, Yishan, is getting married. The groom seems to be someone from Beixing."
"My dear, you are so beautiful!"
Han Qiu watched Yishan exit the dressing room in a wedding dress and praised her with a smile.
Yishan looked at herself in the mirror, feeling satisfaction mixed with an unreality.
She never imagined Han Qiu would propose to her, and that her father would bless it!
Her first reaction had been disbelief — how could her father agree to her marrying Han Qiu, a man from Beixing?
But when she contacted her father to confirm, she found he had indeed given his consent. It left her astonished.
She had asked Han Qiu how he convinced her father. Han Qiu only said, "I gave your father a reason he couldn't refuse."
She had to admit this made her like him even more. In her eyes, gaining her father's approval was one of the most difficult things in the world.
So from engagement to wedding she left everything in Han Qiu's hands. He compressed the timeline dramatically and planned to hold the wedding this October, right after the Rule Period ended mid-month.
"Use this one!"
Yishan confirmed the dress, and Han Qiu, sitting on the sofa behind her, agreed: "Yes, this one is the prettiest. It suits you perfectly."
Yishan glanced at Han Qiu reflected in the mirror. From the time she met him to this step toward marriage, only a few months had passed. It wasn't long, but neither was it an impulsive flash marriage.
During this time, besides humor and romance, many aspects about Han Qiu still felt shrouded in mist.
She turned to the man on the sofa and asked, "My father will attend the wedding, and many others will be invited. What about your relatives and friends? How many seats should I reserve?"
Han Qiu shook his head. "Not a single one. Didn't I tell you I grew up in an orphanage?"
"It would be awkward if none of your friends came to give you blessings. Being an orphan only means no parents, not that you have no friends," Yishan frowned. "Do any of your orphanage companions still live?"
"I don't think so. Besides, I didn't have many friends there. I was close to only one girl..."
"A sister? What's her name? Can she come to our wedding?"
"Her name was Han Ling. She's already dead," Han Qiu said.
"...I see. That's a pity. All because of the Rules. By the way, your family name is the same as hers?"
"She arrived at the orphanage after me, and I gave her that name," Han Qiu said calmly. "And she was killed by someone. It had nothing to do with the Rules."
Yishan was momentarily stunned.
Han Qiu smiled. "Alright, on a happy day we shouldn't talk about this. Invite more people; I want our wedding to be the greatest event in all of Suroma."
"Yes!" When Yishan heard the words "great event," she brightened instantly and cast aside thoughts of Han Qiu's dead sister.
She truly looked forward to making her wedding a grand occasion.
Nearly three years into the Rule Period era, fewer and fewer couples held weddings; they had almost vanished. So if she held a grand one, how many eyes would turn to it?
The thought of her wedding being noticed across Suroma and even the world made her vanity swell without bounds.
Han Qiu watched Yishan's joy and wore a faint smile, though whatever that smile hid might be known only to himself.